THE BOMB — DEMON OR ANGEL? Continued

by David Westheimer

 

Three things combined to give the Japanese military leaders confidence: Special attack, a defense system tested in blood on Okinawa and greatly enlarged upon in Kyushu and "Yamato Damashii," the Spirit of the Divine Race.

Special attack. In Japanese, "tokubetsu kogeki." "Tokko," for short. What special attack really meant was suicide attack.

The chief weapon of aerial special attack was to be the kamikaze, "The Divine Wind," named for the storm that dispersed Kublai Khan's invasion fleet in the 13th Century. In the defense of Okinawa, kamikaze attacks had accounted for most of the U.S. Navy's nearly 10,000 casualties and 404 ships sunk or damaged. Japan expected to send 10,500 kamikaze planes against the invaders. Most would be converted trainers or a new type of plane developed specifically for its one-way mission, the Tokka, "Wisteria Blossom." There would also be manned rocket bombs in lesser numbers, the Oka, "Cherry Blossom," and the Kikka, "Orange Blossom." Ten hidden launching sites for the rocket bombs were under construction.

Of surface suicide craft there was but one basic type, the Navy's Shinyo, a motorboat crammed with explosives to detonate when crashed into an enemy ship. By mid-September, nearly 3,000 Shinyo would be ready with more under construction. The Army had its own version, the Maruhachi.

There were three types of underwater special attack craft, the Kaiten, "Stupendous Force;" the Kairyu, "Sea Dragon," and the Koryu, "Dragon Larva." The Kaiten was a manned torpedo, a modification of the conventional unmanned Long Lance, more than 40 feet long. It had a top speed of 34 miles an hour, a maximum range of 50 miles and it left no telltale wake. The Sea Dragon and the Dragon Larva were midget submarines but midget only in comparison with conventional ocean-going types. The latest model Dragon Larva had a five-man crew in addition to its torpedoes and explosive warhead. More than 1,000 of the three types of suicide craft were expected to be ready in time for the invasion.

As the defense of the Philippines had spawned the kamikaze, so successful on Okinawa, Ketsu-go created the Fukuryu. "Crouching Dragons." The Fukuryu were human mines. Wearing diving dress and carrying long poles to which explosive charges were fixed, the Fukuryu were to lie in wait on the ocean bottom for invasion craft passing overhead. Four thousand of them were in training at the Yokosuka midget submarine training center in Tokyo Bay.

On land, the enemy would be confronted by four lines of defense. The rifle pits of the first line were dig into dunes immediately back from the beaches. The second line, heavily fortified positions which could be defended in depth against attack from any angle, lay just beyond the dunes. The third and main line of defense was outside the beach area, where possible on high ground. It comprised more elaborate networks of connected strongpoints than the second line. The basic third line of defense position would be manned by 1,000 riflemen supported by artillery, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank guns. The fourth line of defense, built around artillery, lay just beyond the range of U.S. naval batteries. The first three lines of defense were to be linked at several points by tunnels extending from the main line of defense on the high ground to the rifle pits and troop caves among the dunes.

In addition to the four lines of defense, a system of landing craft and tank obstacles were taking shape underwater and ashore — masses of tree trunks tethered just offshore, log tripods anchored to the bottom and lengths of railway tracks driven into the ocean bed and felled trees and vertically-cut railway embankments and stream banks on land.

Natural caves were enlarged and new one tunneled under hills and beaches. Rifle pits, machine gun nests and mortar positions were dug deep in the earth or concealed behind railway embankments and paddy field dikes. Holes in which suicide attackers would wait pocked the coastal areas. Some hill positions were several stories high, with firing and observation ports at every level. To cover the sea approaches, concrete emplacements were built for heavy guns at key points, cleverly concealed and connected by tunnels with hidden observation posts, supply dumps and troop caves. In one strategic bay, Long Lance torpedoes hidden in coastal caves would be launched from underwater railway tracks.

Once the approaching American convoys were detected, they were to be subjected to round-the-clock suicide attack. Only task forces containing troop transports were to be hit and transports would be priority targets.

As the transports neared their anchorage they would be attacked by increasing numbers of planes flown by more experienced pilots than those in the first waves. The crescendo of the air attacks would mount, reaching a peak when the transports arrived at the invasion beaches. The entire resources of the Army and Navy arms would be thrown into the battle and it was anticipated there would be enough planes and pilots for 10 days of continuous suicide attacks. While the transports were arriving at their anchorage areas and air attacks were at their height, surface and underwater suicide craft would join the fray. Midget submarines could make the first attacks. After anchorage, human torpedoes would join the assault, and crash boats would swarm out of their nests under cover of darkness. In the Ariake Bay and Miyazaki areas, destroyers would join in the night attacks. Having fuel for only one sortie, they would launch human torpedoes and then drive into the convoys at full speed. The big guns emplaced along the coasts would remain silent until the transports were in range. Other guns would wait in similar ambush for the first wave of landing craft. On the beaches themselves, troops would remain concealed in their positions until the landings began.

While the forces on southern Kyushu were locked in a death struggle with the enemy, the plight of the rest of Japan would be only marginally less grave. For Japan was running out of food, fuel and medicine. In July, the daily ration of rice, which made up the bulk of the Japanese diet, had to be reduced to 294 grams, about 1 1/2 cupfuls. Few Japanese received their full allowance. The new rice crop was expected to be the worst in 46 years. By November 1, which by ironic coincidence was the beginning of the 1946 "rice year" as well as X-Day for Operation Olympic, existing stocks would be only a four-day issue of the stringent July ration. Fish, by far the most important animal food product, was also in disastrously short supply.

There was so little household fuel that citizens crept out at night to fell ancient ornamental trees for firewood. Synthetic fuels and conversion to alcohol-burning engines did not begin to compensate for lost sources of petroleum.

Among the populace, mental and digestive disorders and tuberculosis and other diseases were rampant and there pitifully few drugs to treat them. With the war prolonged well into winter or beyond, throughout the home islands millions of Japanese who would never see an enemy soldier might expect to die from naval shelling, bombing, starvation, exposure, disease and sheer war weariness. Already in early August the home islands were being pounded mercilessly by Allied planes and warships. Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet, including a powerful British task force, roamed freely off the coast. With land-based aircraft adding their increasing attacks to those of the carrier planes, on any given day more than 1,000 planes ranged unchallenged over Japan.

This, too, as well as the slaughter at sea and on the beaches, would be part of General Inada's "beautiful ending."

The war did not end beautifully in General Masazumi Inada's way or any other sense, but it did end. And it ended quickly, before the millions died who would not have survived invasion and more months of continued bloodshed and privation. And before the Soviet Union had time to wrest much more than the lower half of the jointly occupied Sahkalin Islands from the decimated Japanese. Had the war continued but a few more months than it actually did the Soviets almost certainly would have invaded the northern home island of Hokkaido and against enfeebled resistance taken most, if not all of it. The world might well have had a divided Japan; communist in the north, what passed as a democracy in the south, much as in Korea. Possibly even a joint occupation, with a Russian sector in Tokyo. .

It didn't happen. The atom bombs prevented it.

Page One: The Bomb — Demon or Angel? <<

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