As the War in the Pacific moves into 1945 it is clear that the Asia Pacific War will not end in victory for Japan. How will it end? For the Allies, the 1943 Casablanca Conference has already stated that the war in the Pacific will end in unconditional surrender as it soon will for Germany. But the nature of that war is different. Germany is virtually landlocked and is being pressed on its eastern, western and southern fronts. Japan is an island fortress. Japan sees the path leading to a decisive battle where either Japan wins or extracts such allied losses that the war ends at the negotiating table. It is like a high stakes hand of poker. The Allies have a strong hand but are they willing to go “all in” and invade the home islands as necessary. Japan is already committed to “all in” – or so it seems. But who is the hand holding the cards for Japan? Is it the Emperor, the Supreme War Council, the Military General Staff, or the Imperial Japanese Army across the far-flung empire?
We are at a point in this series when it is time for us to pause and return to the beginning to make sure we know the “hand holding the cards.” A good question is “how did it start.” And the answer is far more complicated than “when they attacked Pearl Harbor.”
A previous post offered a brief discussion of a complicated issue – the governance of wartime Japan. Such governance was a complicated, ritual process involving Emperor Hirohito and the Supreme War Council (“Big 6”). In the shadows of the ritual were the Lord of the Privy Seal (Kido) and other confidants of the royal family. Rather than detail the process, it is perhaps best explained by decisions around Ketsu Go.
On January 20, 1945 there was an Imperial audience in which senior Army and Navy leaders briefed the Emperor on the strategic concept for Ketsu Go. This was not a formal Gozen Kaigi (Imperial Conference), but an Imperial audience in which senior Army and Navy leaders briefed Hirohito. The principals in attendance were War Minister Anami and Army Chief Umezu – both hardliners – and Navy Chief Toyoda who at his point was supportive of the Army’s position.
It was not a detailed plan, but a strategic overview of Ketsu-Go in the context of the war: Leyte Island in the Philippines had fallen, there was no doubt that Iwo Jima and Okinawa would soon be invaded, and routine bombing of the home islands by B-29s had begun. All indications were that the southern island of Kyushu would be invaded in the late-summer to early-autumn of 1944. Most likely after the end of typhoon season which traditionally “ended” November 1st.
80 years ago today, September 2, 1945, the leaders of Japan signed the articles of surrender, ending the War in the Pacific. The treaty was signed aboard the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. The document was signed by by representatives from Japan and from the Allied nations: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, Canada, and France.
The document was first signed by the Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and by General Yoshijirō Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff. Both were later convicted of war crimes. Shigemitsu served 7 years but later served again as Japan’s foreign minister. Umezu was sentenced to life in prison. He died in prison from cancer on less than a year into his sentence.
The majority of all Japanese representatives present at the signing were later convicted of war crimes. Emperor Hirohito was not present at the ceremony.
Ketsu-Go (“Operation Decisive”) was Japan’s final defense plan in World War II. It outlined the defense of the Japanese home island. At this point in the war the plan is an Imperial Army-led plan with the Imperial Navy playing a limited role apart from Naval Aviation. As noted in the previous post, as from the outset of the war the Imperial Army was “in charge” – not only in the Supreme War Council but in operational planning.
The goal of Ketsu-Go was to mass Japan’s remaining troops, planes, and special attack units (kamikaze) to repel the invasion, especially on the southern island of Kyushu, expected to be the first invasion point – as it would be in the Allied plan for invasion. The hope of Ketsu-Go was to make the battle so bloody and costly for the Allies that they would lose the will to continue the invasion and offer better surrender terms than complete and absolute surrender. At stake was Kokutai, an expression that literally means “national body” or “national essence”. This is explored in greater detail in the next post, but sufficient for now, this concept was not differentiated from the Emperor and the royal household.
