title: Operation Downfall

text: Initially, US planners also did not plan to use any non-US Allied ground forces in Operation Downfall. Had reinforcements been needed at an early stage of Olympic, they would have been diverted from US forces being assembled for Coronet—for which there was to be a massive redeployment of units from the US Army's Southwest Pacific, China-Burma-India and European commands, among others. These would have included spearheads of the war in Europe such as the US First Army (15 divisions) and the Eighth Air Force. These redeployments would have been complicated by the simultaneous demobilization and replacement of highly experienced, time-served personnel, which would have drastically reduced the combat effectiveness of many units. The Australian government had asked at an early stage for the inclusion of an Australian Army infantry division in the first wave (Olympic). This was rejected by U.S. commanders and even the initial plans for Coronet, according to U.S. historian John Ray Skates, did not envisage that units from Commonwealth or other Allied armies would be landed on the Kantō Plain in 1946. The first official "plans indicated that assault, followup, and reserve units would all come from US forces".


title: Operation Downfall

text: By mid-1945—when plans for Coronet were being reworked—many other Allied countries had, according to Skates, "offered ground forces, and a debate developed" amongst Western Allied political and military leaders, "over the size, mission, equipment, and support of these contingents". Following negotiations, it was decided that Coronet would include a joint Commonwealth Corps, made up of infantry divisions from the Australian, British and Canadian armies. Reinforcements would have been available from those countries, as well as other parts of the Commonwealth. However, MacArthur blocked proposals to include an Indian Army division because of differences in language, organization, composition, equipment, training and doctrine. He also recommended that the corps be organized along the lines of a U.S. corps, should use only U.S. equipment and logistics, and should train in the U.S. for six months before deployment; these suggestions were accepted. The British Government suggested that: Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Keightley should command the Commonwealth Corps, a combined Commonwealth fleet should be led by Vice-Admiral Sir William Tennant, and that—as Commonwealth air units would be dominated by the RAAF – the Air Officer Commanding should be Australian. However, the Australian government questioned the appointment of an officer with no experience in fighting the Japanese, such as Keightley and suggested that Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, an Australian who had been carrying out the New Guinea and Borneo campaigns, should be appointed. The war ended before the details of the corps were finalized.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Figures for Coronet exclude values for both the immediate strategic reserve of 3 divisions as well as the 17 division strategic reserve in the U.S. and any British/Commonwealth forces.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Meanwhile, the Japanese had their own plans. Initially, they were concerned about an invasion during the summer of 1945. However, the Battle of Okinawa went on for so long that they concluded the Allies would not be able to launch another operation before the typhoon season, during which the weather would be too risky for amphibious operations. Japanese intelligence predicted fairly closely where the invasion would take place: southern Kyūshū at Miyazaki, Ariake Bay and/or the Satsuma Peninsula.


title: Operation Downfall

text: While Japan no longer had a realistic prospect of winning the war, Japan's leaders believed they could make the cost of invading and occupying the Home Islands too high for the Allies to accept, which would lead to some sort of armistice rather than total defeat. The Japanese plan for defeating the invasion was called ("Operation Codename Decisive"). The Japanese planned to commit the entire population of Japan to resisting the invasion, and from June 1945 onward, a propaganda campaign calling for "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" commenced. The main message of "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" campaign was that it was "glorious to die for the holy emperor of Japan, and every Japanese man, woman, and child should die for the Emperor when the Allies arrived". While this was not realistic, both American and Japanese officers at the time predicted a Japanese death toll in the millions. From the Battle of Saipan onward, Japanese propaganda intensified the glory of patriotic death and depicted the Americans as merciless "white devils". During the Battle of Okinawa, Japanese officers had ordered civilians unable to fight to commit suicide rather than fall into American hands, and all available evidence suggests the same orders would have been given in the home islands. The Japanese were secretly constructing an underground headquarters in Matsushiro, Nagano Prefecture, to shelter the Emperor and the Imperial General Staff during an invasion. In planning for Operation Ketsugo, IGHQ overestimated the strength of the invading forces: while the Allied invasion plan called for fewer than 70 divisions, the Japanese expected up to 90.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Admiral Matome Ugaki was recalled to Japan in February 1945 and given command of the Fifth Air Fleet on Kyūshū. The Fifth Air Fleet was assigned the task of "kamikaze" attacks against ships involved in the invasion of Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, and began training pilots and assembling aircraft for the defense of Kyūshū, the first invasion target.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Japanese defense relied heavily on "kamikaze" planes. In addition to fighters and bombers, they reassigned almost all of their trainers for the mission. More than 10,000 aircraft were ready for use in July (with more by October), as well as hundreds of newly built small suicide boats to attack Allied ships offshore.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Up to 2,000 "kamikaze" planes launched attacks during the Battle of Okinawa, achieving approximately one hit per nine attacks. At Kyūshū, because of the more favorable circumstances (such as terrain that would reduce the Allies' radar advantage), they hoped to raise that to one for six by overwhelming the US defenses with large numbers of "kamikaze" attacks within a period of hours. The Japanese estimated that the planes would sink more than 400 ships; since they were training the pilots to target transports rather than carriers and destroyers, the casualties would be disproportionately greater than at Okinawa. One staff study estimated that the "kamikazes" could destroy a third to half of the invasion force before landing.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Admiral Ernest King, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S Navy, was so concerned about losses from "kamikaze" attacks that he and other senior naval officers argued for canceling Operation Downfall, and instead continuing the fire-bombing campaign against Japanese cities and the blockade of food and supplies until the Japanese surrendered. However, General George Marshall argued that forcing surrender this way might take several years, if ever. Accordingly, Marshall and United States Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox concluded the Americans would have to invade Japan to end the war, regardless of casualties.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Despite the shattering damage it had absorbed by this stage of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy, by then organized under the Navy General Command, was determined to inflict as much damage on the Allies as possible. Remaining major warships numbered four battleships (all damaged), five damaged aircraft carriers, two cruisers, 23 destroyers, and 46 submarines. However, the IJN lacked enough fuel for further sorties by its capital ships, planning instead to use their anti-aircraft firepower to defend naval installations while docked in port. Despite its inability to conduct large-scale fleet operations, the IJN still maintained a fleet of thousands of warplanes and possessed nearly 2 million personnel in the Home Islands, ensuring it a large role in the coming defensive operation.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In addition, Japan had about 100 "Kōryū"-class midget submarines, 300 smaller "Kairyū"-class midget submarines, 120 "Kaiten" manned torpedoes, and 2,412 "Shin'yō" suicide motorboats. Unlike the larger ships, these, together with the destroyers and fleet submarines, were expected to see extensive action defending the shores, with a view to destroying about 60 Allied transports.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Navy trained a unit of frogmen to serve as suicide bombers, the Fukuryu. They were to be armed with contact-fuzed mines, and to dive under landing craft and blow them up. An inventory of mines was anchored to the sea bottom off each potential invasion beach for their use by the suicide divers, with up to 10,000 mines planned. Some 1,200 suicide divers had been trained before the Japanese surrender.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The two defensive options against amphibious invasion are strong defense of the beaches and defense in depth. Early in the war (such as at Tarawa), the Japanese employed strong defenses on the beaches with little or no manpower in reserve, but this tactic proved vulnerable to pre-invasion shore bombardment. Later at Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, they switched strategies and dug in their forces in the most defensible terrain.


