1945 (13 page)

He stayed where he was until night fell. Then he moved carefully up the few yards from where he lay to where the hill crested. Crawling on his hands and knees, he slithered over the top and found a place where he could look down the slope to the valley below. A handful of men were hard at work heaping leaves and branches on sections of canvas that covered a pair of Japanese fighters. He blinked in disbelief. The planes were Zeros or, more precisely, Mitsubishi A6M2 carrier fighters. Once they'd been the finest plane in the air, but they'd been eclipsed by the newer American planes, and Dennis had shot down two of them himself. But what were they doing here? Of course, he answered himself, without carriers to launch from, the Japanese had to stash them on land.

The Japanese were dispersing their aircraft in small groups to avoid the overwhelming superiority America had in the air. During his strength-building and worm-eating days in the hills, he had seen a number of U.S. planes flying overhead. B-29 bombers, like schools of silver fish, flew high up in the sky, and hordes of fighters searched and stalked their prey from much lower altitudes.

Once, he had stood on the top of a hill and watched a P-51 Mustang streak through the air below him. Below him! He was lost in a strange land and standing above an American plane! He had screamed at the sight of the Mustang so near, yet so far away. The fighter had swept the valley again and had flown so close that he could see the pilot's face as he insolently surveyed his domain and looked for targets. The P-51 pilot gave no thought to the ragged-looking man on the hill, if he saw Dennis in the first place.

Dennis jerked his thoughts back to the present. What was he to do about the Jap planes and the men who were so close to him? He counted four people at the little camp. That made sense. Two pilots and two mechanics. There were no other guards— after all, they were safe in Japan, weren't they?— but all four probably had weapons. All Dennis had was a piece of metal he had sharpened against a rock and used as either a knife or a shovel, depending on the need of the moment.

It was, he decided sadly, time to move from this place to a safer one. Then he saw something that changed his mind. One of the mechanics opened the flap of a tent and, stacked neatly in the back, were several bags of rice. Even better, they were filled with wild rice, which was much more nutritious than the white version. If he could somehow get his hands on that rice, then he would be able to really improve his health and his chances of surviving. But was it worth the risk? He closed his eyes and wondered what Barb would have him do. The answer came quickly. Her last words to him had been "Come back to me."

On a densely wooded hillside in Kyushu near Nagasaki, Joe Nomura struggled with the radio supplied him by the OSS . It wasn't that the thing was bulky. It was surprisingly small and compact. The problem was operating it with only one hand with a beginner Boy Scout's skills with Morse code. There simply hadn't been time to make Joe Nomura an expert, and he struggled with what he had to say. This too was difficult. Never a great scholar, he now had to be the soul of brevity and conciseness, which were language skills he'd never considered important.

Of the two, brevity was the most in his best interest. It had been hammered into him that the Japs had listening devices and would, sooner or later, likely pick up his transmissions. Then they would try to locate him using triangulating devices that he only barely understood. He could only hope that they would discover him later, much later. Like 1950.

To help maintain his security, he'd been given a number of radio frequencies to use and the order in which to use them. All of this, coupled with the need to frame a concise yet accurate message about what he'd learned about conditions at Nagasaki and the other parts of Kyushu he'd seen, made him sweat with frustration. Then, of course, he had to put it into the very basic code they'd given him to use, which was basic to Johnson and Peters, but was difficult for him. Joe wondered how long it would take the Japs to decode it if they picked up his transmissions.

Finally he tapped out his message. It told his superiors of the lingering horrors of Nagasaki, of the people still dropping over and dying from the radiation sickness, and of the Japanese government's total inability to do anything about it. He closed his message by telling his unseen compatriots that he would have more information for them soon.

As he shut down the radio, he automatically looked skyward. He had been told that he would be transmitting to specially equipped planes that would be waiting for him to call. He fervently hoped they were indeed up there, circling. Then, using his teeth and his one hand, he repacked his gear. It was difficult, but he half-dragged and half-carried the equipment to a new site about a mile away. He didn't think the Japs had picked up this first signal, but he wasn't going to take unnecessary risks by transmitting from the same place twice.