In Ketsu-Go there was a fundamental realization that this would not be a repeat of their 1905 naval victory at Tsushima but only a last ditch effort to achieve what was always the goal of the original Kantai Kessen – an armistice with the United States that left Japan and its early war gains intact. Ketsu-Go would run head-long into the Allied demand for unconditional surrender that had no intention of leaving Japan militarized or with any of its early war gains. The allied demand for unconditional surrender had already been decided at the Casablanca Conference two years earlier (January 1943).
In addition there was a more fundamental issue at play: the idea of surrender. For the western soldier, surrender was not good, but it was logical. When the circumstances indicated that you’d run out of options the only “reasonable” options were retreat (live to fight another day) or simply live and place yourself at the mercy of your captor. For the Japanese soldier, surrender was the greater shame. The view was grounded in a complex mix of military indoctrination, cultural values, and fear of dishonor. Surrender was considered not only shameful but a betrayal of one’s duty to the Emperor and nation – to the Kokutai.
This difference was clear from the beginning of the war. Consider General Wainwright’s decision to surrender the Bataan Peninsula (Philippines) at the beginning of the war. The Filipino and American troops were out of ammunition and food; further resistance meant sure death. Their Japanese captors considered them shameful cowards who had betrayed their country – and were treated as such, the Death March of Bataan giving ample evidence.
The Japanese resolve to not surrender was experienced in every land battle from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. In campaigns such as Tarawa, Biak, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Peliliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa fewer than 2% of the Japanese garrison was captured. The remainder fought to the death. At the same time the casualty rates among allied ground troops in the Pacific were rising especially in comparison to the European Theater of Operations. Here are comparative casualty rates:
D-Day Normandy France – 6-7%
Tarawa – 20%
Peliliu – 35%
Iwo Jima – 37%
Okinawa – 27%
These differences were well known to the American public.
From the high-levels of strategy to the on-the-ground reality of war, the mindset of the warring parties could not be farther apart. Ketsu-Go was not a strategy to win a battle or defend the Japanese home islands from devastation and death. It was a strategy to exact a high price of Allied casualties to avoid the shame of surrender. Ketsu-Go reflected a mindset that, if implemented, would extract an unimaginable price in human life and leave the survivors with scars for a lifetime.
Ketsu-Go was first presented to the Emperor in January 1945. In the background of the plan was the uniquely Japanese concept of kokutai.
Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archives.
The Japanese could intercept Allied radio traffic, but they lacked the computational resources and personnel to break complex Allied codes like Naval Cypher No. 5. Their cryptanalytic efforts were centralized and bureaucratically fragmented, lacking the scale and success of U.S. or British efforts. As a result Japan remained largely blind to Allied operational planning, especially in the Central Pacific campaigns. In addition, their intelligence analysis and interpretation – especially on a strategic level – was hindered by their rigid military culture and intense rivalry between the Army and Navy. Their military intelligence units operated as though in silos. Intelligence was often ignored or suppressed if it conflicted with existing assumptions or the wishes of senior commanders who operated on biases about the lack of a warrior spirit among allied soldiers and sailors. The senior commanders also underestimated American industrial strength, technological innovation, and the ability to sustain large-scale operations across the Pacific.
As the war in the Pacific moved into the summer of 1945 combatant casualties continued to mount as discussed in the previous post – so too did civilian deaths. On Saipan the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) incorporated civilians into combat roles – it was the first but not the last time allied forces would encounter this blurring of military and civilian roles: Guam, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Manilla in the Philippines. By any measure, these were war crimes, but the effect was to implant in allied war planners the seeds of what they might expect if and when it came time to invade the main Japanese home islands of Kyushu and Honshu where the civilian populations were in the tens of millions
Historian Richard Frank (in Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire) and John Dower (in War Without Mercy) detail this evolution. Both historians see evidence of a “total-war” mindset that developed as the war in the Pacific progressed when it was clear to Japanese military leadership that they were fighting a war of attrition. Twin allied advances in the Southwest and Central Pacific campaigns were inexorably driving towards the Japanese home islands leading into the brutal logic of late-war defense. By mid-1944, Japanese commanders had recognized that defeating U.S. forces in head-to-head combat was unrealistic. Their goal became to:
Kokutai is a uniquely Japanese concept often translated as ‘national polity’ or ‘national essence.’
