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The Japanese defense was expected to be even more fierce than any encountered thus far in the war. Schools had been closed and the entire civilian population mobilized. The Shinto cult or religion was the national religion of Japan and the people had been taught to follow the Imperial Cult without question. Self-sacrifice was extolled as the highest virtue and any order from the Emperor, the military, and the government or at school must be followed without question.

Captured documents and postwar interrogation of Japanese military leaders disclosed that information concerning the number of Japanese planes available for the defense of the home islands were dangerously in error. During the sea battle at Okinawa alone, Japanese Kamikaze aircraft sank 32 allied ships and damaged more than 400 others.

Plans for Operation Olympic and Estimated Japanese Dispositions

During the summer of 1945, American top brass concluded that the Japanese had spent their air force since American bombers and fighter's daily flew unmolested over Japan. What military leaders did not know was that by the end of July, the Japanese had been saving all aircraft, fuel and pilots in reserve, and had been feverishly building new planes for the decisive battles defending their homeland.

As part of the Ketsu-go, the name of the plan to defend Japan, the Japanese were building 20 suicide take-off airstrips in southern Kyushu with underground hangars. They also had camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases.

On the night before the expected invasion, 50 Japanese seaplane bombers and 150 kamikaze planes were to be launched in a suicide attack on the fleet. The Japanese also had 58 more airfields in Korea, western Honshu and Shikoku, which were also to be used for massive suicide attacks.

Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks. In August 1945, however; unknown to Allied Intelligence, the Japanese still had 5,651 army and 7,074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12,725 planes of all types.

Every village had some kind of aircraft manufacturing activity hidden in mines, railway tunnels, under viaducts and in basements of department stores, working to construct new planes. In addition they were building newer and more effective models of the Okka, a rocket propelled bomb, like the German V-1, but flown by a suicide pilot.

Plans for Operation Olympic and Actual Japanese Dispositions

When the invasion became imminent, ketsu-Go called for a four fold aerial plan of attack to destroy up to 800 Allied ships. While Allied ships were approaching Japan, but still in the open seas, an initial force of 2,000 army and navy fighters were to fight to the death to control the skies over Kyushu.

A second force of 350 Japanese navy pilots were to attack the main body of the Allied task force to keep it from using its fire support and air cover from protecting the troop carrying transports. While these forces engaged a third force of 825 suicide planes was to hit the American transports. As the invasion convoys approached the beaches, another 2,000 suicide planes were to be launched in waves of 200 to 300, to be used in hour by hour attacks.

American troops would be arriving in about 180 lightly armed transports and 70 cargo vessels. By mid-morning of the first day of the invasion, most of the land-based aircraft would be forced to return to their bases, leaving the defense to the carrier pilots and shipboard gunners. Carrier pilots, crippled by fatigue, would have to land time and time again to rearm and refuel. Guns would malfunction from the heat of continuous firing and ammunition would become scarce. Gun crews would be exhausted by nightfall, but still waves of kamikaze would continue. With the invasion fleet hovering off the beaches, all remaining aircraft would be committed to non-stop suicide attacks, which the Japanese hoped could be sustained for 10 days.

The Japanese planned to coordinate their attacks from 40 remaining submarines. Some would be armed with long lance torpedoes with a range of 20 miles to attack the invasion fleet 180 miles of Kyushu.

The Imperial Navy had 23 destroyers and two cruisers operational. They would be used to counterattack the American invasion fleet. A number of destroyers were to be beached at the last minute to be used as anti invasion gun platforms.

Once offshore, the invasion fleet would be forced to defend not only against the attacks from the air, but would also be confronted with suicide attacks from sea.

Once the troops were on the beaches, they would face suicide attacks from large numbers of armed civilian and army units, all for the Emperor and their homeland. As American troops advanced inland, booby traps, mine fields, and well hidden defenses would make every foot of the way a bloody battle. Casualties on both sides would be extremely heavy but the suicidal attacks and the lightly armed civilians would be cut down in large numbers by the heavily armed and well-trained American units.

The goal of the Japanese was to shatter the invasion before the landing. The Japanese were convinced the Americans would back off or become so demoralised that they would then accept a less-than unconditional surrender and a more honourable and face-saving end for the Japanese.

But as horrible as the battle of Japan would be off the beaches, it would be on Japanese soil that the American forces would face the most rugged and fanatical defence encountered during the war.

Throughout the island-hopping Pacific campaign, Allied troops had always outnumbered the Japanese by 2 to 1 and sometimes 3 to 1.

