Japan's Unconditional Surrender: A Disjointed Allied Strategy
Japan's Unconditional Surrender: A Disjointed Allied Strategy
The airplanes were late.
At 09:25 a.m., the surrender documents had been signed and the Japanese were
preparing to depart. MacArthur stated, “These proceedings are now closed.”
Moments later, he grabbed Admiral Halsey’s shoulder and whispered, “Bill, where
the hell are those airplanes?” (Graff, 2020).
The skies darkened and
overhead, appeared hundreds of aircraft from the 3rd Fleet. The
surrender ceremony was indeed complete and the long, bloody, and difficult war
in the Pacific was finally over. Somehow, MacArthur asking Halsey about
airplanes embodied the friction, tension, and even competition that underpinned
the U.S. Pacific Strategy.
Multiple events occurred
to force Japan’s acceptance of unconditional terms. The historiography of the
Pacific war, and especially the spring and summer of 1945, lays out significant
chronological events in space and time that all served to force Japan’s
surrender. The major events include the US fire bombings of Japanese cities
across the home islands, the U.S. Navy’s maritime blockade, the use of atomic
weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and finally, the Soviet Union’s entry into
the Pacific war.
While the U.S. strategy in the Pacific war achieved
victory, the campaign in the final months of the war lacked synchronization,
coordination and synergy which prolonged the war. U.S. Navy and USAAF
operations were executed independently and the campaign against the Japanese
home islands lacked mass and synergy. This lack of coordination and
synchronization left President Truman with few options to end the war.
The historiography of the Pacific war includes the
ongoing debate as to what caused Japan to surrender? Additionally, post-war
historians have debated the morality of the use of atomic weapons as well as
what specifically induced Emperor Hirohito into accepting the unconditional
terms of surrender. This research adds to the body of history of the Pacific war
and illustrates that the U.S. strategy in the final months of the war was
disjointed. The USAAF firebombing campaign was not synchronized nor coordinated
to support the U.S. Navy maritime blockade. The Joint Chiefs never arbitrated
between General MacArthur’s Southwestern advance and Admiral Nimitz’ more
central advance towards Japan, but allowed both men to pursue independent
courses that ultimately led to the surrender of Japan. The lack of a
coordinated and synchronized campaign plan, that was mutually supporting,
denied operational synergy. Without synergy, the war was needlessly prolonged
and worse; failed to provide the Commander-in-Chief, President Truman, options
to end the war sooner.
The U.S. strategy in the Pacific during the Second
World War saw a ‘central’ and ‘south western’ effort that included major naval
engagements, seizure of strategic islands, and major land operations across
Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Philippines.
The ‘central’ approach, conducted by the U.S. Navy under
the leadership and direction of Admiral Chester Nimitz, concentrated on the
‘Pacific Ocean Areas.’ The central approach saw large scale fleet action, major
aircraft carrier operations, and the U.S. Marine Corps seizing fortified
Japanese held islands. In addition, Nimitz would oversee the Pacific Ocean
Area, the Pacific Fleet, and the Central Pacific Area! Further, Nimitz would
use the same Staff Headquarters to operationally command all three commands.
The South West Pacific Area (SWPA) saw large scale
combined operations against Japanese held Guadalcanal, New Guinea, the Dutch
East Indies, and the Philippines. The South West Pacific Area of operations was
led by General Douglas MacArthur and saw a much larger concentration of U.S.
Army formations than the ‘Pacific Ocean Areas’ which was dominated by
Navy-Marine Corps forces. The command
structure established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) only muddled the
command arrangements between Nimitz and MacArthur. The principles of simplicity
and unity of command suffered at the operational level. Strategically, JCS had
determined that a “Germany First” effort would concentrate American power
towards the United Kingdom and against Germany.
Operations against the Japanese home islands had
begun as early as 1942 by LTC Doolittle and his hand selected B-25 bomber
squadron launched against Tokyo from U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. This limited,
one time strike against Japan, was followed up with unrestricted submarine
operations conducted by the U.S. Navy. In 1942, the USAAF did not possess shore-
based airfields capable of supporting heavy bomber offensives against Japan
proper. It took almost two full years before the USAAF routinely operated
against the Japanese home islands.
