No Strategic Bombing? (2 Viewers)

[Dimlee]

Even the Soviets were increasingly relying on adding Eastern Europe troops to bolster the Soviet numbers.

And sending 17-year-olds to the frontline in the last 6-7 months of the war in Europe.

 

[GrauGeist]

And it was not alone. British units were increasingly being added to the Canadian forces who were also running out of men. In 1945 RAF aircrew in training were being diverted to infantry and, despite the vital need for coal to support wartime production and power generally, the 'Bevan Boys' who had been chosen for the mines upon conscription were considered to be pulled out and turned into infantry. The home based British AA units were being combed out and increasingly staffed by women who were found to be performing better than the low class men who preceded them. On the US side there was less of a problem but the material support to equip the French army should be less seen as gifts and aid to France and more as the French manning the equipment without further extending US conscription.

Not unique by this stage of the war. The German were scraping the bottom of the barrel with Volkssturm and Hitler Jugend recruits in action. Even the Soviets were increasingly relying on adding Eastern Europe troops to bolster the Soviet numbers.

A clear sign of Germany's latewar manpower issues can be seen in the Luftwaffe's pilot pool, where even the Me262 was being piloted by Gefreiters, Obergefreiters, Feldwebels and other enlisted ranks.

 

[FulmenTheFinn]

A clear sign of Germany's latewar manpower issues can be seen in the Luftwaffe's pilot pool, where even the Me262 was being piloted by Gefreiters, Obergefreiters, Feldwebels and other enlisted ranks.

Are you sure this wasn't just normal in the GAF to begin with? In the FAF (FiAF) for instance it was.

EDIT: Checked with a German contact. It was normal in the GAF to have NCOs and rank and file be pilots, already in the early war. Nothing to do with any manpower shortage.

 

[Howard Gibson]

A clear sign of Germany's latewar manpower issues can be seen in the Luftwaffe's pilot pool, where even the Me262 was being piloted by Gefreiters, Obergefreiters, Feldwebels and other enlisted ranks.

Only the Americans required pilots to be commissioned officers.

 

[BobB]

Only the Americans required pilots to be commissioned officers.

US Army & Navy both had non-com pilots early in the war but started pushing them aside as the training commands produced huge numbers of new officer pilots. My father said that his Navy ACORN unit had a petty officer who had flown SBD's early in the war but had been reassigned later. Of course, if you've actually served in combat, being reassigned to a support position is better than "fly until you die". Someone who went through USN photographic school in the 1960's told me that they had petty officers flying RC-45's because they were not allowed to check out in new aircraft and that was one of the few aircraft remaining in service that they could fly.

 

[Alan Stevens]

US Army & Navy both had non-com pilots early in the war but started pushing them aside as the training commands produced huge numbers of new officer pilots. My father said that his Navy ACORN unit had a petty officer who had flown SBD's early in the war but had been reassigned later. Of course, if you've actually served in combat, being reassigned to a support position is better than "fly until you die". Someone who went through USN photographic school in the 1960's told me that they had petty officers flying RC-45's because they were not allowed to check out in new aircraft and that was one of the few aircraft remaining in service that they could fly.

My Dad went thru OCS and became a 2nd Lieutenant at age 18. In training to be a B-17 pilot when the war ended.

That is how much they needed pilots. He was a licensed private pilot at 15 so he knew how to fly.

 

[GrauGeist]

Yes, Germany had enlisted pilots, particularly in the bomber and transport sectors, but my comment focused on the Me262, operational late-war. The Me262 was the elite of Germany's fighters and they had Gefreiters piloting them (one such example would be Joseph Heim of JG7 who made Ace).

A Gefreiter is basically an Airman First Class.

 

[FulmenTheFinn]

Yes, Germany had enlisted pilots, particularly in the bomber and transport sectors, but my comment focused on the Me262, operational late-war. The Me262 was the elite of Germany's fighters and they had Gefreiters piloting them (one such example would be Joseph Heim of JG7 who made Ace).

A Gefreiter is basically an Airman First Class.

This alone doesn't mean anything, when in the German context Airman 1st Class piloting aircraft was business as usual, unless there's a definite correlation with this and a manpower shortage, that can be proven or deduced from the primary sources.