title: Operation Downfall

text: For the defense of Kyūshū, the Japanese took an intermediate posture, with the bulk of their defensive forces a few kilometers inland, back far enough to avoid complete exposure to naval bombardment, but close enough that the Americans could not establish a secure foothold before engaging them. The counteroffensive forces were still farther back, prepared to move against the largest landing.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In March 1945, there was only one combat division in Kyūshū. Over the next four months, the Imperial Japanese Army transferred forces from Manchuria, Korea, and northern Japan, while raising other forces in place. By August, they had 14 divisions and various smaller formations, including three tank brigades, for a total of 900,000 men. Although the Japanese were able to muster new soldiers, equipping them was more difficult. By August, the Japanese Army had the equivalent of 65 divisions in the homeland but only enough equipment for 40 and ammunition for 30.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Japanese did not formally decide to stake everything on the outcome of the Battle of Kyūshū, but they concentrated their assets to such a degree that there would be little left in reserve. By one estimate, the forces in Kyūshū had 40% of all the ammunition in the Home Islands.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In addition, the Japanese had organized the Volunteer Fighting Corps, which included all healthy men aged 15 to 60 and women 17 to 40 for a total of 28 million people, for combat support and, later, combat jobs. Weapons, training and uniforms were generally lacking: many were armed with nothing better than antiquated firearms, molotov cocktails, longbows, swords, knives, bamboo or wooden spears, and even clubs and truncheons: they were expected to make do with what they had. One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. ... You must aim for the abdomen." They were expected to serve as a "second defense line" during the Allied invasion, and to conduct guerrilla warfare in urban areas and mountains.


title: Operation Downfall

text: US military intelligence initially estimated the number of Japanese aircraft to be around 2,500. The Okinawa experience was bad for the US—almost two fatalities and a similar number wounded per sortie—and Kyūshū was likely to be worse. To attack the ships off Okinawa, Japanese planes had to fly long distances over open water; to attack the ships off Kyūshū, they could fly overland and then short distances out to the landing fleets. Gradually, intelligence learned that the Japanese were devoting all their aircraft to the "kamikaze" mission and taking effective measures to conserve them until the battle. An Army estimate in May was 3,391 planes; in June, 4,862; in August, 5,911. A July Navy estimate, abandoning any distinction between training and combat aircraft, was 8,750; in August, 10,290. By the time the war ended, the Japanese actually possessed some 12,700 aircraft in the Home Islands, roughly half kamikazes.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Allied counter-"kamikaze" preparations were known as the Big Blue Blanket. This involved adding more fighter squadrons to the carriers in place of torpedo and dive bombers, and converting B-17s into airborne radar pickets in a manner similar to present-day AWACS. Nimitz planned a pre-invasion feint, sending a fleet to the invasion beaches a couple of weeks before the real invasion, to lure out the Japanese on their one-way flights, who would then find ships bristling with anti-aircraft guns instead of the valuable, vulnerable transports.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The main defense against Japanese air attacks would have come from the massive fighter forces being assembled in the Ryukyu Islands. The US Army Fifth and Seventh Air Forces and US Marine air units had moved into the islands immediately after the invasion, and air strength had been increasing in preparation for the all-out assault on Japan. In preparation for the invasion, an air campaign against Japanese airfields and transportation arteries had commenced before the Japanese surrender.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Through April, May, and June, Allied intelligence followed the buildup of Japanese ground forces, including five divisions added to Kyūshū, with great interest, but also some complacency, still projecting that in November the total for Kyūshū would be about 350,000 servicemen. That changed in July, with the discovery of four new divisions and indications of more to come. By August, the count was up to 600,000, and Magic cryptanalysis had identified nine divisions in southern Kyūshū—three times the expected number and still a serious underestimate of the actual Japanese strength.


title: Operation Downfall

text: By the time of surrender, the Japanese had over 735,000 military personnel either in position or in various stages of deployment on Kyushu alone. The total strength of the Japanese military in the Home Islands amounted to 4,335,500, of whom 2,372,700 were in the Army and 1,962,800 in the Navy. The buildup of Japanese troops on Kyūshū led American war planners, most importantly General George Marshall, to consider drastic changes to Olympic, or replacing it with a different invasion plan.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Fears of "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other" encouraged the Allies to consider unconventional weapons, including chemical warfare. Widespread chemical warfare was considered against Japan's population and food crops. While large quantities of gas munitions were manufactured and plans were drawn, it is unlikely they would have been used. Richard B. Frank states that when the proposal reached Truman in June 1945, he vetoed the use of chemical weapons against personnel; their use against crops, however, remained under consideration. According to Edward J. Drea, the strategic use of chemical weapons on a massive scale was not seriously studied or proposed by any senior American leader; rather, they debated the "tactical" use of chemical weapons against pockets of Japanese resistance.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Although chemical warfare had been outlawed by the Geneva Protocol, neither the United States nor Japan was a signatory at the time. While the US had promised never to initiate gas warfare, Japan had used gas against the Chinese earlier in the war.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In addition to use against people, the U.S. military considered chemical attacks to kill crops in an attempt to starve the Japanese into submission. The Army began experimenting with compounds to destroy crops in April 1944, and within one year had narrowed over 1,000 agents to nine promising ones containing phenoxyacetic acids. One compound designated LN-8 performed best in tests and went into mass production. Dropping or spraying the herbicide was deemed most effective; a July 1945 test from an SPD Mark 2 bomb, originally crafted to hold biological weapons like anthrax or ricin, had the shell burst open in the air to scatter the chemical agent. By the time the war ended, the Army was still trying to determine the optimal dispersal height to cover a wide enough area. The ingredients in LN-8 and another tested compound would later be used to create Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War.


