A detailed look at how the military has attempted to rise to the challenge of the deadliest component modern urban warfare. For once, WaPo impresses.
Precursor to the Terminator series? Who's to say? But what was once saving lives as a bomb disposal robot has been retooled to 
carry weapons for combat. Pictured is a SWORDS* bot, 3 of which have been deployed to Iraq. None have fired a shot to date, but expect that to change.
They are designed to be used in high-risk situations, like scouting narrow streets infested with snipers before a foot patrol is sent in. Major Saitta, a consultant for the program, nails it when he says:
Anytime you utilize technology to take a U.S. service member out of harm’s way, it is worth every penny.
Although these metal soldiers were ready to go in 2004, they had a tendency to spin out of control from time to time. As this isn't exactly desirable during a firefight, they were kept at home while work continued. But now, according to Danger Room:
So the radio-controlled robots were retooled, for greater safety. In the past, weak signals would keep the robots from getting orders for as much as eight seconds -- a significant lag during combat. Now, the SWORDS won't act on a command, unless it's received right away. A three-part arming process -- with both physical and electronic safeties -- is required before firing. Most importantly, the machines now come with kill switches, in case there's any odd behavior. "So now we can kill the unit if it goes crazy," Zecca says.
Danger Room also has a video from Future Weapons, while Gizmodo has additional pictures. Via Digg.
* special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system
American Express is donating $5 million to a new charity to be chosen by card members. Among the projects being considered (and actually receiving votes) are restoring the bee population, saving Lake Winnipesaukee (that's in New Hampshire) and posting women artist's work online.
The only effort that is related to the military is something called Treating our Troops, a project that would establish a nationwide system of rehabilitative specialists to bridge the gap in care for troops returning from Iraq. Says the creator:
This project is not meant to take the place of care given at a VA facility or other military hospital. What I hope to do with this project is treat injured soldiers who have been discharged from an inpatient military hospital, and can sometimes wait up to a year to be seen at their local VA. I feel that if these soldiers can receive therapy within a week or two of being discharged from an inpatient facility, they would be more likely to not only maintain the gains they made in the inpatient hospital but be able to improve upon them. Unfortunately, a lot of these soldiers are discharged from the hospital without a clear plan of care and then lose a lot of the skills and functional ability they gained while in inpatient care. Due to this loss of function, by the time they get to the VA it is almost like starting over again. Hopefully, this project will work in conjunction with the VA system to give a full continuum of care to our injured troops.
This nascent charity has survived previous rounds and made the top 25. It needs about 2,000 votes on Sunday to make it into the top five and thus make it into the final round. If you have an American Express card, go vote now!
Soldiers come back from Iraq, get assigned to West Point for a summer assignment to train cadets, and Sprint cancels their service because it doesn't have a tower close to this major center of military activity — in spite of the fact that the soldiers did everything possible to ensure that their situation was understood and were told by "customer service" that everything would be fine. Read the entire story authored by one of the returning officers, but this is my favorite part:
Why on earth I cant get coverage at the United States Military Academy, 40 minutes away from New York City is a mystery to me. I had a cell phone the entire time I was in Iraq with a middle eastern company. I payed LESS to call home and keep in touch from the otherside of the world than I do now with Sprint to call within the country. It also did not matter if I was in a major city or out in the middle of nowhere in the desert, I ALWAYS had full coverage. Never had a dropped call, and the customer reps of that company spoke better English than those with Sprint do.
While it is true that Sprint is acting according to the letter of the contract, the customer service is frustratingly poor (i.e., lying to customers who happen to be soldiers).
The author promises to contact news agencies and senators, so we may be hearing more about this.
HT to The Consumerist.
Cpl. Jason D. Soley was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for bravery under fire and his "warrior spirit". Read his incredible story. [via Kim du Toit]
On 21 March 2007, the Queen of England awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross to two unusual recipients.
Pictured is Private Michelle Norris of C Company, 1 Bn the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment. She is the first female to ever receive the be awarded the Military Cross.
Last year she braved sniper fire to administer life saving first aid to her vehicle commander.
