by Ian W. Toll
THE MARIANAS HAD NOT FIGURED PROMINENTLY in prewar American planning for a war against Japan (War Plans Orange and Rainbow), chiefly because the islands lay well north of the direct sea route between Hawaii and the Philippines. But Admiral King was convinced that the Marianas represented the war’s strategic keystone because they were well situated on the sea routes linking Japan to its resource territories in the South Pacific and its fleet base at Truk. They also would offer a satisfactory base of operations for the Pacific submarine fleet, as they were located on the threshold of the fleet’s hunting grounds. And the island of Tinian offered suitable territory for airfields that would allow the new B-29 bomber to reach the Japanese home islands.
In successive Allied conferences in Washington (May 1943) and Quebec (August 1943), the Combined Chiefs of Staff had deliberately chosen to defer final decisions concerning Pacific operations in 1944, with the understanding that the direction and timing of the next thrusts would be guided by events and opportunities. King had managed to insert references to the Marianas in Allied conference documents, but the Combined Chiefs did not formally order the capture of these islands until the Cairo conference in November 1943. Cairo’s final conference documents endorsed a series of “Specific Operations for the Defeat of Japan, 1944,” including the stipulation that “a strategic bombing force will be established in Guam, Tinian and Saipan for strategic bombing of Japan proper.”28
For all the agitation between the navy and the USAAF, King and Arnold were now wary allies. Arnold believed that airfields on these islands offered the best hope of fulfilling the promise of the B-29 Superfortress. This huge airplane could carry twice the bomb load of the B-17 to a range of some 1,600 miles. Its pressurized cabin allowed it to operate at high altitudes, safely above the reach of enemy fighters. The B-29’s introduction into service had been repeatedly delayed by defects large and small, most notably in its 2,200-horsepower Wright Duplex Cyclone engines. Arnold had been a voluble champion of the B-29, repeatedly assuring Marshall, Stimson, Congress, and the president that it would be ready for service by the beginning of 1944, and that several hundred of the giant machines could begin regular bombing runs over Japan from airfields in China. The Congress had kept faith with the B-29, pouring more than $1 billion into it by the end of 1943. But only ninety-seven B-29s had been produced, and only sixteen of those could be flown. Arnold told the president, “I regret exceedingly to have to inform you that there has been a holdup in production of engines. It looks now as if it will be impossible to get the required number of B-29s together in China to start bombing before the first of March, and with the possibility of not getting them there before the first of April. At this writing I expect to have 150 B-29s in China by March 1st, of which 100 can be used against Japan.”29
FDR had personally assured the Chinese government that the B-29s were coming and would bomb Japan from Chinese airfields. It was a mainstay in his strategy to keep China in the war against Japan. He feared the consequences if the Army Air Forces was unable to make good on the repeated pledges. Meanwhile, Arnold was growing increasingly skeptical that China offered the best location for B-29 airbases. Chiang Kai-Shek had agreed to convert and enlarge existing airfields to receive the big bombers, but construction had lagged behind schedule, and there was no assurance that the Chinese could protect the bases against the ever-enterprising Japanese army. In early 1944, it appeared that the B-29s would have to begin operations from bases deep in the country’s interior, at Chengtu and Chungking. Smaller airfields nearer the coast might be used for refueling stops, but they were not secure enough to serve as major operating bases. In April 1944, the first B-29s were flown into China from India, with the pilots taking them “over the hump”—a route that was both dangerous and resource-inefficient because of the immense amount of fuel required.
With all of those considerations in mind, USAAF planners had taken an increasing interest in the Marianas. Guam, Saipan, and Tinian offered the best prospects of big airfields within range of Japan. They were large enough to accommodate a fleet of 1,000 B-29s. The bomber’s effective radius of 1,600 miles would bring Tokyo and the industrial regions of the Kanto Plain within reach. Once captured, bases on the Marianas would be secure against the enemy and could be amply supplied by sea. In October 1943, USAAF planners formally recommended that the Fifth Fleet and the amphibious forces of the central Pacific extend their offensive to the Marianas. That recommendation was accepted and adopted by the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Cairo two months later.
