Bradley accepted the decision. As a result of the army and marine advances, some Japanese kamikaze attacks had shifted to ground targets. High on their list were fuel dumps and anything that looked like a supply depot. The army had lost a large amount of its fuel and ammunition reserves in the attacks.
Nor were places like Sixth Army headquarters immune. This was the reason for the highly visible and well-defended headquarters complex that was a couple of miles away and totally empty of working personnel. It had drawn Jap suicide planes the way honey draws bees, while the real headquarters, half-buried and well hidden, remained unmolested.
Bradley took a seat by the makeshift conference table. "General Marshall wishes this offensive wrapped up as soon as possible so we can concentrate on the second phase of the operation."
At sixty-four, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger now looked eighty. He was known as a meticulous planner, an instructor, and a man who worked mightily to keep casualties down. Now he was haunted by failing in that goal.
"General Bradley," Krueger said slowly, the fatigue evident in his voice, "we're moving inland and up the island as fast as we can. If we try to push harder against Jap resistance, we'll only stack up more dead and wounded. Just like on Okinawa, it sometimes takes days to clear a cave complex on one small hill only to find another one a few hundred yards away. This is not the type of fighting that can be rushed."
Bradley stepped to a wall map that showed the line of American advance. A little more than one quarter of Kyushu was in American hands. The line of American battle symbols ran from just north of Sendai on the west coast and looped across the island to a point halfway along the east coast between Miyazaki and Nobeoka. Kagoshima and the dormant volcano that dominated the city had been taken, as had Mt. Kirishima in the middle of the island. Artificial harbors were under construction in Kagoshima and Ariake bays, while more than a dozen small airfields were in operation.
Land areas taken included those optimistically labeled the Ariake, Miyazaki, and, on the other side of the island, the Kushikino "plains." Other areas were labeled "corridors," as if they formed an easy path to the interior of Kyushu. Plains and corridors they might have appeared on maps, and the land might actually have been more gentle than that in the interior, but it was still rugged. By moving through those alleged plains and corridors, the army and marines had been rewarded by confronting even more difficult and arduous terrain. It hardly seemed fair, Bradley thought.
"General Krueger," Bradley said, "the original plans called for us to take only the southern third of Kyushu, and I believe we have pretty much accomplished what we set out to do. Ariake Bay is ours, as is Kagoshima Bay. Our ships are using both shelters and will use them even more if only the kamikazes would stop coming over."
As if to punctuate the comment, something exploded a few miles away.
"Gentlemen, the president is under tremendous pressure to finish this war. He is under additional pressure to support British operations along the China coast in conjunction with the liberation of Hong Kong. He has committed to supporting the British with transports and landing craft in three months."
"No!" General Eichelberger blurted. "That'll mean a delay in our attack on Tokyo."
Bradley smiled grimly. "It is now almost Christmas and it is just over three months before Operation Coronet, the invasion of Tokyo, is scheduled to take place. I want that attack accelerated. Gentlemen, I want this battle on Kyushu wound down so that all our resources can be directed towards Honshu and Tokyo. I want our boys ashore on the Kanto Plain and driving towards the Imperial Palace as soon as is humanly possible. We cannot delay Coronet; therefore we must accelerate it."
"But what will I do for an army?" Eichelberger asked softly. It was a reminder to Bradley that he and the absent Hodges were scheduled to be field commanders for Coronet as Krueger was for the smaller Olympic. "Surely you don't expect to use the men now on Kyushu?"
"That's correct, I do not. Along with their presence being needed here, they are far too worn-out for further offensive operations. No, they are to stay here."
"Thank God," said Krueger, who could finally see an end to his horrors. "But Bob's right. What will he use for an army? The invasion of Honshu will use an additional fourteen divisions in the initial phase alone. Half those boys are either en route or not even formed up."
Bradley smiled tightly. "Then we'll use the half we got. Gentlemen, I've been coordinating with Nimitz and the Pentagon on the status of the Japanese army defending Tokyo. What had once been estimated at eighteen infantry and two armored divisions has been reduced to less than half that, and many of those remaining soldiers are nothing but untrained warm bodies in uniforms. They are recent conscripts who've had no training whatsoever and don't possess much in the way of weapons. Our air force has been pounding anything they see, so there has to be further erosion in their ability to fight.
"Bob, Walt, I don't think the Japs have anything left near Tokyo to fight with. I agree with intelligence estimates that there will be little resistance to an invasion of Honshu."
Bradley saw the disbelief on their faces. They'd heard much the same thing from MacArthur earlier in the year, and it had proven horribly, tragically wrong. But Bradley also saw a glimmer of hope that this would end the terrible fighting. This was information that had come from several sources, and not just MacArthur's pet intelligence coordinators who had been deemed infallible by their late commander.
Bradley moved away from the map. "The battle lines are almost static and we are playing into their hands. The harder we push against their defenses, the more men we lose. This battle for Kyushu is nothing more than a rehash of Verdun in the last war, or Stalingrad in this one, where one side tried to make the other side bleed itself to death. We can't continue fighting and losing men at this rate."
"All right," admitted Eichelberger. "We can't. So what's Walt to do while Hodges and I try to pull an army out of thin air?"
"First of all, Bob," Bradley said, "your army isn't coming out of the air. It'll be coming from the Philippines, California, Hawaii, and Europe. It'll be close, but I'll guarantee you at least two marine and ten army divisions, along with at least one armored brigade, for the invasion."
Eichelberger nodded. "If you're right about the state of the Jap army, it'll do. In fact, it'll more than do."
Bradley turned to Krueger. "Walt, you may have the most difficult part. Any reinforcements and replacements not already landed here are now going to go to Bob. You'll have to make do with what you have."
Krueger shrugged. "I kinda guessed as much. If it'll help end this thing, I'm game. As if I had a choice." He grinned for the first time.
"Good," said Bradley. "One thing I am very afraid of is a major Jap counterattack. If they detect that we've slowed down and eased off on the pressure, I'm convinced they'll try one. I want you to keep up a minimum level of pressure to keep their attention focused on Kyushu."
Eichelberger arched an eyebrow. "A counterattack? Do you really think the Japs are up to that? We've hit them pretty hard, Brad. They've taken a lot of casualties, probably a lot more than we have."
Bradley seated himself and leaned back in the chair. "Just about a year ago I was in Europe and we were all counting out the German army. They were dead, we said, defeated and destroyed. Then the Germans found a weak spot in the Ardennes and we wound up fighting the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States, at least until this one.