title: Operation Downfall

text: On Marshall's orders, Major General John E. Hull looked into the tactical use of nuclear weapons for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, even after the dropping of two strategic atomic bombs on Japan (Marshall did not think that the Japanese would capitulate immediately). Colonel Lyle E. Seeman reported that at least seven Fat Man-type plutonium implosion bombs would be available by X-Day, which could be dropped on defending forces. Seeman advised that American troops not enter an area hit by a bomb for "at least 48 hours"; the risk of nuclear fallout was not well understood, and such a short time after detonation would have exposed American troops to substantial radiation.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops." An air burst above the ground had been chosen for the (Hiroshima) bomb to achieve maximum blast effects, and to minimize residual radiation on the ground, as it was hoped that American troops would soon occupy the city.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Joint Staff planners, taking note of the extent to which the Japanese had concentrated on Kyūshū at the expense of the rest of Japan, considered alternate places to invade such as the island of Shikoku, northern Honshu at Sendai, or Ominato. They also considered skipping the preliminary invasion and going directly at Tokyo. Attacking northern Honshu would have the advantage of a much weaker defense but had the disadvantage of giving up land-based air support (except the B-29s) from Okinawa.


title: Operation Downfall

text: However, Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, was prepared to oppose proceeding with the invasion, with Admiral Nimitz's concurrence, which would have set off a major dispute within the US government.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Unknown to the Americans, the Soviet Union also considered invading a major Japanese island, Hokkaido, by the end of August 1945, which would have put pressure on the Allies to act sooner than November.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In the early years of World War II, the Soviets had planned on building a huge navy to catch up with the Western world. However, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 forced the suspension of this plan: the Soviets had to divert most of their resources to fighting the Germans and their allies, primarily on land, throughout most of the war, leaving their navy relatively poorly equipped. As a result, in Project Hula (1945), the United States transferred about 100 naval vessels out of the 180 planned to the Soviet Union in preparation for the planned Soviet entry into the war against Japan. The transferred vessels included amphibious assault ships.


title: Operation Downfall

text: At the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the Allies had agreed that the Soviet Union would take the southern part of the island of Sakhalin, which Russia had ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Portsmouth after the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War (the Soviets already controlled the northern part), and the Kuril Islands, which had been assigned to Japan in the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg. On the other hand, no agreement envisaged Soviet participation in the invasion of Japan itself.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Japanese had "kamikaze" aircraft in southern Honshu and Kyushu which would have opposed operations Olympic and Coronet. It is unknown to what extent they could have opposed Soviet landings in the far north of Japan. For comparative purposes, about 1,300 Western Allied ships deployed during the Battle of Okinawa (April–June 1945). In total, 368 ships, including 120 amphibious craft, were badly damaged, and another 28, including 15 landing ships and 12 destroyers, were sunk, mostly by "kamikazes". The Soviets, however, had fewer than 400 ships, most of them not equipped for amphibious assault, when they declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945.


title: Operation Downfall

text: For Operation Downfall, the US military envisaged requiring more than 30 divisions for a successful invasion of the Japanese home islands. In comparison, the Soviet Union had about 11 divisions available, comparable to the 14 divisions the US estimated that it would require to invade southern Kyushu. The Soviet invasion of the Kuril Islands (18 August – 1 September 1945) took place after Japan's capitulation on 15 August. However, the Japanese forces in those islands resisted quite fiercely although some of them proved unwilling to fight after Japan's surrender on 15 August. In the Battle of Shumshu (18–23 August 1945), the Soviet Red Army had 8,821 troops that were not supported by tanks and without back-up from larger warships. The well-established Japanese garrison had 8,500 troops and fielded about 77 tanks. The battle lasted one day, with minor combat actions going on for four more after the official surrender of Japan and the garrison, during which the attacking Soviet forces lost over 516 troops and five of the 16 landing ships (many of these formerly belonged to the US Navy and were later given to the Soviet Union) to Japanese coastal artillery, and the Japanese lost over 256 troops. Soviet casualties during the Battle of Shumshu totaled up to 1,567, and the Japanese suffered 1,018 casualties, making Shumshu the only battle in the 1945 Soviet–Japanese War in which Soviet losses exceeded those of the Japanese, in stark contrast to overall Soviet-Japanese casualty rates in land-based fighting in Manchuria.


title: Operation Downfall

text: During World War II, the Japanese had a naval base at Paramushiro in the Kuril Islands and several bases in Hokkaido. Since Japan and the Soviet Union maintained a state of wary neutrality until the Soviet declaration of war on Japan in August 1945, Japanese observers based in Japanese-held territories in Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands constantly watched the port of Vladivostok and other seaports in the Soviet Union.


title: Operation Downfall

text: According to Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, the Soviets had carefully drawn up detailed plans for the Far East invasions, except that the landing for Hokkaido "existed in detail" only in Stalin's mind and that it was "unlikely that Stalin had interests in taking Manchuria and even taking on Hokkaido. Even if he wanted to grab as much territory in Asia as possible, he was too much focused on establishing a beachhead in Europe more so than Asia."


title: Operation Downfall

text: Because the U.S. military planners assumed "that operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population", high casualties were thought to be inevitable, but nobody knew with certainty how high. Several estimates were made, but varied widely in numbers, assumptions and purposes, which included advocating and opposing the invasion. The estimated casualty figures later became a crucial point in postwar debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


title: Operation Downfall

text: On 15 January 1945, the U.S. Army Service Forces released a document, "Redeployment of the United States Army after the Defeat of Germany." In it, they estimate that during the 18 month period after June 1945 (that is, through December 1946), the Army would be required to furnish replacements for 43,000 dead and evacuated wounded every month. From analysis of the replacement schedule and projected strengths in overseas theaters, it suggested that Army losses alone in those categories, excluding the Navy and Marine Corps, would be approximately 863,000 through the first part of 1947, of whom 267,000 would be killed or missing. This likewise excludes wounded who would be treated in-theater during an initial window of 30 days, later to be expanded to 120 days.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In preparation for Operation Olympic, the invasion of southern Kyushu, various figures and organizations made casualty estimates based on the terrain, strength, and disposition of known Japanese forces. However, as reported Japanese strength in the Home Islands continued to climb and Japanese military performance increased, so too did the casualty estimates. In April 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally adopted a planning paper giving a range of possible casualties based on experience in both Europe and the Pacific. These ranged from 0.42 dead and missing and 2.16 total casualties per 1000 men per day under the "European Experience" to 1.95 dead and missing and 7.45 total casualties per 1000 men per day under the "Pacific Experience." This assessment included neither casualties suffered "after" the 90-day mark (US planners envisioned switching to the tactical "defensive" by X+120), nor personnel losses at sea from Japanese air attacks. In order to sustain the campaign on Kyushu, planners estimated a replacement stream of 100,000 men per month would be necessary, a figure achievable even after the partial demobilization following the defeat of Germany. As time went on, other US leaders made estimates of their own:


