Glorious Mission 1937

However, just when the two sides were on the verge of firing, a shocking event happened in the Ryukyu Islands, which caused tremendous changes in the entire Ryukyu landing battle.

On the night of June 1944, 6, more than 28 Ryukyu residents who were armed to the teeth, led by hundreds of young men in black combat uniforms, attacked the Naha Japanese Naval Naval Port in the dark, wounding a cruiser and sinking it. A torpedo boat also killed and wounded a large number of Japanese soldiers.

General Ushijima Mitsuchu, who was in charge of the defense of Okinawa, was shocked when he heard the news, and immediately sent troops to suppress it.However, what made the Japanese army angry was that those soldiers who appeared suddenly seemed to disappear suddenly, no matter how the Japanese army searched, there was no trace of them.

At this time, the defense of Okinawa is about to start. General Ushijima knows that there is such a mysterious army lurking on the island, which will put a lot of pressure on the defenders. Therefore, regardless of the adjutant's dissuasion, he sent a large army to attack all the residents of Ryukyu Island. After screening and screening, a large number of Ryukyu residents were arrested by the Gendarmerie Command in a very short period of time, and some residents were considered by the Japanese army as absconding because they were not at home, and their family members and children were arrested. For a while, The residents on the island are very nervous, and the atmosphere is very tense.

Although the Japanese army captured many people, they still did not find the mysterious enemy army. Just when the Japanese army was about to put this aside and concentrate on dealing with the Allied landing forces, this army suddenly appeared again. This time they The target of the attack was an ammunition warehouse on Ryukyu Island. The defenders of an infantry squadron were wiped out, and more than [-] tons of supplies were destroyed.

On June 6, MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied forces on the front line, issued an order to land operations on the Ryukyu Islands.More than 30 troops, with the assistance of more than 1000 ships and warships, launched landing operations in the southeast and southwest of Ryukyu.

The first batch of landing troops consisted of the 10th Army of the U.S. Army and the Ninth Army of the Chinese National Defense Force. The U.S. Army has 4 divisions with 13 people, and the Chinese Ninth Army has 4 reorganized divisions and two artillery brigades with a total of 15 people. .The allied forces were covered and supported by the aircraft carrier mobile units of the US and British armies, as well as the US 20th and 21st strategic bombing units.

Before the battle began, the Allied forces carried out large-scale air strikes against Kyushu and Shikoku in order to contain the various Japanese troops.At the same time, the Ninth Army reorganized the 34th, 35th, and 36th Divisions and the assault echelons of the US 10th Army to sail by sea.

Starting at 30 am on the 10th, the carrier-based aircraft fleet and naval guns carried out pre-fire preparations against the Kerama Islands and Okinawa Island, destroying some airports and exposed defense facilities on the islands.The Japanese offshore attack fleet was eliminated.

下午三时。盟军开始在庆良间列岛登陆，取得了舰船停泊场和后勤补给基地。开始对冲绳岛实施直接舰炮和航空火力准备。第九集团军整编第34、35师在羽具岐南北9公里地段突击登陆。当天即有3个师约9万人及大批坦克、火炮上陆，建立了正面18公里、纵深12公里包括两个机场在内的登陆场。

At the same time, the 2nd Division of the U.S. Marine War carried out a feint in the southeast of Okinawa Island in the Kogawa Sea.Central Region.Cut off the island in half.And began to attack the main positions in the north and south.so far.The mission of the landing phase has been completed.The combined fleet of the Japanese Navy sailed from Japan to Okinawa in an attempt to engage in a decisive sea battle with the US military.

The next day, the fast aircraft carrier fleet of the Heilongjiang Fleet of the Chinese Navy spotted the Japanese naval forces on radar.Immediately went to sea to fight, the two sides met in the southwestern waters of Kyushu, and the war broke out immediately.After a five-hour battle, the Heilongjiang Fleet sank two Japanese battleships, two cruisers and five destroyers, thereby eliminating the threat at sea.

The Japanese submarine force went to the vicinity of Ryukyu. Due to the tight security of the Chinese and American navies, they did nothing. Except for one ship returning, the remaining 1 ships were sunk.The Japanese land and naval aviation carried out 14 large-scale attacks on the US ships. Although they achieved certain results, they did not play a decisive role in the overall battle situation.

7月1日，盟军已经在琉球岛多个地方取得突破，获得了5个大型登陆场，30余万大军在7月1日中午前全部登陆琉球群岛。

On July 7, two divisions of the 2rd U.S. Marine Corps advanced smoothly to the north of Okinawa, occupying the northern half of the island and Ie Island.The two divisions of the 3th Army of the Army attacked southward, but were stubbornly resisted by the Japanese army, and the progress was slow. On the 2th, they began to break through the Mugang defense line.Afterwards, the U.S. military adjusted its deployment, and the 24st Marine Division and the 2th Infantry Division went into combat on the southern front.

On July 7, the Japanese army launched a comprehensive counterattack, dispatching more than 3 sorties of suicide planes and motorboats in one day, causing huge losses and casualties to the Allied forces.

However, the Allied forces still did not retreat. After 7 days of bitter fighting, they finally defeated the Japanese counterattack.After the general counterattack failed, they shrank their positions.Surrounded by the two wings of the Allied forces, the Shuri line of defense was abandoned on the 12th and moved to the southern line of defense.

