Decisive Darkness: Part One – Majestic

by Paul Hynes

  On May the 11th, 1945, aware that they would soon have a test ready bomb, the ‘Target Committee’, made up of Manhattan Project scientists and military men, agreed on a list of five Japanese cities which ranked highest in both suitability and strategic importance. Of these five, there were now only two remaining targets, two of whom having been hit, and the other, Kyoto, having been replaced with the port of Nagasaki due to the perceived religious importance of the ‘City of Shrines’. Those targets that remained were Yokohama, in the Kanto Plain, and Niigata, in North West Honshu. At the time of selection Yokohama had been a relatively untouched industrial hub who had seen an increased influx of additional industries as the damage to nearby Tokyo had forced the dispersal of much industry from the capital as possible. It seemed to be the perfect target, especially as the blast would have been in full view of Tokyo, only twenty miles away.

  However on the 29th of May over 2500 tons of incendiaries had been dropped on the sea port, flattening nine square miles of the city in a single raid. The damage was so intense that one bombing expert had claimed that “The parts left over were not worth bombs”. Now in October it seemed just as silly to squander mankind’s most powerful weapon on moving rubble around. Whilst Niigata had been growing in importance for the Japanese as the other ports in the region had become increasingly damaged, the collapse of their land empire, and the continued massacre of their merchant fleet, had subsequently rendered the port of dubious value as a target. For strategic purposes, the only current targets of value were in South-West Honshu, and Northern Kyushu of which there were three that had been considered by the targeting committee; Shimonoseki, a port in such close proximity to Kokura that it was presumed to have suffered damage from the attack, Fukuoka, the largest city on the island but one that had already been heavily attacked and was of little strategic value as forces moving towards Kyushu increasingly used the Suo-Nada Sea. This left Yamaguchi, a city of under 100,000 people, a transit hub that Japanese forces would use to move towards the ports in southern Honshu, so far untouched by the war, not a perfect target, but a target nonetheless.

  Whilst the Japanese had informed the Americans that they were moving Allied Prisoners of War into their cities, they had been wary of informing them as to which cities they were being moved to. The 15,000 prisoners the Japanese had on the Home Islands could not be spread out in significant numbers everywhere, and it was feared that if the Americans knew where they were then they would simply target the areas where they weren’t. Thus the Americans had remained largely in the dark as to where their human shields were, aside from piecemeal observations and guess work. This would not be enough to save the one hundred Americans, Britons and Dutch in Yamaguchi. Before their lives had been a miserable hell of work in the Zinc Plants and Mines around Fukuoka, and the fatigued, restless, sleep in between. Always in painful hunger as their skeletal bodies attempt to survive on the watery vegetable soup and the balls of rice that their captors would sometimes grant them, they now sat in cold, damp squalor in the centre of the city, as the B-29 Silverplate nicknamed ‘Spook’ arrived over the city. Too delirious to understand why their guards reacted in horror at a single bomber, too weak to attempt to run for cover with them even if they had understood.

  They and their captors died with the knowledge that there was nowhere to run.

  X-Day

  By a miracle of engineering prowess and tenacity, the destruction Typhoon Louise had inflicted upon Okinawa had largely been fixed by early November. Truman had been wary of launching the invasion of Kyushu December, both due to the demoralising effect that heavy American casualties over the Christmas season would likely have on the American public and troops, but more importantly, the delays in which it would spell for Operation Coronet, the invasion of Tokyo itself.

  However the Operation, now officially titled Majestic after fears that the Japanese had caught on to the meaning of Olympic, was now scheduled to go ahead on November the 16th, a delay but not necessarily one that would prevent the Americans from completing their objectives in January, and landing on Honshu before the bad weather bogged down their ability to advance.

  On November 12th, the American 40th and 158th divisions landed on the Ōsumi and Gotō Islands around the South and West of Kyushu respectively. Their task was to secure the islands, but mainly quell any harassment the Japanese might have on the islands for the invasion armada. However they encountered little resistance on the islands the Japanese had largely written off. Everything they had left was centred on Kyushu. It was for this reason that Fat Men #4, #5, and #6 now flew in the three packs B-29’s now approaching Kyushu

  The decision to use Atomic Bombs as part of the invasion, and where to use them was a complex process for Truman, burdened with fears of irradiating American troops and revealing where exactly they planned to land. However the additional troops the Japanese had moved into the island during the American delay had made it clear that something had to be done with the three Atomic Bombs now ready for use at Tinian. Whilst the beaches themselves would not be attacked, the Japanese reserves several miles away, waiting to drive the invaders back into the sea, would not be so lucky.

  The bombs would fall on Ijuin, where much of the Japanese 40th Army was gathered, and Kumamoto and Miyakonojo, were the Japanese 216th and 25th were respectively based. It was hoped that along with the loss of men and material, the destruction of critical rail links that the bombings would cause would hinder any Japanese hopes for quick movement of their remaining reserves across the island, whilst all three targets were satisfyingly distant from American beach heads that any radiation would have dissipated by the time American troops had moved into the affected areas, even taking into account the warnings of the scientists studying the effects of the Trinity Test that radiation would dwell for longer than previously expected.

