Talk:Ten-gō sakusen

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there is some sort of error in the information box, particularly related to the order of battle. I think the US and Japanese forces are reversed.

Contents

[edit] Lack of air cover

The suicidal nature of the mission might be better understood by uninformed readers if two pieces of information were added. First, I would mention briefly at the beginning Japan's position in the war at this point, as well as the losses it had taken relative to the number of ships being launched by American shipyards in late '44 - '45. Second, the significance of sailing the Yamato into battle without air cover should be explained. I don't think most people appreciate that, despite their awsome firepower, the Yamato, Musashi, etc. -- and U.S. BBs as well -- were sitting ducks without fighter protection. This was especially true for the Japanese due to the number of carrier-borne aircraft in the U.S. task force.

The entry discusses the makeup of the U.S. taskforce, but mentions the number of battleships rather than aircraft. This is important because the very next sentence says Yamato took "up to twenty bomb and torpedo hits" before her magazine blew. Seems like it might be a good idea to explain where those bombs/torpedos came from.

[edit] Question.

"However, the crews at the fuel depot at Tokuyama defied orders and courageously supplied the task force with much more."

'Courageously'? I don't understand military tactics and the such; but how can fuel crews be 'courageous'?

Because disobedience was punishable by death? Just a hypothesis. :oS

MWAK--84.27.81.59 15:02, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

0_o Baloogan 03:10, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Correct, the fuel depot workers would have been in serious trouble for sending off as much fuel as they did, possibly being executed. This was some of the last (dead last) fuel oil in Japan. Gulfstorm75

[edit] Confusing seasonal references

One paragraph begins: By spring 1945 ... World War II ended well before Spring 1945? Oh! someone means the northern hemisphere spring.

Seasonal references should not be used in this way, because they are likely to cause confusion. People do live south of the equator, and the seasons there are not the same as they are north of the equator. This should be reworded using hemisphere-neutral language so people everywhere who understands when 1945 was can also understand when the war reached this particular point without having to translate unnecessary seasonal references. (Imagine if it said autumn instead of spring here.) --B.d.mills 00:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it was spring for the two combatants involved in this battle. I won't, however, object if you want to remove the seasonal reference. Cla68 06:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
In this battle? Perhaps. However the British Pacific Fleet and Solomon Islands campaign (which proceeds the spring 1945 bit) articles, amongst others, suggest there was New Zealand and Australian involvement in other battles even if it was primarily US... In any case, this is kind of irrelevant. Instrinsicly, this is discussing the issue in general terms. There is no reason why it should be from the POV of the combatants. It should be appropriate for the reader. I should add that even in northern hemisphere tropical countries such as Malaysia and Singapore for example, seasonal references such as spring have limited meaning for them (even if they technically have the same seasons). Indeed an inexperienced reader may not even be sure when the seasons are. I really see little reason for seasonal references in an article which isn't either related to the season or a quote (e.g. if a release date target is spring 2007 althought we should make it clear who's spring in this case). It is arguably acceptable when it only concerns a specific country or region even if it isn't connected to the season but when it concerns a world wide thing such as World War II, there is no justification for seasonal reference IMHO. Nil Einne 19:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
If articles should be seasonal-neutral from the point of the reader, then your point is valid. If it's okay for an article to represent the seasonal POV from the participants in the event, then it's not as important. I don't think any of the Solomon Island battle articles mention the season, which is appropriate since, as you point out, seasons don't really happen in the same way in the south Pacific and for the participating combatants. However, spring is a culturally significant event in both Japan and the U.S., the participants in this battle. The battle also took place in an area where spring is a noticeable season (I know this is arguable). However, I can understand your point of view and won't get worked up if someone removes (if they haven't already) the seasonal references from the article. Cla68 07:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
The general guidelines I use to determine the validity of seasonal references are:
  • If it is a name of a battle, etc "spring campaign" it is acceptable provided it is clarified within the article (northern spring/southern spring).
  • If it is used as a time reference it should be removed if possible ("the autumn of 1943" shold be substituted). Month names or other time periods taken from the Gregorian calendar should be used if possible. Rewording as "the northern autumn of 1943" should not be used, unless it is in connection with a battle name or other similar event that bears a seasonal name. In this case, dates should also be provided so that users need not consult other articles or primary references.
I have created a new {{when}} tag for these ambiguous seasonal references. A quick search using Google suggests that there are more than ten thousand of these using the phrasing "the <season> of <year>". And there are doubtless countless more using different phrasing. --B.d.mills 10:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki title

