Twilight Of The Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945, Toll - A *

     This is the third, and final, volume of the author's majestic narrative of the war in the Pacific. We pick up with FDR in Honolulu to meet with the theater commanders in July of 1944. The strategic issue was the direction of the American attack on Japan. One school of thought was to approach through Taiwan and China, and of course MacArthur insisted on going through the Philippines. Spruance suggested taking a direct line through Iwo Jima and Okinowa. The eventual strategic conclusion was to pursue both the Philippines and the Iwo Jima - Okinowa axis.

     The Task Force that comprised the Fifth/Third Fleet (the number changed as the commanders, Halsey and Spruance, alternated) sailed west from Guam in September and launched air attacks on the Philippines. However, the first order of business was the taking Peleliu by the 1st Marine Division. A well-armed veteran garrison of 11,000 men awaited them. A network of 500 tunnels protected the Japanese, while the Marines suffered in the 100+ degree heat on the surface. It took weeks and 6738 Marine casualties including 1300 dead to clear the island. Peleliu was proportionately the costliest battle of the war in the Pacific. There were but a handful of Japanese survivors. With Halsey approaching from the east and MacArthur from the south, the Philippines would soon see the Americans return, and Japanese headquarters prepared for its final all-out naval effort. Indeed, the plans for the Imperial Navy's defense of the archipelago wasn't much more than for the fleet "to die a glorious death." MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte on Oct. 20th, the same day that Japanese authorities approved the use of kamikaze pilots. The Combined Fleet approached the Leyte Gulf, where the Americans were landing, on three different lines. On the 23rd, two US submarines sank five ships approaching Palawan Island. The next day, American pilots sighted the main fleet, which featured the two largest battleships ever made, the Yamato and the Mushasi. It is believed that it took 40 torpedoes and twenty bombs to sink the 72,000 ton Mushasi on the 24th. The stage was set for the Japanese fleet to sail into Leyte Gulf on the morning of the 25th. Unknown to those supporting MacArthur's landings, Halsey had sailed north to engage what he believed to be the last of Japan's carriers and had left the northern approach undefended. The main Japanese fleet pursued and inflicted damage on the American CVE's (junior carriers) before surprisingly  retreating back to the west. Halsey returned south and American planes pursued the retreating Japanese. Over the course of the four-day battle, almost 300 ships manned by 200,000 men had fought in four separate engagements. The Imperial Navy had lost four carriers, a dozen surface ships and most importantly, over 500 planes. It would never again play a meaningful role in the war. Halsey's sally to the north and the Japanese disengagement on the 25th, when added to the fact of Leyte Gulf being the largest naval battle in history has led to endless analysis and conjecture about what is now considered the 'last' naval battle.

    In addition to the sequential island hopping and attacking that MacArthur and Nimitz undertook, there were two other equally important and devastating attacks made upon the Empire. The first was submarine warfare that eventually strangled Japan's economy. The home islands imported all strategic materials, primarily coal and oil, without which an industrial society cannot function. Almost all of their oil came from Indonesia, thousands of miles away and fully susceptible to US subs. By 1944, the country was running on fumes as tanker after tanker was sent to the bottom. In October, 1944, US subs sank 328,000 tons of merchantmen and 104,000 tons of oil tankers. The same year saw the introduction of the B-29 Superfortress to the mid-Pacific and the beginning of the strategic bombing of the Japanese home islands. The Marianas (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) would base the superforts at approximately 1500 miles fromTokyo. On Nov. 24th, 110 planes took off for the first 15-hour round trip flight to Tokyo. 

     The Japanese vigorously fought back against MacArthur's forces on Leyte. Japan poured in reinforcements, stymying MacArthur's advance. The island was not cleared until mid-December after 60,000 Japanese had died. The US then invaded Mindoro, and used its two airbases to begin bombing Luzon, home of Manila and Corregidor. Luzon was invaded on Jan. 9, 1945. The US landed over 68,000 men before noon. The US entered the capital a month later. Some of the war's most intense urban fighting ensued, along with extensive Japanese murder of civilians, and atrocities on the scale of Nanking eight years earlier. In the weeks it took to eliminate the occupiers, the city was destroyed. MacArthur declared the Philippines campaign over in June, the Japanese held out in the mountains until August and war's end. They lost over 200,000 on Luzon and almost 400,000 in the Philippines in total.

     Iwo Jima lay equidistant between the Marianas and Tokyo. It contained an airfield capable of supporting US bombers. Its commanding general had been ordered to fight to the last man. The island was all rock and the Japanese dug in, tunneled and prepared to fight an almost underground battle. "Fifteen hundred subterranean bunkers were connected by 16 miles of corridors." Someone said "The Japanese weren't on Iwo Jima. They were in Iwo Jima." US naval and air forces pummeled the island daily for months. Twenty-two thousand Japanese awaited the 75,000 Marines who began landing on February 19th. Every inch was contested and by nightfall of the first day, 40,000 Marines held about 10% of the island. Suribachi fell on the 4th day. The flag-raising image captured by an AP photographer is arguably the most famous picture in American history. The battle and the carnage continued unabated for a month. One company lost eight commanders; another landed with 133 men and left with 9. The Marines suffered 24,053 casualties, including 6140 dead. A few hundred Japanese were captured. The cost of capturing Iwo was steep, but its airfields proved invaluable in the closing months of the war.

     Building the support systems for up to 1,000 B-29's on the Marianas was a colossal undertaking. Once in the air, the superforts struggled with the distance to Japan, the weather and the opposition, leading to a 5% loss-rate per mission. When it became apparent that high-altitude daytime precision bombing was not working, LeMay switched the USAAF mission to night- time low-altitude incendiary bombing of Japan's cities. The first mission was on March 9th and 334 superforts were on their way to Tokyo. The firebombing of Tokyo was the most devastating day in the history of war, killing over 100,000 and rendering a million homeless. Raids on Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe followed.

    The Battle of Okinowa from April 1 to July 2  was the largest amphibious action in history. Fifty-thousand Yanks landed on the first day without any enemy opposition. On the 6th, Japan sent  700 planes south from the home islands in a series of traditional and kamikaze attacks. Over the course of the campaign, the Empire launched 10 massive kamikaze attacks and almost daily smaller ones hitting 200 ships and killing 4,900 Americans.  After the first week, as the Americans advanced, the fighting intensified as the 86,000 defenders were as deeply dug in as at Iwo. "In the end, the soldiers and marines had to dig their enemies out of the ground and kill them." The three months of combat led to the highest American casualties of the war, 49,151, with 12,250 killed or missing. As each portion of the island was occupied, it became part of a massive construction project. Okinowa was to be the primary base for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan.

    Beginning in July, the navy sailed unopposed into Japan's home waters and began daily carrier-based airplane attacks and naval bombardment of Kyushu Island. Conventional bombing continued with 843 B-29's in the air on August 1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on the 6th and Nagasaki on the 9th, combined with the Soviet entry into the war led Japan to sue for peace. The US Navy anchored in Sagami Bay on Aug. 27th to begin the occupation. MacArthur, now Supreme Commander in the Pacific, arrived three days later. The official signing took place on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor on Sept. 2nd. The Greatest Generation had completed its most important mission.