 

[larrymc]

Some possibilities:

IIRC Attacks on the U-boat pens were planned using Mosquitoes and/or A-20s with either torpedoes or a similar system to Highball. Basically sending the torpedo, or bouncing the bomb, into the mouths of the pens. No idea of how effective this would have been, but it would have been interesting to see if it was. Plus, in this scenario the power flushing of the U-boat pens by dropping very large bombs in the waterway just outside of the pens would still be acceptable.

A reduction in the strategic bombing efforts could have allowed more 4-engine GR aircraft for convoy escort and the anti-U-boat campaign, earlier in the war, thereby maybe shortening the North Atlantic campaign.


In the PTO re the blockade

US ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) was continuously intercepting and decoding Japanese transmissions until the end of the war. There were also several spies on the Japanese mainland that managed to get intel to the Allies. While there were some of the Japanese High Command that wanted to fight to the death of every Japanese citizen, they were in the minority, and the average soldier and civilian had no such intentions.

Add in the fact that regardless of what a few fanatics wanted:

ONI ELINT/HUMINT collected in late-July 1945 indicated that starvation would set in soon (half rationing had already begun in the Spring) and would start having serious and debilitating morale effects within 2 months. The position of the majority of the Japanese High Command was that surrender would be "necessary" within a few months - the only real question for the non-fanatic Japanese High Command members was what terms were acceptable (they were not aware that the US intent was to force unconditional surrender, regardless of anything else, since the early-1930s). The USN High Command pushed for largely drawing back and waiting for starvation to cause Japan's surrender, the US Army/Air Force High Command did not. (Note that the USN High Command was aware of the viability of the A-bomb since shortly before its deployment.) The decision to drop the A-bomb was due to the rational that it was likely to shorten the war and thereby save Allied lives, and had virtually nothing to do with saving Japanese lives - as can be attested to by the various plans put forward by the US High Command before and during the war, which included mass gas attacks of every city in Japan in one or more of the pre- and early-war plans, as was fire bombing of every city, and the record of acknowledged willingness to A-bomb as many cities as necessary. There were worries in the political realm that the political backlash would be unacceptable if the US did not use the A-bomb, and even a relatively small number of US troops were killed while waiting for Japan to surrender due to starvation.

IIUC The shortage of raw materials and food was caused (almost in its entirety) by the mining of ports and sinking of the Japanese transport fleet (whether by air or by submarine). While a few areas were affected by the destruction of the rail system, most of the effective destruction was accomplished by what we would define as tactical bombing in the discussion. Japan still had significant stocks of aviation fuel, and a fair number of aircraft - whether to be used for normal warfare or Kamikaze attacks - but their Navy was neutralized. The neutralization and destruction of the Japanese Navy was done by USN aircraft and the mining of the harbors (either by submarine or USN/USAAF aircraft).

In this scenario, in any of the major theaters the presence of long-range (4-engine?) heavy bomber type aircraft would still be needed, whether for attacking point targets or laying mines at longer ranges, but how many is open to question.

Again, exactly how much this would change the course of the war is also open to discussion.

I must demur on Japanese unwillingness. I had an Issei friend who was about 10 in 1945; she lived on Kyushu. She and her sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and cousins were training with bamboo spears, preparing -- and prepared, in the spring of 1945 -- to defend the homeland against foreign invaders.
This seems to have been a pattern among all the Home Islands. The A-bombs probably saved 5-7 million Japanese lives, versus Operation Olympic, as well as 1-2 million American lives.
And in modern industrialized warfare, there are really very few "innocent civilians," since pretty much the whole economy is involved in feeding the war machine.

 

[special ed]

I may have pointed this out before. The Japanese civilian defenders were prepared, the young with spears, the old men with swords, and single shot shotguns made from pipe. I have said what we now call PTSD would have been very much present in the allied victors when returning home to little brothers and sisters, and grandparents, reminding them of those in Japan they had to kill. Most of the U.S. troops invading would have been 18 & 19 year olds having heard for 3 to 4 years about the savage things occurring in the Pacific.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Japanese military was also stockpiling fuel, ammunition, supplies and most importantly, equipment.