This article currently links to the Japanese article called Bou-no misaki oki kaisen. There's also a Japanese article for "Operation Ten-Go" located here, but it is a shorter article. If this is appropriate, should there be an elaboration of the Japanese title being linked to? Shawnc 01:59, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Some idiot wrote that a B-22 hit the Japanese navy with nuclear warheads, and spelt nuclear wrong. Corrected it as best as I could. If someone knows what it originally said, please replace what I wrote. JodoYodo 04:23, Thursday September 14, 2006 (UTC)

Just revert it to the earlier version, which I'll do now if it hasn't been done already. This type of thing always happens when an article is featured on Wikipedia's front page. Cla68 06:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

What is it with these sub-morons? Do they really have nothing better to do that this? If they want to screw around, why not start their own web page and leave those of us with triple digit IQs alone.

B-22? I make no claim to be an expert on WWII aircraft, but anyone with more than cursory knowledge of the war knows there was no such thing as a production model "B-22." There was an experimental plane (Douglas_XB-22) with that designation but it was never produced. See US WWII Bombers

PainMan 19:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In Harm's Way?

Under Audio-Visual it is stated:

"In Harm's Way is a 1965 film which includes a dramatization of the battle from the perspective of American servicemen."

In Harm's Way is thinly veiled, highly fictionalized representation of the later parts of the Solomons Campaign that took place nearly three years before the Ten-Go operation.

I feel that this reference should be removed.

214.3.11.2 13:46, 14 September 2006 (UTC) Jeff Rogers 14 Sep 2006

[edit] Questionable assertion

[S]ome of the Japanese survivors reported that U.S. fighter aircraft machine-gunned Japanese survivors floating in the water.[39] This may have been a war crime or it may have been a legitimate attempt to protect downed U.S. aircrew who were floating in the water nearby awaiting rescue.[40]


To apply the phrase "war crime" with 21st century connotations to actions during WWII is anachronistic and highly inappropriate. I have no problem with the documentation of facts (my grandfather who served in the Pacific theater has confirmed to me that Japanese POWs were, in fact, shot after surrender). My problem is using this statement without putting it in context.

(The systematic execution by Canadian forces, in Europe, of captured members of the SS Hitlerjugend division is probably closer to the modern definition of a "war crime" since not every member of this elite unit was invovled in the massacre of captured Canadians in Normandy. See Keegan, The Second World War. But how much sympathy can one have for SS men? Perhaps we should ask Gunter Grass?)

Although there are numerous recorded incidents of captured Japanese soldiers being shot immediately after capture or shortly thereafter. However, it MUST be noted that many Japanese POWs, even when gravely wounded, attempted to kill or killed and wounded doctors and nurses attending to them, indeed, trying to save their lives.

The race war nature of the Pacific conflict is something that has been very rarely explored, either officially, or by private scholars of either of the two former enemies, now such close Allies. Such a study would be fascinating since there can be little question that the Pacific War was, in fact, a classic "race war" where quarter was rarely asked and ever more rarely given. Contrast this with the European theatre where, with some exceptions, the Nazis and the Allies obeyed Geneva Convention restrictions during the conflict (tho' the Germans did not do so on the Eastern Front under the flimsy pretext that the USSR had not signed the Geneva Convention).

Thus, the killing of Japanese POWs was essentially a self-defense measure--especially given that defeat was considered so shameful by Japanese custom that death, if necessary by suicide, was considered by nearly all officers and men to be preferable to surrender. This attitude, in part, explains, but cannot excuse, the terrible crimes committed against Allied POWs and civilians under Japanese occupation.

Anyone seeking further information on Japanese atrocities should definitely get a copy of

Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II by Yuki Tanaka, a Japanese historian, resident in Australia (not surprisingly since it is not unknown for Japan's tiny, extreme nationalist groups to intimidate, to the point of firing shots at the houses of, Japanese scholars who publish the truth of the military clique's almost unbelievable crimes against humanity.

The author does make a limp attempt to link Japanese crimes to the use of atomic bombs by the United States to end the war. But this is typical of Japanese WWII scholars. The Japanese establishment has successfully inculcated the idea that Imperial Japan was a victim and not a purpetrator of horrors beyond imagination.

