Planned Invasion (78)

     Details of the planned invasion of Japan if the atomic bombs hadn't been used were revealed to the public via the Associated Press:

Map showing the island of Kyushu

TWO LANDINGS ON JAPAN WERE PLANNED: Initial Force Was to Go Ashore on Kyushu Nov. 1, With Second Disembarking in Tokyo's Dooryard About Four Months Later
     Washington, Oct. 10 - (A.P.) - The unneeded invasion plan for the Japanese homeland called for an all-American effort, with one force going ashore on [the island of] Kyushu about Nov. 1 and another landing in the dooryard of Tokyo about four months later.
     Details of the double-barreled strategy - code designated as "operation Olympic" and "operation Coronet" - were disclosed Wednesday in the biennial report of Gen. George C. Marshall.  He wrote that "these were our plans for final victory in World War II should Japan fight to a last ditch national suicide."
     The report taken together with available information on troop strength, indicated that the plan was to attack the homeland with numerically inferior forces.  This had been the plan for virtually all other operations in the Pacific, reliance being placed on superior firepower by land forces and support from naval gunfire and aviation. 
     Marshall said that the Japanese had husbanded an army of 2 million men to defend the homeland.  He did not give the American strength in manpower, but discussed it in terms of divisions.  On the basis of 15,000 men to an infantry or marine division, with smaller numbers for armored, air-borne and cavalry divisions, somewhat more than one-half million men were accounted for.  Units attached to divisions for special purposes and service [such as the 92nd Evacuation Hospital] and engineering forces would about equal the total of the divisional strength bringing the total forces used in the two operations above one million men.
     This force, of cource, would not have included the thousands of naval personnel manning the supporting fleets and transports nor the air forces participating in the operations.
     Marshall's accounting of the divisions to go ashore in Japan mentioned none other than American army and marine forces, indicating that although the British may have had plans for naval support of the invasion there were no arrangements for British or other Allied participation in the actual landing operations.  Marshall said that Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in co-operation with Adm. Chester Nimitz, was prepared to execute two plans for the invasion of Japan:

Modified scheme of maneuver map, Operation Olympic in Victory and Occupation: History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II by Frank Shaw

Shoulder insignia of Sixth Army

Shoulder insignia of First and
Eleventh Army Corp

      "The first, known as operation Olympic [Gene's underline and comment: (we were due to land at "H+4 of D day!) [4 hours after the first landing]] provided for a three-pronged assault on southern Kyoshu in the fall of 1945 (Marshall previously had mentioned Nov. 1 as the date) by the Sixth United States army, consisting of the First and Eleventh army corps and the Fifth marine amphibious corps.  Three groups were to land in the order named at Miyazaki, Ariaka Wan and on the beaches west of Kagoshima to isolate the southernmost Japanese and destroy the defending forces there.  Preceding the main assault were to be preliminary operations in Koshiki Retto and a diversionary feint off Shikoku by the Ninth corps.
     "The second phase of the Japanese operation, operation coronet, was to be carried out in the early spring of 1946 (An attached chart bore the notation "To follow Olympic at about four-month interval.")  The Eighth and Tenth armies, consisting of nine infantry divisions, two armored divisions and three marine divisions were to assault the Kanto or Tokyo plain of eastern Honshu.
     "These two veteran Pacific armies were to be followed ashore by the First army, which had spearheaded our victory in Europe and was now to be redeployed for the final battle of the Pacific.  In this attack the First army would have contained ten infantry divisions.  The three armies had the mission of destroying the Japanese army on the main home island and to occupy the Tokyo-Yokohoma area.
     "On Kyushu we would have held a one-corps reserve of three infantry divisions and one air-borne.  From here the plan was to fan out to the north and clean up the remainder of the Japanese islands.  Supporting the cleanup would ultimately have been an air garrison equivalent to fifty groups."
     Marshall said these were the plans for invasion "but we had other plans which we anticipated might bring a much speedier end to the war" - the atomic bomb.
     Said Marshall of this: "The results are well known."

    Next up will be the information about Japan and facts the army gave all of the occupation soldiers about the geisha.