Aside from the fact that they had suicide sub units strategically located along the coast, the Japanese had developed a tank designed to counter the M4 Sherman: the Type 3 Chi-Nu and the entire production run was assigned to the 4th Tank Division based in Fukuoka, Kyushu.
There also thousands of fighters held in reserve, located in strategic areas, intended for Operation Ketsu-Go. Add to this, 2,000 dedicated top of the line fighter escorts who's mission was to escort waves of special attack (tokkōtai) aircraft.

 

[muskeg13]

I'm just over half way through Hell To Pay, by D.M. Giangreco and the allied situation only gets worse with each new page. In addition to the massive stockpiling GrauGeist notes above, there are food and medical reserves and everything is very widely dispersed and camouflaged often underground or in caves. It was hard to hit these stockpiles when planners couldn't pinpoint them for targeting. All of the major manufacturing had been parceled out.

Postwar intelligence shockingly revealed that not only had the Japanese correctly guessed exactly where and when the US-led allied forces would attack, and they feverishly were preparing their defenses accordingly during the last 4-6 months of the war, including marshalling 12,700 aircraft to be used in the first 10 days of of the invasions of Kyushu (Operation Olympic) and Honshu (Operation Coronet), and this doesn't count any new production that was continuing in dispersed factories or aircraft that might be repositioned from the Asian mainland and Formosa. US Intelligence had miscalculated enemy aircraft strength by 5500! Many of these were slow obsolete wood and fabric biplane trainers that had proven to be hard to detect by radar and could not be effectively engaged by AA using existing proximity fuzes. These manned suicide drones were particularly deadly at night when they couldn't be visually detected until they were right on the target. Likewise US Intelligence planners woefully underestimated the numbers of Japanese soldiers already deployed to defend the Kyushu beaches. MacArthur had first estimated his 14 divisions would face 6-10 divisions, but by the end of June 1945, it was apparent that the Japanese had stationed 13+ divisions on Kyushu and the numbers would eventually reach 15 divisions. MacArthur's intel chief, MG Willoughby exclaimed that if Japanese reinforcements were not checked, allied forces would be attacking with only a 1:1 force ratio, and "This is not a recipe for victory!"

Much has been speculated as to if Japan was already largely defeated and was starving, why not just blockade and wait them out, allowing famine to end the war. This was a No Go for several reasons. US planners estimated that it could take two years or more to starve the Japanese into submission. They didn't know the extent of stored food especially since food management had been delegated from the national level to the prefects, and it was unknown how much food was being produced locally in the Japanese version of "Victory Gardens." If, starvation was to be the main weapon, the US didn't want to be responsible for the genocide of an estimated 20 million Japanese civilians, and it would be the old, weak and very young who would suffer the most as they already were on greatly reduced rations compared to the uniformed military forces. The second drawback to waiting for a blockade to end the war was that the politicians and populaces of the allies (probably including the Soviets too) were extremely weary of fighting the war and were demanding a quick end and to bring their 'boys" home. This sentiment had already caused severe personnel shortages for US Forces when the politicians demanded a partial demobilization (the "Points System") even before the end of the war in Europe. While all of the armed forces were having trouble reaching their draft call up quotas, the most experienced were being sent home even before the Germans surrendered. If Japan had to be taken by force, it was estimated that casualties would be at least as bad and probably worse than was experienced in taking Okinawa and 100,000-120,000 soldier recruits, 40,000 Navy and Marine Recruits and 20,000 airmen would be needed EACH MONTH as replacements. The Army barely was inducting 100,000/month after reducing standards. The politicians had also increased the basic training requirement to 6 months for those 18 and younger. If a blockade was adopted, there's no way these millions of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen could be kept twiddling their thumbs waiting for Japan to fall. Unit morale would tank, and the politicians and people would demand they be sent home before the fall of Japan. Japanese leadership keenly followed the US media and judged their people were tougher and could probably ride it out until the exasperated allies either gave up or were recalled to return home, that is until two of their remaining major cities were vaporized a few days apart by a weapon they couldn't defend against.

 

[Dimlee]

And the USSR would try to take Hokkaido while the Allies were busy in the south.
Just imagine "North Japan" in a post-WWII world.

