1945 (20 page)

Dennis again settled into the shrubs to wait. Something was happening down in the nearby camps, and Joe was trying to confirm it. Joe was upset enough that he didn't even mention what it was he'd noticed, although, upon reflection, Dennis thought it likely that it was something else Joe didn't want him to know about. It was, Dennis realized, just another mystery he would have to deal with.

General Anami had been drunk for a while. The other two senior officers, more recently arrived at the command bunker, were still relatively sober. The Americans were coming and it had reached the point where the generals and admirals could not prevent a landing. It would be up to the soldiers and sailors of Nippon to destroy the invaders. In a way it was a relief.

Anami waved his hand to get their attention as they gathered about the table in the safety of the bunker. His gesture was impolite, but the others ignored the breach of etiquette.

"Kyushu," the general said with only the hint of a slur in his voice. "It will be Kyushu. Of that there is no doubt."

General Anami did not necessarily see such confidence in his declaration in the eyes of the others. Admiral Toyoda was openly worried, and Field Marshal Sugiyama looked away when he heard the statement. They were all thinking the same thing: the right decision meant Japan had a chance of ultimate victory, but the wrong one would result in total disaster and an end to the Japan they revered. They had focused on defending the island of Kyushu, but now they had doubts.

"But what if we are wrong," Toyoda wondered aloud. "If the Americans choose to attack elsewhere, such as Korea, Shikoku, or, God forbid, the Kanto Plain outside Tokyo itself, we would be hard-pressed to stop them. Indeed, we would never stop them."

Anami slapped the table with the flat of his hand. The sharp noise made the others wince. "Kyushu. It will only be Kyushu! Nothing else makes sense. We know how the Americans fight. They are cowards who depend on the weight of their supplies to overwhelm us, instead of fighting at close range like warriors should. For this they need bases and air cover. For them to attack Shikoku or the Kanto Plain would be for them to ignore those needs. No, they will not attack Tokyo without supply depots and land-based air cover. Like us, the Americans are out of options."

Anami chuckled. "I recall that the late and revered Admiral Yamamoto liked to play the American game of poker, which he learned during his tour of duty at our embassy in Washington. I also recall that he taught it to us."

Admiral Toyoda smiled at the memory. "I lost a great deal of money to Yamamoto in a vain attempt to master that game."

Anami wondered what the great Yamamoto would have recommended they do in a situation such as this. He had the uncomfortable feeling that Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, would have counseled surrender. Yamamoto was one of a number of commanders who had worn the cloak of Bushido lightly. It was as if his years in the United States had softened him. Perhaps it was better for their sacred cause that Yamamoto lived on only in memory.

Anami sighed. "To use another American saying, we must play the cards we've been dealt. We are in desperate straits, but we still have some good cards in our hand. First, they must come to us and fight on our homelands, which our military will defend with every drop of blood in their veins. Second, we know exactly what they will do and when they will do it."

The others nodded reluctant agreement. Their actions had been based on a briefing by the brilliant Maj. Eizo Hori of the General Staff. Hori, legendary as a result of his earlier assessments of American intentions, had forecasted the attacks on Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Okinawa with stunning clarity. Japan's tragedy was that she'd been unable to do anything to stop them.

This time would be different. Hori had determined that Kyushu, and only Kyushu, would be the target of the first American assault, and that the attack would occur after October, when the typhoon season was considered over. Hori had then traveled to Kyushu and interviewed

Lt. Gen. Isamu Yokoyama, the commander of the Sixteenth Military District, which comprised Kyushu. He had then hiked the paths and traveled over the stark beaches of the forbidding island.

Hori concluded that the Americans were going to attack in only three places, and that they would attack more than one of them at a time in an attempt to overwhelm the Japanese defenders. The three places were the west side of the Satsuma Peninsula, Ariake Bay on the east side of Kyushu, and the land south of the city of Miyazaki , which was also on the eastern part of the island. No other places made sense. America's goals would be to establish bases in the bays of Kagoshima and Ariake and use them to launch a final assault on the Kanto Plain. Once lodged on Kyushu, the Americans would be almost impossible to dislodge. Thus, it was absolutely essential that they be defeated before securing bases on Kyushu.