title: Operation Downfall

text: In a letter to General Curtis LeMay when LeMay assumed command of the B-29 force on Guam, General Lauris Norstad told LeMay that if an invasion took place, it would cost the US "half a million" dead.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In May, Admiral Nimitz's staff estimated 49,000 U.S casualties in the first 30 days of Operation Olympic, including 5,000 at sea.


title: Operation Downfall

text: A study done by General MacArthur's staff in June estimated 23,000 US casualties in the first 30 days of Olympic and 125,000 after 120 days, fighting an assumed Japanese force of 300,000 (in actuality some 917,000 Japanese troops were on Kyushu,). When these figures were questioned by General Marshall, MacArthur submitted a revised estimate of 105,000, in part by deducting wounded men able to return to duty.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In a conference with President Truman on June 18, Marshall, taking the Battle of Luzon as the best model for Olympic, thought the Americans would suffer 31,000 casualties in the first 30 days and ultimately 20% of Japanese casualties, which he estimated would include the entire Japanese force. This implied a total of 70,000 American casualties in the battle of Kyushu using the June projection of 350,000 Japanese defenders. Admiral Leahy, more impressed by the Battle of Okinawa, thought the American forces would suffer a 35% casualty rate (implying an ultimate toll of 268,000). Admiral King thought that casualties in the first 30 days would fall between Luzon and Okinawa, i.e., between 31,000 and 41,000. Of these estimates, only Nimitz's included losses of the forces at sea, though kamikazes had inflicted 1.78 fatalities and a similar number of wounded per kamikaze pilot in the Battle of Okinawa, and troop transports off Kyūshū would have been much more exposed.


title: Operation Downfall

text: In July MacArthur's Intelligence Chief, Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, warned of between 210,000 and 280,000 battle casualties in the push to the "stop line" one-third of the way up Kyushu. Even when rounded down to a conservative 200,000, this figure implied a total of nearly 500,000 all-causes losses, of whom perhaps 50,000 might return to duty after light to moderate care.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The US Sixth Army, the formation tasked with carrying out the major land fighting on Kyushu, estimated a figure of 394,859 casualties serious enough to be permanently removed from unit roll calls during the first 120 days on Kyushu, barely enough to avoid outstripping the planned replacement stream.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson stated "We shall in my opinion have to go through an even more bitter finish fight than in Germany. We shall incur the losses incident to such a war and we shall leave the Japanese islands even more thoroughly destroyed than was the case with Germany." From D-Day to V-E Day, the Western Allies alone suffered some 766,294 casualties.


title: Operation Downfall

text: A study done for Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Japanese military directives ordered the execution of all POWs being held if Japan was ever invaded. Towards the end of the war about 100,000 Allied prisoners were in Japanese custody.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Outside the government, well-informed civilians were also making guesses. Kyle Palmer, war correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times", said half a million to a million Americans would die by the end of the war. Herbert Hoover, in memorandums submitted to Truman and Stimson, also estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 fatalities, which were believed to be conservative estimates; however, it is not known if Hoover discussed these specific figures in his meetings with Truman. The Chief of the Army Operations Division thought them "entirely too high" under "our present plan of campaign."


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with an estimated total of over 82,000 direct casualties on both sides: 14,009 Allied deaths and 77,417 Japanese soldiers.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Allied grave registration forces counted 110,071 dead bodies of Japanese soldiers, but this included conscripted Okinawans wearing Japanese uniforms. 149,425 Okinawans were killed, committed suicide or went missing, which was one-half of the estimated pre-war local population of 300,000.


title: Operation Downfall

text: The Battle resulted in 72,000 US casualties in 82 days, of whom 12,510 were killed or missing (this figure excludes the several thousand US soldiers who died after the battle indirectly, from their wounds). The entire island of Okinawa is . If the US casualty rate during the invasion of Japan had been only 5% as high per unit area as it was at Okinawa, the US would still have lost 297,000 soldiers (killed or missing).


title: Operation Downfall

text: In evaluating these estimates, especially those based on projected Japanese troop strength (such as General MacArthur's), it is important to consider what was known about the state of Japanese defenses at the time, as well as the actual condition of those defenses (MacArthur's staff believed Japanese manpower on Kyushu to be roughly 300,000). Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals (awarded for combat casualties) were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan; the number exceeded that of all American military casualties of the 65 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. There were so many left that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan were able to keep Purple Hearts on hand for immediate award to soldiers wounded in the field.


title: Operation Downfall

text: Following the surrender and demobilization of Japan, vast amounts of war matériel were turned over to the US occupation forces in the Japanese Home Islands and South Korea. While some totals (particularly for items such as swords and small arms) may be inexact because of the problems of collection and the activities of the black market, the amount of military equipment available to the Japanese in and around the Home Islands by August 1945 was roughly as follows:


title: Wing Chun

text: Wing Chun (Chinese: 詠春 or 咏春, lit. "singing spring"), sometimes spelled Ving Tsun, is a concept-based fighting art, form of Southern Chinese kung fu and close-quarters system of self-defense. In Mandarin, it is pronounced "Yong Chun."


title: Wing Chun

text: The definitive origin of Wing Chun remains unknown, and is attributed to the development of Southern Chinese Martial Arts. Complications in the history and documentation of Wing Chun are attributed to the art being passed from teacher to student orally, rather than in writing. Another reason is the secrecy of its development, due to its connections to Anti-Qing rebellious movements.


title: Wing Chun

text: There are at least eight different distinct lineages of Wing Chun, each having its own history of origin. Additionally, there are competing genealogies within the same branch or about the same individual teacher. The eight distinct lineages of Wing Chun which have been identified are:


title: Wing Chun

text: Regardless of the origins espoused by perspective Wing Chun branches and lineages, there is much third-party controversy and speculative theorizing regarding the true origins of Wing Chun. In the West, Wing Chun's history has become a mix of fact and fiction due to the impacts of early secrecy and modern marketing.