  From what intelligence could be gathered, it had become clear that the Japanese were becoming aware that a single B-29 might not be as harmless as it seemed, it was suggested that several other B-29’s from Tinian overfly targets in northern and southern Kyushu, feigning attacks to confuse the Japanese defenders and to prevent them from making any form of effective response. However from 30,000 feet no Japanese aircraft or flak could threaten the bomber, and the suggestion was discarded by General Curtiss LeMay, who didn’t want to waste valuable aircraft just days before they would be necessary in destroying real targets as they aided ‘Majestic’

  Thus, on the day that the three atomically armed B-29’s soared towards their destinations, they flew alone. No American escort fighter had their operational ceiling, but this did not matter, as neither did any Japanese aircraft that could potentially threaten the bombers.

  Barring one.

  Ijuin and Miyakonojo were wiped out of existence almost simultaneously, the reports of a single bomber flying overhead caused the local commanders to act quickly, ordering their men to run to the caves and as deep underground as possible, but with barely twenty minutes warning there was little that could be done for the panicked majority, to say nothing of the material and ammunition that they had so carefully hoarded. The departing B-29’s had killed over 50,000 people, removing the majority of two Japanese divisions from the ‘Decisive Battle’ before they could fire a single shot.

  From Kumamoto local commanders looked on with increasing dread, the harsh bright lights followed by dark, blossoming mushroom clouds, had both been seen from their south and their southwest. The flight path of a third B-29 indicated that soon they would gain a first hand experience of their enemies deadliest weapon. Their slightly advanced warning seemingly mattered little, as personal testimonies related, they could only watch the silver dot moving ever closer towards the city.

  In the area between the clouds and the stars, a single, camouflaged, orb bobbled. The Mitsubishi J8M Shūsui was not actually a Japanese design, but a direct replica of the Messerschmitt Me 163 ‘Komet’. The Luftwaffe’s most advanced fighter had come far too late, and in far too few numbers
to be able to save Germany from collapse in the final months of the war, but the now the final Wunderwaffen that its engineers hoped might save Japan. Tiny and tailless, the craft lacked the range of the B-29 but was by far the fastest fighter aircraft in existence at that time. More importantly, it was the only aircraft that could descend upon America’s ‘untouchable’ bomber from above.

  Tetsuzō Iwamoto, Japan’s most skilled pilot, was still wary that the foreign craft could easily kill him just prior to his final take-off. The German rocket-plane had killed so many other test pilots. His craft was not designed to be a Kamikaze, but the Japanese had quickly deduced that thevolatile fuel mix that propelled the rocket-lane would be more than enough to destroy a B-29. Though he was likely running out of oxygen, Iwamoto forced his plane into a violent vertical drop, right on top of his prey.

  As they hear of the other successful bombings, the crew of ‘Jabbet’ would have been making the final preparations for their own bomb run. Kumamoto was only moments ahead, and though the skies were clear for their final approach, there would have been little time to react as it sped towards the bomber at close to the speed of sound.

  The miniature fireball decapitated the bomber, killing all of the crew almost instantly as they were dragged burning into the sky. The remainder of the craft went twirling backwards, then forwards, then it both directions at once, as it was torn into three parts, before descending along with her crew, and their cargo. As the burning wreckage fell to the ground, the people of the Kumamoto burst out in spontaneous celebration, they do not know how it has happened, but they have been saved, saved from the destruction that has now befallen six Japanese cities. The relief was brutally cut short when the impact charges wired into the Fat Man device detonated the bomb kinetically.

  The news, or lack thereof, coming from Jabbet was truly disturbing, both for those in Washington and on Tinian. Kumamoto had burned, although the crew had clearly missed the aiming point, yet the Silverplate had failed to land. It was clear had something had gone badly wrong, but what? No known Japanese aircraft or anti-aircraft device could have reached the B-29’s operational ceiling, though American planes would now thoroughly search the island from the air to try and identify any such weapon.

  A malfunction in the plane itself seemed to be the most plausible alternative, that it had either exploded in mid-air, or crash landed, a regrettable if not unprecedented loss under normal circumstances, but the nature of the payload, and the fact that it had gone off on the ground was what would keep both Harry Truman and Curtis Le May awake in the days preceding the Atomic attacks of X-4.

  The day of the invasion would be marked ‘X-Day’, with the acknowledgment that ‘D-Day’ would always be held in the Allied conscious as the beginning of the liberation of western Europe. If Operation Overlord had been the decisive victory that had ensured Germany’s downfall, Operation Majestic would mark the X that would forever cross out Japan’s imperial ambitions. Along with the four Atomic attacks against Kyushu, there had been an endless barrage against Kyushu’s southern coast, with the intent of destroying coastal defences, airfields, submarine pens and embarkation points for suicide boats. It was hoped that this bombardment, equivalent to a conventional Atomic attack, would clear the way for an American advance, and remove the thousands of kamikaze aircraft that the Japanese had been carefully hoarding. However, like in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Japanese had proven that they could once again negate the power of the American and Commonwealth navies with months of relentless digging in and camouflaging, with the caves and mountains that made up large portions of the island only making this easier.

