Surveying the Pacific

With the European phase drawing to a close in the summer of 1945 the question was whether to extend the Survey to the Pacific. The final answer was yes, the USSBS would go on to Japan.

By the time Japan surrendered in August, many were suffering from survey fatigue. The war was over and many participants wanted to go home to resume their civilian lives. The Survey team that descended on a devastated Japan on the heels of the occupation forces was somewhat smaller and rather different from its earlier counterpart in Europe.

Alexander played little role. His de facto replacement was Paul Nitze. Other personnel and organizational changes were made. One entirely new element was a Naval Analysis Division under Rear Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie (1897-1956) alongside the Military Analysis Division that General Anderson headed. The principle was that all kinds of air attack should be considered and the naval services (Navy and Marine Corps) had carried much of the burden in the Pacific, including a portion of the attack on Japan proper. But the AAF suspected that the Navy had wormed its way in.

The team the Navy sent reflected the seriousness with which it approached the Survey. Led by a future Commander of the Sixth Fleet, its members included a future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Thomas H. Moorer), a future Chief of Naval Operations (Arleigh Burke) and a future Vice Chief of Naval Operations (James S. Russell). The AAF and Navy contingents treated each other with wary collegiality.

Working at a furious pace and drawing on stored-up analytical ammunition, the Naval Analysis Division fired a thunderous broadside with its publication of one of the earliest reports of the USSBS's Pacific series, "The Campaigns of the Pacific War", a large hardbound volume packed with facts and charts. While conclusions laudatory of the naval effort were stripped out of it at General Anderson's heated insistence, it was a triumph for the Navy in a broader sense, for it enjoyed a great market among a public eager to know more of the titanic struggle just completed in the Pacific. Although its $3.25 price was substantial by 1946 standards it probably sold more copies than any other USSBS report, to judge by the number still in circulation today.

General Anderson was furious at this poaching and Chairman D'Olier was chagrinned to find the Survey used for some other purpose than promoting Air Force objectives. Anderson wrote an insistent counter-study, "Air Campaigns of the Pacific War", and D'Olier circumvented the approval process to get it published without the imprimatur of the other directors. The price was a more affordable 60¢ but it appeared in 1947, on a market which by then already had a number of other treatments of the Pacific War, and it seems to have inspired few buyers, again judging on its rarity today.

A further Naval Analysis Division effort, "The Air Effort Against Japan", was suppressed at Anderson's insistence and exists only in the form of a few draft copies. But Paul Nitze, who took over authorship of the Summary Report (Pacific War), inflicted a hurtful sting.

The European Survey had found that a stronger attack on Germany's transportation network would have increased air power's contributions to victory in that theater. Its analysis of the Japanese case led to much the same conclusions. However, the Navy (with considerable help from the AAF) had long made Japan's sea transportation a principal target. This was very serious for an island nation dependent on imports even for a significant portion of its food supply. (The winter of 1945-1946 was a desperate one in Japan, coming after a failed domestic harvest and drastically curtailed food imports; malnutrition was widespread and famine narrowly avoided. Many would no doubt have perished from hunger had the war not ended when it did.)

With this as background but without any real supporting analysis, Nitze wrote in the summary that, "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

With the weight of the Survey's authority behind it, this conclusion would resonate for many years, complicating Air Force efforts to portray itself as the principal agent of Pacific victory. Decades later senior Air Force officers remained wary of Nitze, often referring to this passage. Close investigation of Japanese sources, however, casts considerable doubt on its accuracy (and on Air Force claims about the impact of strategic bombing as well) and suggests that an invasion might very well have been necessary had the atomic bombs not been dropped, simply because of the political power and blind obduracy of the Japanese military.

As in the European case, many supporting reports were published, more than 100 in number.

Sources (See bibliography for sources and further information)