Operation Ketsu-Go: The Decisive Victory

Abstract

Japan entered World War II knowing they could not win a prolonged war with the United States. Japan did not go into the war with a long term plan, they planned on striking a decisive blow that would lead the US to seek peace. The United States chose instead to fight on and thus the war turned against Japan. The ultimate culmination of Japan's choice to attack the US was the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the end of the war could have been delayed by a multitude of factors causing the Japanese 'Ketsu-Go' operation to come into effect. Ketsu-Go translates to 'Decisive Victory' in Japanese and was a last ditch attempt to defeat the Americans and reach a negotiated peace. Ketsu-Go was the planned defense of mainland Japan and Korea. The Ketsu-Go plan would have prolonged the war and thus caused the deaths of countless Americans and Japanese. The Ketsu-Go operation was not viable in the long-term but if conducted quickly could have led the US to a conditioned peace with Japan. The planned Ketsu-Go operation was the culmination of years of fanatical indoctrination and fighting throughout Japan and the Pacific. The idea of an attack to the Japanese homeland was unthinkable to the Japanese right up until the very end of the war. The Doolittle Raid of 1942 on Tokyo had such a large psychological impact for its extremely minor physical impact because of the thought that the Japanese home islands would always be protected from attack by the divine winds of the Kamikaze. Even in Tokyo after the raid, there was a lack of adequate air raid shelters because of the thought that the homeland would never come under attack. It took a series of drastic defeats throughout the Pacific theater for the Japanese to finally realize that the sacred home islands could ever be under attack and thus needed to be defended. Decisive battles in the Pacific slowly convinced the Japanese was planners to think of defending the homeland. A stop to Japanese advances at the battle of the Coral Sea, destruction of the main fleet carriers at Midway, the turning point at Guadalcanal, the almost complete destruction of the navy at Leyte and the loss of the Marianas left the Japanese without buffers to protect them. The Americans could destroy Japanese merchant ships at will, cut off crucial natural resources and were in bomber range of Japan itself. Despite all these defeats, the Japanese did not start planning for Ketsu-Go in earnest until the landings on Okinawa, the knowledge of imminent Russian entry to the war and knowledge of the inevitable defeat of Germany. The Japanese published the Ketsu-Go directive on April 8th, 19454 just after the landing of American forces on Okinawa on April 1st. Work on Ketsu-Go became frenzied after an official note from Russia stating that the Neutrality Pact of 1941 could no longer be prolonged, an action that made the invasion of Manchuria an inevitability. The defeat of Germany on May 7th was the final event that made the Japanese realize that an invasion of the Japanese homeland was imminent and preparations had to be completed as quickly as possible. It was in the late spring and summer that physical preparations took place to defend the home islands and to fight the final decisive victory. The Japanese started the war in the Pacific with the idea of a decisive victory winning the war. The Japanese captured large swaths of territory throughout Asia and the Pacific with the knowledge that they could not force the US to surrender in a drawn-out conflict. The Japanese planned to concede part of their territorial gains in a conditional peace with the US caused by large amounts of casualties. The Japanese also used the idea of the 'decisive victory' continually throughout the war seeking the final battle that would cause the Americans to seek a conditioned peace. The Japanese truly believed in the idea of a decisive victory because of the Russo-Japanese war decades earlier in which Russia conceded territory to Japan after the defeat at the Tsushima Strait. Before the Battle of the Philippine Sea Vice-Admiral Ozawa even said "This operation has immense bearing on the fate of the Empire. It is hoped that the forces will exert their utmost and achieve as magnificent results as in the Battle of Tsushima." The idea of a decisive victory also partially stemmed from the idea that American morale was so low that a Japanese victory in battle or even a stalemate could move American public opinion to support a conditioned peace favoring Japan. Japan continued the decisive victory mentality throughout the war despite experiencing defeat after defeat. Admiral Yamamoto was a major promoter of the idea of a decisive victory. Yamamoto had failed to strike a decisive victory at Pearl Harbor and the decisive battle at Midway had resulted in the catastrophic loss of four aircraft carriers. Admiral Yamamoto was killed in 1943 but the decisive victory mentality he promoted carried on into the Battle of Saipan. Japanese war planners declared that the battle for Saipan would be the decisive victory they needed to win the war. The decisive battle for Saipan was lost on July 9th, 1944 and the Japanese realized the need for another place to plan a decisive victory. Ketsu-Go became a last ditch attempt at the decisive victory the Japanese high command had been searching for throughout the war. The Big Six hoped that they could inflict enough casualties on the Americans to achieve victory in a conditioned peace. The main concessions Japan hoped to receive were four conditions, first to keep the Emperor and the Kokutai, second that war crimes trials held by the Japanese themselves, third the disarmament of Japanese soldiers by Japanese and fourth, that there would be no allied occupation of Japan. The members of the Big Six pushing the four conditioned offer were Anami, Umezu and Toyoda or the "War Hawks" of the Supreme Council for the Direction of War.10 The council could only make decisions unanimously so Ketsu-Go would proceed as planned unless the Big Six agreed to the same surrender terms. The Japanese planned Ketsu-Go as an all-out battle of attrition to kill as many American invaders as possible to make the four conditioned offer more attractive. Japan threw every resource they had left into the preparations for Ketsu-Go, pushed what was left of their industrial capacity to the limit and mobilized their entire population in training and preparation. Ketsu-Go would be planned out with the goal of a conditioned peace in mind.