planned soviet invasion of japan
These ranged from 0.42 dead and missing and 2.16 total casualties per 1000 men per day under the "European Experience" to 1.95 dead and missing and 7.45 total casualties per 1000 men per day under the "Pacific Experience. Once the atomic bomb became available, General Marshall envisioned using it to support the invasion if sufficient numbers could be produced in time. After the name Operation Olympic was compromised by being sent out in unsecured code, the name Operation Majestic was adopted. At the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the Allies had agreed that the Soviet Union would take the southern part of the island of Sakhalin, which Japan had invaded during the 19041905 Russo-Japanese War, and which Russia had ceded in the Treaty of Portsmouth after the war (the Soviets already controlled the northern part), and the Kuril Islands, which had been assigned to Japan in the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg. [78][79][80] As a result, in Project Hula (1945), the United States transferred about 100 naval vessels out of the 180 planned to the Soviet Union in preparation for the planned Soviet entry into the war against Japan. Japanese surrender negotiations at Rangoon, A US Marine Corps machine gun crew watches flame throwing tanks fire a Japanese pillbox during the Battle of Okinawa, March - June 1945. A destroyed hotel in Kyiv after a . [68], Fear of Japanese retaliation [to chemical weapon use] lessened because by the end of the war Japan's ability to deliver gas by air or long-range guns had all but disappeared. As with the fact that it was the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany at Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk that crushed Nazi Germany, not D-Day which came when Hitler's defeat was already inevitable, the truth about World War II against Japan is also gradually being admitted - even if it took 70 years to do it. It should be noted that this invasion occurred 2 days after the United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima. On the other hand, no agreement envisaged Soviet participation in the invasion of Japan itself. The atom bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 killed by some estimates more than 200,000 people. "[101], The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with an estimated total of over 82,000 direct casualties on both sides: 14,009 Allied deaths and 77,417 Japanese soldiers. [citation needed], For the defense of Kysh, the Japanese took an intermediate posture, with the bulk of their defensive forces a few kilometers inland, back far enough to avoid complete exposure to naval bombardment, but close enough that the Americans could not establish a secure foothold before engaging them. These were responsible for attacking Japanese airfields and transportation arteries on Kyushu and Southern Honshu (e.g. However, the Japanese forces in those islands resisted quite fiercely although some of them proved unwilling to fight after Japan's surrender on 15 August. By August, the count was up to 600,000, and Magic cryptanalysis had identified nine divisions in southern Kyshthree times the expected number and still a serious underestimate of the actual Japanese strength. [20] (The Overlord invasion of Normandy, by comparison, deployed 12 divisions in the initial landings.) (U.S. Army) The assault on Japan was expected to take 18 months, starting with an intense blockade and air bombardment of Japan. According to a newly leaked email from a whistleblower with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), months before Vladimir Putin began his disastrous invasion of Ukraine he was . [5], The Pacific War was not under a single Allied commander-in-chief (C-in-C). With the apparent rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, Truman and his advisers went ahead with the atomic attack on the Japanese mainland. In my opinion, there should not be the slightest thought of changing the Olympic operation.[75]. [100] The US Army Fifth and Seventh Air Forces and US Marine air units had moved into the islands immediately after the invasion, and air strength had been increasing in preparation for the all-out assault on Japan. President Truman had four options: 1) continue conventional bombing of Japanese cities; 2) invade Japan; 3) demonstrate the bomb on an unpopulated island; or, 4 . ", "The Final Months of the War With Japan: Signals Intelligence, U.S. So fearful were the Japanese leaders that they planned to ignore isolated tactical use of gas in the home islands by the US forces because they feared escalation. ET, April 24, 2023 China respects sovereign state status of ex-Soviet Union countries, foreign ministry spokeswoman says. In total, 368 ships, including 120 amphibious craft, were badly damaged, and another 28, including 15 landing ships and 12 destroyers, were sunk, mostly by kamikazes. They and their soldiers had endured three years of harsh captivity. The Soviets, however, had fewer than 400 ships, most of them not equipped for amphibious assault, when they declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945.[81]. Japan's rejection of the demand led to final order to proceed with atomic bombing. The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing 210,000 peoplechildren, women, and men. Stalin brought forward the invasion of Manchuria due to the dropping of the atomic bomb. Some 1,200 suicide divers had been trained before the Japanese surrender. On that list was a modest amphibious capability: * 30 Tacoma-class patrol frigates * 24 Admirable-class minesweepers * 36 auxiliary motor minesweepers . The advancing Soviets claimed to have killed 84,000 Japanese soldiers and captured almost 600,000. Ultimately, the Army's viewpoint prevailed. If Downfall had taken place, it would have been the largest amphibious operation in history, surpassing D-Day. [citation needed], Fears of "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other"[64] encouraged the Allies to consider unconventional weapons, including chemical warfare. Opposition from the United States and doubts within the Soviet high command caused the plans to be cancelled before the invasion could begin. Truman's Options In the Pacific, Japanese expansion had been checked by US forces in a costly island-hopping campaign. 