With its breathtaking range and tremendous weight-carrying capacity, the B-29 was a weapon without precedent, and it was coveted by commanders all over the Pacific. MacArthur expected a major allocation of the new planes to General Kenney’s Fifth Air Force. Nimitz and his subordinates were interested in their capabilities for long-range antisubmarine patrols and mine-laying missions. But Hap Arnold had long preached the gospel of concentrated airpower and had often expressed his grief and indignation at the tendency to disperse bombers all over the globe. He was determined to deploy virtually all available B-29s in bombing raids against Japan and to keep them under his direct control. With Marshall’s support, he convinced the Joint Chiefs of Staff to create the Twentieth Air Force, comprising the 20th and 21st Bomber Commands, to be controlled directly by the JCS. This was presented as a fait accompli to MacArthur and Kenney, who raged against the decision but could do nothing to reverse it.
Once the Japanese were ousted from the Marshalls, MacArthur was determined to bend Nimitz’s line of advance southward. Indeed, MacArthur hoped to consolidate all available forces for his planned invasion of Mindanao, the southernmost major island of the Philippines. The Pacific Fleet might cover his northern flank by seizing Truk and Palau. Even better, the Allies might seize this opportunity to exorcise the demon of a divided command, and anoint MacArthur the Pacific Supremo. The Pacific Fleet and the formidable Fifth Amphibious Corps would then come under his direct command. An invasion of the Marianas did not fit into this master design.
MacArthur’s chief of staff, Major General Richard Sutherland, formally presented the case against the Marianas in Washington. He observed that 1,000 miles of ocean lay between the Marshalls and the Marianas. To mount a major amphibious invasion across such a distance would drain Allied shipping resources and require many months of preparation. The invasion could not be supported by any land-based aircraft, and the carriers of Task Force 58 would not be able to establish complete dominion in the skies above the landing beaches while simultaneously fighting off the Japanese fleet, should it come out to fight.
Nor did MacArthur hesitate to bypass the Joint Chiefs of Staff by appealing directly to Secretary Stimson and even to Roosevelt. He predicted that the bloodbath at Tarawa would be repeated, but on a far greater scale. MacArthur would contain American casualties by bypassing strong positions and moving quickly to seize territory where the enemy was not strongly entrenched. This last argument, as MacArthur and his acolytes knew well, would be endorsed and trumpeted by the general’s supporters in Congress and in the Hearst press. In mid-January 1944, MacArthur sent a statement of his views on the subject to Stimson (via Brigadier General Frederick H. Osborn):
These frontal attacks by the Navy, as at Tarawa, are tragic and unnecessary massacres of American lives. . . . The Navy fails to understand the strategy of the Pacific, fails to recognize that the first phase is an Army phase to establish land-based air protection so the Navy can move in. . . . Mr. Roosevelt is Navy-minded. Mr. Stimson must speak to him, must persuade him. Give me central direction of the war in the Pacific, and I will be in the Philippines in ten months. . . . Don’t let the Navy’s pride of position and ignorance continue this great tragedy to our country.30
While the relatively bloodless conquest of the Marshalls still lay in the future, trepidation about the potential costs and risks of taking the Marianas found a foothold even in Nimitz’s CINCPAC headquarters. On January 27, 1944, a conference of senior officers from t
hroughout the Pacific convened in Pearl Harbor. MacArthur was represented by Sutherland and his air and naval chiefs, General Kenney and Admiral Kinkaid. Halsey remained in the South Pacific but sent his chief of staff, Admiral Carney. All leading players on Nimitz’s staff were there, as were the naval air chief John Towers, the logistics chief William L. Calhoun, and General Richardson of the army.
