Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

From Chengdu the B-29s could (just) reach Kyushu, 1,500 miles away—but they could not reach Tokyo or other high-priority targets on Honshu. To launch a full-scale strategic bombing campaign against Japan, more airbases were needed in eastern China. But the Allies did not control any seaports on the Chinese coast, which meant that the cargo airlift from India would have to be extended even farther. Moreover, no one had any confidence that airfields in eastern China could be defended against the Japanese army, which was expanding its footprint on the mainland with a brutally successful ground offensive called “Ichi-Go” (Plan One). Indeed, “Ichi-Go” even threatened the Allied airbases around Chengdu and Kunming. General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, the U.S. Army commander in China, gave his opinion that fifty trained Chinese infantry divisions were needed to guarantee the safety of the airfields. But no one (including Stilwell) believed that Chiang could supply forces on that scale. For all of those reasons, Operation MATTERHORN never fulfilled its promise. From the beginning it had been driven by FDR’s concern to keep the Allied coalition together in the CBI theater, and to preserve the possibility of drawing upon China’s bottomless manpower reserves in the final invasion of Japan. By mid-1944, it was becoming clear that the logistical and security challenges confronting matterhorn were too great to overcome. Meanwhile, a better alternative had presented itself: the Marian...