Aerial Mine Laying
From mid-1944, the US Navy pressed for B-29s to be used to lay naval mines in Japan's home waters to strengthen the blockade of the country. Arnold and his staff were unenthusiastic about these proposals, however, as they believed that such missions would divert too many Superfortresses away from precision bombing attacks. In response to repeated requests from the Navy, Arnold decided in November 1944 to begin mine-laying operations once sufficient aircraft were available. In January 1945, LeMay selected the 313th Bombardment Wing to be the Twentieth Air Force's specialist mine-laying unit, and the Navy provided assistance with its training and logistics. LeMay designated the aerial mining campaign Operation Starvation. As the United States had only occasionally used mines up to this time, the Japanese military had placed relatively little emphasis on keeping its minesweeping force up to date. As a result, the IJN was unprepared for the large-scale USAAF offensive.
The 313th Bombardment Wing conducted its first mine-laying operation on the night of 27/28 March when it mined the Shimonoseki Strait to prevent Japanese warships from using this route to attack the US landing force off Okinawa. Mine-laying operations were disrupted in April as the wing was assigned to support operations in Okinawa and participate in conventional bombing raids. Its rate of effort increased in May, when it conducted missions against harbors and other choke points around Honshu and Kyushu. The air-dropped minefields greatly disrupted Japanese coastal shipping.
LeMay increased the number of mine-laying sorties in June, and the 505th Bombardment Group joined the 313th Bombardment Wing on occasion. In response to this offensive, the Japanese greatly expanded their mine-sweeping force by 349 ships and 20,000 men and deployed additional anti-aircraft guns around the Shimonoseki Strait. They had little success in permanently clearing minefields or downing the B-29s, however. Many of Japan's major harbors, including those of Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya, became permanently closed to shipping. During the last weeks of the war, B-29s continued to drop large numbers of mines off Japan and the campaign was expanded into Korean waters. The 313th Bombardment Wing lost only 16 B-29s during mine-laying operations. Overall, mines dropped by Superfortresses off the home islands sank 293 ships, which represented 9.3 percent of all Japanese merchant shipping destroyed during the Pacific War and 60 percent of losses between April and August 1945. Following the war, the USSBS assessed that the Twentieth Air Force should have placed a greater emphasis on attacking Japanese shipping given the effectiveness of these attacks.
Read more about this topic: Air Raids On Japan
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