Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (120 page)

Attacks by suicide bombers reached astonishing proportions. No fewer than 1900 were made before the island was conquered, and according to Admiral King thirty-four destroyers and small craft were sunk and about two hundred other ships were hit. These attacks and several thousand ordinary sorties constituted the most furious onslaught ever launched by the Japanese. But all was in vain. On June 22, after nearly three months’ fighting, the island was subdued. The battle had occupied the full strength of Admiral Nimitz’s Central Pacific forces, including an army of 450,000 men.

In the midst of my election and other preoccupations I had followed these moving struggles with day-to-day interest, and I realised at once the magnitude of the American achievement.

Prime Minister to

22 June 45

President Truman

I wish to offer my sincere congratulations upon the
splendid victory gained by the United States Army,

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Fleet, and Air Force in Okinawa. The strength of willpower, devotion, and technical resources applied by the
United States to this task, joined with the death-struggle
of the enemy, of whom 90,000 are reported to be killed,
places this battle among the most intense and famous
in military history. It is in profound admiration of
American valour and resolve to conquer at whatever
cost might be necessary that I send you this tribute
from your faithful Ally and all your British comrades-in-arms, who watch these memorable victories from this
Island and all its camps abroad. We make our salute to
all your troops and their commanders engaged.

The British Fleet had sailed again from Leyte on May 1.

Between May 4 and 25 our air groups struck the same area as before, and on May 4 our ships bombarded the island of Miyako. The enemy mostly fought back with suicide attacks. The carriers
Formidable
and
Victorious
were severely damaged, the former with heavy casualties, but their armoured decks saved them from disaster and both were able to carry on. By May 25 supplies were running low, and the ships withdrew to Manus Island, much heartened by the following message from Admiral Spruance:

I would express to you, to your officers and to your
men, after two months’ operations as a Fifth Fleet Task
Force, my appreciation of your fine work and cooperative spirit. Task Force 57 has mirrored the great
traditions of the Royal Navy to the American Task
Forces.

Farther south the liberation of the East Indies was proceeding. On May 1 the 9th Australian Division, supported by United States and Australian naval and air Triumph and Tragedy

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forces, landed at Tarakan, in Dutch Borneo. In June the Australians recaptured Brunei and Sarawak. This was followed on July 1 by a landing at Balikpapan by the 7th Australian Division, supported by Dutch, American, and Australian naval forces. But these heartening events were soon to be overshadowed by the climax of the Far Eastern war, which was now approaching.

We were still determined to send troops and aircraft to invade Japan itself, but we had also to liberate Malaya, Singapore, and the territories beyond. The most we could contribute was three divisions for the main assault, and perhaps another two later on. General MacArthur promised the most generous help, and even offered to arm our forces with American weapons and equipment and supply them from the United States. This was far more than we had ever hoped for, and would ease the strain of our shipping, but it would have been very difficult to carry out. In the air we planned to build up twenty squadrons, comprising four hundred heavy bombers, half from Britain and the rest from the Dominions bordering the Pacific, but here also there were difficulties. It transpired after the Yalta Conference that this force would have to be self-contained, providing its own airfields and installations, ports, roads, and pipe-lines.

As soon as it became clear that Okinawa would be captured General Marshall offered us a base there for the development of our air-power. I welcomed this proof that we were to play our part in the main attack upon Japan.

Prime Minister to

12 June 45

General

Marshall

(Washington)

I am very pleased indeed with your offer to us of a
base in Okinawa, from which our first instalment of ten
squadrons can take part in the air bombardment of
Japan. This is a very handsome gesture on your part,
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and in full accordance with all the kindnesses we have
received from the United States Chiefs of Staff. Our
contribution will help, though nothing like what we
should like to give you in your tremendous effort to
crush Japan speedily.

We could however only hope to have two squadrons in Okinawa by October 1945 and ten early in 1946. But all these projects were overtaken by events. Japan surrendered before our planes and soldiers could arrive, and only our Fleet and the combined forces of Australia and New Zealand saw action in the final stages of the Pacific war.

