Operation Starvation

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Operation Starvation
Part of: Pacific War
US Boeing B-29 bombers of the 498th Bomb Group over Japan (1945).
US Boeing B-29 bombers of the 498th Bomb Group over Japan (1945).
date March 27 to August 14, 1945
place Coastal waters around Kyushu , Seto Inland Sea , Japan
output Decisive victory for the United States
consequences Extensive dismantling of Japanese merchant shipping and the convoy system in the coastal waters of southern Japan, around Kyūshū and in the Seto Inland Sea. Considerable weakening of the defense industry in Japan as a result of severe delivery bottlenecks.
Parties to the conflict

United StatesUnited States (national flag) United States

JapanJapan (naval war flag) Japan

Troop strength
160 aircraft (total number of aircraft only used to drop mines) 100 aircraft
349 mine clearance vehicles
various anti-aircraft positions
losses

15 aircraft
162 flight crew members

231 merchant ships sunk
358 merchant ships damaged (137 of them irreparable)
11 warships sunk
Unknown personnel losses

The operation starvation (dt. "Operation starvation") was a strategic naval mines-operation of the United States Army Air Forces part of the allied air war against Japan during the Pacific War . The company took place in 1945 and thus in the final phase of the war in the Pacific . The aim of the operation was to interrupt the sea ​​supply and supply routes of the Empire of Japan , especially in the waters around Kyūshū and in the Seto Inland Sea , by the extensive dropping of sea mines from the air. Operation Starvation was divided into five phases (Starvation I to V) and lasted almost five months (until the beginning of August 1945). In view of the very small US losses and the heavy Japanese ship losses, the sea traffic in the affected areas collapsed almost completely, the operation can be classified as a tactical success of the United States. Since massive delivery bottlenecks also severely weakened the Japanese arms industry, the operation can also be seen as a strategic US success.

prehistory

Between mid-1943 and early 1945, the US armed forces had steadily moved closer to the Japanese mainland (see Island Hopping ). The landing forces encountered increasing resistance, including in the Battle of Peleliu , during the battles for Leyte and in the Battle of Iwojima . As a result, the Commander-in-Chief of the American Armed Forces in the Pacific, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz , had plans drawn up for a large-scale air mine offensive against southern Japanese coastal waters , also in the context of the planned landings on Okinawa and on Japan itself, in order to prevent Japanese supplies (both from the occupied Territories to Japan as well as from Japan to Okinawa). This idea also arose against the background that the Royal Air Force carried out an extensive air mine offensive against German shipping in the Skagerrak , the Kattegat and the German Bight between June and December 1944 . 8,000 mines were thrown from the air, with 124 ships (mostly smaller coastal freighters) with a total of around 75,000 GRT lost within six months, which had severely impaired German coastal traffic. In addition, the British aircraft losses (36 planes in six months) were comparatively low. At the beginning of 1945 the order was finally sent to the XXI stationed on the Mariana Islands . Bomber Command to begin preparations for a mine operation against Japan.

The situation in Japan

At the beginning of 1945, Japan found itself in an extremely tense situation militarily and with regard to the supply of raw materials (88 percent of the crude oil essential for the war effort alone had to be imported ) and food. The Imperial Japanese Navy , which would have had to ensure the security of the sea and convoy routes, suffered heavy losses in 1944, especially during the major battles for the Mariana Islands and in the Gulf of Leyte . The aircraft carrier forces, which were very important for the defense of the sea routes and the occupied territories, were largely destroyed. The few still operational heavy units, including the battleship Yamato and a few aircraft carriers (which had hardly operational aircraft on board and were often damaged in the shipyards ) also suffered from a serious lack of fuel.

The most important supply routes in Japan, especially the sea routes between the Japanese home islands and the Philippines , the Dutch East Indies and Manchukuo , were increasingly attacked by American submarines from around mid-1943 , which had exacerbated the supply situation. While around 4.3 million tons of iron ore could still be imported into Japan in 1943, only about 2.15 million tons reached the island nation in 1944. The food situation was also tense: imports of rice had fallen from 990,000 tons (1943) to 652,000 tons (1944).

