Japan planned a nasty reception for American invaders.
Everything the nation had left was to be thrown into a last, desperate battle
designed to shatter American morale and force the Allies to abandon their
demand for unconditional surrender.
Applying the lessons of Saipan and Okinawa- that the enemy
must be stopped on the beaches or not at all-construction battalions fortified
the shorelines of Kyushu and Honshu with tunnels, bunkers and barbed wire. More
than 5,000 planes were rigged for one-way missions and lay camouflaged in
coastal meadows or on mountainside ramps- loaded with just enough fuel to reach
the invasion beaches. Automobiles were relieved of their engines to power
hundreds of suicide launches that would attack American landing craft.
Meanwhile the 28 million women, children and old men in the
People's Volunteer Army drilled with bamboo spears and pitchforks, convinced
that "strength in the citadel of the spirit" would make up for their
primitive weapons. They were joined by another four million well-drilled civil
servants and 2.5 million soldiers, many of them brought home from Manchuria and
Korea for the "divine chance" to save the Empire- or die trying. If
these sacrificial warriors had doubts, they hid them well. "The Imperial
Army is confident," boasted one general. "Our men are fortified with
the admirable spirit of Kamikaze."