This is Major William D. Chesarek Jr. of the United States Marine Corps. He is the first US soldier to receive the United Kingdom's Distinguished Flying Cross since the Second World War.
Although he trained to fly a Super Cobra helicopter for the US Marines, Major Chesarek is serving as an exchange officer assigned to Royal Air Force's 847th Naval Air Squadron, Commando Helicopter Force. These days he is flying the RAF’s Lynx Mk7 helicopter.
During the action that had Private Norris' unit under attack, Major Chesarek flew his helicopter low over the "insurgents" to disperse the crowd. Instead, he drew fire. But when he heard that someone on the ground had been hurt and that a casualty evacuation was necessary, he took action:
Chesarek made the unconventional move – what’s considered an “implied mission” in military parlance -- to conduct a medical evacuation with the Lynx to help a British soldier with a life-threatening head injury. As the only aircraft available to assist, he landed the Lynx near the company in distress as his door gunner and another crew member jumped out.
"My door gunner jumped out and picked up the injured soldier and put him in the helicopter," Chesarek said. "My other crew member had to stay, or we would have been overweight to fly."
Heroes. God bless 'em!
No, really. I was in the market for one until I watched this:
Hat Tip to non-blogging Advised by Wolves.
Even the most advanced weapons systems get old, and our nuclear arsenal of about 6,000 warheads has been decaying for quite some time. As they age they become harder to maintain (i.e., it takes more of our tax dollars) and military officials worry about reliability. (Wouldn't it be embarrassing if we lobbed a missile at military base in China — and it turned out to be a dud?)
So in 2004 an initiative was launched to design a reliable replacement warhead (RRW) composed of new components that are "more robust, easier to manufacture, safer and more secure, while at the same time not requiring new underground testing."
The "no testing" requirement means we are going to produce a nuclear weapon, deploy it by replacing current warheads, and, God forbid, someday use one or more — all without having actually setting one off to see if it works. That's thanks to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which we signed in 1996 but never ratified. (Still, no need to piss of the neighbors if we don't have to.)
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have been in a competition to win the contract to design the next nuclear warhead. The LLNL design is an updated, "more robust" version of an old idea — the W89 warhead that was designed in the 1980s but canceled in 1991. The LANL design is totally new, but uses components that have been tested.
In January 2007, it was rumored that bureaucrats were going to direct that a hybrid design be implemented that would combine "well-tested elements from an older design with new safety and security elements from a more novel approach."
The most likely reason for this decision is seen as a measure to save jobs and retain experience at "losing" laboratory. But in mid-February John Pedicini, design leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, warned:
A hybrid design by inexperienced personnel, managed by committee, is not the best approach, and even provoked negative comment at the JASON review. The best appellation I have seen for such an approach is "frankenbomb."
But the hybrid idea has been canned, as last Friday the LLNL design was accepted. Production should start as early as 2012. Not only will the new design replace the old, the total number of warheads may be reduced to as few as 2,000.
That is, if the new warheads are built at all. Democrats in Congress are less than pleased with the idea.
Glenn Reynolds has a few links that should put a stake in the heart of the revisionist claims that returning Vietnam vets were never spat on.
Hat Tip to non-blogging Advised by Wolves.
Advised by Wolves gives the heads up that the History Channel begins a new series tonight that looks fair to middlin' cool. Dogfights:
The new series DOG FIGHTS recreates famous battles using state-of-the-art computer graphics. With up to 25 percent of the program consisting of animation, viewers will feel like they're in the battle, facing the enemy. First-hand accounts will drive the story. Rare archival footage and original shooting supplement the remarkable computer graphics.
Pictured is the F-35 Lightning II, a truly remarkable aircraft currently under construction, funded primarily by the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands.
It's a strike fighter, capable of attacking ground targets and engaging in air-to-air combat.
Further, it will be produced in three different configurations: a conventional aircraft for the Air Force, a carrier variant for the Navy and a Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) version for the Marines and Royal Navy (watch a vertical takeoff). The fact that all three configurations will have 70 and 90 percent commonality keeps costs down.