Preparations on the American side

The forces available for Operation Starvation consisted of four bomb groups from the 313th Bombardment Wing ( Brigadier General John H. Davies ) of the XXI, stationed on the Mariana Island of Tinian . Bomber Command ( General Curtis E. LeMay ). Each group had about 40 Boeing B-29 heavy bombers . This type of aircraft was able to accommodate either seven Mark 25 mines (907 kilograms weight) or twelve Mark 26 mines (454 kilograms weight). LeMay, who himself favored night attacks from low altitudes, had commissioned the 313th Bombardment Wing to carry out the attacks because it was one of the first associations of the XXI. Bomber Command had been equipped with the newly introduced targeting and ground penetrating radar AN / APQ-13, which was particularly suitable for night operations. From January 23, 1945, all four bomb groups trained the nightly precision dropping of sea mines over a period of about two months. Usually the mines were dropped from 1,500 m to a maximum of 2,500 m, the speed of the aircraft was not allowed to exceed 440 km / h.

Course of the operation

First deployments in March and April 1945

Between March 27 and April 12, 1945, the XXI. Bomber Command dropped a total of 2,030 mines in seven night operations (246 emergency flights) ( Operation Starvation I ), mainly in the area of ​​the Shimonoseki Strait , near Futaoi and in front of Hiroshima . The nightly attacks came as a comparative surprise for Japan, and Shimonoseki Street was only halfway passable again from April 26, 1945. A total of 14 merchant and auxiliary ships with a total of 20,145 GRT , as well as the frigate Mokuto and the training submarine RO 64 with its entire crew of 51 men and 30 cadets sank in the area mentioned after mines were hit by the end of April 1945 . Five other cargo ships were damaged. The US losses, almost all aircraft received anti-aircraft hits, amounted to three total losses and eight damaged B-29s in March. Another machine of the 313th Bombardment Wing crashed on April 7, 1945 near Tinian after a takeoff accident and exploded.

A B-29 dropping parachute air mines (photo taken around 1944).

Operations in May 1945

At the beginning of May, the XXI. Bomber Command in several waves (197 operational flights) again the Strait of Shimonoseki and additionally the ports of Tokyo , Kure , Nagoya and Kobe as well as the coastline of the province of Harima ( Operation Starvation II ). A total of 1,422 mines had been dropped by May 5, 1945. In addition, a few mines were laid off Niijima . Operation Starvation III began just eight days later, on May 13, 1945, with a further 1,313 mines in the Shimonoseki Strait and off Tokyo, Nagoya, the Kii Peninsula and Osaka , on eight missions (203 operational flights) by the end of May . Sasebo and Fukuoka were dropped, including for the first time so-called low frequency - acoustic mines of the type Mark 25 and Mark 25 A3 A5 and pressure mines of the type Mark 25 A6. The aftermath of these attacks in May was devastating. Within four weeks, 85 merchant ships, fishing vessels, smaller auxiliary ships and boats as well as the minesweeper W 29 (43 dead) and two smaller submarine hunters were lost on these mines, and a further 137 ships were damaged. Japan's total tonnage losses from mines amounted to 109,991 GRT in May. At times, coastal traffic collapsed completely.

Japanese minesweeper W 29 (sunk in the Strait of Shimonoseki after being hit by a mine on May 8, 1945).

In order to be able to combat the threat posed by the mines, the Japanese deployed up to 20,000 air and sea observers along the threatened coastlines in order to be able to notice the release of mines in good time. In addition, around 200 auxiliary minesweepers, mostly requisitioned fishing cutters and small cargo ships, were put into service in the course of May 1945. A total of 349 clearing vehicles were in use on the Japanese side. The anti-aircraft batteries near the coast have also been strengthened. This had an increasing effect, especially at the end of May. Although no US losses were recorded at the beginning of the month, however, on the night of 25/26. May 1945 seven B-29s of the 313th Bombardment Wing lost five of them were alone in the Tokyo metropolitan area by night fighters of type Nakajima J1N shot down.