title: Wing Chun

text: Contemporary Wing Chun, with its characteristic six forms and the "Chi Sao"/"Poon Sao" training exercises, can be traced back to the studies of the teachers of Ip Man and Yuen Kay-shan. The other lineages contain separate techniques, instructions, forms and/or weapon uses. The Jee Shim lineage of Wing Chun has enough deviations to the curriculum to be considered a separate/sister martial arts style, Weng Chun.


title: Wing Chun

text: The Ving Tsun Athletic Association was founded in 1967 by Cantonese master Ip Man and seven of his senior students. The first public demonstration of the Wing Chun fighting system, according to Ip Man, took place in Hong Kong at an official exhibition fight in the winter of 1969 at what was then the Baptist College (now the Hong Kong Baptist University). Leung Ting, a student of Ip Man, invited his master and some well-known representatives of the martial arts scene of the time to the college and conducted the exhibition fights in front of the specialist audience.


title: Wing Chun

text: In ancient China, Wing Chun, like all other martial arts or craft guilds, was traditionally passed on in a familiar way, from master to student. The master, who had personal responsibility for the entire training of the student (apprentice), was addressed as Sifu (master). The lessons often took place in the master's house, where a personal bond would develop between the master and his family and the student (apprentice), with certain mutual obligations. The first public martial arts schools were established in Hong Kong. Since then, Wing Chun lessons have taken on a more modern, academic, and commercial character.


title: Wing Chun

text: In some schools, however, the family system was still maintained. Lo Man-kam, a nephew of Ip Man, still teaches his students in his home in Taipei. Suitable selected long-term students are still accepted into the inner circle of the Wing Chun family by the Sifu in the traditional way, through a master-student tea ceremony. This ceremony underlines the deep personal bond that has developed between master and student through the long training period.


title: Wing Chun

text: There is no uniform umbrella organization in Europe under which Wing Chun practitioners are grouped, but rather numerous, sometimes competing and divided associations, schools, and individual teachers. Most associations do not appear in the legal form of associations that have voluntarily merged to form an association, but as commercial organizations in which associated schools are integrated, which are authorized and certified by the association. Some of the associations are organized in a franchise system.


title: Wing Chun

text: In some associations, based on the family system that was used in the past, obedience and obligations towards the master and his teacher are emphasized, although these are rarely directly related to their training students.


title: Wing Chun

text: Wing Chun favors a relatively high, narrow stance with the elbows close to the body. Within the stance, arms are generally positioned across the vital points of the centerline with hands in a vertical "wu sau" ("protecting hand" position). This puts the practitioner in a position to make readily placed blocks and fast-moving blows to vital striking points down the center of the body, i.e. the neck, chest, belly and groin. Shifting or turning within a stance is done on the heels, balls, or middle (K1 or Kidney point 1) of the foot, depending on the lineage. Some Wing Chun styles discourage the use of high kicks because this risks counter-attacks to the groin. The practice of "settling" one's opponent to brace them more effectively against the ground helps one deliver as much force as possible.


title: Wing Chun

text: Softness (via relaxation) and performance of techniques in a relaxed manner, and by training the physical, mental, breathing, energy and force in a relaxed manner to develop Chi "soft wholesome force", is fundamental to Wing Chun. On "softness" in Wing Chun, Ip Man during an interview said:


title: Wing Chun

text: The most common system of forms in Wing Chun consists of three empty hand forms, two weapon forms, and a wooden dummy form.


title: Wing Chun

text: San Sik (Chinese: 散式; Cantonese Yale: Sáan Sīk; pinyin: Sǎn Shì; 'Separate forms'), along with the other three forms, is the basis of all Wing Chun techniques. They are compact in structure, and can be loosely grouped into three broad categories: (1) Focus on building body structure through basic punching, standing, turning, and stepping drills; (2) Fundamental arm cycles and changes, firmly ingraining the cardinal tools for interception and adaptation; (3) Sensitivity training and combination techniques.


title: Wing Chun

text: Both the Wai Yan (Weng Chun) and Nguyễn Tế-Công branches use different curricula of empty hand forms. The Tam Yeung and Fung Sang lineages both trace their origins to Leung Jan's retirement to his native village of Gu Lao, where he taught a curriculum of San Sik.


title: Wing Chun

text: The Siu Lim Tau of Wing Chun is a form that includes movements that are a combination of Siu Lim Tau, Chum Kiu, and Biu Ji of other families. The other major forms of the style are: Jeui Da (), Fa Kyun (), Jin Jeung (), Jin Kyun (), Jeui Kyun (), Sap Saam Sau (), and Chi Sau Lung ().


title: Wing Chun

text: The Star Dummy consists of three poles that are embedded into the ground in a triangle with each pole an arm's span apart. The associated form consists of kicking the poles using the various kicks found in Wing Chun: front kick, front kick with the foot pointed out using the broad area of the foot and knee rotation to outside, and sidekick.


title: Wing Chun

text: Wing Chun includes several sensitivity drills. Although they can be practiced or expressed in a combat form, they should not be confused with actual sparring or fighting.


title: Wing Chun

text: Chi Sau () is a term for the principle and drills used for the development of automatic reflexes upon contact and the idea of "sticking" to the opponent (also known as "sensitivity training"). In reality, the intention is not to "stick" to your opponent at all costs, but rather to protect your centerline while simultaneously attacking your opponent's centerline. In Wing Chun, this is practiced by two practitioners maintaining contact with each other's forearms while executing techniques, thereby training each other to sense changes in body mechanics, pressure, momentum and "feel". The increased sensitivity gained from this drill helps a practitioner attack and counter an opponent's movements precisely, quickly, and with appropriate techniques. The center-line principle is a core concept in Wing Chun Kung Fu. You want to protect your own center-line while controlling your opponent's. You do this with footwork. Understanding the center-line will allow you to instinctively know where your opponent is.


title: Wing Chun

text: According to Ip Man, "Chi Sau in Wing Chun is to maintain one's feeling of opponent's movement by staying relaxed all the while keeping in the strength to fight back, much like the flexible nature of bamboo".


title: Wing Chun

text: Chi Sau additionally refers to methods of rolling hands drills (). Luk Sau participants push and "roll" their forearms against each other in a single circle while trying to remain in a relaxed form. The aim is to feel the force, test resistance, and find defensive gaps. Other branches have a version of this practice where each arm rolls in small, separate circles. Luk Sau is most notably taught within the Pan Nam branch of Wing Chun where both the larger rolling drills as well as the smaller, separate-hand circle drills are taught.