In Japan it would be different. By virtue of a combination of cunning guesswork and brilliant military reasoning, a number of Japan's top military leaders were able to deduce, not only when, but where the United States would land its first invasion forces.

Facing the 14 American divisions landing at Kyushu would be 14 Japanese divisions, 7 independent mixed brigades, 3 tank brigades and thousands of naval troops. In Kyushu the odds would be 3 to 2 in favour of the Japanese, with 790,000 enemy defenders against 550,000 Americans.

This time the bulk of the Japanese defenders would not be the poorly trained and ill equipped labour battalions that the Americans had faced in the earlier campaigns.

The Japanese defenders would be the hard-core of the home army. These troops were well-fed and well-equipped. They were familiar with the terrain, had stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and had developed an effective system of transportation and supply almost invisible from the air. Many of these Japanese troops were the elite of the Army, and they were swollen with a fanatical fighting spirit.

Japan's network of beach defences consisted of offshore mines, thousands of suicide scuba divers attacking landing craft, and mines planted on the beaches.

Coming ashore, the American Eastern amphibious assault forces at Miyazaki would face three Japanese divisions, and two others poised for a counterattack. Awaiting the South-eastern attack force at Ariake Bay was an entire division and at least one mixed infantry brigade.

On the western shores of Kyushu, the Marines would face the most brutal opposition. Along the invasion beaches would be the three Japanese divisions, a tank brigade, a mixed infantry brigade and an artillery command. Components of two divisions would also be poised to launch counterattacks.

If not needed to reinforce the primary landing beaches, the American Reserve Force would be landed at the base of Kagoshima Bay 4 Nov., where they would be confronted by two mixed infantry brigades, parts of two infantry divisions and thousands of the naval troops.

All along the invasion beaches, American troops would face coastal batteries, anti-landing obstacles and a network of heavily fortified pillboxes, bunkers and underground fortresses.

As Americans waded ashore, they would face intense artillery and mortar fire as they worked their way through concrete rubble and barbed-wire entanglements arranged to funnel them into the muzzles of these Japanese guns.

On the beaches and beyond would be hundreds of Japanese machine gun positions, beach mines, booby traps, tripwire mines and sniper units. Suicide units concealed in "spider holes" would engage the troops as they passed nearby.

In the heat of battle, Japanese infiltration units would be sent to wreak havoc in the American lines by cutting phone and communication lines. Some of the Japanese troops would be in American uniform. English-speaking Japanese officers were assigned to break in on American radio traffic to call off artillery fire, to order retreats and to further confuse troops.

Other infiltrators with demolition charges strapped on their chests or backs would attempt to blow up American tanks, artillery pieces and ammunition stores as they were unloaded ashore.

Beyond the beaches were large artillery pieces situated to bring down a curtain of fire on the beach. Some of these large guns were mounted on railroad tracks running in and out of caves protected by concrete and steel.

The battle for Japan would be won by what Simon Bolivar Buckner, a lieutenant general in the Confederate army during the Civil War, had called "Prairie Dog Warfare." This type of fighting was almost unknown to the ground troops in Europe and the Mediterranean. It was peculiar only to the soldiers and Marines who fought the Japanese on islands all over the Pacific -- at Tarawa, Saipan, lwo Jima and Okinawa. Prairie Dog Warfare was a battle for yards, feet and sometimes inches. It was a brutal, deadly and dangerous form of combat aimed at an underground, heavily fortified, non-retreating enemy.

In the mountains behind the Japanese beaches were underground networks of caves, bunkers, command posts and hospitals connected by miles of tunnels with dozens of entrances and exits. Some of these complexes could hold up to 1,000 troops.

Had Olympic come about, the Japanese civilian population, inflamed by a national slogan -- One Hundred Million Will Die for the Emperor and Nation -- was prepared to fight to the death.

At the early stage of the invasion, 1,000 Japanese and American soldiers would be dying every hour. Every foot of Japanese soil would have been paid for by Japanese and American lives.

Twenty-eight million Japanese had become a part of the National Volunteer Combat Force. They were armed with ancient rifles, lunge mines, sachel charges, Molotov cocktails and one-shot black powder mortars. Others were armed with swords, long bows, axes and bamboo spears.

The civilian units were to be used in night-time attacks, hit and run manoeuvres delaying actions and massive suicide charges at the weaker American positions. The invasion of Japan never became a reality because on 6 August 1945, an atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within days the war with Japan was at a close.

