The Pacific War Companion by Marston

Ref: Daniel Marston (2010). The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Osprey Publishing.

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Summary­

  • Japan was an island state poor in raw materials needed secure sources of the imports on which its industrialization and prosperity depended. Commerce and colonization, underwritten by armed force, were the prerequisites of national identity and national greatness.

  • Japan needed Rubber, Sn, and Fe from Malaya, the PI, and the Dutch East Indies. Japan could no longer clothe or feed its expanding population from its own resources. Not a thumb, but a beam now rested on Japan's windpipe. The alternatives were conquer, negotiate, or starve.

  • The US essentially fought two wars in the Pacific. One occurred between Dec 1941 and Nov 1943; the second began with the battle of Tarawa in late Nov 1943 and continued through to the end of the war in Aug 1945. The first phase was a desperate, largely defensive war fought with inadequate resources against frequently superior Japanese forces and technology. Conservative holding actions, raids, and spoiling attacks were common. Such offensive campaigns as could be launched were risky affairs at best. The second phase was a deliberate offensive thrust through the central pacific to the Japanese home islands.

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Japan’s WWII Strategy

  • Japan modeled itself on GB, an island empire that used a judicious blend of manufacture, commerce, and violence to achieve power beyond what its own resources would support.

  • Japan's unique economy depended upon a transportation system based on coastal shipping to move raw materials, food, finished products, and military units within the home islands. The nation was almost wholly dependent on raw materials.

  • If Japan were to advance to the next stage of growth, a broad-based structure of high-quality production combined with cutting-edge innovation, the country must be in a position to control raw materials and influence markets directly.

  • Japanese strategy was to seize the "Southern Resource Area," whose oil, Sn, rubber, and rice, would enable Japan to construct an autarchic economy. This, in turn, would sustain Japan until the Anglo-Americans were constrained, by a German victory in Europe or the cost of retaking their lost territories, to accept a peace on Japanese terms.

  • Japanese planners never envisaged a total defeat of the Western powers. Their intention was to strike a series of coordinated blows securing the resources of S. Asia and establishing a defensive perimeter, extending well into the W. Pacific Ocean, would be developed into a barrier of bases and fortifications impregnable to amphibious assault. Behind that shield, the Imperial Navy would wait to launch javelin thrusts as counterattacks from any direction, making up for inferior numbers by interior lines and superior ships.

  • Asian Monroe Doctrine: Japan had visions of regionalism that assigned to China the role of providing raw materials and labor, to Manchuria the mission of furnishing living space to an overcrowded Japan, and to Japan itself the provision of leadership and protection.

  • Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere: A Japanese SE Asian vision to secure natural resources, especially oil in the Dutch East Indies, and exclude the US Fleet from the W. Pacific.

  • Japanese planning for Pearl Harbor centered on a complete surprise with the objectives being US carriers and US land- based planes on Oahu.

  • Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive): Japanese operations based on the premise that American morale was brittle, and could be broken by inflicting enormous bloodletting in the initial invasion of Japan.

  • "The (Japanese) empire will crush American, British, and Dutch strongholds in East Asia and the Western Pacific…and secure major resource areas and lines of communication in order to prepare a posture of long-term self-sufficiency. All available methods will be exerted to lure out the main elements or the US fleet at an appropriate time to attack and destroy them."

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Soviet WWII Strategy

  • Hiroshima electrified Stalin into unleashing his Asian offensive a week early. Soviet objectives included the seizure of the southern half of Sakhalin Island, Korea, the Kurils, and a secret scheme to invade Hokkaido, the Northernmost of the Japanese home islands. President Truman's firm stance on holding previously agreed demarcation lines finally dissuaded Stalin from this measure.

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US WWII Strategy

  • Plan Dog: The basic American War Plan; foresaw a concentration on defeating Germany first, with a strategic defensive in the Pacific for a prolonged period. The PI and island outposts like Guam and Wake would of course be defended, but their eventual loss was foreseen and accepted.

  • The US JCS created and coordinated two independent theaters of war in the Pacific:

    • SW Pacific Area (SWPA): Led by General MacArthur, and included the PI, Dutch East Indies, and Australia.

    • Pacific Ocean Areas (POA): Led by the USN, and covered the remainder of the Pacific.

