The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal

More on the Hiroshima era, from Dave (and RWE — thanks to Larwyn):

For those who missed it the first time around: In 1945, “defeated” Japan had seven atomic bomb factories ready to go, lacking only fissionable material. When their IU 92 was sunk, delivery of the U235 fell to the German U234. I have seen U234 survivors interviewed on TV. They are to a man happy that their cargo did not get through.

“Battleground Atlantic” is the book to peruse on the submarine delivery plans. “Japan’s Secret War” details the science and technology of their nuke program.

Japan also had 8000-10000 combat-worthy aircraft stashed in various parts of their homeland. This does not include pure kamikaze planes. 3500 of the piston-engine variety were hidden at one unobserved airfield.

Their most probable course of action would have been to assault the blockading fleet with conventional kamikaze attacks and then mix a few nukes in. Then hit the landed troop concentrations with their version of the dirty bomb.

Any attacks on Honolulu, Los Angeles or San Francisco? Yes. Had aircraft strapped to submarines. Doubt if said aircraft would have had purely conventional weapons.

It was one close race and Enola Gay won by half a nose, no more.

Even after losing their U235, even after Hiroshima, even after Nagasaki, no more than half of the Japanese power elite were willing to give up the flight.

There was a coup attempt to prevent the Emperor’s surrender speech from being broadcast and instead replace it with the orders to begin final fanatical defense of homeland.

Coup failed only because a diverted flight of B29s passed over Tokyo and caused a blackout in the one 20-minute time frame where said blackout could prevent that coup.

This story is detailed in “The Final Mission” which is also a History Channel film.

Of the bombers, 48 took off. Every one of them had near misses and close calls on their way. And every one of them made it home with 192 R3350s quitting for lack of fuel as they taxied in.

What do YOU think kept those evil spirits from running wild that night and doing even more damage to the world?

What do I think? Divine Navigation.

He does help those who help themselves. And that is why we came through in good shape after all.

Marty joins in the discussion, as does Trent Telenko, twice:

The Imperial General Headquarters had planned to sequester the Emperor effective upon the British amphibious assault on southwestern Malaya, which the British planned for late September 1945.

That would also have been when the orders would have gone out to massacre all Allied POW’s, interned civilians, and any other Allied civilians Japanese forces could catch in China and all of Southeast Asia (Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, any Phillipine islands still held by the Japanese, etc.).

Check out the reference to Field Marshal Terauchi (CinC of the Japanese army group – Southern Group of Armies) in the index (page 573) of George Feifer’s Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb.

Allied signals intelligence (MAGIC) intercepted and decoded the late July 1945 order from Imperial GHQ to Terauchi to prepare for this.

The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal. They’d probably have killed at least an additional 50 million people, more than had died in all of World War Two to that point, before Allied armies could eliminate Japanese forces overseas.

The horror would not have stopped there. An estimated ONE THIRD of the Japanese people (25-30 million) would have died of starvation, disease, poison gas and conventional weapons during a prolonged ground conquest of Japan.

See:

The Most Deadly Plan, Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Proceeding of the US Naval Institute, January 1998 edition, pp 79-81

and

“Gassing Japan”, Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, MHQ: the Quarterly Journal of Military History, vol 10 no 1 (Autumn 1997), pp 38-43.

Allen and Polmar ran across references to a plan to gas Japan and put in a FOIA request. Eventually they got a copy of a document labeled “A Study of the Possible Use of Toxic Gas in Operation Olympic.” The word “Retaliatory” was PENCILED in between “possible” and “use.”

Apparently there were only five of these documents circulated during WW2. After the war in 1947, the document was requested by the Chemical Corps for historical study. In an attempt to “Redact” history, another document was issued to change all the copies to emphasis “Retaliatory” rather than the reality of the US planning to use it offensively in support of the invasion of Japan.

The “Retaliatory” plan called for US heavy bombers to drop 56,583 tons of gas in the 15 days before the invasion of Kyushu than another 23,935 tons every 30 days after that, and that was just the STRATEGIC bombing campaign.

Tactical air support was in addition to that.

The ground weapons would contribute and additional 1,400 tons of gas shells and there was 8,000 tons on invasion ships.

By way of reference, In shelling Okinawa, 126 4.2 inch mortars on US Navy landing craft fired 28,000 4.2 inch mortar shells in one hour. Since the 4.2 inch mortar shell was the primary gas weapon of the CWS, that represents 400 tons of shells with 98 tons of lethal gas.

At the time of the invasion, 144,762 tons of gas shell munitions were available to the USA for the invasion.

Another 9,356 tons would arrive every 30 days after the invasion.

Chemical Corps casualty estimates for this attack plan were 5 million dead with another 5 million casualties.

Ultimately, it looks like the plan was not approved, but prepared for by General Marshall, since the gas to implement the plan was sent to the Pacific in very scarce shipping space, likely as a back up to the A-bomb.

The US Army Chemical Warfare Service was planning using captured stocks of German chemical weapons and it had transported many of those stocks to the USA. It was in the process of placing many of those chemical agents in US weapons as the war ended.

See:

http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/chemwarfare/CHAP2_Pg_09-76.pdf

According to Allen and Polmar, the June 18, 1945 meeting where Harry Truman was briefed on Operation Downfall, the over all plan to invade Japan, by Adm King, Gen Marshall and the rest of the Joint Chiefs was when the topic was broached.

We know now that the decision to drop the atomic bomb was made then, although the notes for the meeting only referred to “undisclosed topics.”

This was our backup to nuking Japan into surrender. If the A-bombs didn’t work, the US military wase going to gas the Japanese people from the air like bugs, and keep doing so until Japanese resistance ended or all the Japanese were dead.

Thank God for the atom bomb – killing 150,000 – 200,000 Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved 75-80 million lives.