From the outset, it was apparent that few were inclined to invade the Marianas. According to Kenney, the sole voice in favor of the operation was that of “Soc” McMorris, Nimitz’s chief of staff. The inevitable absence of land-based air support for the fleet and amphibious forces was deemed a serious obstacle. Many were wary of infantry combat losses on a scale much greater than those of Tarawa. Towers was concerned that the Japanese would stage punishing airstrikes through bases on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima. Kinkaid pointed to a lack of good natural harbors in the Marianas, remarking that “any talk of the Marianas for a base leaves me entirely cold.”31 Calhoun agreed that it would be simpler to move the supporting train of auxiliaries and support vessels along the northern coast of New Guinea. Kenney, with Towers’s emphatic support, cast doubt on the entire enterprise of using B-29s against Japan from bases in the Marianas. Fighters would lack the range to accompany the bombers on the long missions, and without fighter support the Superfortresses would be obliged to bomb from a very high altitude, where accuracy would be poor. Such bombing raids, he said, would be “a stunt” and nothing more. Their consensus recommendation against invading the Marianas was recorded in a memorandum, which Nimitz endorsed and sent on to King. General Kenney later wrote, “The meeting finished with everyone feeling good and ready to work together to get the war over.”32 At a closing luncheon on the twenty-eighth, Nimitz told the assembled group that victory was in sight.
Informed by Sutherland of the result, MacArthur assumed all was settled. All opposition to his proposed line of attack had apparently evaporated, and Nimitz had at last agreed to commit his powerful fleet to the thrust toward the Philippines. MacArthur contacted Marshall and asked for follow-up directives from the Joint Chiefs. His proposed strategy significantly exceeded what the conferees in Pearl Harbor had discussed. He should have the bulk of all Pacific naval forces placed under his command, with Halsey as his new fleet chief, and he wanted the B-29s.
Startled by the sudden uprising, King moved quickly to stamp it out. He wrote Nimitz: “I read your conference notes with much interest, and I must add with indignant dismay.”33 He rebutted the major arguments against the Marianas and closed with the blunt observation that the proposal to join forces with MacArthur in the south “is not in accordance with the decisions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”34 Marshall and Arnold were similarly unmoved.
In any case, subsequent events in the Pacific undermined the case against invading the Marianas. Prewar ideas concerning major amphibious operations had been rendered moot by the immense power of the Pacific Fleet to sweep away opposition in the air and on the beaches. In Operations FLINTLOCK, CATCHPOLE, and HAILSTONE, Task Force 58 began to reveal the scale of its overwhelming strength. In the four months to come, Mitscher’s rampages deep into enemy waters would demonstrate that land-based air cover was no longer the sine qua non of amphibious invasions and other major naval operations. Truk was neutralized and could be safely bypassed. A precipitous decline in the quantity and quality of Japanese airpower permitted more ambitious offensives across the Pacific. Many American officers felt a special obligation to liberate the people of Guam, a U.S. territory under occupation since the start of the war. New doubts were raised against MacArthur’s proposed alternative in the south. The fast carriers could not be deployed to their best advantage in the confined waters between the Dutch East Indies and the southern Philippines. Asked to review the competing views emerging from the Pacific, the Joint Chiefs of Staff planners came down squarely on the side of continuing two parallel offensives, and stressed that the northern line of attack offered the shorter route to Tokyo. Nimitz and his officers reconsidered their objections and finally accepted that the Marianas operation was feasible. On February 29, the operation was designated FORAGER, and planning got underway at CINCPAC headquarters.
On March 11, the Joint Chiefs published a new schedule of operations against Japan. MacArthur’s long jump to Hollandia, on the north central coast of New Guinea, would be completed on April 15. Truk would be kept under pressure by regular air raids and bypassed. The Marianas would be taken by June 15, Palau by September 15. The deadline for the invasion of Mindanao was set for November 15, though that date was merely a placeholder. The return to the Philippines might become feasible earlier, depending on the course of events. That took care of the entire program against Japan for the calendar year 1944.
Nimitz and MacArthur had not yet met in a face-to-face command summit. The latter had routinely declined every invitation to travel outside his theater. The admiral, sensitive to protocols, could not invite himself to Australia. MacArthur was senior to him by a long stretch. (The general had received his first star when Nimitz was a commander.) When the CINCPAC asked for permission to tour naval commands in the Southwest Pacific area, the request was quickly granted, and Nimitz was invited to visit Brisbane. He arrived by seaplane on March 25 and found MacArthur and a retinue of staff officers waiting at the dock.