A pre-production model flew in 2000 but the military won't be taking delivery until the turn of the decade.
Possibly the most advanced feature of the aircraft is that a single processor fuses information from all the aircraft's sensors into a "single, coordinated view of the battlefield."
That capability is being leveraged by Lockheed-Martin, the primary designer on the project, to create a pilotless version of the aircraft. Lockheed-Martin devotes a third of R&D funding to developing unmanned vehicles, and has earmarked some of the funding to the F-35:
Creating the F-35U is made easier by the fact that all the controls are already electronic, and contain a lot of automatic (robotic) flight control software. Engineers probably noted how close, in design and purpose, the innards of an F-35 were to the various combat UAV designs going around. A robotic F-35 is envisioned as an unmanned bomb carrier, although there is nothing to prevent the F-35U from being able to fight other aircraft. . . .
Both the F-35U and F-22U would have a major advantage over manned fighters, in that a robotic aircraft could perform rapid maneuvers that the human body could not tolerate.
Cool! Unmanned fighter planes. When do I get my flying car?
Recently declassified documents reveal that Nixon was considering using nuclear bombs to bring an end to the Vietnam war in an operation code named "Duck Hook":
But Nixon abandoned Duck Hook shortly after Oct. 2. Both his secretaries of Defense and State, Melvin Laird and William Rogers, opposed the plan. Nixon apparently also began to doubt whether he could sustain public support for the three- to six-month period the plan might require. He also concluded that his military threats against the North Vietnamese had no effect.
Threats are rarely useful. For instance, French threats of economic sanctions against Iran. Uh, OK, French threats of anything (except surrender — those are always taken seriously).
Indeed, the time and place to use nukes in Vietnam was in 1953 in a place called Dien Bien Phu. The French were trying for a decisive military victory out in the middle of nowhere. Instead, General Vo Nguyen Giap conducted a brilliant 56-day siege that ended with at least 2,200 dead Frenchmen (including many of the elite Foreign Legion) and a French surrender of 11,000 men (of which a little over 4,000 survived captivity).
If the French had accepted the two tactical nukes that Eisenhower offered, history would have turned out vastly different.
Just as an aside, fourteen years later General Giap tried to do the same thing to an American Marine base called Khe Sanh. 205 American soldiers were killed while ten to fifteen thousand Viet Min died before they gave up eleven weeks later and trickled back into the jungle. When the NVA shut down the airstrip, the French had resorted to high-altitude parachute drops resulting in a great many supplies, ammunition and even vital intelligence landing outside the base and falling into enemy hands. At Khe Sanh, the U.S. Army 109th Quartermaster Company used the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) with great success. The seige for Khe Sanh was a great American military victory (achieved without dipping into the nuclear arsenal) that was turned into a major North Vietnamese propaganda win by our Fourth Estate.
Technorati Tags: Richard Nixon, Vietnam, Nuclear Weapons, Military History, Dien Bien Phu, Khe Sanh, History, Famous French Military Defeats, Famous American Military Victories, Fourth Estate Equals Fifth Column.
Operation Neptune, comprised of nearly seven thousand ships from eight navies, delivered the men and material to the shores of France.
Operation Overlord took the beaches of Normandy out of Nazi hands and signaled the death of the Third Reich. Soldiers from America, Britain, Canada, France, Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Poland took part.
First in were the paratroopers, in spite of heavy anti-aircraft resistance. The British 6th Airborne Division was the first unit to land, at 16 minutes past midnight. The U.S. 101st Airborne Division and U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in predawn hours, and the 82nd was first to liberate a French town when it occupied Sainte-Mère-Église.
Then came the part where men were thrown against the fortified coastal positions:
May we never forget their sacrifice, give thanks for their bravery, nor fail to recognize the need to confront evil when necessary. Today is a day to find a vet and give a sincere, "Thank you."
Argghhh! has a pictoral essay.
Balloon Juice reposts an excellent essay, Kim du Toit posts a speech by Ronald Reagan given on the occasion of the 40th anniversary, and Confederate Yankee posts Patton's Normandy invasion speech.