Had these bombs not been dropped and had the invasion been launched as scheduled, combat casualties in Japan would have been at a minimum in the tens of thousands. Every foot of Japanese soil would have been paid for by Japanese and American lives. One can only guess at how many civilians would have committed suicide in their homes or in futile mass military attacks.

In retrospect, the 1 million American men who were to be the casualties of the invasion, were instead lucky enough to survive the war.

Intelligence studies and military estimates made more than 40 years ago, and no latter-day speculation, clearly indicate that the battle for Japan might well have resulted in the biggest blood bath in the history of modern warfare.

Far worse would be what might have happened to Japan as a nation and as a culture. When the invasion came, it would have come after several months of firebombing all of the remaining Japanese cities. The cost in human life that resulted from the two atomic blasts would be small in comparison to the total number of Japanese lives that would have been lost by this aerial devastation.

With American forces locked in combat in the south of Japan, little could have prevented the Soviet Union from marching into the northern half of the Japanese home islands. Japan today could be divided much like Korea and Germany before.

The world was spared the cost of Operation Downfall, however, because Japan formally surrendered to the United Nations 2 Sept. 1945, and World War 11 was over. In the fall of 1945, in the aftermath of the war, few people concerned themselves with the invasion plans.

Following the surrender, the classified documents, maps, diagrams and appendices for Operation Downfall were packed away in boxes and eventually stored at the National Archives. These plans that called for the invasion of Japan paint a vivid description of what might have been one of the most horrible campaigns in the history of man.

Additional Sources:

www.neswa.org.au
www.mikekemble.com
www.pensacolanewsjournal.com
www-cgsc.army.mil
www.theenolagay.com
www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8141
www.history.navy.mil
www.efrance.fr/nihon
www.katy.isd.tenet.edu
www.spiegel.de

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on August 15:
1432 Luigi Pulci Italy, poet (Morgante)
1688 Frederick-William I king of Prussia (1713-1740)
1769 Napoleon Bonaparte resident of Elba (emperor 1804-13, 1814-15)
1771 Sir Walter Scott Scotland, novelist/poet (Lady of Lake)
1785 Thomas De Quincey Eng, writer (Confessions of English Opium Eater)
1803 Sir James Douglas father of British Columbia
1845 Walter Crane England, painter/illustrator (Beauty & Beast)
1856 J Keir Hardie 1st Labour representative in British Parliament
1860 Florence Kling DeWolfe Harding 1st lady
1875 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor London, composer (Hiawatha's Wedding Feast)
1879 Ethel Barrymore Phila, actress (Constant Wife, Corn is Green)
1887 Ferber Edna, Mich, writer (Showboat, Cimarron, Giant)
1888 T.E. Lawrence Tremadoc Wales, soldier/writer (aka Lawrence of Arabia)
1890 Jacques Ibert Paris France, composer (Escales)
1892 Louis-Victor due de Broglie France, physicist (Nobel 1929)
1893 Harlow H Curtice pres of General Motors (1953-8)
1898 Lillian Carter Pres Carter's mom
1901 Arias Arnulfo 3 time president of Panama (1940-41, 49-51, 68)
1904 Bill Baird Grand Is Nebr, puppeteer (Kukla Fran & Ollie, Muppet Show)
1912 Julia Child Pasadena Calif, chef (French Chef)
1912 Wendy Hiller actress (Major Barbara, David Copperfield)
1915 Signe Hasso actress (Double Life)
1920 Huntz Hall actor (Cyclone, Gas Pump Girls, The Rating Game)
1922 Lukas Foss (Fuchs) Berlin Germany, composer (Prairie)
1923 Rose Marie NYC, actress (Sally Rogers-Dick Van Dyke Show)
1924 Phyllis Schlafly St Louis, right-winger/Eagle Forum president
1924 Robert Bolt playwright (Man for All Seasons, Dr Zhivago)
1925 Mike Connors Fresno Calif, actor (Joe Mannix-Mannix, Night Kill)
1926 Georgiann Johnson Decorah Iowa, actress (Marge-Mr Peepers)
1931 Janice Rule Norwood Ohio, actress (Alvarez Kelly, Doctor's Wife)
1933 Lori Nelson Santa Fe NM, actress (Greta-How to Marry a Millionaire)
1935 Abby Dalton Las Vegas NV, actress (Joey Bishop Show)
1935 Jim Dale Broadway entertainer (Barnum, My One & Only)
1935 Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr civil rights activist
1941 Don Rich Olympia Wash, guitarist/country singer (Hee Haw)
1943 Barbara Bouchet Reichenberg Czech, actress (Casino Royale)
1944 Linda Ellerbee Bryan Texas, newscaster (NBC News Overnight)
1945 Gene Upshaw NFL guard (Oakland), NFLPA leader
1946 Jimmy Webb Elk City Okla, songwriter (MacArthur Park, Up Up & Away)
1946 Kathryn Jean Whitmire Houston Texas, (4 time Mayor-Houston)
1947 Gerald Velez congas (Spyro Gyra-Morning Dance)
1947 Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter Jr Macon Ga, USN/astro (STS 33)
1949 Ann Ryerson Wisc, actress (Pvt Carol Winter-Pvt Benjamin)
1950 Princess Anne England (daughter of Queen Elizabeth II)
1950 Tess Harper actress (Amityville 3D, Tender Mercies)
1955 Larry Mathews Burbank Calif, actor (Ritchie-Dick Van Dyke Show)
1957 Zeljko Ivanek Yugoslavia, actor (Mass Appeal)
1960 Maureen "Peanut" Louie Harper SF, tennis player (Denver-1985)
1960 Tommy Aldridge heavy metal rocker (Ozzy-Diary of a Mad Man)
1961 Matt Johnson rocker (The The-Infected Soul Mining)
1964 MCA (Adam Yauch) rocker (The Beastie Boys-You Gotta Fight)
1967 F DeLorme Roche Jr. Roanoke, Virginia. Bartender extrodinaire (Guru of life, love & Libation)