 

[muskeg13]

And the USSR would try to take Hokkaido while the Allies were busy in the south.
Just imagine "North Japan" in a post-WWII world.

No. Truman and Marshall were having none of that BS after Stalin "pushed the envelope" and asked for additional naval support and a partition of northern Japan. The answer was a very direct, NO! The Soviets were completely dependent on US naval support to conduct their landings and for naval fire support. Truman was firm, saying that this was not was agreed to at Yalta, and that there would absolutely not be any partition of Japan. However, Soviet re-acquisition of Manchuria was not opposed. Stalin backed down.

It seems the Soviets only had a tepid invitation to attend the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay.

 

[Dimlee]

No. Truman and Marshall were having none of that BS after Stalin "pushed the envelope" and asked for additional naval support and a partition of northern Japan. The answer was a very direct, NO! The Soviets were completely dependent on US naval support to conduct their landings and for naval fire support. Truman was firm, saying that this was not was agreed to at Yalta, and that there would absolutely not be any partition of Japan. However, Soviet re-acquisition of Manchuria was not opposed. Stalin backed down.

It seems the Soviets only had a tepid invitation to attend the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay.

You are right to describe a real-life situation.

What I meant was a what-if scenario discussed earlier: the Allies attempted the invasion, probably in November 1945—and got stuck.
What leverage does the US have over the USSR in that situation? Yes, US naval and air support would not be granted, but training was completed, and all the equipment (including ships and landing craft) was delivered in the first days of September.
Cutting the rest of the Lend-Lease? It's almost over anyway.
Diplomatic notes? Molotov would carefully store them on the bottom shelf of his desk.
Threats? Total Soviet ground-force dominance in Europe and continental East Asia.
Of course, the invasion of Hokkaido would not be easy for the Soviets, as historical battles in the Kurils and Sakhalin demonstrated. But they could/would be lured by such a rare opportunity.
Chances of Soviet success in Hokkaido? That requires a careful estimate of capabilities, playing more what-if scenarios, studying actual weather reports of November 1945, etc.

 

[drgondog]

Strategic bombing was a controversial strategy during World War II. Most of the victims were (fairly) innocent civilians. The campaign used up massive allied lives and resources. In addition to tying down Luftwaffe resources and damaging German industry, it provided something that could be presented to the Russians as a second front. Note the number of American and British air commanders who receieved high Russian medals.

In an alternate history, the western allies do not do strategic bombing. They are just as determined to win the war, They need to keep the Russians happy somehow.

Absent strategic bombing, and specifically the Combined Bomber Offensive, several things would seem true:
The Soviets would only accept an Invasion of France as a commitment to a second front.
An invasion of France conceptually would fail absent Allied control of the air. Look to Anzio and Salerno for illustrations of impact of a small LW air attack strategy on the seaside logistics supporting each seaborne assault.

Strategic bombing had the desired effect of forcing the Luftwaffe to engage with escort fighters and bombers. Only with accelerated attrition of fighter pilots, the results of the oil campaign and the relentless attacks on engine mafrs, airframe production, aircraft repair facilities and airfields forced Germany to oppose Allied Air in major force. Only the Strategic bombing campaign forced reinforcement of 30+ experienced LW fighter squadrons from Ost and Sud to oppose 8th AF in summer 1943 through spring 1944 - to be destroyed by escort fighters, with no pipeline from flying schools to replace losses.

The re-direction of AAA from anti-tank resources on eastern front to provide Flak to protect key industry, re-allocation of bomber/attack inventory to fighter/interceptors also benefitted the Soviets and weakened resources to resist invasion in the west.

Given that both the Combined Chiefs and our leadership viewed destruction of the LW in fall 1943 as the key objective to raise the confidence that Overlord could succeed, how does that happen without a,) forcing the LW to engage with Allied airpower on OUR terms, and b.) introducing strategic airpower including target escort, and b.) striking and seriously damaging Energy supplies to the entire German war machine?

IMO, the USSR prevails despite our lack of contribution of strategic airpower as delivered, and Europe changes common language to Russian.