Wizbang! observes:
On this day, thousands and thousands of young men followed their orders and went into the meat grinder that was Normandy. Many of them never returned, and in France there are large plots of land that are now American soil, bought and paid for with their blood. These cemetaries, filled with those brave young men, are all the land we took by right of conquest that we deigned to keep in the greatest war ever fought in history.Blackfive has a far more extensive roundup.On this day, when we think of America's sons struck down far too young, so many who died before they could father the next generation of Americans, let us also remember their spiritual sons and daughters, 62 years later, with new uniforms, new weapons, new equipment, but the same noble spirit who have taken up the mantle of those who fell in Normandy in 1944 and serve our nation today.
Technorati Tags: D-Day, Longest Day, Invasion of Normandy, Battle for Normandy, Operation Neptune, Operation Overlord, WWII, Military History.
By giving these smaller units more resources, the Army is making them more self-sufficient - and that gives Pentagon leaders more options. In the past, the smallest unit the Army could send to any global hot spot was a division of nearly 20,000 troops. By pushing its resources downward, now the Army can mobilize individual brigade combat teams as small as 3,500 troops.Highly recommended reading.It is a fundamental change brought about by a new security environment. During the cold war, the threat was a massive war against the Soviets, so it made sense to organize the Army into a few massive pieces. Today, however, America is faced more and more with smaller conflicts, and the Pentagon is convinced that this requires smaller pieces that can be moved around the globe more easily.
Yet the changes are already echoing beyond the arcane matter of military organization into soldiers' everyday lives.
Technorati Tags: Military Restructuring, Donald Rumsfeld.
On this, the day that we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, pray for the safety of those who put themselves in harms way to ensure our peace, and for the families of those whose children are serving so that all our children may have a secure future.
On this, the day that we celebrate the beginning of a journey to mankind's salvation, may we all remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.
On this day and throughout the new year, may God be with you and keep you safe.
Development on the F-22 Raptor was started in 1981 and the first Raptor flew in 1997.Yet it wasn't until mid-December of 2005 that the first Raptors joined the U.S combat fleet as 12 of them were put into service:
The Raptor combines low-observability, or stealth, with supersonic speed, agility and cockpit displays designed to boost greatly pilots' awareness of the situation around them.That is putting it mildly. The Raptor represents an exponential leap in our ability to control air space. Consider how it does when pitted against the most advanced planes already in our fleet:
The Air Force's new F-22A Raptor is such a dominant fighter jet that in mock dogfights its pilots typically take on six F-15 Eagles at once.Each of Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines is capable of delivering in excess of 35,000 pounds of thrust. The Raptor can actually gain speed when climbing straight up — until the air gets too thin for the engines to generate enough thrust (it can attain altitudes in excess of 15 kilometers). And it can cruise at Mach 1.5 without using afterburners. Rumor has it that the Raptor can achieve Mach 2.5 at full burn.Despite the favorable odds, the F-15s, still one of the world's most capable fighters, are no contest for the fastest radar-evading stealth jet ever built.
"The F-15 pilots, they are the world's best pilots," said Lt. Col. David Krumm, an F-22A instructor pilot. "When you take them flying against anyone else in the world, they are going to wipe the floor with them. It's a startling moment for them to come down here and get waylaid."