Operations in June 1945

June 1945 saw a massive intensification of US mine-laying operations. So aircraft of the XXI. Bomber Command from June 7, 404 missions and dropped within three weeks 3,542 mines from ( operation starvation IV ), again especially the Strait of Shimonoseki and the sea routes to Tokyo , Maizuru , Sakai and Kobe and the coastline of the province of Harima affected were. The Japanese defense and clearance forces, which had recovered slightly at the end of May, were no longer able to cope with this major attack, since Task Force 38, which had become free again , began to attack the Japanese from the end of June and after the end of the fighting around Okinawa Motherland and the coastal shipping began. As a result, mine clearance operations could only be carried out to a very limited extent in June 1945, which meant that, for example, goods transport to Kobe fell from around 320,000 tons (March 1945) to only about 44,000 tons (July 1945). In the course of June, 57 Japanese merchant ships with 69,009 GRT and two warships, including the destroyer escort Enoki on June 26, 1945 off Fukui and the submarine hunter Ch-195 , were lost to mine hits, and 118 other ships and boats were damaged . In return, the 313th Bombardment Wing only lost four machines.

A Mark 26 marine mine (454 kilograms) shortly after its release (photo from a B-29 in 1945).

Last operations in July and August 1945

From July 9, 1945, the XXI. Bomber Command with the final phase of the operation ( Operation Starvation V ). This phase of the operation was aimed at the complete blockade of the southern Japanese ports. A total of 3,746 mines were dropped in 474 missions by mid-August 1945. The last deployment of the 313th Bombardment Wing took place on August 14, 1945, with 35 Boeing B-29s dropping mines again in the Strait of Shimonoseki . A total of 75 merchant ships with 81,785 GRT were lost on these mines by mid-August (of which 63,323 GRT in July and 18,462 GRT in August). Another 103 ships were damaged. In addition, the destroyer Hatsushimo sank after being hit by mines (the ship was caught in a US air raid off Maizuru on July 30, 1945 and ran into a mine while evading, 17 crew members were killed in the process. The ship was still aground near the shore, but later had to be written off as a total constructive loss), the frigate Ikara and a minesweeper; several ships, including the escort aircraft carrier Kaiyo (on July 18, 1945), were partially significantly damaged. One of the last warship casualties occurred on August 22, 1945, when the old destroyer Asagao had to be aground and abandoned in Shimonoseki Strait after being hit by a mine.

Consequences and Effects

During the operation, which lasted almost five months, the 313th Bombardment Wing (depending on the source) dropped between 12,053 and 12,135 sea ​​mines (including 4,921 magnetic, 3,507 acoustic and 748 low-frequency mines ). The United States Air Force suffered only very minor losses, 15 aircraft were lost and another 28 aircraft were damaged. The personnel losses amounted to 162 men (dead and missing).

The half-sunk wreck of the Japanese destroyer Hatsushimo, which was aground near Maizuru (the picture was probably taken in 1947).

The impact in Japan, in terms of both raw materials and food, has been extremely severe. The ports of Tokyo , Kure and Nagoya were virtually completely blocked . The road from Shimonoseki could no longer be used, apart from a path that was only about 200 to 500 meters wide and half-mine-free. Between March and August 1945, shipping traffic (in terms of ship transfers) fell by 93 percent. Not only did the armaments industry suffer massively as a result (if 2.15 million tons of iron ore were imported to Japan in 1944, in 1945 it was only 341,000 tons), but also the supply of the civilian population. Whereas in January 1945 every Japanese person had an average of 2,000 kilocalories per day available, in September 1945 this value had dropped to 1,680 kilocalories. The losses of the Japanese merchant shipping amounted to 231 vehicles with a total of 280,930 GRT . At least 358 other ships (as far as these are recorded; the number of unreported cases is likely to be higher) with a total of around 400,000 GRT suffered damage, 137 of which had to be written off as constructive losses. There is no reliable information about how many seamen died or were wounded on these ships - apart from individual cases listed in the text.

The mine offensive also lost at least two destroyers , one destroyer escort , two frigates , three submarine hunters, two minesweepers and one submarine . Numerous other ships were damaged, some irreparably. There is no reliable information about the losses of the mine sweepers.

evaluation

Operation Starvation is seen as a decisive factor in the collapse of Japan in the late summer of 1945, which is why the operation, especially in the context of the collapse of coastal traffic in southern Japan and the Japanese armaments industry as a result of supply bottlenecks in raw materials essential to the war effort (oil, iron ore), is a strategic American success is to be assessed. Since the losses of the US Air Force were also very small, but serious ship losses occurred on the Japanese side, the operation can also be classified as a tactical US success.