      • Nimitz created a fleet structure under which the fleet stayed forward fighting the Japanese, while two fleet commanders, Admirals Raymond Spruance (5th Fleet) and William "Bull" Hallsey (3rd Fleet), rotated with their staffs back to Hawaii to plan future operations.

  • Operation Olympic: The amphibious assault of the Japanese Island of Kyushu by the 600,000 man US 6th Army, supported by both USN 3rd & 5th Fleets. D-Day was scheduled for 1 Nov, 1945, and Olympic would have been the largest amphibious assault in world history. The soldiers and Marines would have faced an equal number of Japanese troops, and the battle would have raged in the midst of a massive civilian population. Calculations of the potential casualties on both sides in the invasion influenced POTUS Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs.

    • “There was no guarantee that a Japanese government would ever surrender or, even if one did, that Japan's armed forces would comply with that surrender. If there was no organized surrender, there was no alternative to annihilation.”-US JCS on OP OLYMPIC.

  • Campaign Plan Granite: Nimitz’s plan to obtain positions from which the ultimate surrender of Japan could be forced by intensive air bombardment, by sea and air blockade, and by invasion if necessary.

  • British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA): WWII’s first integrated allied supreme command, responsible for the area from Burma to N. Australia.

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Amphibious Operations

  • US Tenders and Floating dry-docks allowed most battle damage to be repaired in the combat zone.

  • Service squadrons accompanying combat forces contained oilers and cargo ships to provide fuel, food, and ammo, and escort carriers that could quickly replace losses on the fast carriers with new aircraft and pilots.  

  • The keys to success in the increasingly complex amphibious assaults of the Pacific War were joint teamwork, detailed planning, creative adaptability to chaotic conditions- and violent execution.

  • Principles of Amphibious Warfare- unity of command, seizing control of the sea and air around the objective; coordination of naval gunfire, aviation, counter mine and anti-submarine operations; development of seaworthy, self-retracting landing craft; systematic delivery of high-priority cargo as requested by the landing force; and the concentration of combat power at the point of attack.

  • (In regards amphibious warfare) The US army's position was that their more deliberate tactics saved soldiers’ lives. The navy countered that the longer combat lasted ashore, the longer the fleet was tired to the beachhead. Because of this concern, Nimitz told Spruance, "Get the hell in, then get the hell out!”

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US Army Air Force (AAF)

  • By the end of the war, US B-29's had torched 66 Japanese cities (counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Fires consumed about 20% of Japan's housing and left about 15M homeless (~1 in every 5 Japanese). ~400K Japanese die in air raids, including the atomic bombs.

  • XX Bomber Command: Conducted 4,669 Sorties on Japan dropping 12,219 tons of bombs including 3296 incendiary, 8395 HE, and 528 Mines.

  • XXI Bomber Command: Conducted 28,528 sorites on Japan dropping 167,736 tons of bombs including 103,068 incendiary, 54,917 HE, and 9751 Mines.

  • “Daylight, high-altitude precision attacks.”-Creed of the US AAF.

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Misc Quotes

"The resort to nuclear weapons represented the least abhorrent choice.”-Henry Stimson, US Secretary of War.

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Chronology

  • 2 Sep, 1945: The Japanese surrender to the US aboard the USS MISSOURI, officially ending WWII.-Pacific War by Marston.

    • Out of Japan's big six, three favored accepting the Potsdam Declaration of 26 July. The other three demanded a trio of additional terms- no occupation, Japanese self-disarmament, and Japanese trials for alleged war criminals. Prime Minister Suzuke called upon the emperor to break the deadlock. The emperor endorsed the single condition. That the US would maintain the imperial institution and the incumbent emperor be allowed to obtain Japan's surrender is a myth. The emperor intervened again and ordered the Japanese government to accept the Byrnes note (which denied all conditions to the Japanese).-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 14-15 Aug, 1945: Failed Japanese Military Coup; A coup of Japanese military leaders fails after an occupation of the Imperial Palace after War Minister Anami refuses to participate and chooses to commit suicide instead.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 6 Aug, 1945: Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima, pushing Stalin to begin Manchuria operations a week early.-Pacific War by Marston.