Deaths which occurred on August 15:
0069 Servius Sulpicius Galba, 6th emperor of Rome (68-69), murdered
1935 Wiley Post & Will Rogers killed in plane crash in Alaska
1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahiman of Bangladesh killed in a military coup
1983 Anthony Costello actor, dies at 42
1988 - Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, President of Pakistan, killed in plane crash
1991 Marietta Tree (UN Comm of Human Rights), dies at 74

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1968 HICKS TERRIN D. SILVER SPRINGS MD.
1968 SHANAHAN JOSEPH F. CLINTON IA.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1970 BECKER JAMES C. PALESTINE TX.
1970 SCHMIDT PETER A. MILWAUKEE WI.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0778 Battle at Roncevalles: Basques beat Charles the Great
1057 Macbeth, King of Scotland, slain by son of King Duncan
1261 Constantinople falls to Michael VIII of Nicea and his army.
1519 Panama City founded
1535 Asunci¢n, Paraguay founded
1598 Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, leads an Irish force to victory over the British at Battle of Yellow Ford
1620 Mayflower sets sail from Southampton with 102 Pilgrims
1748 United Lutheran Church of US organized
1824 Freed American slaves forms country of Liberia
1832 Gregory XVI encyclical On liberalism & religious indifferentism
1843 National black convention meets (Buffalo NY)
1848 M Waldo Hanchett patents dental chair
1858 Regular mail to the Pacific coast begins
1863 Submarine "HL Hunley" arrives in Charleston on railroad cars
1864 Off New England coast, CSS Tallahassee captures 6 yankee schooners
1867 2nd Reform Bill extends suffrage in England
1870 Transcontinental Railway actually completed
1886 Guy Hecker scores 7 runs in 1 game
1893 US no longer allowed exclusive rights in Bering Sea
1899 Louisville's Henry Dowling struck out 5 times in a game
1901 Arch Rock, danger to Bay shipping, blasted with 30 tons of nitro
1905 Phila A's Rube Waddell no-hits St Louis Browns, 2-0 in 5 innings
1906 1st freight delivery tunnel system begins, underneath Chicago
1912 Yankee Guy Zinn sets record by stealing home twice in a game
1914 Panama Canal opens (under cost)
1918 1st full length cartoon (The Sinking of the Lusitania)
1918 US & Russia sever diplomatic ties
1931 Ernest Lassy completes longest canoe journey without port (6,102 mi)
1931 Roy Wilkins joined NAACP as asst secretary
1934 Bathysphere Explorers Charles William Beebe and Otis Barton were lowered in a spherical chamber called the "Bathysphere" to more than half a mile below the ocean's surface off the Bermuda Islands
1939 "Wizard of Oz" premiers at Grauman's Chinese Theater, Hollywood
1945 South Korea liberated from Japanese rule
1945 US wartime rationing of gasoline & fuel oil ends
1947 India becomes independent, Islamic part becomes Pakistan
1948 Republic of Korea (South Korea) proclaimed (National Day)
1950 8.6 quake kills over 1,000 in Assam, India
1952 9" of rain fall creates a 20' wave in Lynmouth, England killing 34
1957 David Simons reaches 30,942 m in Man High 2 balloon
1957 USAF Capt Joe B Jordan reaches 31,513 m in F-104 jet fighter
1960 Chic Bears beat NY Giants 16-7 in Toronto (NFL expo)
1960 Congo (Brazzaville) gains independence from France (Natl Day)
1960 Mil Brave Lew Burdette no-hits Phila Phillies, 1-0
1960 UFO is sighted by 3 California patrolmen
1962 Shady Grove Baptist Church burned in Leesburg Georgia
1964 Phillies triple-play NY Mets
1964 Race riot in Dixmoor (Chicago suburb) Ill
1964 Ralph Boston of the US, sets then long jump record at 27' 3¬"
1965 Beatle's Shea Stadium concert