We would prevail in the Pacific without strategic airpower at enormous cost by eventually closing on Japan by perhaps 1946/1947, pretty much due to US naval power to project force within 300 mi, combined with AAF tactical air and transport within closely located land masses such as SWP, Philipines, etc.

Of course there would not have been a vehicle to deliver a nuclear weapon short of a fast drone ship or specially designed submarine for ports access.

 

[EwenS]

The other fly in the ointment to a successful Operation Olympic and which the Allies had no control over was the weather. Typhoon season in the NW Pacific runs about June to December.

1945 Pacific typhoon season - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The actual surrender ceremony itself was held up for about a week due to a typhoon passing through the area off Japan. That led to the probably apocryphal exchange of signals on 25th Aug (although it made headline news Sydney Sunday Sun newspaper)

Adm Bogan USN to Capt QD Graham HMS Indefatigable - "How did you weather the typhoon?"
Alleged response - " What Typhoon!"

Indefatigable did suffer some relatively minor damage but reported green seas above flight deck level including one that landed on it. USS Wasp had the forward 30ft of her flight deck smashed down onto the forecastle as had happened in the June typhoon to Hornet & Bennington.

https://www.navsource.net/archives/02/021846.jpg

https://www.navsource.net/archives/02/021847.jpg

Another major typhoon, Typhoon Ida, struck Okinawa on 16th Sept followed by Typhoon Louise on 9th Oct. Both wreaked significant damage on shore facilities and shipping, with Louise being particularly ferocious.This is the report on the effects of Typhoon Louise on Okinawa.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/p/pacific-typhoon-october-1945.html

Had the war been ongoing the potential effects could have been (my emphasis):-

"However, in early October, Typhoon Louise took a sudden unexpected turn and on 9 October 1945 hit Okinawa full force, with hundreds of U.S. ships and vessels in Buckner Bay that didn't have time to escape to sea. Twelve ships and craft were sunk, 222 were grounded, and another 32 severely damaged beyond repair. Casualties included 36 killed, 47 missing, and over 100 with serious injuries. Three destroyer-minesweepers and a destroyer escort were driven aground. The destroyer escort, Oberender (DE-444), was refloated, but the three destroyer-minesweepers were deemed not worth repair. About 107 amphibious craft were grounded, many of them wrecked beyond salvage, including four of six LSTs that were driven aground. Eighty percent of the buildings on Okinawa were destroyed or severely damaged, many still packed with war supplies. All 60 aircraft on Okinawa airfields were damaged. Only a month earlier, hundreds of aircraft were crammed on Okinawa airfields as well as many more ships and amphibious craft. The toll would have been far higher had Operation Olympic been underway. Instead, the vast majority of ships and aircraft were gone. Estimates shortly after the typhoon concluded that Operation Olympic would have been delayed by 45 days, which then would have put it in the teeth of winter storm season (in planning for Olympic, 1 December had been assessed as the last feasible date for the operation)."

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-057/h-057-1.html

So Japan may yet have been saved from invasion as it had been in 1274 & 1281 when Kublai Khan tried to invade. More likely the fateful day would just be postponed. Question is to when. Could the Allies recover in time to invade before the beginning of Dec or does Olympic get pushed into 1946? Then what effect does that have on Coronet?

 

[Dimlee]

@EwenS, thank you for the excellent information about 1945 typhoons.
There is an interesting map of Typhoon Louise in that Wiki article. It shows one more low-pressure area over the southern Sea of Okhotsk. It is one of the cold-season cyclones that move west to east in autumn and winter regularly.
The lower the temperature over the Siberian landmass, the higher the cyclones' intensity.
So, the entire theatre from south to north would be impacted by bad weather for two weeks or longer in October.
And as winter is coming, tropical cyclones become weaker and no longer reach Japan, but those "Siberian" cyclones get stronger and more frequent.
Rough seas, prolonged rains (turning volcanic soil into mud in the south), heavy swell between the cyclones, low clouds, wet snow in the north. When low pressure is replaced by high, skies are cleared, but temperatures drop immediately, 10-20C degrees in several hours; icing becomes a danger in the north, mud turns into ice, and wind speeds reach 50-60 knots with gusts of hurricane force. Several days of chaos, a couple of days of calm. Then the cycle repeats.