When he'd finally hidden the radio in the ground and covered the site with leaves and branches, he walked away. In a few minutes, he was just another displaced and crippled Japanese soldier. Only he knew just how lonely and afraid he really was.

President Truman slowly read through the handful of summary sheets while the others waited for him to finish. He was reading the updated overall plan for the invasion of Japan . It bore the code name Downfall and was divided into two different and sequential operations.

The first phase of Downfall, Olympic, was scheduled for November 1, 1945, which was only a little more than six weeks away. The second phase, Coronet, had a tentative date of March 1, 1946. Truman noted that the invasion dates were called X-Day, in silent testimony to the fact that
D-Day
would forever be associated with the Allied landings in Normandy in June of 1944. Prior to Normandy, every invasion date was referred to as D-Day.

Olympic was the invasion of the island of Kyushu, while Coronet was the invasion of the Kanto Plain on the island of Honshu. The Kanto Plain contained the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama and was the ultimate goal of the operation that would end the war. With Coronet clearly dependent on the success of the imminent Operation Olympic, the president found himself staring at the numbers and trying to assign them some identity.

Olympic would be the largest amphibious invasion ever attempted in military history. Nine divisions in three corps would assault three separate landing areas simultaneously. They would be backed up by five other divisions and at least one independently operating regimental combat team. Three of the divisions in the initial assault were marines, while the rest were army.

The numbers for the navy were even more staggering. Halsey's Third Fleet contained fourteen large carriers and six light carriers, along with nine new battleships, twenty-six cruisers, and seventy-five destroyers. Halsey was to attack targets inland.

Spruance's Fifth Fleet was even larger, with scores of escort carriers and more than four hundred cruisers and destroyers. Spruance was charged with protecting the amphibious force, which counted the almost fourteen hundred ships that would carry more than half a million men to battle.

The island of Kyushu had been chosen because it contained reasonably satisfactory landing areas, two magnificent deepwater anchorages, airfields, and, most important, was within range of land-based air cover from Okinawa and Saipan. This latter point was critical. Without land-based cover, the invasion would be dependent on carrier planes, whose operations were limited and could be shut down by the weather and were vulnerable to Japanese kamikaze attacks.

Despite its gigantic size, the Olympic part of Downfall had specific goals and only called for the conquest of the lower third of the island. Kyushu was about twice the size of Massachusetts and roughly divided in two by mountains that separated the north from the south. The army believed that the Japanese could be driven from the southern part and contained in the north while the south was developed as a base for staging and supporting Coronet.

November first had been chosen because it represented both the amount of lead time necessary to develop and launch the attack as well as being after the end of the annual typhoon season. Typhoons had savaged the American fleets off Okinawa and elsewhere, and a recurrence could be disastrous for the expedition. One typhoon had ripped through Okinawa in early August and caused a great deal of damage to equipment being gathered for the landings on Kyushu.

All of the units involved in the operation were among those already in the Pacific theater. No divisions would be drawn from Europe for Olympic, although two armored divisions were scheduled for deployment from Europe for Coronet in 1946. There were no appropriate areas for massed tank assaults on Kyushu, although there were such places on the Kanto Plain. The infantry and marine divisions would still have their regular quota of tanks, many of which would have flamethrowers instead of cannon.

On X-Day, the marines would attack the southwestern tip of the island and begin to drive overland across the Satsuma Peninsula toward Kagoshima Bay, which ran north-south and roughly split the southern end of Kyushu in half. The two army corps would land on the east side of Kyushu, and one corps would also drive on toward Kagoshima while the second took Ariake Bay . Ariake was on the southeastern end of the island and, even though it was the smaller of the two anchorages, was itself large enough to hold a large fleet.