title: Wing Chun

text: Some lineages, such as Ip Man and Jiu Wan, begin Chi Sau drills with one-armed sets called Daan Chi Sau () which help the novice student to get the feel of the exercise. In Daan Chi Sau each practitioner uses one hand from the same side as they face each other.


title: Wing Chun

text: Chi Geuk () is the lower-body equivalent of the upper body's Chi Sau training, aimed at developing awareness in the lower body and obtaining relaxation of the legs.


title: Wing Chun

text: Pak Sao is a blocking technique similar to a parry used in boxing. With "Pak Sao", the hand comes directly out of the center of the body to slap away an attacker's strike to one's head. Effective application of "Pak Sao" involves creating an angle of deflection through which the opponent's blow can be slapped away with minimal effort.


title: Wing Chun

text: An overcompensating "Pak Sao" may allow the attacker a free shot. This is because excessive effort creates the risk of being trapped by one's opponent if said opponent pulls the "Pak Sao" down and traps one's other arm with it.


title: Wing Chun

text: Donnie Yen played the role of Wing Chun Grandmaster Ip Man in the 2008 movie "Ip Man", and in its sequels "Ip Man 2", "Ip Man 3," and "Ip Man 4". The Ip Man series of movies is credited in reviving interest in the martial art in the 2010s.


title: Wing Chun

text: In December 2019, a new Wing Chun fighter named Leroy Smith was introduced to the fighting game "Tekken 7" roster as downloadable content. When creating characters to represent real-world martial arts, the developers wanted to introduce a new fighter utilizing Wing Chun. The developers consulted Ip Man's nephew, who provided motion capture for the character.


title: Wing Chun

text: Simu Liu uses Wing Chun along with other types of martial arts when playing the title character of the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe movie "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings".


title: Wing Chun

text: Some notable practitioners of Wing Chun are Ip Man and his sons Ip Chun and Ip Ching, Max Zhang (Zhang Jin), the martial artist Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, and Dan Inosanto, and actor Robert Downey Jr.


Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (often colloquially known as Joseph) is a sung-through musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly; their first collaboration, "The Likes of Us", written in 1965, was not performed until 2005. Its family-friendly retelling of Joseph, familiar themes, and catchy music have resulted in numerous stagings. According to the owner of the copyright, the Really Useful Group, by 2008 more than 20,000 schools and amateur theatre groups had staged productions.


title: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

text: "Joseph" was first presented as a 15-minute "pop cantata" at Colet Court School in London in 1968, and was published by Novello and recorded in an expanded form by Decca Records in 1969. After the success of the next Lloyd Webber and Rice piece, "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Joseph" received amateur stage productions in the US beginning in 1970, and the first American release of the album was in 1971. The musical had its professional premiere, as a 35-minute musical, at the Haymarket ice rink during the Edinburgh International Festival in 1972. It was Part Two of "Bible One", a Young Vic Theatre Company production presented by the National Theatre of Great Britain. While still undergoing various modifications and expansions, the musical was produced in the West End in 1973. In 1974, its full modern format was performed at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester and was also recorded that year. The musical was mounted on Broadway in 1982. Several major revivals, national tours, and a 1999 direct-to-video film starring Donny Osmond followed.


text: "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" is based on the story of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis.


text: A Narrator opens the show by introducing Joseph, the dreamer ("Prologue"). Joseph sings an inspiring, but seemingly meaningless song to the audience ("Any Dream Will Do"). The Narrator then draws the audience's attention to Joseph's father Jacob and his 12 sons ("Jacob and Sons"). Jacob favors Joseph over his other sons, and he gives Joseph a multi-colored coat to show his affection for him. Joseph is ecstatic about this gift ("Joseph's Coat"), while his brothers look on with jealousy.


text: The brothers’ jealousy is compounded by Joseph's dreams, which suggest that he is destined to rule over them ("Joseph's Dreams"). To stop this from happening, they try to kill him by throwing him down a pit, before changing their minds and selling him as a slave to some passing Ishmaelites. The Narrator comments on how powerless Joseph was to stop this ("Poor, Poor Joseph").


text: To hide what they have done, Joseph's brothers and their wives tell Jacob that his beloved son has been killed. As proof, they show him Joseph's coat, which they have torn to pieces and covered in goat's blood ("One More Angel in Heaven"). When the devastated Jacob exits, the brothers and wives cheerfully celebrate Joseph's departure ("Hoedown").


text: Meanwhile, Joseph is taken to Egypt, where he is bought as a slave by the wealthy Potiphar. He works hard and is promoted, eventually running the household. Joseph catches the eye of Mrs Potiphar and although he turns down her advances, Potiphar sees them together and jumps to the wrong conclusion ("Potiphar"). Enraged, he throws Joseph in jail.


text: A heartbroken Joseph laments his situation ("Close Every Door"). Two prisoners, both former servants of the Pharaoh, are put in his cell. Joseph interprets their strange dreams and predicts the Butler will return to Pharaoh's service, while the Baker will be executed. As Joseph questions his predictions, the other prisoners encourage Joseph to follow his own dreams ("Go, Go, Go Joseph").


text: The Narrator opens the second act with news that there's a glimmer of light for Joseph in jail: Pharaoh himself had a run of crazy dreams and nobody can interpret them ("Pharaoh Story"). Pharaoh's (now freed) Butler tells him of Joseph's skills deciphering dreams ("Poor, Poor Pharaoh"). Pharaoh has Joseph brought to him and describes his dream involving seven fat cows, seven skinny cows, seven healthy ears of corn, and seven dead ears of corn ("Song of the King").


text: Joseph deduces that there will be seven plentiful years of crops followed by seven years of famine ("Pharaoh's Dreams Explained"). Impressed with what he hears, Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge of preparations for the famine and the former slave becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt, Pharaoh's right-hand man ("Stone the Crows").


text: Meanwhile, Joseph's family back home is now starving and poor, having lost their farm and living off scraps in a brothel. Joseph's brothers regret what they did to him and how they lied to their father, thinking that things might have turned out differently if Joseph was still with them ("Those Canaan Days"). Hearing that Egypt still has food, they travel there to beg for supplies ("The Brothers Come to Egypt").


