In August 1945, the Japanese situation was desperate. The major cities were devastated by atomic or conventional attack, and the casualties numbered in the millions. Millions more were refugees, and the average consumption was below 1200 calories a day. The fleet was lost, and the merchant shipping could not leave home waters or sail from the few possessions still held without braving submarine or mine attack. Oil stocks were gone, rubber and steel were in short supply, and the Soviets were moving against the only sizable forces the Japanese had left, the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. They were a starving and undersupplied force. Many divisions had transferred to the Pacific, where they died in the island battles.
Clearly the time to surrender had come. Incredibly, many in the military wanted to fight on, preferring death to capitulation. The cabinet, made up of elder statesmen, tried to send out peace feelers through neutral Sweden, Soviet Union, and Switzerland as early as June 1945. The only condition was the continued existence of the of Imperial Throne. Unwilling or unclear of the Japanese offer, the Allies refused and issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26th.
The Emperor was sympathetic to the peacemakers. The Army members of the cabinet were not willing to give up, and Prime Minister Suzuki had to move carefully. If there was a perceived weakness in the cabinet, even the Emperor might be assassinated. The idea that the Emperor would support surrender was inconceivable to many in both the Army and the Navy. Suzuki cautiously sought out others on the cabinet, finding all but two generals in support. On July 28, the government issued a carefully worded response to the Potsdam Declaration, which unfortunately used a word with a double meaning. English-language broadcasts used the word "ignore" and the Western press picked up that sentiment. Truman announced he had rejected the peace offer and dropped the atomic bombs.
The Emperor ordered a surrender document be sent accepting the Potsdam declaration. Through Swiss channels, it was sent to the United States, but it added that the Emperor must be left on the Imperial Throne. The Allies replied that the Emperor would be subject to the Allied occupation commander. While the cabinet debated, the Emperor secretly recorded a surrender broadcast. Imperial Guardsmen searched government offices in vain to seize the record. On August 14, the record was broadcast. Using formal Japanese, the public was unsure if the Emperor was surrendering or exhorting his subjects to continued resistance. The announcer assured the Japanese public that the war was over. An abortive attempt that night by Army and Navy right-wing officers to take the Emperor hostage and continue the war was stopped.
Truman accepted the surrender, and announced that the war was over on August 15th. Wild celebrations occurred in every Allied capital and most cities. US Army General Douglas C. MacArthur arrived at Atsugi Airfield on August 30th. His staff, lightly armed with pistols, wondered if they would meet a firing squad. As they arrived, thousands of Japanese civilians surrounded the plane and gave him a warm welcome. The occupation of Japan was about to begin.
On September 2nd, 1945, a huge force of Allied ships gathered in Tokyo Bay. Aboard the battleship USS Missouri, the Japanese signed the formal surrender document, watched by thousands of Allied representatives and the crew. MacArthur presided over the signing, accompanied by his former subordinate General Wainwright, who had been a POW since 1942. General Percival, commander at Singapore in 1942, was also present.
The Japanese Imperial Forces began surrendering in massed formations over the next six weeks. By October 7, 1945, when 1,000,000 Japanese Army soldiers were surrendered in Peking, many Japanese soldiers were being sent home. The Soviet POWs would wait years to return to Japan. The last one was announced as wanting to go home in 2006.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Strategic Bombing of Japan October 1944 - August 1945
On June 15, 1944, the first B-29 raid flew from China to strike at a factory in Japan. This was the precision target bombing that the United State Army Air Forces (USAAF) had practiced for years. This policy would be abandoned shortly for area bombing of civilian targets. It would represent a major shift from the doctrine practiced in Europe and the policy that had cost so many American lives over German cities.
The B-29 was arguably the finest bomber of the war. It could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs for 2,000 miles round-trip, and had remotely controlled turrets for defense. It incorporated many of the lessons of the air war in Europe, including pressurized cabins and heavy defensive armament.
The B-29s were being massed in daylight raids on precision targets, like their counterparts in Europe had done. The British had abandoned daylight bombing as too costly, preferring area bombing at night. The around the clock bombing raids had amounted to a second front, with thousands of men and machines held in Germany and away from battlefronts in Russia, Africa, Italy and France.
But that had come at a heavy price. Thousands of aircrew were killed when the B-17s and B-24s were sent over Germany without fighter cover. However, they did lay waste to huge areas of Germany.