Broaching operations

After Japan surrendered , US mine sweepers, partly supported by Japanese ships, began clearing the minefields in the Seto Inland Sea , off the Kii Peninsula and off the province of Bungo in early September 1945 . The flush operations, especially the removal of low frequency - acoustics - and pressure mines, proved partially very difficult, which is why for the first time in the context of the Pacific War , so-called Sperrbrecher went into service. At least eleven ships, mostly freighters and obsolete Japanese destroyers, as well as two converted US landing craft that had been converted into barrier breakers, were lost. In these clearance operations in the post-war period, a total of 77 people were killed by 1947. The most important sea routes could already be opened again at the beginning of November 1945, but isolated search operations had to be carried out in the following years and decades. The last mine clearance in the waters of the Seto Inland Sea took place in 1971.

Individual evidence

  1. Note: US estimates in May 1945 assumed around 3,400 aircraft in all of Japan, but it must be taken into account that not all aircraft are likely to have been operational due to a lack of fuel. In addition, the mine-laying operations, which were mostly carried out at night, were only very rarely disrupted by Japanese night fighter planes. Presumably no more than 100 aircraft in total, over a time frame of almost five months, had contact with the bombers transporting the mines.
  2. Pemsel, Helmut: Seeherrschaft. A maritime world history from steam navigation to the present . Volume 2. Weltbild Verlag. Augsburg 1995, p. 580.
  3. ^ Pemsel, Helmut: Seeherrschaft , p. 580.
  4. Wätzig, Joachim: The Japanese fleet. From 1868 until today . Brandenburg publishing house. Berlin 1996, p. 195.
  5. http://ww2total.com/WW2/History/Production/Japan/Military-production.htm
  6. ^ Pemsel, Helmut: Seeherrschaft , p. 732.
  7. http://www.combinedfleet.com/RO-64.htm
  8. ^ Mann, Robert A .: The B-29 Superfortress Chronology 1934-1960 . McFarland & Company, Jefferson (NC) 2009, p. 133.
  9. ^ Craven, Wesley F. / Cate, James L .: The Army Air Forces in World War II (Volume V). The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki - June 1944 to August 1945 . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1953, p. 669.
  10. http://www.combinedfleet.com/W-29_t.htm
  11. ^ Pemsel, Helmut: Seeherrschaft , p. 732.
  12. Craven / Cate: The Army Air Forces , p. 671.
  13. ^ Mann, Robert A .: Superfortress , p. 174.
  14. ^ Sakaida, Henry: Imperial Japanese Navy Aces 1937-1945 . Osprey Publishing. Oxford 1998, pp. 99f.
  15. ^ Pemsel, Helmut: Seeherrschaft , p. 732.
  16. http://www.combinedfleet.com/enoki_t.htm
  17. http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/45-08.htm
  18. ^ Pemsel, Helmut: Seeherrschaft , p. 732.
  19. Whitley, Mike J .: Destroyers in World War II. Technology, classes, types . Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1991, p. 191.
  20. http://www.combinedfleet.com/hatsus_t.htm
  21. http://www.combinedfleet.com/Ikara_t.htm
  22. http://www.combinedfleet.com/Asagao_t.htm
  23. Craven / Cate: The Army Air Forces , p. 21.
  24. http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/45-03.htm
  25. Craven / Cate: The Army Air Forces , p. 673.
  26. http://ww2total.com/WW2/History/Production/Japan/Military-production.htm
  27. ^ Hansell, Haywood S .: Strategic Air War against Japan . Airpower Research Institute, Air War College. Washington (DC) 1980, p. 42.
  28. http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/M/i/Mines.htm
  29. http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/45-09.htm
  30. Ibid.
  31. Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet , p. 208.
  32. Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet , p. 208.

literature

  • Wesley F. Craven, James L. Cate: The Army Air Forces in World War II (Volume 5). The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki - June 1944 to August 1945 . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1953.
  • Richard B. Frank: Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire . Random House. New York (NY) 1999.
  • Haywood S. Hansell : Strategic Air War against Japan . Airpower Research Institute, Air War College. Washington (DC) 1980.
  • Robert A. Mann: The B-29 Superfortress Chronology 1934-1960 . McFarland & Company, Jefferson (NC) 2009.
  • Helmut Pemsel: Command of the Sea. A maritime world history from steam navigation to the present . Volume 2. Weltbild Verlag. Augsburg 1995.
  • Joachim Wätzig: The Japanese fleet. From 1868 until today . Brandenburg publishing house. Berlin 1996.