By late 1944 and early 1945, USAAF XXI Air Force
operated B-29 Superfortress bombers were routinely attacking targets against
the Japanese home islands. The various Bombardment Groups and Squadrons that
constituted the XXI Air Force, were operating from several islands that allowed
for such long-range strikes.
Neither the Pacific Ocean Area nor South West
Pacific Area Commands directed the strategic bombing campaign against Japan.
The XXI Air Force, operating independently of either Admiral Nimitz or General
MacArthur commands, was actually commanded by General Arnold in Washington D.C.
The XXI Air Force, led by General LeMay, was an extension of General Arnold’s
command and targeting information, analysis, and directives, all emanated from
Washington.
The USAAF operations against the Japanese homeland
was carried out independent of U.S. Navy efforts and sought to ‘end the war.’
The attacks against Japan were based on target lists that were prioritized by
the Committee of Operations Analysts (COA) based in Washington D.C. The COA
determined that close to 20% of food stuffs were imported to Japan, that a
third of its raw materials were imported, and discounted harbor installations
and ship construction facilities as not good economic targets.[1]
The U.S. Navy submarine effort against Japanese
shipping started slowly in 1942 and gained incredible momentum that resulted in
a maritime chokehold of the Japanese home islands in early 1945. The U.S. Navy
submarine forces spread across the Pacific patrolled the South China Sea, the
Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan during the final year of the war. The scale of
operations and the tonnage sank by U.S. submarine commanders severely dented
the Japanese economy. But the submarine operations operated independent of the
operations being mounted in either the Pacific Ocean Areas or the South West
Pacific Area. Submarines did indeed support pre-invasion operations off of the
Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa however, none of these efforts were
synchronized with the USAAF operations against Japan.
Generally speaking, submarine skippers operated
either independently or in ‘wolfpacks’ but at the discretion of the patrol
commander. The submarine patrols were directed to specific geographic areas of
operation and once the patrol commander arrived, exercised autonomy and freedom
in action. The patrols, on balance, were tremendously effective once the
statistics were rolled up. “U.S.
submarines sank 540,192 tons of Japanese naval vessels and 4,779,902 tons of
merchant shipping.”[2]
U.S. Navy and the USAAF operations against the
Japanese home islands lacked coordination and synchronization. The XXI Air
Force struck across the home islands, concentrating on COA recommended
industrial targets. The U.S. 3rd Fleet, operating independently,
pursued objectives that were either ignored by the Air Force, or within the
Navy’s perceived sphere of operations.
The USAAF XXI Air Force firebombing campaign against
targets across the Japanese home islands were executed independently of the
U.S. Navy’s maritime blockade. When the
XXI Air Force commenced operations, the target priorities identified included
“aircraft plants (including aircraft motors), petroleum refineries, iron and
steel production, electronics, and antifriction bearings.”[3]
Not employing LeMay’s B-29’s against harbors and ship manufacturing denied
synergy in pressuring Japan in late 1944 and early 1945. LeMay eventually committed part of one Bomb
Wing to the ‘mining’ of coastal Japan, under the auspices of “Operation
Starvation.”
Admiral Nimitz, commander of the Central Pacific
Theater, formally requested that the USAAF conduct anti-ship mining operations
along the coast of Japan in order to inhibit routine communications, transport,
and logistics support between the islands. Japan imported “80% of its oil and
90% of its iron ore” and the COA reinforced Nimitz’ request[4].
The mining operations of the B-29s in the 313th Bombardment Wing
began in March 1945.
Tactical Carrier Naval Air operations were not
directed at USAAF target lists. Once Admiral Halsey’s 3rd Fleet
engaged in operations against the Japanese home islands in May 1945. 3rd
Fleet naval aviators attacked targets up and down the coast of Kyushu and
Honshu. In particular, the Navy Air Groups of the 3rd Fleet struck
that targets that the XXI Air Force did not attack; harbors, ship construction
facilities, railroads, trains, and anti-aircraft defense sites.
On 14 and 15 July, Halsey’s aviators from Task Force
38 “struck hitherto untouched targets in Honshu and Hokkaido.”[5]
That targets across the home islands were ‘untouched’ in July of 1945
demonstrates the independent nature of the USAAF and U.S. Navy’s approach to
the operations against Japan in the final months. More incredible, were the
targets of opportunity found and destroyed on the 14th and 15th;
coal barges. The air strikes carried out targeted vessels operating along the
coast and many that operated between the home islands. The barges were of
particular importance as they provided the coal for power plants.