Now the bases were available to do the same to Japan. Quickly it became apparent that the planes could not sustain operations in China and were moved to the Marianas. The precision targets were not successful, partly due to the lack of fighter cover and partly due to the construction of Japanese factories, refineries and military institutions. Unlike Germany, which required tons of high explosive for each attack, the high explosive from high altitude did not have the same effect on the paper and wood structures predominant in Japan.
When Curtiss LeMay arrived and took command in January 1945, he ordered a switch from high altitude high explosive precision daylight attacks to night area bombing with a mixture of incendiaries and antipersonnel weapons. This prevented the firefighters from putting out the fires, which spread wildly.
From March 1945 through the end of the war, many Japanese cities were subjected to area bombing with incendiaries. Tokyo, Osaka, and many other cities were burned out by firestorms that reached over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The bombings may have killed as many as 500,000 people.
After the atomic attack of August 9, hundreds of B-29s hit the rubble of Tokyo again. On August 15, the last battle of the Pacific War was between a flight of B-32 Dominators, another kind of heavy bomber, and Japanese naval fighters. That day the Emperor proclaimed the armistice. The war was over.
The B-29 was arguably the finest bomber of the war. It could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs for 2,000 miles round-trip, and had remotely controlled turrets for defense. It incorporated many of the lessons of the air war in Europe, including pressurized cabins and heavy defensive armament.
The B-29s were being massed in daylight raids on precision targets, like their counterparts in Europe had done. The British had abandoned daylight bombing as too costly, preferring area bombing at night. The around the clock bombing raids had amounted to a second front, with thousands of men and machines held in Germany and away from battlefronts in Russia, Africa, Italy and France.
But that had come at a heavy price. Thousands of aircrew were killed when the B-17s and B-24s were sent over Germany without fighter cover. However, they did lay waste to huge areas of Germany.
Now the bases were available to do the same to Japan. Quickly it became apparent that the planes could not sustain operations in China and were moved to the Marianas. The precision targets were not successful, partly due to the lack of fighter cover and partly due to the construction of Japanese factories, refineries and military institutions. Unlike Germany, which required tons of high explosive for each attack, the high explosive from high altitude did not have the same effect on the paper and wood structures predominant in Japan.
When Curtiss LeMay arrived and took command in January 1945, he ordered a switch from high altitude high explosive precision daylight attacks to night area bombing with a mixture of incendiaries and antipersonnel weapons. This prevented the firefighters from putting out the fires, which spread wildly.
From March 1945 through the end of the war, many Japanese cities were subjected to area bombing with incendiaries. Tokyo, Osaka, and many other cities were burned out by firestorms that reached over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The bombings may have killed as many as 500,000 people.
After the atomic attack of August 9, hundreds of B-29s hit the rubble of Tokyo again. On August 15, the last battle of the Pacific War was between a flight of B-32 Dominators, another kind of heavy bomber, and Japanese naval fighters. That day the Emperor proclaimed the armistice. The war was over.
The Battle for Berlin January - May 1945
The Eastern Front had been relatively stable since the end of Operation Bagration in late 1944. The Germans had lost Budapest and most of Hungary. Romania and Hungary were forced to surrender and declare war on Germany. The Polish plain was open to the Soviet Red Army.
The Soviet commanders, after waiting for the Germans to reduce the Polish Home Army, took Warsaw in January 1945. Over three days, on a broad front incorporating four army groups (fronts,) the Red Army began an offensive across the Oder River and from Warsaw. After four days the Red Army broke out and started moving twenty to twenty-five miles a day, conquering the Baltics, Danzig, East Prussia, Poznan, and drawing up on a line thirty-six miles outside of Berlin.
A counterattack by the newly created Army Group Vistula failed by February 24, and the Russians drove on Pomerania and cleared the right bank of the Oder River. In the south, three attempts to relieve the encircled Budapest failed and the city fell on February 13. Again the Germans counterattacked, Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16 the attack had failed and the Red Army counterattacked the same day. On March 30 they entered Austria and captured Vienna on April 13.
Only a twelfth or less of the gasoline needed by the Wehrmacht was available. Fighter and tank production was down, and the quality was much less than in 1944. The war was clearly over, but the Germans would hold out for almost a month. The fighting was would be fierce; national pride and the desire to gain time for refugees to get to the west led German units to fight bitterly.