--->Be warned this book is NOT for those with a weak stomach or for kids. Tanaka documents the Japanese military's pre-planned use of cannabalism to feed troops that could not otherwise be supplied with food. And not just of enemy POWs but even low-ranking Japanese enlisted men.

Bottom line: discussion of atrocities, whether Axis or Allied really do not have a place in article concerned strictly with a battle.

PainMan 19:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


Though, Tanaka-sensei's way is then absolutely similar to that of pretty much every American WW2 historian, who outright denies the fact that thousands of Japanese women have been raped by Allied soldiers during the occupation (despite massive evidence). People today still get taught that the Japanease fought so fiercely because they feared the Americans WOULD rape their women. Winners write history, right? Saying that "the Japanese establishment has successfully inculcated the idea that Imperial Japan was a victim and not a purpetrator of horrors beyond imagination." is, pure and simple, wrong. There are plenty of historians in Japan who don't follow the "establishment's" idea. Plus, Japanese war crimes do appear in Japanese media these days and have for a while. Oh, and before I forget it. Tanaka-sensei spent some time in Australia, yes, but he is, as a matter of fact, a research professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute (which, last time I checked, is in Japan) and a coordinator of Japan Focus (www.japanfocus.org)

What can be said, however, is that warcrimes happened. The Japanese, the Germans, the Soviets, the Americans, they all committed warcrimes. The British firebombed Dresden and, ever since the end of the war, conveniently whitewashed this event by decreasing the number of victims. When I was in school (more than 10 years ago), the official number was ~64,000. Now it's not even 30,000 (the number given by the Nazi government was somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000, which actually makes sense, given the fact that the city was crowded with refugees from the east). But if the Germans would attempt anything like that, everyone would scream murder. Same applies for the Japanese.

However, I agree with the bottomline. Takekaze 08:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The use of nukes

"The apparent willingness of Japan to sacrifice so many of its people using suicidal tactics such as Operation Ten-Go and in the Battle of Okinawa reportedly was a factor in the Allied decision to employ nuclear weapons against Japan.[45]"

That's the dumbest excuse to use nukes I've ever heard of. 3k lives vs 200k lives? lol, maybe someone more knowledgeable can tell us the real reason why nukes were used or remove this part altogether. Thanks.

The source of that assertion is listed as a reference. I would suggest checking that book out from the library or purchasing it and then reading the author's rationale for making that assertion. According to that author, the decision was based on the entire Battle of Okinawa, no just the Ten-Go engagement. Cla68 00:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • There is a good reason that the Allies decided to drop the Atomic Bombs.

In 1945, the Allies began planning for the Invasion of Japan. There are a varity estimates as to how many lives it would cost the Allies to take Japan. Do not forget that the Allies, especially the Americans and Australians, had been invading Japanese-held Islands for two years. The Japanese fought nearly to the last man in each engagement. The close the Allies got to the Japan the harder that Japanese soldier fought and the higher the casaulty rate got for the Allies.

On April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Harry S. Truman became President. Truman had been an officer in the United States Marine in World War I. The first due of every officer in any branch of the service to the soldiers in his or her command. When goes into battle it is the goal of every officer to return with same men they left with. No matter what it takes to protect their men, the officer is will to do so. If killing a million people would save a single of the Officer's men then the officer would kill a million people.

Now left bring this back to the atomic bombs. When Truman became President of the United States he became Commander-in-Chief of all American Armed Forces. When Truman was told about the estimate casaulties for invading Japan and was than that there was a device that could save lives, he did not hesitate. As a formoer officer and now the commander of a troops,how many Amnerican lives would dropping the bomb have to save fro Truman to say "Yes." Answer: One. If the bomb saved the life of one American soldier then it was worth a try. This is the main reason Turman agreed to drop the bomb. As a officer, Truman was protecting his men. (Steve 01:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC))