  The six divisions the Japanese had spread around the southern coast continued to dig, and to wait. They were the best that Japan had left, armed and ready to face the American infantry and marines that would come crashing down onto the shores. There were only certain places the Americans could feasibly land, and the Japanese had correctly predicted all of them, a fact confirmed by the focused bombardments of Allied ships and planes. It was clear that soon they would come, ‘Ketsu-Go’ or Operation ‘Decisive’, a name that gave no illusions to the importance the Anami regime put upon the success of the defence of Japan’s southernmost island.

  Despite the American atomic and conventional attacks, there remained over 6000 kamikaze planes and several hundred boats. These would ignore the otherwise attractive targets of Battleships, Destroyers and Aircraft Carriers, and fly directly for the troop transports carrying the estimated sixteen divisions that the Americans would initially land. Based on the 15% success rate that the Kamikazes had had during the battle for Okinawa, it was hoped that this would destroy most, if not all, of the landing craft, with the defences of the beaches being left to mop up the remainder. If the Kamikazes failed then they would be forced to face a numerically superior enemy, but one that would be badly exposed to line after line of dug in Japanese defences, and could hopefully be held until reserve forces could counter-attack, throwing them back into the sea. The destruction of many of said reserves in the attacks against Ijuin, Kumamoto, and Miyakonojo. The intensity of the American conventional bombing greatly restrained their ability to transport further reinforcements in enough time, did not make this a particularly optimistic battle plan in the early hours of November 16th, as the night sky was lit with hundreds of flashes, exposing the American fleet.

  The scale of the armada was certainly worthy of the ‘Majestic’ designation, 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts sailed in support of over a thousand troop ships carrying fourteen divisions of the US Sixth Army, preparing to land at 36 different beaches around the areas of Miyazaki, Ariake, and Kushikino, where the Japanese would be waiting for them.

  Sake was drunk, final prayers were said, and reports flew north to Nagano. The Decisive Battle was about to begin. As the minutes passed the flotilla grew closer, accompanied by the low rumble of explosions across the island as final bombardments were made, a noise loud enough in itself, but now drowned out by the dozens, and then hundreds of petite Japanese aircraft filling the night sky.

  As the Japanese soldiers cheered their comrades as they flew by, the GI’s and Marines huddled together in their tiny crafts could only watch helplessly, as a swarm descended from above.

  At the earlier stage of the Kamikaze tactics, during the Philippines Campaign, the Kamikaze unit consisted only of selected pilots who had completed the official flight training. These pilots could be selected democratically, and had to go through a rigorous criteria to be selected, only one-tenth of the applicants were accepted in this form recruitment. However by early 1945 Japan no longer had the time to be selective with the candidates that they chose for the dubious honour, as they went about the process of gathering as many planes and pilots on Kyushu as possible. By the beginning of August 1945 even those who were still in the middle of training as Kamikaze candidates were being appointed, some with only a couple of days training. Some did not know exactly how to fly an airplane

  To the distant observer Kamikaze attack may sound relatively easy, a suicidal dive at an enemy certainly requires determination but what could be simpler when the self-preservation instinct is removed? However Kamikaze pilots required serious training, needing to be capable of steering the airplanes under extreme gravity whilst having to avoid generous amounts of American anti-aircraft fire.

  The Japanese had estimated that they would need 5000 Kamikaze’s to defeat the American invasion, on paper they now had over half that number ready to fly against the enemy armada. Some warned that this would not make up for an absence in skilled pilots, that without proper training the success ratios diverged too rapidly, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. Quantity would have to have a quality all of its own.

  At close to 6 AM, as the first American spearheads neared their targeted beach heads, the Kamikaze began to drop from the night sky, hundreds of suicidal dives, in the hopes of taking the American troop carriers with them. They went forward agai
nst what was nicknamed the Big Blue Blanket, an arrangement of hundreds of American fighter craft from carriers and from land bases, ready to intercept them before their dive, aided by the mobile radar of net cast by dozens of B-17’s, the environment provided a bountiful mass of targets for the experienced American pilots, targets that had no way to defending themselves.

  There were many who got through, diving as their brothers burned in the night sky, vertical drops that no American pilot could hope to match lest he also sacrifice his life. The troops in the carriers witnessing the explosions thousands of feet in the air, now found the show come to life in front of them, as the small craft rained down like hellfire, engulfing the craft around them in fireballs, or crashing directly into the sky into a whoosh of spray.

  For the veteran troops preparing to land on the Shibushi-Kashiwabaru beaches, it was a horrifying sight watching helplessly as they saw their comrades burst into flame and being forced to wonder if they would be next. They would thank their respective deities as they felt the sea recede below them, until the machine guns and artillery of the Japanese opened up on them anew from the hills, and renewing the nightmare. On the beaches in the vicinity of Yamazaki and Matsusaki in the north, and for the Marines landing at the Kaminokawa-Kushikino beaches to the west, the same story would ring out, nightmarish anticipation of death from the skies before being greeted with even more determined firepower.