On the 13th, Buckner, commander of the US 10th Army, was killed while inspecting the frontier, and Major General RS Geiger, commander of the 3rd Marine Army, took over his post. On the 14th, a 5-strong uprising against the Japanese army broke out in the Ryukyu Islands. Surprisingly, the rebel army not only possessed a large number of advanced weapons and equipment, but also had a large number of commanders.

With the cooperation of the local uprising forces, the Allied forces quickly broke through the Japanese army's southern defense line and surrounded the Japanese army in one place on the island.In the early morning of the next day, the Japanese 32nd Army Commander Ushijima Mitsuru and his chief of staff committed suicide by caesarean section.

After three days of clearing battles, the Allied forces finally took full control of the Ryukyu Islands on July 7, and the battle ended.

During the service, 66000 Japanese soldiers died, 37455 were captured, and 17000 were injured.About 7 residents died on the island, 7830 aircraft were lost, 16 ships were sunk and 4 were damaged.The U.S. military suffered more than 5 casualties, of which 12513 were killed, 38916 were injured, 763 aircraft were lost, 372 tanks were lost, 36 ships were sunk, and 168 were damaged.The Chinese Army lost more than 4 people in this battle, of which 7867 were killed and 24578 were injured. In addition, 9 warships were sunk, 28 transport ships were damaged, and 112 bombers were shot down.

Although the Allied Forces suffered heavy losses in this battle, China and the United States suffered a total of nearly 9 casualties, and nearly 200 warships were sunk and damaged, but they opened the southwest gateway to the Japanese mainland and gained the sea and air forces to attack the Japanese mainland. The base created favorable conditions for landing operations in Japan.

During the campaign, the U.S. military established a network of aviation bases on the islands of the Okinawa Islands, and stationed a large number of aviation forces, which could not only effectively block the incoming Japanese aircraft, but also take off and bomb the center of the Japanese mainland, further strengthening the defense against Japan. Homeland strategic bombing.

However, this battle also made the U.S. military realize that the Japanese army’s will to fight is still tenacious. With 1 defenders, facing the absolute superiority of the U.S. military’s naval and air forces and ground troops, they persisted in fighting for nearly a month in almost isolated conditions. , Although it ended in failure in the end, it caused huge losses to the Allied forces, showing the high anti-landing ability of the Japanese army and the tenacious will to fight.

The tactics adopted by the Japanese army in the anti-landing operations also provided useful experience for the inferior army to organize effective anti-landing operations. The Japanese army mainly relied on tunnels, natural caves, and anti-slope positions in the mountains to weaken the US military’s firepower advantage as much as possible. Actively carrying out close combat and night combat, organizing small units to frequently carry out fierce counterattacks, consuming the vital forces of the Allied forces, and making the US military deeply aware that the landing on the Japanese mainland will encounter more intense and cruel battles.

After capturing the Ryukyu Islands, the Allied Forces did not immediately start landing operations on the Japanese mainland, because according to the results of the Ryukyu landing battle, the United States Joint Staff submitted a research report to Roosevelt stating that if a comprehensive large-scale landing operation is carried out on the Japanese mainland If this is the case, the Allied death rate per 1.78 man-days will be as high as 7.45, and the death rate will be 160.This means that there will be 40 million Allied casualties between the beginning and the end of the landing operation in Japan, of which [-] are dead or missing.

Regarding the report of the Joint Staff, Jiangling Nimitz, the main U.S. military in the Pacific, and Wu Jiansi both agreed. Although there are some gaps with their casualty estimates, the gap is not very big. This report is basically precise.

Subsequently, the staff of US Secretary of War Stimson commissioned William Shockley to complete a report, which estimated that the conquest of Japan would cause 170 million to 400 million American casualties, including 40 to 80 deaths.In Japan, the death toll alone can reach 500 million to 1000 million people. This assessment takes into account the factors of ordinary Japanese citizens participating in the war.

Such a huge casualty estimate forced the U.S. government to suspend its landing operations against Japan, and urgently contacted China and the Soviet Union to discuss the matter.

Chen Feng's meaning was very clear, either to carry out a landing operation, or to find ways to force the Japanese government to surrender. In his words, China's 200 million National Defense Forces are ready for battle and ready to land on the Japanese archipelago at any time.

Stalin also felt that there is no need to tolerate too much for Japan, a small country. Now that the war in Europe is over, the Soviet Union can deploy more than 150 million troops to participate in the landing in Japan in a short period of time. If the United States has no better way, then only The landing operation can continue.

In fact, Roosevelt is also very entangled now. On the one hand, he is worried that the landing operation will cause huge casualties to the US military. On the other hand, he has no good way to force the Japanese to surrender unconditionally. It is indeed difficult for him to make a choice to completely wipe out this sea mine in the Pacific Ocean in the Japanese archipelago.

However, there is no way out, and when Roosevelt was struggling, JR Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist in charge of the Manhattan Project, personally reported to Roosevelt that an experimental atomic bomb had completed its final assembly and requested an explosion test .Oppenheimer's report made Roosevelt think of a solution to the current problem, and he agreed to conduct the experiment. (To be continued..)