The Americans intended to seize Kyushu, the most westerly island of Japan, early in November 1945, and from there to invade the main island of Honshu. Here stood an army of more than a million men, well trained, well equipped, and fanatically determined to fight to the last. What remained of the Japanese Navy and Air Force was just as resolute.

These two great operations would have entailed bitter fighting and great loss of life, but they were never required.

We may well be thankful.

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19

Potsdam: The Atomic Bomb

My First Meeting with President Truman — I Make
a Tour of Berlin — Luncheon with the President —

Tariffs and Bases
—
Dinner with Stalin — His
Forecast of the British Election Result
—
Russia’s
Access to the Oceans — Balkan Troubles and
Soviet Policy — The Future of Europe — The
Message from the New Mexican Desert —

Prospect of a Speedy End to the Japanese War
without Soviet Help — The Decision to Use the
New Weapon — Discussions with the President
—

The Onslaught on Japan Continues — We Send
an Ultimatum, July
26 —
The Bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August
6
and
9, 1945 —

Japan Capitulates, August
14 —
Sea-Power
Decisive Against Japan.

P
RESIDENT TRUMAN arrived in Berlin the same day as I did. I was eager to meet a potentate with whom my cordial relations, in spite of differences, had been established by the correspondence included in this volume. I called on him on the afternoon of our arrival, and was impressed with his gay, precise, sparkling manner and obvious power of decision.

Next day both the President and I made separate tours of Berlin. The city was nothing but a chaos of ruins. No notice had of course been given of our visit and the streets had only the ordinary passers-by. In the square in front of the

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Chancellery there was however a considerable crowd.

When I got out of the car and walked about among them, except for one old man who shook his head disapprovingly, they all began to cheer. My hate had died with their surrender, and I was much moved by their demonstrations, and also by their haggard looks and thread; bare clothes.

Then we entered the Chancellery, and for quite a long time walked through its shattered galleries and halls. Our Russian guides then took us to Hitler’s air-raid shelter. I went down to the bottom and saw the room in which he and his mistress had committed suicide, and when we came up again they showed us the place where his body had been burned. We were given the best first-hand accounts available at that time of what had happened in these final scenes.

The course Hitler had taken was much more convenient for us than the one I had feared. At any time in the last few months of the war he could have flown to England and surrendered himself, saying, “Do what you will with me, but spare my misguided people.” I have no doubt that he would have shared the fate of the Nuremberg criminals. The moral principles of modern civilisation seem to prescribe that the leaders of a nation defeated in war shall be put to death by the victors. This will certainly stir them to fight to the bitter end in any future war, and no matter how many lives are needlessly sacrificed, it costs them no more. It is the masses of the people who have so little to say about the starting or ending of wars who pay the additional cost.

Julius Caesar followed the opposite principle, and his conquests were due almost as much to his clemency as to his prowess.

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On another occasion I inspected a four-mile line of American armour drawn up in impressive array, and also many British troops and tanks. I opened a soldiers’ club for the 7th Armoured Division, whose extraordinary voyages and marches from Cairo to the goal of victory have to some extent been mentioned in previous volumes. Three or four hundred of them were gathered in the club. They all sang

“For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and were entirely friendly. I thought I detected a certain air of sheepishness, which might be due to most of them having voted adversely.

On July 18 I lunched alone with the President, and we touched on many topics. I spoke of the melancholy position of Great Britain, who had spent more than half her foreign investments for the common cause when we were all alone, and now emerged from the war with a great external debt of three thousand million pounds. This had grown up through buying supplies from India, Egypt, and elsewhere, with no Lend-Lease arrangement, and would impose upon us an annual exportation without any compensatory import to nourish the wages fund. He followed this attentively and with sympathy, and declared that the United States owed Great Britain an immense debt for having held the fort at the beginning. “If you had gone down like France,” he said,