Hori's logic convinced both Anami and Yokoyama, who subsequently developed their plans based on those assessments. Anami and the others had seen nothing to change their minds in the ensuing months. All American efforts hinted at by intelligence sources that allegedly aimed at Formosa or Korea, or anywhere else for that matter, were dismissed as feints. The landings would come on Kyushu, and they would come soon. Already there were reports that large American forces had left the Philippines and that others would soon leave Okinawa.

General Sugiyama sipped his drink. "General Yokoyama has deployed fifty-two thousand men to repel landings on the Satsuma Peninsula, sixty-one thousand men at Miyazaki, and another fifty-five thousand men at Ariake Bay . Altogether he will defend the coast with sixteen infantry divisions plus a number of fixed coastal brigades as a first line of defense. They will be quickly reinforced by four additional infantry divisions and three tank brigades once the exact strength and direction of the American attacks are ascertained."

"Tanks?" Admiral Toyoda queried with a smile and a suppressed giggle. The small and underarmed Japanese tanks were monumentally inferior to their American counterparts. What armor the Japanese army possessed had worked well against the Chinese, who had even less, but the American Sherman tank outclassed anything the Japanese had, presuming that Japanese tanks could find their way to the battlefield under the watching eyes of American planes.

"Our tanks," Sugiyama responded with a trace of bitterness, "along with other reinforcements, will move at night to places where they can be dug in and hidden. They will then function as relatively stationary defensive weapons."

"Good," said Toyoda in an attempt to mollify the prickly field marshal.

Sugiyama regained his usual boisterous confidence. "There are now more than six hundred thousand men on Kyushu with more arriving daily. The Americans will be crushed."

Anami nodded. "And what about American airpower?" Far too many of the enormous Japanese army on Kyushu were on the northern part. They would have to travel overland to reach the southern portion where the initial battles would take place.

Sugiyama shrugged dismissively. "Airpower has never yet won a war. Their planes will hinder us, but they will not stop us. As we will do with the tanks, we will make every effort to move our infantry at night, and in small groups if they must travel during the day. That way their planes won't see us. It will make it difficult for us to coordinate any large-scale attacks, but again, it will not stop us. Even now our men are swarming over the hills to the south of Kyushu where the decisive battle will be fought. General Yokoyama will have our men form defensive lines and independent strongpoints rather than waste themselves on piecemeal attacks that would be decimated by overwhelming American firepower. While attack may be the preferred method of fighting for the Japanese soldier, I concur with General Yokoyama that a fierce defense would better serve our poor country."

General Anami agreed. It would be far better for the Americans to impale themselves on Japanese defenses than for it to be the other way around. He had no doubt that the Americans would ultimately be able to force themselves through the first line of defenses on Kyushu. It was only intended that they pay a terrible price for the privilege.

"Admiral?" Anami asked as he turned to the senior naval officer.

Toyoda also reflected confidence. "The Americans will bleed from a million wounds. We have amassed more than ten thousand kamikaze planes, along with a thousand Ohka piloted rockets. That is more than six times what we used with such devastating effect at Okinawa. The pilots have been instructed to leave the picket ships alone and to go for the troopships and carriers only. They are not to squander themselves on unimportant targets like destroyers and other small ships."

They recalled the efforts wasted on the American picket destroyers at Okinawa. It was reputed that one destroyer, the
Laffey
, had been hit by twenty kamikazes, a total waste of effort. Anami wasn't even certain that the
Laffey
had been sunk after all that effort.

"There are," Toyoda announced proudly, "still more than a dozen destroyers and fifty submarines remaining in our fleet. The destroyers will all attack, as will those submarines not in use ferrying soldiers from Korea or currently on other duties. We have more than four hundred midget submarines as well as thousands of smaller craft which have been equipped with mines, bombs, and torpedoes. While many of the men sailing in them are not true kamikazes, all have pledged to press their attacks with vigor."