50 "land attack planes," 50 seaplane bombers, and 50 torpedo bombers flown by highly trained pilots for night attacks on convoy escorts. For Soviet invasion of Manchuria under Japanese rule, see, Allied re-evaluation of Operation Olympic. their plan for an all-out ground invasion of Japan. For the failed Mongol invasion attempts, see, "Soviet invasion of Japan" redirects here. General Arthur MacArthur and the army planners urged an early assault on Kyushu followed by an invasion of the main island of Honshu. Over the next four months, the Imperial Japanese Army transferred forces from Manchuria, Korea, and northern Japan, while raising other forces in place. Osprey Publishing. [26][27] He also recommended that the corps be organized along the lines of a U.S. corps, should use only U.S. equipment and logistics, and should train in the U.S. for six months before deployment; these suggestions were accepted. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Allied command was divided into regions: by 1945, for example, Chester Nimitz was the Allied C-in-C Pacific Ocean Areas, while Douglas MacArthur was Supreme Allied Commander, South West Pacific Area, and Admiral Louis Mountbatten was the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command. It was the largest Japanese campaign on land during the war comprising 500,000 troops. War against Japan, 1945 In South East Asia, by late 1944, British and Commonwealth, US and Chinese forces had begun the reconquest of Burma (Myanmar). With the defeat of Germany and Japan, their plans were put into action. The Twentieth Air Force was to have continued its role as the main Allied strategic bomber force used against the Japanese home islands, operating from airfields in the Mariana Islands. "These [six] divisions have since made their appearance, as predicted," he observed, "and the end is not in sight." Kamikaze: Japanese Special Attack Weapons 194445. Olympic was also to include a deception plan, known as Operation Pastel. [2], Japan's geography made this invasion plan quite obvious to the Japanese as well; they were able to accurately predict the Allied invasion plans and thus adjust their defensive plan, Operation Ketsug, accordingly. 2,500 Army aircraft (conventional as well as suicide), together with 2,900 Naval trainers for, 2,000 Army and Navy "air superiority" fighters to escort the. A study done by General MacArthur's staff in June estimated 23,000 US casualties in the first 30 days of Olympic and 125,000 after 120 days, fighting an assumed Japanese force of 300,000[91] (in actuality some 917,000 Japanese troops were on Kyushu,[92]). [54] By the time the war ended, the Japanese actually possessed some 12,700 aircraft in the Home Islands, roughly half kamikazes. Japan and the Soviet Union formally made peace four years later, when they signed the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. More than seventy years after the end of World War II, the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial. Operation August Storm, the massive 1945 Soviet invasion of Manchuria, was Japan's death blow, and brought an end to World War II. Japanese military directives ordered the execution of all POWs being held if Japan was ever invaded. On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on the Japanese Empire. They also considered skipping the preliminary invasion and going directly at Tokyo. Using Okinawa as a staging base, the objective would have been to seize the southern portion of Kysh. This raid burned 15.8 square miles of Tokyo, killing almost 100,000 Japanese. 6 part 1. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese colonies began at midnight on August 8, sandwiched between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the planned invasion of Japan, the US navy planners favoured the blockade and bombardment of Japan to instigate its collapse. [citation needed]. Because the U.S. military planners assumed "that operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population",[13] high casualties were thought to be inevitable, but nobody knew with certainty how high. The military leaders were for outright rejection of the Allied surrender, as it did not guarantee the Emperors sovereignty. [19] Coronet would have been even larger than Olympic, with up to 45 U.S. divisions assigned for both the initial landing and follow-up. During World War II, the Japanese had a naval base at Paramushiro in the Kuril Islands and several bases in Hokkaido. The task of strategic bombing fell on the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific (USASTAF)a formation which comprised the Eighth and Twentieth air forces, as well as the British Tiger Force. Widespread chemical warfare was considered against Japan's population[65] and food crops. But the war in the east still raged on and Japanese surrender seemed a long way off. The capture of the Mariana Islands in November 1944 meant that air bases could be established to bomb Japan. Soviet forces invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria) under the command of Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky with 1.6 million soldiers. Surprise resort trips and empty hotel rooms reveal how Russia's plan for an easy victory in Ukraine fell apart. [74] Attacking northern Honshu would have the advantage of a much weaker defense but had the disadvantage of giving up land-based air support (except the B-29s) from Okinawa. Britain and Decolonisation in South East and South Asia, 1945-1948. On 8 August the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan at midnight. The Americans lost 36 ships. 