By April 1, 1945, the Russians were outside Berlin. They built up for two weeks, knowing that Berlin would be heavily contested. The Western Allies planned to drop paratroops to take Berlin, but decided against it. Eisenhower saw no need to suffer casualties taking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence once the war was over.
Adolf Hitler, who never thought Berliners supported him the way he deserved, decided to remain in the city. Some think he remained to punish the city for lack of support in the early days of Nazism; more likely there was nowhere to go. The Battle of Berlin would be the deciding conflict between Nazism and Communism.
The offensive began with thousands of artillery and rockets called “Stalin Organs” for their hideous shrieking noise opening a huge sustained barrage for days. On April 16, the First and Second Belorussian Fronts and the First Ukrainian Front, which boxed in Berlin from the North, West, and South, attacked. By April 24 the three army groups had completed the encirclement of the city.
The next day the Fifth Guard Tank Army linked with the US Fist Army at Torgau, Germany on the Elbe River. On April 20, Hitler ordered the Twelfth Army facing the Americans and the Ninth Army to break into Berlin and relieve the siege. Neither unit was able to get through.
Berlin’s fate was sealed, but the resistance continued. Fighting was heavy, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The Soviets sustained 305,000 dead; the Germans sustained as many as 325,000, including civilians.
On April 30, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun, took cyanide and shot himself. Berlin surrendered on May 2. Soviet soldiers ransacked the city, raping 100,000 German women of all ages and looting anything of value.
The Battle of Berlin was over, and with it went the Third Reich. The thousand-year Reich had lasted for twelve years, and 50 million people were dead. The German Surrender was signed on May 7 in Rheims, France.
The Soviet commanders, after waiting for the Germans to reduce the Polish Home Army, took Warsaw in January 1945. Over three days, on a broad front incorporating four army groups (fronts,) the Red Army began an offensive across the Oder River and from Warsaw. After four days the Red Army broke out and started moving twenty to twenty-five miles a day, conquering the Baltics, Danzig, East Prussia, Poznan, and drawing up on a line thirty-six miles outside of Berlin.
A counterattack by the newly created Army Group Vistula failed by February 24, and the Russians drove on Pomerania and cleared the right bank of the Oder River. In the south, three attempts to relieve the encircled Budapest failed and the city fell on February 13. Again the Germans counterattacked, Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16 the attack had failed and the Red Army counterattacked the same day. On March 30 they entered Austria and captured Vienna on April 13.
Only a twelfth or less of the gasoline needed by the Wehrmacht was available. Fighter and tank production was down, and the quality was much less than in 1944. The war was clearly over, but the Germans would hold out for almost a month. The fighting was would be fierce; national pride and the desire to gain time for refugees to get to the west led German units to fight bitterly.
By April 1, 1945, the Russians were outside Berlin. They built up for two weeks, knowing that Berlin would be heavily contested. The Western Allies planned to drop paratroops to take Berlin, but decided against it. Eisenhower saw no need to suffer casualties taking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence once the war was over.
Adolf Hitler, who never thought Berliners supported him the way he deserved, decided to remain in the city. Some think he remained to punish the city for lack of support in the early days of Nazism; more likely there was nowhere to go. The Battle of Berlin would be the deciding conflict between Nazism and Communism.
The offensive began with thousands of artillery and rockets called “Stalin Organs” for their hideous shrieking noise opening a huge sustained barrage for days. On April 16, the First and Second Belorussian Fronts and the First Ukrainian Front, which boxed in Berlin from the North, West, and South, attacked. By April 24 the three army groups had completed the encirclement of the city.
The next day the Fifth Guard Tank Army linked with the US Fist Army at Torgau, Germany on the Elbe River. On April 20, Hitler ordered the Twelfth Army facing the Americans and the Ninth Army to break into Berlin and relieve the siege. Neither unit was able to get through.
Berlin’s fate was sealed, but the resistance continued. Fighting was heavy, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The Soviets sustained 305,000 dead; the Germans sustained as many as 325,000, including civilians.
On April 30, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun, took cyanide and shot himself. Berlin surrendered on May 2. Soviet soldiers ransacked the city, raping 100,000 German women of all ages and looting anything of value.
The Battle of Berlin was over, and with it went the Third Reich. The thousand-year Reich had lasted for twelve years, and 50 million people were dead. The German Surrender was signed on May 7 in Rheims, France.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)