 

[muskeg13]

You are right to describe a real-life situation.

What I meant was a what-if scenario discussed earlier: the Allies attempted the invasion, probably in November 1945—and got stuck.
What leverage does the US have over the USSR in that situation? Yes, US naval and air support would not be granted, but training was completed, and all the equipment (including ships and landing craft) was delivered in the first days of September.
Cutting the rest of the Lend-Lease? It's almost over anyway.
Diplomatic notes? Molotov would carefully store them on the bottom shelf of his desk.
Threats? Total Soviet ground-force dominance in Europe and continental East Asia.
Of course, the invasion of Hokkaido would not be easy for the Soviets, as historical battles in the Kurils and Sakhalin demonstrated. But they could/would be lured by such a rare opportunity.
Chances of Soviet success in Hokkaido? That requires a careful estimate of capabilities, playing more what-if scenarios, studying actual weather reports of November 1945, etc.

Given the weather, the terrain of Kyushu and Honshu being unsuitable for European-style mobile warfare and the extensive Japanese defense preparations unknown to the allies until after the war, I believe (barring "atomic salvation") US and Commonwealth forces most certainly would become bogged down and possibly be forced to evacuate and withdraw without more active Soviet participation. Politics at this point could begin to dictate major historical changes. The Soviet "request" for a partition might be reluctantly accepted, and the Japanese might get away with an armistice and a negotiated peace. Truman would be held responsible for the failure and is likely forced to resign. MacArthur and his propaganda machine would find a way to absolve his part in the failure ("If only Marshall and Truman had listen to me, we could have prevailed."), and MacArthur would end up as 34th President.

 

[EwenS]

There are another couple of aspects to an invasion of Japan that were being seriously considered but generally receive little attention. Firstly the use of poison gases against both military and civilian targets. Secondly the use of biological weapons in any attempt to blockade Japan and starve it into submission.

Poison gas

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2015/august/another-alternative-poison-gas

Certainly the American public's view of using poison gas seemed to soften as 1945 went on and casualties began to mount in the Iwo Jima & Okinawa campaigns.

Should We Use Poison Gas?

How public opinion influenced military policy on poison gas in World War II.

www.nationalww2museum.org

After the WW1 experience poison gas was a much feared weapon that the international community sought to limit if not eliminate via international Treaty, for example the Geneva Protocols of 1925 which the US signed up to but didn't get round to ratifying until 1975. One result of the fear of its use against the civilian population in Britain was the issue of gas masks to every man, woman & child in the country in 1938/39 and the development of gas masks for animals like dogs and horses.

Why Britain issued gas masks in 1939

To protect civilians from the effects of dreaded gas raids, respirators were issued to the entire population. Find out more about life in 1939 from Findmypast.

www.findmypast.co.uk

Gas masks for horses

Gas masks for horses. The curator's choice

www.uu.nl

Had Britain been invaded in 1940 there was every intention of using poison gases against the invaders. Virtually all the warring nations in WW2 had gas weapons and moved them around in their rear areas as required. And there were accidents.

Air raid on Bari - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So while the article I linked covered the US position, the question remains as to how Japan might have used poison gases either as a first use against an invasion, or in retaliation. It had used them previously in China.

Japanese expert uncovers Japan's use of chemical weapons during WWII

A Japanese scholar who focuses on tracing Japan's wartime chemical weapons legacy on Wednesday revis

www.bastillepost.com

Unit 731 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Biological weapons
There are several stories about how Japan used these in China from 1937 onwards, and their development at Unit 731 (see above). In 1945 it even formulated a plan to attack California with biological weapons.


But the Allies too developed biological weapons in WW2. Amongst other things, Britain weaponised Anthrax and tested it. Churchill had to be reigned in from using it by the Chiefs of Staff.

Gruinard Island - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The US also had a biological weapons programme. Had the option to starve Japan into submission been taken, there were plans to target her crops biologically to hurry up the process.

When you begin to look at the various options to defeat Japan at the end of the day and despite the casualties they inflicted both immediately and subsequently, the A-bombs, were probably the cheapest option in terms of the destruction of human life.