But it is the integrated avionics that really gives Raptor pilots the edge. Integrated avionics means that different control systems talk to each other (hence the boost to the pilot's situational awareness referred to above). The result:
This aircraft combines stealth design with the supersonic, highly maneuverable, dual-engine, long-range requirements of an air-to-air fighter and will have an inherent air-to-ground capability. The F-22’s integrated avionics gives it first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability that will guarantee U.S. air dominance for the next 40 years.Expect Democrats to balk at funding too many more of these planes — they'll end up costing about $160 million each to produce. But the Raptor is not only a better plane than the F-15, it will be lower maintenance to the point of being more cost effective, requiring less than half as much airlift as an F-15 squadron to deploy. F22 Major explains:
No other airplane in the world can match the Raptor's potential. Also, in the long run, it will actually cost less than current aircraft such as the F-15. The F-22 was designed from its outset to be a reliable, survivable, and easily maintainable platform. Its parts will not break often in the field compared to current aircraft, and when they do, they are easily replaced. For example, the F-15 has an average of 5.4 sorties (flights) before requiring major maintenance. In all probability, the F-22 will reach its hoped-for result of 8.5 sorties before needing major maintenance. This starts a chain reaction. Fewer repair jobs means fewer parts and fewer people, which in turn means fewer airlift flights of these assets, which computes to less cost. Estimates are running somewhere around a squadron of F-22s needing 50% fewer airlift and 40% fewer people than an F-15 squadron, and about 75% less maintenance gear.This is born out by actual experience, as related by Maj. Gen. Bolton:
We had a foreign-object damage incident where a stone hit one of the engine blades. We took the engine out, blended the blade without replacing it and put it back on the aircraft in only five hours. Today, if I have a problem like that on the F-15, it's at least three days and I likely have to change the engine.But in the end, it is the result that matters — and the F-22A Raptor delivers:
"They want to sneak in, drop their bombs, and sneak out again. They have absolutely no wish for a fight," he said. "They don't have air-to-air missiles, they cannot maneuver that well or anything else. Our airplane is entirely offensive. Not only am I stealthy, but I'll also hunt you down and kill you if you get in my way."The Officer's Club has lots of pictures [hat tip to Vodka Pundit].And then there is the Raptor's super cruise capability that lets it fly at supersonic speed without using fuel-guzzling afterburners as required by other fighters.
"That saves us a lot of gas and opens up a whole host of things when you start talking about dropping bombs," Krumm said. "You can imagine if you are 60,000 feet doing mach 1.9 (about 1,400 mph) and these bombs are flying out of your airplane, the swath of hell you can produce going through a country saying 'I'll take that target, and that target'."
Technorati Tags: F-22A, Raptor, Air Superiority.
9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay. ...There's more on who we are fighting and the bad guys tactics. Money quote:Bad guy weapons: ...
2) The RPG: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys. Simple, reliable and as common as dogshit. The enemy responded to our up-armored humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.
According to Jordan, morale among our guys is very high. They not only believe they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see shit like "Are we losing in Iraq?" on TV and the print media. For the most part, they are satisfied with their equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren't enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Iran and Syria. The Iranians and the Syrians just can't stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally (with, of course, permanent US bases there).
| AlphaPatriot thanks the over 50 million veterans that have bravely served our nation. We owe you our freedoms and our eternal gratitude. |  Image is from a tee available at |
Jennifer Love Hewitt is the Veterans Day Spokesperson for 2005:
As National Honorary Spokesperson for Veterans Day, Jennifer Love Hewitt has visited VA medical centers and shared stories of veterans with school-age children nationwide. She also filmed a public service announcement reminding people that "Veterans Day is not a day off; it's our heroes' day." Additionally, Hewitt is featured in a short video that gives students ideas on how to honor veterans year-round, including volunteer opportunities and visits to classrooms by veterans.Hewitt first visited troops with staunch Republican Bo Derek in 2003 when they visited soldiers recovering from injuries at Bethesda Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Hewitt said that it "was an amazing experience."“I want to show the kids of America that veterans are not just grandparents, uncles and aunts, they’re our classmates, neighbors and friends,” Hewitt said. “Veterans deserve our utmost respect and admiration for the sacrifices they have made for each and every one of us. I want to bring their stories to the attention of those who need to understand that freedom isn’t free.”
Last April, a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded that an earth-penetrating nuclear device would likely cause the same casualties as a surface burst if the weapons are of the same size. Such a bomb could cause from several thousand to 1 million casualties, depending on its yield and location, according to the report requested by Congress.Which is insane. If all you wanted to do was blow up an underground bunker, why would you drop a bomb capable of wiping out a large city?
For more than 25 years, David Schroer was a star in the U.S. Army, rising through the ranks to become a Special Forces Commander while leading a classified anti-terrorism unit involved in covert operations. Fellow soldiers described him as a classic military man.That all changed two years ago when he abruptly retired from the military and made a shocking announcement that stunned his colleagues and family alike. He would no longer be Col. David Schroer, because he is now Diane Schroer, a transsexual.