Truman was bemused because someone responsible for planning must have been a car buff and had named all the sites and areas accordingly. Thus, the marines' main landing areas were Taxicab and Roadster, while the army would be in Town Car and Station Wagon. Specific beaches were named after particular brands, and it was a little unnerving to see future battlefields named Ford, DeSoto, Buick, and Chrysler, along with many others. Attacks just prior to November first would take place on several smaller islands off Kyushu.

Truman put down the folder. "Casualties and options, gentlemen."

As usual, Marshall answered. "Casualties are impossible to predict, as they are based on several unknowns. First, we don't know how many Japs will be facing us on Kyushu, and second, we don't know how hard or how well they'll fight." He took a deep breath, obviously reluctant to give such an estimate. "We have run several analytical models based on the invasions and campaigns of Leyte, Luzon, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, as well as the latter stages of the European war from Normandy to its conclusion. Right now our best estimate for Olympic alone is two hundred thousand casualties from all causes, combat and noncombat.

Truman shook his head. "And if we have to go forward and attack Tokyo, how many for Operation Coronet?"

Leahy took his turn. "Perhaps another ninety thousand battle casualties, which, if the noncombat casualties are added in, would bring the total for the campaign up to nearly a half a million. And these are only for the ground forces. We estimate at least another ten thousand naval personnel will be casualties, primarily as a result of kamikaze attacks for Olympic alone. The Japs are hoarding their planes for just such an attack, and they will come at us in the thousands. Some are bound to get through, just as they did off Okinawa."

Truman wondered, "How many kamikaze planes did the Japs throw at us at Okinawa?"

"About two thousand," King said, "and they sank almost forty ships, although all were smaller ones. While several hundred ships were damaged, nothing larger than a destroyer was sunk. A couple of our carriers suffered grievous wounds. The
Benjamin Franklin
was struck by a kamikaze and eight hundred of her crew were killed with hundreds more wounded. We think that many more than two thousand kamikazes were launched, but that a goodly number of them simply got lost or just fell out of the sky for mechanical reasons. That won't happen at Kyushu since we'll be hundreds of miles closer to the kamikaze bases. When the
Franklin
was hit, she was just off Kyushu.

"The kamikazes, Mr. President, scare the hell out of the navy, and I don't mean just their planes when I use the term
kamikaze
. They have kamikaze boats and subs, even human-piloted torpedoes."

"Scares the hell out of me as well," Truman muttered.

"Of course," Marshall injected, "we are of the opinion that a decisive American victory on Kyushu stands a good chance of making the Japanese surrender. If that's the case, we won't have to launch Operation Coronet and invade near Tokyo."

Sure, Truman thought bitterly, just as the atomic bomb was going to make them surrender. "After all that's occurred recently, do you really believe that?"

Marshall was not intimidated by the response. "Sir, our intelligence intercepts indicate that the Japs are massing virtually everything they have on Kyushu. If— I mean
when
— we beat them there, they won't have anything left to fight with. The battle for Japan will be won or lost on Kyushu."

"Then why," Truman asked, "don't we do an end run and drive straight for Tokyo if they have all their forces on Kyushu?"

King responded, "Because of the threat of their kamikazes and the fact that we absolutely need land-based air cover to protect our men and ships from those assaults, as well as to bomb Japanese strongpoints."

Truman sighed. The cold statistics were making him angry. These were people, flesh-and-blood people, and not abstract numbers. "I talked to Secretary of War Stimson, and he feels your figures are far too low. Churchill felt the same way, and that was before he was booted out of office by the ungrateful British people. What do you say about that?"

Again Marshall met his stare. "These are all estimates. God only knows what the reality will be. I will say that both of the gentlemen you mentioned are highly emotional and tend to overstate issues."

"All right," Truman said resignedly. "Run my other options by me."

"Yes, sir. Even before the atomic bomb, we felt we had only three alternatives, and that only one, invasion, was viable. The first of the other options was to carry on limited offenses against other Japanese-held lands, such as Formosa and Korea . This first idea was discarded almost immediately as we believed it would not cause the Japanese to give up and would only create needless American casualties."