text: In Egypt, the brothers beg for food from Joseph, not realising who he is ("Grovel, Grovel"). Joseph gives them sacks of food, but plants a golden cup in the one belonging to Benjamin, his youngest brother. When the brothers attempt to depart, Joseph stops them, accusing them of theft. Each brother empties his sack ("Who's the Thief?"), and when the cup is found in Benjamin's sack Joseph accuses him of stealing. The other brothers beg Joseph to take them prisoner instead and let Benjamin go free ("Benjamin Calypso").


text: Joseph sees that his brothers have changed and reveals who he really is ("Joseph All the Time"). Joseph sends for his father Jacob ("Jacob in Egypt"). Upon meeting Jacob for the first time in years, Joseph sings "Any Dream Will Do" again, and the lyrics are revealed to be a vague overview of the story. Jacob gives Joseph his coat back ("Give Me My Colored Coat")


text: In some productions, the cast perform a medley of songs from the show as they take their bows ("Joseph Megamix").


text: The 17-year-old budding musical-theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was contacted by the 20-year-old aspiring pop-songwriter Tim Rice in 1965, and they created their first musical, "The Likes of Us". They produced a demo tape of that work in 1966, but the project failed to gain a backer.


text: In the summer of 1967, Alan Doggett, a family friend of the Lloyd Webber’s who had assisted on "The Likes of Us" and who was the music teacher at the Colet Court school in London, commissioned Lloyd Webber and Rice to write a piece for the school's choir. Doggett requested a "pop cantata" along the lines of Herbert Chappell's "The Daniel Jazz" (1963) and Michael Hurd's "Jonah-Man Jazz" (1966), both of which had been published by Novello and were based on the Old Testament. The request for the new piece came with a 100-guinea advance from Novello. This resulted in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph, in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiched a number of pop-music styles.


text: The piece was first presented as a 15-minute pop cantata at Colet Court School in London on 1 March 1968. Lloyd Webber's composer father William arranged for a second performance at his church, Westminster Central Hall, with a revised and expanded 20-minute format; the boys of Colet Court and members of the band Mixed Bag sang at this performance in May 1968. One of the children's parents in that audience was Derek Jewell, a "Sunday Times" music critic; he reviewed the piece in the newspaper, calling it a new pop oratorio and praising its innovation and exuberance. By its third performance, at St Paul's Cathedral in November 1968, the musical had been expanded to 35 minutes.


text: Novello published the lyrics and sheet music of the 20-minute version at the beginning of 1969, as the third of their Old Testament pop cantatas. Decca Records, which had already recorded the St Paul's Cathedral version of the musical in the summer of 1968, released the recording in 1969, credited to the Joseph Consortium, following the Novello publication. David Daltrey, front man of British psychedelic band Tales of Justine, played the role of Joseph and lead guitar, and Tim Rice was Pharaoh. Other vocalists included members of the Mixed Bag group, such as Terry Saunders and Malcolm Parry, and the choir of Colet Court School.


text: A 32-minute recording of the musical with 19 tracks was issued in the US on Scepter Records in 1971. It was a reissue of the 1969 Decca UK album, capitalising on the success of 1970's "Jesus Christ Superstar" in the US. It featured Daltrey as Joseph, Rice as Pharaoh, William S. Lloyd Webber on the Hammond organ, Alan Doggett conducting, and the Colet Court choir as the chorus.


text: Lloyd Webber and Rice used the popularity of their subsequent musical, the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar", to promote "Joseph", which was advertised in America as a "follow-up" to "Superstar". The rock opera's title song "Superstar" had been an international hit single released in late 1969, and "I Don't Know How To Love Him", another hit from "Jesus Christ Superstar", was released 1 May 1970. The first American production of "Joseph" was an amateur stage production in May 1970, at Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception in Douglaston, Queens, New York City. Following this, other schools and colleges sought to produce the piece.


text: In late August and September 1972, "Joseph" was presented at the Edinburgh International Festival by the Young Vic Theatre Company, directed by Frank Dunlop. It starred Gary Bond in the title role, Peter Reeves as the narrator, and Gordon Waller as Pharaoh; Alan Doggett was the music director. In October the production played at London's Young Vic Theatre, and in November at the Roundhouse. The production was part of a double bill called "Bible One: Two Looks at the Book of Genesis". Part I was Dunlop's reworking of the first six of the medieval Wakefield Mystery Plays, with music by Alan Doggett. Part II was "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". This production of "Joseph", still a 35-minute musical, was also broadcast in the UK by Granada Television in 1972.


text: In February 1973, theatre producer Michael White and impresario Robert Stigwood mounted a further expanded version of the Young Vic production at the Albery Theatre in the West End, where it ran for 243 performances. This Young Vic production of "Joseph" was recorded for an LP released on the RSO label in 1973. The mystery plays that had preceded the original Young Vic productions were dropped, and instead the musical was preceded by a piece called "Jacob's Journey", with music and lyrics by Lloyd Webber and Rice and a book by television comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. "Jacob's Journey", which contained a great deal of spoken dialogue, was eventually phased out in favour of a sung-through score that became part of "Joseph". The first production of the show in its modern, final form was at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester, which presented the musical several times from 1974 through 1978.


text: Starting in 1974, Irish stage and screen producer Noel Pearson mounted an Irish production of Joseph, starring Tony Kenny in the title role and with Pearson playing Jacob , which ran off-and-on for several years on several stages, starting in the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, moving on to the Cork Opera House for a two-week run, then to Limerick and then the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, followed by several other venues over the next 4 years . A cast recording was produced by Ram Records .


text: In 1974, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" was performed at the Playhouse in the Park in Philadelphia. The musical ran at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 1976 and in 1977 as "holiday fare". In the 1976 production, which opened on 30 December, direction was by John Dunlop, with a cast that featured Cleavon Little as the Narrator and David-James Carroll as Joseph. In the 1977 production, running in December through 1 January 1978, staging was by Graciela Daniele, with Carroll as Joseph, Alan Weeks as the Narrator and William Parry as Pharaoh/Elvis. In 1979, "Joseph" made its Connecticut debut at the historic Downtown Cabaret Theatre ahead of moving to New York City.


text: "Joseph" received an Off-Broadway production at the Entermedia Theatre, running from 18 November 1981 through 24 January 1982. Directed by Tony Tanner, the cast starred Bill Hutton as Joseph, Laurie Beechman as the Narrator, and Tom Carder as Pharaoh.