The difference of a "timeline" vs. a "plan" is vitally important. Dean and his liberal cronies want to know, right now, exactly when our last troops will be pulled away from protecting the fledgling democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
The president, of course, has a "plan" which sets out a series of events that take place, one building on the other, until the country has a good chance of standing on its own. Unlike the frequently fickle and factious left, the president put his plan into place way back in 2003 and is still following it today. Iraq is getting quite close to completing step 5 (write a constitution) and step 6 (ratification) is scheduled for Saturday.
If the constitution is not ratified, then the Iraqi people must return to step 5 and do it again until step 6 is successful. A plan allows for that — a timeline would become nonsensical in that event.
Meanwhile, al-Qaida is hoping that Dean is successful and the United States cuts and runs according to a timeline rather than a plan:
In a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader says the U.S. "ran and left" in Vietnam and the jihadists must have a plan ready to fill the void if the Americans suddenly leave Iraq.The similarity to Vietnam is of paramount importance in this debate. In Vietnam, the press waged a sociopolitical war on the war effort and the military and forced the withdrawal from an engagement that we were winning. They are attempting to do the same in Iraq. To allow them to succeed will be to show the United States is a paper tiger after all, to be dismissed as a gutless adversary in the drive to establish a Muslim state."Things may develop faster than we imagine," Ayman al-Zawahri wrote in a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam - and how they ran and left their agents - is noteworthy. ... We must be ready starting now."
Further, al-Zawahri's letter shows the geopolitical importance of Iraq:
"It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world," al-Zawahri writes.Replace a few words and you will see an eerie echo of the president's vision. It would be perfectly natural for the president to say,: It has always been my belief that the victory of freedom will never take place until a democratic state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world. This is our long-term plan: expel the terrorists from Iraq, establish an democratically elected authority and take the gift of freedom to Iraq's despotic neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.The letter lays out his long-term plan: expel the Americans from Iraq, establish an Islamic authority and take the war to Iraq's secular neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Thankfully, the president will remain president long enough to see the first fruits of his plan — before the left and their media mouthpieces can make the American public "go all wobbly" on the war on Islamofacism.
Update: The Director of National Intelligence has published al-Zarqawi's letter in its entirety.
Update: Powerline weighs in on the letter from al-Zawahiri.
Yet one in three Americans were killed or wounded during the next 36 days, against only 22 to 27 thousand Japanese soldiers that were dug into the lava rock of the tiny 8-square-mile island. Historians described U.S. forces' attack against the Japanese defense as "throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete."
1 April 1945: Okinawa
The greatest naval armada in history was assembled for the Battle for Okinawa, code named Operation Iceberg. It consisted of over 1,300 ships including 40 aircraft carriers, 18 battleships, 200 destroyers, 365 amphibious craft and hundreds of assorted support ships. Preceding the landing an unprecedented naval barrage was 3,800 tons of shells at Okinawa during the first 24 hours which one island survivor described as tetsu no bow -- the "storm of steel". It was the Pacific's bloodiest battle:
More ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets than any other operation in the Pacific. More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.At least 1,465 kamikaze flights were flown against the American fleet, which lost 34 ships and crafts with another 368 damaged. Navy casualties were tremendous, with nearly 5,000 dead and a ratio of one killed for one wounded as compared to a one to five ratio for the Marine Corps.
Over 182,000 troops were tasked with taking the island away from the 100,000 soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The Japanese were out manned almost 2 to 1 and outgunned 10 to 1, yet they managed to mount an effective defense for 10 weeks.
12 April 1945: Death of a President
From the White House biography:
During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry S Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman's to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became President. He told reporters, "I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."Indeed, when Truman became President the intense Battle of Okinawa was ongoing and U.S. casualties were averaging more than 900 a day.
Truman had a choice: attempt to end the war by dropping the bomb or executing Operation Downfall which itself consisted of two separate, massive military campaigns, Operations Olympic and Coronet.