    • Soviet objectives included the seizure of the southern half of Sakhalin Island, Korea, the Kurils, and a secret scheme to invade Hokkaido, the Northernmost of the Japanese home islands.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 1 Apr- 22 Jun, 1945: Operation Iceberg, the Battle of Okinawa; two US Army and two US MARDIVs land unopposed on beaches in Central Okinawa and fight a protracted battle against 100,000 dug-in Japanese. The Japanese were hoping to delay the US Fleet, making them targets for a series of kamikaze attacks. Okinawa was the costliest operation of the Pacific War with the US suffering 49,151 casualties.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 9 Mar, 1945: The US AAF under Curtis LeMay begins night, low-level mass incendiary attacks on Japanese cities. The first raid burns out 15.8 mi2 of Tokyo, killing some 100K civilians. By the end of the war, ~400K die in air raids, including the atomic bombs.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 19 Feb, 1945: The Battle of Iwo Jima (OP Detachment); USMC’s V Amphibious Corps assaults the island with two MARDIVs, taking it by force, in order to build a US AAF B-29 airbase from which the ultimate surrender of Japan could be forced by intensive air bombardment, by sea and air blockade, and by invasion, if necessary.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 12 Sep- 27 Nov, 1944: The Battle of Peleliu (‘US OP STALEMATE’) is fought to protect the flank of the planned US Leyte Operation from Japanese forces. USN Admiral Halsey seizes Peleliu but suffers ~10,500 casualties.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • Jun- Nov, 1944: Operation Forager; a US led allied operation to bypass, but periodically bomb, the Japanese bases in the Carolines, especially Truk, and seize the Mariana islands of Saipan and Guam. For the first time in the Central Pacific, the Japanese Army brought divisions from China to defend the Marianas. After the Marianas, the US would head to the PI.-Pacific War by Marston.

    • 19-20 Jun, 1944: The Battle of the Philippine Sea (‘The Marianas Turkey Shoot’) is fought between the USN and the IJN as the largest carrier on carrier battle in history. Following an American victory, the IJN would no longer field carriers and carrier-based aircraft for the duration of WWII.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 31 Jan- 4 Feb, 1944: The Assault on the Marshalls is carried out in two phases; Operation Flintlock; the capture of Kwajalein, and Operation Catchpole; the capture of Eniwetok. Both were preceded by a major carrier strike on the Japanese air and naval base at Truk in the Carolines.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 20-23 Nov, 1943: Operation Galvanic is fought as a US led allied operation to seize, by force, the Gilbert Islands including Makin and Tarawa in order to stage land-based air for assaults on the marshals.

    • 20-23 Nov, 1943: US 2nd MARDIV captures Tarawa Atoll (the first attempt to seize a highly defended beachhead in daylight).-Pacific War by Marston.

    • 20-24 Nov, 1943: US Army’s 27th ID captures Makin Atoll.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 28 Feb, 1942: Japanese land forces invade and take Java.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 27 Feb, 1942: Battle of the Java Sea; 5 allied cruisers and 9 destroyers under Dutch RDML Doorman sortie to meet a Japanese Invasion convoy approaching convoy and are decisively defeated; Only 4 American destroyers survive (Admiral Doorman is KIA).-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 7 Dec, 1941: Japanese Hawaii Operations, the Battle of Pearl Harbor.-Pacific War by Marston.

    • US AC Carriers, naval docks, and oil tankers were not in the harbor and had thus not been hit.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 5 Nov, 1941: Japan’s Gozenkaigi (Supreme Conference); the Japanese Government agrees to declare war on the US (and by default the UK and the Neth), if US-Japanese negotiations in Washington do not concluded satisfactorily by 1 Dec.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 25 Jul, 1941: Japan establishes a protectorate over French-Indo China, increasing pressure on the Dutch East Indies and France. In protest, the US announces a limitation on oil exports to Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets in the US.-Pacific War by Marston.

  • 27 Sep, 1940: The Tripartite Pact is signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan, creating a defense alliance largely intended to deter the US from entering WWII (Britannica).

  • Aug, 1939: The Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact is signed between Germany and the USSR.  

  • 25 Jul, 1894- 17 Apr, 1895: The First Sino-Japanese War is fought between China’s Qing dynasty and the Japanese Empire over the influence of Korea.-Pacific War by Marston.

    • 17 Apr, 1895: The Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed ending the First Sino- Japanese War; China concedes Korea, Taiwan, the Pescadores, and the Liaotung Peninsula with the Fortress of Port Arthur on the Manchurian mainland to Japan. France, Russia, and Germany combined to encourage Japan to reconsider its terms for the sake of regional peace.-Pacific War by Marston.

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