1966 Radio Free Asia (South Korea) begins radio transmission
1967 England's Marine Offense Bill making pirate radio stations a crime goes into effect, pirate station Radio 355 closes down
1968 Pirate Radio Free London, begins transmitting
1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in NY State (Max Yasgur's Dairy Farm)
1970 Patricia Palinkas becomes 1st woman pro football player (Orlando)
1971 Bahrain gains independence from Britain
1971 Pres Nixon announces 90-day freeze on wages, prices & rents
1973 Black September kills 3 wounds 55 Athens
1974 Longest team (6) trampoline bouncing marathon (1,248 hours (52 days))
1974 South Korean President Park Chung-Hee escapes assassination
1975 Joanne Little acquitted of murder charges
1978 House of Reps approves (233-169), 39-month extension for ERA
1979 Andrew Young resigns as UN ambassador
1981 Robin Leamy of US swims record 7.98 kph for 50 m
1986 Pres Reagan decides to support a replacement for the Challenger
1987 US beats Cuba in the Pan-Am baseball
1988 At 4PM LILCO consumers used a record 3,813 megawatts
1988 NYC begins $70 million program to rebuild 900 Bronx apartments
1991 750,000 attend Paul Simon's free concert in Central Park
1992 Colombo '92 closes in Genoa Italy
1997 The Justice Department decided against prosecuting senior FBI officials in connection with an alleged cover-up that followed the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Chad, Congo-1960, India-1947 : Independence Day
Costa Rica : Mother's Day
Grenada, Liechtenstein, Corsica : National Day
Laos : Memorial Day
South Korea : Liberation Day (1945, 1948)
Hawaii : Admission Day (1959) ( Friday )
Mich : Montrose-Blueberry Festival ( Friday )
Yukon : Klondike Gold Day (1896) ( Friday )
National Relaxation Day
National Apple Week (Day 6)
American Artists Appreciation Month

Religious Observances
Ang, Luth : Commemoration of St Mary, virgin, mother of Our Lord
RC : Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin

Religious History
1096 The armies of the First Crusade set out from Europe to deliver Jerusalem from the occupying forces of Islamic Turks. Championed by Peter the Hermit in 1093, Pope Urban II had sanctioned the crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095.
1534 The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) was founded by Ignatius of Loyola, 43. Created to foster reform within Catholicism, and to undertake education and missionary work, this colorful religious order was formally approved by Pope Paul III in 1540.
1549 The first Christian missionaries to reach Japan landed at Kagoshima (on the coast of Kyushu, southernmost of the four main islands of Japan). They were a band of Spanish Jesuits, led by pioneer Catholic missionary Francis Xavier, 43.
1613 Birth of Jeremy Taylor, Anglican clergyman and devotional writer. Two of his works became classic expressions of Anglican spirituality: "The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living" (1650) and "The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying" (1651).
1790 Father John Carroll, 55, was consecrated by Pius VI as the first Roman Catholic bishop (later, in 1811, the first archbishop) of the United States.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"When all is said and done, too many people keep on saying and doing."

You might be a NASCAR fan if...
you think that the four last words of the National Anthem are "Gentlemen, start your engines."

Murphys Law of the day...(War Laws)
Never underestimate the ability of the brass to foul things up.

Cliff Clavin says, it's a little known fact that...
Nearly 50% of all bank robberies take place on Friday.