"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.
Chapter 28
As always, Commander Hashimoto let no hint of any emotion show on his face as he stood in the conning tower of the I-58. Inwardly, he was churning. He wanted to yell at the confused soldiers who had spilled out of the hatches and onto his deck. They looked like fish escaping from a torn net. He wanted them to hurry even faster than they were, for every instant spent on the surface and so close to land was fraught with peril. Even seconds too long could mean death. He silently cursed.
As with the other transits, this too had been a litany of confusion and even horror as one soldier, confined in a submarine that was under the ocean and jammed full of sweating, stinking bodies, had gone mad and been bludgeoned to death. It could not be helped. Ferrying soldiers from Korea to Kyushu by submarine was the only way their arrival could reasonably be assured. The I-58 had made a score of those trips between Korea and Kyushu and, by Hashimoto's count, had delivered more than fifteen hundred frontline soldiers to fight the coming of the Americans.
The routine was simple. The I-58 would surface in the night off the Korean coast and south of the city of Pusan. Small boats would stream out from the shore and deposit as many soldiers as the I-58 could hold. That most were without weapons or other equipment meant that more could be squeezed in. Once loaded, the I-58 would submerge and make the 150-mile journey to Kyushu. Sometimes they would pause at Tshushima Island, a rough midway point in their journey, and surface to clear the air that the presence of so many bodies had fouled. The I-58 had been refitted with a German air-breathing device called a Schnorchel, but it was barely adequate under normal circumstances, and the additional men simply overwhelmed the schnorchel's abilities.
When they arrived at the night-darkened coast of Kyushu, the soldiers would be off-loaded onto yet another swarm of small boats and taken ashore where they would get new equipment. From there they would be sent southward to stem the anticipated onslaught.
While Hashimoto recognized the need to do this, he resented that his submarine had been forced to act as a transport and not as a weapon. He knew it was as a result of his using two of the precious kaiten human torpedoes against that damned American sub. In retrospect, he realized that he should not have given in to the wails of the young volunteers and should have saved them for a more significant target, such as a carrier, and used conventional torpedoes against the American sub. He had been rebuked for his actions, and the assignment as an underwater ferryboat captain had been his punishment.
Thank God, his stint in purgatory was about to end. Or it would as soon as the last of the soldiers stumbled and bumbled their way off his boat and onto the small craft. Thankfully, they were being quiet. While the likelihood of voices carrying over water to where an American patrol boat might be lurking was small, it was not a chance he was prepared to take. The soldiers had been ordered to maintain silence under penalty of death.