6, part 1, History of Planning Division, ASF vol. Since Japan and the Soviet Union maintained a state of wary neutrality until the Soviet declaration of war on Japan in August 1945, Japanese observers based in Japanese-held territories in Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands constantly watched the port of Vladivostok and other seaports in the Soviet Union. We shall incur the losses incident to such a war and we shall leave the Japanese islands even more thoroughly destroyed than was the case with Germany. [34] The main message of "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" campaign was that it was "glorious to die for the holy emperor of Japan, and every Japanese man, woman, and child should die for the Emperor when the Allies arrived". [citation needed], The Japanese had kamikaze aircraft in southern Honshu and Kyushu which would have opposed operations Olympic and Coronet. [102] Their surrender was caused by the dropping of two nuclear bombs by the United States on Aug 6 and Aug 9, on the cities of . As president, it was Harry Truman's decision if the weapon would be used with the goal to end the war. One of the. [7][8] The American Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that prolonging the war to such an extent was dangerous for national morale. For the Decisive Battle Ultimately, the Navy partially conceded, and MacArthur was to be given total command of all forces if circumstances made it necessary. The Soviets informed the Japanese in April that their neutrality pact was at an end. Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kysh, was to begin on "X-Day", which was scheduled for 1 November 1945. [4], At the time, the development of the atomic bomb was a very closely guarded secret (not even then-Vice President Harry Truman knew of its existence until he became President), known only to a few top officials outside the Manhattan Project (and to the Soviet espionage apparatus, which had managed to infiltrate agents into, or recruit agents from within the program, despite the tight security around it), and the initial planning for the invasion of Japan did not take its existence into consideration. Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the . This would require capturing bases in Formosa, along the Chinese coast, and in the Yellow Sea area. The US Sixth Army, the formation tasked with carrying out the major land fighting on Kyushu, estimated a figure of 394,859 casualties serious enough to be permanently removed from unit roll calls during the first 120 days on Kyushu, almost enough to outstrip the planned replacement stream. [3] In May, Admiral Nimitz's staff estimated 49,000 U.S casualties in the first 30 days of Operation Olympic, including 5,000 at sea. Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Plan 2 has the Japanese invading the West Coast of America via Pearl Harbor and then California. The combined Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled, including 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. [49][50] One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. As set out in prior parts of the series, communications intelligence revealed the massive Japanese build up on southern Kyushu, the planned target for an initial invasion of Japan in November 1945 (Operation OLYMPIC.) Japans surrender in Manchuria. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson stated "We shall in my opinion have to go through an even more bitter finish fight than in Germany. Meanwhile, the Japanese had their own plans. This article appears in: . In February, with the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine days away, officials in Kyiv were busy making plans to attack Moscow. [46] Although the Japanese were able to muster new soldiers, equipping them was more difficult. The capitulation followed three days of heated debate amongst Japanese leaders. In the last days of World War II, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as Stalin secretly agreed at . ", "That approximately twenty-one (21) hostile divisions, including depot divisions, will be on Honshu at the initiation of [Coronet] and that fourteen (14) of these divisions may be employed in the Kanto Plain area. [86][pageneeded] As time went on, other US leaders made estimates of their own: In a letter to General Curtis LeMay when LeMay assumed command of the B-29 force on Guam, General Lauris Norstad told LeMay that if an invasion took place, it would cost the US "half a million" dead. In it, they estimate that during the 18 month period after June 1945 (that is, through December 1946), the Army would be required to furnish replacements for 43,000 dead and evacuated wounded every month. In the days following the bombings Japan surrendered. The main attack was carried out by the Fourteenth Army, comprising 340,000 Indian troops, 100,000 British and 80,000 African soldiers, which defeated the Japanese defending forces in central Burma. Airbases on Kysh captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet. Gradually, intelligence learned that the Japanese were devoting all their aircraft to the kamikaze mission and taking effective measures to conserve them until the battle. Thankfully, Japan surrendered, unconditionally on Aug 15, 1945, some 77 days before the invasion was set to take place. About 1.5 million Japanese in Manchuria, Korea and northern China became prisoners of the Soviets, many of whom spent years in prison camps. [21] Later, a follow-up force of up to 20 additional U.S. divisions and up to 5 or more British Commonwealth divisions would have landed as reinforcements. It is unknown to what extent they could have opposed Soviet landings in the far north of Japan. [22][23] The Allied forces would then have driven north and inland, encircling Tokyo and pressing on toward Nagano. Kysh was to be invaded by the Sixth United States Army at three points: Miyazaki, Ariake, and Kushikino. In China, Operation Ichigo started in April 1944. [41] However, the IJN lacked enough fuel for further sorties by its capital ships, planning instead to use their anti-aircraft firepower to defend naval installations while docked in port.