shinto has been quite warlike throughout its long history.

#SHINTO HAS BEEN QUITE WARLIKE THROUGHOUT ITS LONG HISTORY. SERIES#

The scale of Operation Coronet was planned to greatly exceed even that of Operation Olympic. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff also decided to launch Operation Coronet, two landings planned to take place at Kujukuri Beach and Sagami Bay near Tokyo, on March 1, 1946. The United States was at the height of its power, whereas Japan was losing almost all its capacity to wage war.

Operation Olympic was to be the largest such military operation in history, of even greater scale than the invasion of Normandy, France, undertaken by the Allies in June of the previous year. Supported by a vast number of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and other warships, they were to transfer from 1,318 transport ships onto landing craft and storm the beaches at thirty-five predetermined landing sites in southern Kyushu. Operation Olympic was slated to involve 477,400 American soldiers, organized into fourteen divisions.

On July 24, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered Operation Olympic, the invasion of the southern half of the island of Kyushu, to commence on November 1. It was in October of 1944, when the US Army landed on Leyte Island, the Philippines, that the first kamikaze units were formed and sent flying into enemy warships.īy the time Japan surrendered in August of 1945, kamikaze attacks had been carried out with planes, boats, and submarines.įor a long time I have wanted to know, “Why was Japan the only nation in history to carry out such large-scale suicide attacks?” and “Why did Japanese soldiers fight to the death on every battlefield?”īy August of 1945, Japan had fought the United States for three years and eight months as one nation united, but was ultimately defeated. In our armies, any of them, nearly every Japanese would have had a Congressional Medal of Honor or a Victoria Cross.” A British officer also remarked in awe that, “They are the bravest people I have ever met. The “other side of the moon” remained unseen until after the war when the first man-made probes orbited the moon. In the training booklet “How the Jap Army Fights,” American officers commented that the Japanese fought without fear of death and that “To attempt an estimate of the JapaneseĪrmy is something like attempting to describe the other side of the moon”. No other army in the annals of world military history has ever shown the same willingness to fight to the last.

Ninety-seven percent of the roughly 30,000 Japanese soldiers on Saipan fell fighting. During the Battle of Kwajalein the death rate among the defending garrison of 4,938, excluding 79 POWs, was 98.4%. Of the 2,571 Japanese defenders of Tawara, only 8 were taken prisoner, which means that the death rate had risen to 99.7%. The rest were killed in action, a death rate of 98.8%. On Attu Island, only 29 men from a Japanese garrison of 2,350 were taken prisoner. Japanese garrisons sacrificed themselves on one obscure island after another, starting with Attu, and then Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Palau, Peleliu, Angaur, Morotai, and Iwo Jima.Īmerica’s official history of the Pacific Theater documents in detail how Japanese soldiers fought. On every island, the Japanese defenders fought to the point of total annihilation, even though they had been completely isolated with no hope of reinforcement.

#SHINTO HAS BEEN QUITE WARLIKE THROUGHOUT ITS LONG HISTORY. SERIES#

In a series of bloody battles, the US Army captured the islands of the Pacific Ocean from the Japanese Army. The American counterattack began on Attu Island, which a whole Japanese garrison died defending, in May of 1943. After Japan’s defeat in the Battle of Midway, Japan was forced onto the defensive, fighting desperately to stymie America’s counterattack. Japan’s victory streak lasted but a mere six months into the war.

Is it really true that the people of Japan were so foolish? It has been said that the Japanese people were deceived by the militarists and got dragged into the war, but think about this for a moment. Today, most Japanese citizens believe that their country embarked on a reckless war due to the unbridled aggressiveness of its own military. That is the question I have found myself asking, seventy years from the date Japan surrendered. “Why did Japan fight a war against the United States?” Society for the Dissemination of Historical Facts ©Ĭhapter 1 – Up to the Day Japan Surrendered

Shinto has been quite warlike throughout its long history.