The lack of a synchronized and coordinated effort
prolonged the war.
The Army Air Forces prosecuted the strategic bombing
campaign clearly believing that they could influence the outcome of the war.
This belief predated the Second World War and airpower theorists during the
inter-war years gave rise to theories that wished to avoid the carnage of the
Great War. General Arnold and General LeMay believed that in order to establish
an independent Air Force, they would need to significantly influence the
outcome of the war against Japan.
The decentralized nature of the campaign against the
home islands extended operations by not achieving mass and synergy.
Specifically, the U.S. Navy’s unrestricted submarine campaign, although
tremendously effective, was prosecuted with little thought to coordinating with
the strategic air campaign. The strategic air campaign, started late, and
mistakenly assumed ‘what worked in the Combined Bomber Offensive in Europe
would work in Japan.’ It took General LeMay six weeks to adjust to conditions
over Japan and ultimately, to proceed with a ‘firebombing’ strategy, utilizing
incendiary munitions dropped from much lower altitudes.
The independent operations carried out by Nimitz in
the Central Pacific, and MacArthur, in the South West, syphoned off men and
material, and expended time and energy on reconciling their different
approaches to the overall strategy in the Pacific as a whole. B.H. Lidell Hart
captured General MacArthur’s statements on the command arrangements in the
Pacific:
Of all the
faulty decisions of the war, perhaps the most inexpressible one was the failure
to unify the command in the Pacific…it resulted in divided effort, the waste of
diffusion and duplication of force, and undue extension of the war with added
casualties and cost.[6]
The Philippine Campaign, although tying down
Japanese land forces, was not necessary in the overall objective; the
unconditional surrender of Japan. The forces allocated to the Philippines could
have been allocated to the Battle of Okinawa at a much earlier date with a
potential to have ended the war far earlier. Nimitz argued for attacking
Formosa, with its many airfields. MacArthur, committed to the Philippines,
proposed invading the Southern island of Mindanao. The President and JCS
elected for a ‘middling’ approach, directly invading Luzon island in the
Northern Philippines. The indecision and disunity, at least admitted by MacArthur,
prolonged the war effort.
The failure to achieve synergy left the Commander-in-Chief,
President Truman, few options to conclude the war in the Pacific.
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NOTES:
The strategy employed by the USAAF against targets in
Japan were had more to do with the belief in ‘strategic bombing’ rather than
gaining ‘mass,’ providing mutual support to the U.S. Navy or synchronizing and
coordinating ‘effects.’
The U.S. Navy targted ‘naval’ targets while the XXI
Air Force sought out key industrial targets. The exception was “Operation
Starvation” and the minelaying conducted by one AF Bombardment squadron on
behalf of the Navy.
The 3rd Fleet’s Task Force 38 conducted a
series o air strikes in July that ultimate spelled doom for ‘coal fired’ plants
and power generation on Honshu and Kyushu. That many of the targets were
previously ‘untouched’ says a tremendous amount about the lack of coordination
between the services.
The U.S. Navy conducted unrestricted submarine warfare
operated almost from the very beginning of the Pacific War. As this campaign
gained momentum and success, it did so without any coordination or
synchronization with the USAAF.
The Japanese government in 1945 set up a special
bureau to investigate whether the government had the resources to continue the
war. “Prime Minister Suzuki had instructed Cabinet Secretary Sakomizu to make a
confidential study.”[7]
LeMay’s B-29 fire-bombing sorties of Japanese cities
began taking their toll.
[1] Daniel T. Schwabe, The Burning
of Japan: Air Force Bombing Strategy Change in The Pacific, (Lincoln:
Potomac Books, 2015), 54.
[2] Clay Blair Jr., Silent Victory:
The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,
1975), 900.
[3] Mark Lardas, Air Campaign Japan
1944-45: LeMay’s Strategic Bombing Campaign, (Oxford: Osprey Publishing,
2019), 36.
[4] Barrett Tillman, Whirlwind: The
Air War Against Japan 1942-1945, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010),
[5] Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two
Ocean War, (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1963), 564-565.
[6]
Peter Calvocoressi and Ben Wint, Total
War: The Story of World War II, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 733.
[7] John Toland, The Rising Sun: The
Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945, (New York: Random House,
1970), 745.
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