  • Just to clear up one point, Truman was an officer in the United States Army during the First World War. He actually had a huge bone to pick with the Marines because he fely they had garnered most of the positive press during the war even though the Army had the preponderance of troops in theater. After WWII he even tried to have the Marine Corps dissolved and made part of the Army but met against some stiff resistance prompting this memorable memo and this famous Marine Corps speech.--203.10.224.59 21:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with the starter of this part of the discussion. The "military excuse" for both nukes is old and a really just a lie, an attempt to whitewash history. If it was true, why did Eisenhower oppose the plan (Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380 & Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63 (where Ike said: "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.")? Why was MacArthur not even consulted (Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71 (MacArthur also "saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb.")? Why was Leahy against it (William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441)? Spaatz said that he believed that, using conventional bombing, Japan would have surrendered around the same time (Herbert Feis Papers, Box 103, N.B.C. Interviews, Carl Spaatz interview by Len Giovannitti, Library of Congress). The logic reasosn for using both nukes was that they A) had cost some 2 billion US Dollar (would have been a waste of money if they wouldn't be used), B) there were already tensions with the USSR (just one example out of many: take the situation between the British and Tito's partisans in the Austrian province Carinthia right after cease fire that led Churchill to telegraph general Alexander that Tito's forces had to be removed from the country, if necessary by force) and C) they would be used "just" against "Japs" (or "slopes", "gooks", terms used later during Korea and Vietnam) who deserved it (check the US propaganda from those days). Japan, when you listen to Japanese historians (and frankly, some of you people really should do that, because there are always two sides of a medal), surrendered to the Western allies because Hirohito feared a Soviet invasion (keep in mind that Hirohito witnessed the firebombings of Tokyo. He saw the city burning from the palace, smelled the burning flesh of his people and did absolutely nothing to prevent further damage, two nukes certainly wouldn't have persuaded him; after the massive destruction of Tokyo, Hirohito's biggest fear was a Communist coup d'etat). Takekaze 08:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest debating this issue on the talk page of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki page instead of here. The reference cited for the statement at the beginning of this section is a credible source for that opinion. Although there is some evidence that some Japanese leaders were considering surrender, there is also compelling evidence that that scenario really wasn't very likely. But, like I said, this has been debated at length on the talk page of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki article. Cla68 10:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on squadrons involved

Was wondering if you could answer a quick question for me. Were any of the units involved US Marine Corps VMSB or VMTB squadrons? I know some of them were operating from escort carriers and were land based on Oki at the time. Did not know if any went north to participate in this. Thanks.--203.10.224.59 23:44, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not trying to answer this sooner. Spurr's book (listed in the references) contains information on which U.S. squadrons were involved and I don't currently have that book in front of me. If I get a chance to look at it I'll post what I find here. Cla68 (talk) 00:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] When

By spring 1945...

This ambiguous poetic wording has no place in an encyclopedia with a worldwide audience. The word "spring" can be interpreted differently depending on the hemisphere of the reader. This should be reworded using unambiguous wording, like "April 1945". Someone with good knowledge in this area should make the amendment from information contained in primary references just in case "April" is not the correct month. --B.d.mills 09:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Changed to "...early 1945..." CLA 18:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mitchner's Orders?

I read in an old text by E. B. Potter that Admiral Spruance had ordered Admiral Deyo's force of old battleships to deal with Yamato, but Mitchner launched strikes anyways without Spruance's consent. Can anyone confirm this? If so it should be mentioned in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dallan007 (talk • contribs) 09:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Potter's book on Arleigh Burke goes into this, because it was actually Burke (Mitscher's subordinate) who ordered and coordinated the U.S. carrier air attacks in Mitscher's name as Mitscher was ill. As soon as I have a chance I'll look it up and see what actually happened. This article currently doesn't represent the U.S. side of the battle very well which I hope to eventually rectify. Cla68 (talk) 00:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Style continuity

I noticed in the info window at the top right of the page that the Japanese commanders are listed family name last as in western texts however the Japanese names in the paragraphs are sometimes family first and sometimes family name last. Being that they are Japanese names would it not be right for all to have family name first or since it is an English article have family name last? I feel it should be one or the other but not both. Ltsgosrfn (talk) 19:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Decisive" victory

I notice that many editors place the phrase "Decisive so-and-so victory" in the infobox for articles such as this one in which one side won a lopsided victory. From what I understand, though, this is an incorrect use of the word "decisive" in this context. "Decisive" is supposed to be used to describe a battle that directly and significantly decided the overall outcome of a war or campaign. I don't think this battle was the deciding event in the Battle of Okinawa, the Ryukyu campaign, or the Pacific War in general. Cla68 (talk) 02:20, 8 June 2008 (UTC)