It refers to the unique constitutional and spiritual essence of the Japanese nation and its people, centered historically on the Emperor as a symbol of continuity and unity. Kokutai is not just a political constitution but a broader idea of Japan’s national identity and political order. It embodies ideas about the Emperor’s divine descent (from Amaterasu, the sun goddess), Japan’s unique historical destiny, and the special relationship between the ruler and subjects.
In prewar and wartime Japan, Kokutai was used to legitimize the Emperor’s absolute sovereignty and Japan’s political system. It was often invoked to promote national unity, loyalty, and resistance to foreign political ideas like liberal democracy or socialism. Kokutai placed the Emperor at the center of sovereignty and moral authority. This made Kokutai both a political doctrine and a national ideology that justified Japan’s imperial system and mobilized the population.
In the previous post we reviewed the legacy of battle as 1944 came to a close and noted the lethal legacy of Japanese military choices and led to one loss after another. The once powerful Combined Fleet of the Imperial Navy was but a memory. They had once roamed the western Pacific at will; now they were limited to coastal water and home island ports. The Imperial Army fared no better losing garrison after garrison, sacrificing their most experienced battlefield leaders and soldiers to death. There was no surrender. Japan wanted a “decisive victory” conclusion to conflict. What they started was a war of attrition they had no hope of winning. All the while war draws closer to the home islands. At this point one has to ask about civil and military leadership at the start of 1945.
Here is an overview of leadership dynamics and structures in January 1945 (as it had been through out the war):
Real decision-making power rested with the military, particularly the Army, as it had since the 1930s
The civilian government had limited independence, often subordinate to military interests.
The Emperor held ultimate constitutional authority, but his actual role in daily governance and war policy remained ambiguous. Many war decisions were “approved” by his silence. That strikes us as strange, but that was the operative culture of governance.
As noted in the previous post, “War in the Pacific to this Point”, the series has focused on the strategic plans and tactical experience that has shaped the war on land and sea, and in the air. 1944 ended with the Philippine island of Leyte under Allied control. An invasion of Luzon was next with the hope that Japan would declare Manila an “open city” as MacAruthur had done in 1942.
After Luzon, the “road to Tokyo” was clear: Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and then (most likely) the southern Japanese home island of Kyushu.
This is a good point in the series to look at Japan and consider its governance, national identity, and their plans to defend the home islands. From the Allied perspective it is clear that the Imperial Japanese Army has effective control of future war plans and actions, but as allied intelligence operations reveal (via diplomatic code MAGIC) there are some misgivings about the military dominated governance. What remains a point of uncertainty is the role of Emperor Hirohito.
Since the beginning of this series on August 6th we have looked at a variety of topics, issues, and experiences that are being poured into the cauldron of war. The series was never intended to be a review of all the battles, campaign tactics, or evolving strategies – there are far better resources available in print, online videos and more – presented by far more knowledgeable people, scholars and historians.
From the beginning, this series was never intended to describe the horror of combat, the mounting death toll, and conclude with “the atomic bomb was the lesser of all the evils about to be faced.” But the series is intended to explore harsh realities about war that frame the landscape, not just of tactical options, but of the moral landscape that will face the war fighters – the ones who will bring home the memories of things that can not be unseen. This is even more important when one understands the long-term strategy of the two sides.
On one side was Japan, a nation that had never been invaded and when the Mongols under Kublai Khan attempted just such in the late 13th century, a typhoon (a divine wind, kamikaze) destroyed the invasion fleet. On the other side were the Allies who 20 years after the armistice of World War I were facing another war from what they thought was a defeated enemy. This time the enemy would know they were defeated; surrender would be unconditional.
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