THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 12, 1995 TAG: 9508100037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 151 lines
DOWNFALL! Conquest of Japan - a calculated plan to end the war in the Pacific after 3 1/2 years of fighting.
Would it be with hundreds of thousands of troops, under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, invading the southern half of the enemy's home island of Kyushu?
The invasion - code name Olympic - was set to begin Nov. 1, 1945. Would Coronet, a follow-up invasion on the island of Honshu near Tokyo, hasten the end or lengthen the war? It was planned for March 1, 1946.
The year 1944 had already been the bloodiest of World War II for the Americans.
How did President Truman, a fledgling in office just weeks after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and anxious to bring the war to a close, contemplate the Manhattan Project - the atomic bomb?
These were the waning moments of a world at war. It's also the subject of an exhibit opening Friday at the Douglas MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk.
Both the Americans and the Japanese knew it had to end. Both had rehearsed for the finale. Both knew they could expect heavy losses.
Japan, feeling its power drain, was moving troops back from mainland China to prepare for ``Ketsu-Go,'' the final defense. Lacking metal, the Japanese resorted to making thousands of baseball-size hand grenades out of porcelain, filling them with black gunpowder and issuing them to the population.
Not only were the Japanese facing starvation but their country also no longer was producing ships, planes or munitions in the vast quantities it had just a year earlier. Japan's back was to the wall.
These were the options during the spring and summer of 1945 that the warring nations had been considering as their final moves.
Beginning Friday, the Douglas MacArthur Memorial/Foundation, together with the city of Norfolk, will trace those final steps in a unique exhibit called ``DOWNFALL! Conquest of Japan.'' Divided into eight sections, it uses artifacts and narratives to show what was going through the minds of both sides during the remaining days of the war.
`` `DOWNFALL' was the official name for all the operations being planned for the conquest of Japan,'' recalls Jeffrey Acosta, curator for the MacArthur Memorial and one of the chief designers of the new exhibit.
The various plans and operations were based on a series of diplomatic, political and strategic decisions that began with Roosevelt at the Casablanca, Yalta and Cairo conferences.
``President Truman continued that through the Potsdam (Germany) conference (in July 1945), at which an ultimatum was given Japan, calling for its `prompt and utter destruction' if it did not surrender unconditionally,'' Acosta said.
The exhibit begins with a description of those conferences, continuing with ``Unconditional Surrender'' and ``The Isolation of Japan'' to show the final demands being placed on the country.
``As you move through, it will explain the war in the Pacific as it was occurring in 1945 in both Adm. Chester Nimitz's and Gen. MacArthur's theaters of operations,'' Acosta said.
MacArthur was fighting in the Philippines while Nimitz was conducting assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Both met resistance on all three areas.
The exhibit also will show that the Japanese had predicted an Allied invasion and ``pretty much war-gamed what was going to happen,'' said Acosta. ``They did not want to accept the policy of unconditional surrender.
``Mainly, the Japanese military's plan was to fight a battle of attrition and inflict heavy casualties on Americans in the hope the Americans would tire of the war and seek a negotiated settlement.''
Earlier, in October 1944, the Soviet Union promised it would declare war against Japan within three months of Germany's surrender. But the Soviet leadership requested secrecy, worried that if Japan found out, it would reinforce its troops in Manchuria.
Meanwhile, Tokyo was bombed in March 1945 by B-29s flying out of the Marianas. In one raid, the city lost 80,000 people. Japan was completely blockaded by U.S. and British warships; submarines did everything possible to choke off the Japanese.
The MacArthur exhibit includes a time-line that marks the various campaigns. In one display, a victory flag from the U.S. submarine Skate depicts small Japanese flag markings representing ships it sank.
``One submarine got so daring it sent its crew ashore to blow up trains,'' Acosta said. ``Its flag boasts three locomotives.''
The final section, related to the last year of the war, but not directly connected to the story, is ``Pacific Veterans Who Became President.''
Every president from Dwight Eisenhower to George Bush served in the military during World War II. Five of them - all Navy officers - saw active service in the Pacific: Lt. John F. Kennedy was a PT boat commander; Lt. Cmdr. Lyndon B. Johnson won a Silver Star in New Guinea; Richard M. Nixon was an officer in the South Pacific; Gerald R. Ford served as a navigator aboard an aircraft carrier; and Bush was a pilot.
The artifacts, along with scores of photos, will allow visitors to relate to the period, Acosta said.
``Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (in Ohio) is sending us a uniform from a B-29 crewman,'' he said. ``For the younger people, we sometimes find it difficult to convey concepts. We can't project them back to the period. But if they see the equipment they used, that gives them a sense of reality and proportion and it humanizes this.''
``DOWNFALL!'' includes a combat pack carried by a U.S. Marine and some of the belongings of a Japanese soldier. Models of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and the battleship Missouri, where the Japanese signed the peace agreement on Sept. 2, also will be displayed.
Local war veterans have donated countless other artifacts for the exhibit, including a lightweight Japanese machine gun.
``This lady just walked in off the street and gave it to us,'' Acosta said. ``Her husband was in the Navy and his uncle brought it back from the Pacific. They had been carrying this around for years, and she suddenly decided she wasn't going to move it any more.''
While it may not have the size and expense of other 50th anniversary World War II exhibits - the Enola Gay is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. - ``DOWNFALL!'' is different, said retired Marine Corps Col. William Davis, director of the MacArthur Memorial.
``This one, I think, has a somewhat unique approach in that it is focusing on the last year of the war and its geopolitical and military standpoint,'' he said. ``I don't know of anybody else doing the same thing.
``I am confident we are going to be able to tell the story of the last year in such a way that it will be interesting and stimulating to our visitors by providing information and filling the gaps.'' MEMO: [For a related story, see page E3.]
ILLUSTRATION: WORLD WAR II: THE FINAL STRATEGY
BILL TIERNAN/Staff photos
Among the objects on view at the "DOWNFALL! Conquest of Japan"
exhibit are this wool cap worn by a Japanese enlisted soldier, along
with a standard issue Type 99 Long Rifle.
Jeffrey Acosta (left), curator of the Douglas MacArthur Memorial,
and Col William Davis, USMC (Retired), the memorial director,
arrange a display.
This hand-sewn battle flag was carried by a Japanese soldier. The
handwritten messages are wishes of good luck signed by his friends.
Snapshot of a Japanese soldier.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur in a 1945 photo.
THE DOUGLAS MACARTHUR MEMORIAL IN NORFOLK
ABOUT THE EXHIBIT
What: ``DOWNFALL! Conquest of Japan,'' an exhibit tracing the
steps of America's leaders as they plan for the defeat of the
Japanese Empire during World War II
Where: Douglas MacArthur Memorial, City Hall Avenue and Bank
Street, Norfolk
When: Opens Friday; continues through Aug. 18, 1996
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11
a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission: Free
Phone: 441-2965
by CNB