Nimitz and his flag lieutenant, Arthur Lamar, socialized pleasantly with the MacArthur family. They brought candy and orchids from Pearl Harbor and a silk outfit for the general’s six-year-old son. Their meetings the next day, Admiral Kinkaid recalled, were stiffly formal but largely constructive. There was only one strained moment, when Nimitz called MacArthur’s attention to a clause in the latest directive from the Joint Chiefs. The two theater commanders were to consider a contingency plan, to be activated in case Japanese resistance suddenly weakened, to move directly toward Formosa and the China coast. MacArthur, who never tolerated any talk of circumventing the Philippines, let loose a gale of indignant rhetoric. In a private report to King, Nimitz recapitulated the exchange that followed:
Then he blew up and made an oration of some length on the impossibility of bypassing the Philippines, his sacred obligations there—redemption of the 17 million people—blood on his soul—deserted by American people—etc. etc.—and then a criticism of “those gentlemen in Washington, who, far from the scene, and having never heard the whistle of pellets, etc., endeavor to set the strategy of the Pacific war”—etc. When I could break in I replied that, while I believed I understood his point of view, I could not go along with him, and then—believe it or not—I launched forth in a defense of “those gentlemen in Washington” and told him that the JCS were people like himself and myself, who, with more information, were trying to do their best for the country, and, to my mind, were succeeding admirably.35
MANY ORDINARY JAPANESE BEGAN to suspect that they had been misled, and that the tide of war had turned against their forces in the Pacific. The pattern of official news releases defied logic and common sense. Imperial announcements referred confusingly to glorious victories and strategic withdrawals. New “defense lines,” always closer to the homeland, must be held at all costs. Military experts, writing in the newspapers or speaking on the radio, soberly explained that Japan’s grand strategy was to “draw the enemy in”—to allow him to come closer to the homeland, where at last he could be crushed with one blow. Courageous Japanese troops defended advanced positions to the last man, perishing all together like gyokusai—“smashed jewels.” Whenever a new position was captured by the enemy, it was confidently explained that defeat had been expected, and preparations had been laid in place for it. Official reporting about the war situation, wrote a Japanese American woman who spent the war years in Japan, “involved such obvious contradictions that even the more simple-minded listeners became doubtful.”
Everyone who could think at all realized that the country was in a more and more desperate state, its back to the wall. When it became impossible to hide the truth l
onger, the broadcasters would announce a battle or an island lost, and each time they did so the program was ended with music. It was always the same—the sad, sweet strains of Umi Yukaba, a well-loved old song. All over the nation people would bow their heads while someone quietly turned off the radio. The conviction of ultimate defeat had become widespread but everyone was careful not to speak his opinion; each carried on silently lest his doubts prevent another from doing his best.36
But they wondered, and worried. Aiko Takahashi, a young woman living in Tokyo, mused in her diary, “What exactly is happening? It’s like picking colors in the dark, and for better or worse, there is no criticism of the government. It simply makes us uneasy.”37 The regime generally permitted accurate reporting of the progress of the war in Europe, and it was evident that Japan’s Axis partners were not faring well against the Allies. The surrender of a quarter of a million German troops at Stalingrad was reported in Tokyo the same week that the Japanese people learned that their army had abandoned Guadalcanal. The straightforward accounts from Europe were contrasted with the vague, shifting, and often contradictory narrative about the war in the Pacific. In September 1943 came news that the Italian government of General Pietro Badoglio had capitulated to the Allies. Since the previous July, when the dictator Benito Mussolini had been deposed and arrested, press reports had assured the Japanese people that the new government would carry on fighting for the Axis. Now Allied forces were pouring into southern Italy, and the German army was in retreat. At a newsstand in downtown Tokyo, observed the diarist Kiyoshi Kiyosawa, “people are standing in long, long lines, and they are eager to buy newspapers. It appears they received a considerable shock.”38 Japanese military authorities took to the airwaves and editorial pages and confidently asserted that the fall of Italy was a piece of good fortune, for the Third Reich had finally “thrown off the burden called Italy and an indestructible resistance would now be possible.”39 Kiyosawa lamented the stupidity and shortsightedness of official propaganda. The state-controlled news media was playing fast and loose with whatever remained of its authority and credibility. “It appears that the Japanese newspapers do not even have the common sense and logic of elementary school students.”40