"Good," said Anami.

Toyoda bowed at the brief compliment. "As Field Marshal Sugiyama has said, our efforts to launch the attacks and to carry them out will be handicapped by the American planes, but not halted. Our aircraft and naval forces are dispersed and well hidden. We had hoped to be able to launch our attacks on their shipping as one overwhelming wave of planes and ships, but the disruptions to our communications will prevent that. Instead, our forces will attack as they receive the orders to do so. This may be a blessing in disguise as the result will be many days of continuous warfare, which will strain and exhaust the Americans at the most critical time of the battle."

It was reality, Anami concluded, and his companions had adapted to it. "General Sugiyama, how about your plans to arm the civilian population?"

Sugiyama flushed slightly. "It has not gone well. There are some units forming, but not in the numbers we expected. We are dismayed by the defeatism within the civilian population. When the bombers come over, more and more civilians are putting out white flags of surrender, as if— he snorted derisively— "the bombers could see them. There are so many civilians waving white flags that our police have almost given up trying to stop them. General Yokoyama feels they would be a hindrance in battle and I have deferred to his judgment. On the other hand, he is using tens of thousands of civilians to dig defenses, carry supplies overland, and to staff hospitals. What weapons we have are being given to infantry newly arrived from Korea, many of whom have lost so much in escaping from the mainland.

Those few civilians who have volunteered to fight are being given bamboo spears and taught how to make Molotov cocktails."

Again, Anami accepted the reality. The bulk of the population of Japan were not warriors, not samurai, and had been shocked and terrified by the devastation the war had brought them. The economic fabric of Japan had been torn apart. People no longer went to work; instead, they spent their time in hiding and almost never emerged. It was up to men like himself to save them.

"The Americans are weak," Anami added softly. "Their economy is in ruins and their army is ready to mutiny. Why else would they cancel the rationing of civilian goods, and why else would they release their best warriors and return them to civilian life? No, the United States is severely weakened and needs only a push before its will to fight disintegrates. Because they have released so many soldiers, we will be fighting their second and third best, many of whom have no combat experience. Their better soldiers have had their fill of us and are running home. These are more reasons why we will win this battle and save Japan!" he added vehemently.

"But what about the Russians?" Sugiyama asked. A quick glance at the map showed that Soviet forces were well south of the Yalu in Korea and were on the verge of taking the city of Pyongyang, while other Red armies were driving into the heart of China . Amphibious forces of the Red Army had taken the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island to the north of the island of Hokkaido. Those islands, however, had not been heavily defended. This did not stop the assaults from shocking the Anami government. As a result, additional forces had been sent northward to defend Hokkaido from similar landings. It had also forced the Japanese to reassess their situation with regard to the Soviets.

"The Russians," Anami said with a sneer, "are paying the price of their treachery. Already they are running out of supplies, and a Siberian winter is beginning to blanket them in ice and snow. Do not worry about the Russians. Stalin's frozen and hungry legions are not going to be a factor in the coming battle."

And so much more was going on with Stalin. At Anami's direction, Foreign Minister Hideki Tojo was working wonders with the most subtle of negotiations. With only the slightest good fortune, there would be some unpleasant diplomatic and military surprises for the Americans as the despised Soviets were being extremely cooperative. Anami thought that the Soviets also wanted the Americans to bleed profusely.

Anami took another sip of the cheap, harsh whiskey that was all that remained of what had once been a magnificent supply. But they would be stopped, he swore.

The Decisive Battle would begin shortly. The storm that had swept the Pacific and caused so much damage on Okinawa had delayed the inevitable invasion but not stopped it. Yet, every day the invasion was delayed had brought additional strength and numbers to the defenders of Kyushu. What a magnificent thing it would be, Anami thought, surging with pride, if the typhoon turned out to be yet another divine wind, a true kamikaze.