Operation Olympic
Slated for 1 November 1945, it called for fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines to launch an amphibious assault against the heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after yet another "unprecedented naval and aerial bombardment".
The Japanese had correctly forecast that Kyushu would be the target of invasion, just as they had known Iwo Jima would have to be defended (hence the heavy fortifications and extensive tunnel system). In March of 1945 there was a single combat division in Kyushu. Over the next four months the Japanese Army transferred forces from Manchuria, Korea, and northern Japan, while raising other forces in place. By August there were 14 divisions and three tank brigades, totaling over 900,000 men. In addition they had 40% of all ammunition available in the homeland:
Historian Edward Drea describes the situation: "It was as if the very invasion beaches were magnets, drawing the Japanese forces to those places where the Americans would have to land and fight their way ashore. It was also very clear in those messages that the Japanese intended to fight to the bitter end."There is little doubt that taking Kyushu would have been expensive in terms of American lives.
Operation Coronet Assuming that the invasion of Kyushu was successful, the southern island was to serve as the staging area for launching a spring offensive (1 March 1956) against the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain, code named Operation Coronet. 25 allied divisions were slated for the invasion, mainly American but with some Commonwealth support consisting of British, Canadian and Australian troops.
There were 65 divisions in the main islands, although equipment was becoming scarce and with the buildup in Kyushu, there wasn't enough ammunition left on Honshu for 20 divisions.
Japanese Response: Ketsu-Go Although the impressive military might of Japan had been depleted by the war, the IJA was pulling everything back to the homeland to defend native soil. Fewer than 2,000 kamikaze planes had defended Okinawa, but there were 10,000 available for defending the main islands. In addition, the Japanese navy had 100 Koryu-class midget submarines, 250 smaller Kairyu-class midget submarines, and 1,000 Kaiten manned torpedoes. The Japanese Army had 800 Shinyo suicide boats.
Out of the 107,000 Japanese troops on Okinawa fewer than 5,000 were captured. The fanaticism of the Japanese soldier was driven by culture and propaganda, two factors that were just as ingrained in the Japanese civilian population. The Japanese military planners knew that Japan would lose the war and had only one final goal: to stave off unconditional surrender.
Japan still had 3 million soldiers. Its plan to repel the Allied invaders -- Ketsu-Go, Operation Decision -- also called for the sacrifice of up to 25 million civilian defenders. As one Japanese staff officer put it:
Furthermore, when the enemy actually lands, if we are ready to sacrifice a million men we will be able to inflict an equal number of casualties upon them. If the enemy loses a million men, then the public opinion in America will become inclined towards peace, and Japan will be able to gain peace with comparatively advantageous conditions.
That, then, was the plan: to fight for every inch of Japanese soil by any means necessary:As Japan embraced a suicidal policy of denial, a People's Volunteer Army wielded bamboo spears, pitchforks and axes to fight off the Allied invaders. The propaganda too has a familiar ring. "The barbaric tribe of Americans," wrote a Tokyo magazine, "are devils in human skin."From Richard B. Frank's Downfall
One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. ... You must aim for the abdomen."
But Army medical people looked at the figures from Okinawa and figured that for Coronet alone, the butcher's bill would be 147,500 Americans killed in action and 343,000 wounded.All's Fair in Love and WarSuch estimates fed Truman's fear of "another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."
So Truman approved the use of the atomic bomb.
When faced with a culture willing to sacrifice up to 25 million civilians in order not to win a war, but merely to obtain more favorable terms of surrender, one has to wonder how anyone can say that Truman's decision to drop the bomb was not justified.Far more interesting is the question of stopping a monstrous society by engaging in a monstrous act. Would dropping the bomb have been justified merely on the basis of putting a stop to the atrocities that the Japanese were and had been engaged in?
Japanese war crimes include:
... studies of dehydration, starvation, frostbite, air pressure - some inmates had their eyes blown out - transfusions of animal blood to humans and others. Even children and babies were destroyed this way. Other ghoulish experiments included cutting off a prisoner's hands and sewing them back on to the opposite arms to gauge what happened.