text: The production transferred to Broadway at the Royale Theatre on 27 January 1982 and ran through 4 September 1983, with 747 performances. Judith Dolan designed costumes for the production. This production was recorded on the Chrysalis label, and is the first to feature the Prologue (dubbed on the Chrysalis release "You are what you feel"). The producers were Gail Berman and Susan Rose, who were the youngest producers on Broadway. The show received six Tony Award nominations including Best Musical and Best Original Score but won zero. Allen Fawcett replaced Hutton as Joseph in June 1982. David Cassidy took over the role of Joseph in March 1983 and also performed in the touring cast in 1983–1984.


text: With Jason Donovan in the lead, the expanded show was restaged in 1991 at the London Palladium with Steven Pimlott as director and Anthony Van Laast as choreographer, winning the 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for set design. The cast album of this production was the #1 UK album for two weeks in September 1991, and the single "Any Dream Will Do" from it was also the #1 UK single for two weeks in June–July 1991. When Donovan left, former children's TV presenter Phillip Schofield portrayed Joseph.


text: The musical opened in Toronto at the Elgin Theatre in June, 1992 until September that same year, with Donny Osmond as Joseph and Janet Metz as the Narrator. A major Australian production, based on the 1991 UK version, opened on 31 December 1992 at the State Theatre in Melbourne. It featured Indecent Obsession lead singer David Dixon as Joseph and Tina Arena as the Narrator. The musical then played seasons in Brisbane and Sydney through 1993.


text: The show was revived in the United States in 1993, playing in Los Angeles at the Pantages Theatre for 18 weeks, and in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Theatre for an 8-week run, before moving to Broadway, where it played for 231 performances at the Minskoff Theatre from 10 November 1993 to 29 May 1994. The cast featured Michael Damian (Joseph), Kelli Rabke (Narrator), Clifford David (Jacob), and Robert Torti (Pharaoh).


text: Patrick Cassidy and Debbie Gibson performed 16 shows between 6–16 December 1999, at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago, IL. Students from Lake Bluff Middle School performed as part of the dream Choir.


text: A production starring Stephen Gately previewed in Oxford in December 2002, before moving to Liverpool over Christmas 2002. This production reached the West End at the New London Theatre in March 2003.


text: A 2007 revival of the London Palladium production at the Adelphi Theatre starred a "Joseph" cast with the winner of BBC One's "Any Dream Will Do", presided over by Lloyd Webber. This was the second reality talent show to search for a West End star, capitalising on the success of the 2006 BBC–Lloyd Webber series, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?". Viewers voted for Lee Mead as Joseph. Mead had given up his ensemble role in "The Phantom of the Opera", where he also understudied Raoul. The new "Joseph" production, which began on 6 July 2007, used Steven Pimlott's original direction (Pimlott had died since staging the Palladium production), with Preeya Kalidas as the Narrator.


text: The long-running UK touring production was re-cast in 2010 with Keith Jack taking on Joseph in July 2010 opposite Jennifer Potts as narrator.


text: A new North American touring production began on 4 March 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio starring Diana DeGarmo as the Narrator and Ace Young as Joseph.


text: The 2016 UK touring production starred Joe McElderry as Joseph and Lucy Kay as the Narrator. The tour started again in February 2019 with Jaymi Hensley taking the lead role, with Trina Hill portraying the Narrator.


text: In November 2018 it was announced that "Joseph" would return to the London Palladium for a limited run over the summer in 2019 to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary. Sheridan Smith starred as the Narrator and Jason Donovan played Pharaoh, with the title role of Joseph being played by drama school graduate Jac Yarrow. The production ran from 27 June 2019 (previews), opening 11 July, to 8 September. The success of this production led to it being announced to make a return the following year.


text: On 17 February 2020, a 50th anniversary concert production of "Joseph" was staged at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall in New York City. Produced by Manhattan Concert Productions, directed by Michael Arden conducted by Stephen Oremus, and accompanied by the New York City Chamber Orchestra with over 300 singers, the one night only sold-out concert presentation starred Noah Galvin (a last minute replacement for Ari'el Stachel) as Joseph along with Eden Espinosa, Alex Newell, and Jessica Vosk sharing the central role of The Narrator. Additional casting included Chuck Cooper as Jacob, Andy Karl as Potiphar, Orfeh as Mrs. Potiphar, and Merle Dandridge as The Pharaoh.


text: The production returned to the London Palladium in 2021, playing a limited season from 1 July to 5 September. The production which was postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic sees Alexandra Burke join the company as The Narrator and Yarrow and Donovan return to the roles of Joseph and Pharaoh respectively.


text: Lloyd Webber and Rice used a variety of musical styles, including parodies of French ballads ("Those Canaan Days"), Elvis-themed rock and roll ("Song of the King"), Country/Western music ("One More Angel in Heaven"), 1920s Charleston ("Potiphar"), Calypso ("Benjamin Calypso"), jazz ("Joseph's Dreams") and 1970s go-go ("Go, Go, Go Joseph").


text: "Prologue" was first included in the 1982 Broadway production; the inclusion of "Any Dream Will Do" at the start of the show (and the renaming of the closing version as per the above list) dates from the 1991 revival. The UK touring production circa 1983–87 (produced by Bill Kenwright) included an additional song "I Don't Think I'm Wanted Back at Home", which was originally part of "Jacob's Journey".


text: In 1999, a direct-to-video film adaptation of the same title starring Donny Osmond was released, directed by David Mallet and based on Steven Pimlott's 1991 London Palladium production. Osmond had toured North America in the role after opening the Toronto revival in 1992. In the film, Maria Friedman appears as the Narrator, Richard Attenborough as Jacob, Ian McNeice as Potiphar, Joan Collins as Mrs. Potiphar and Robert Torti as Pharaoh.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Chuck E. Cheese (formerly known as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza and simply Chuck E. Cheese's) is an American family entertainment center and pizza restaurant chain founded in 1977 by Atari's co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, each location features arcade games, amusement rides, and character stage shows in addition to serving pizza and other food items; former mainstays included ball pits, crawl tubes, and animatronic shows. The chain's name is taken from its main character and mascot, Chuck E. Cheese. The first location opened as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre in San Jose, California. It was the first family restaurant to integrate food with arcade games and animated entertainment.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: After filing for bankruptcy in 1984, the chain was acquired in 1985 by Brock Hotel Corporation, parent company of competitor ShowBiz Pizza Place. The merger formed a new parent company, ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. which began unifying the two brands in 1990, renaming every location Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza. It was later shortened to Chuck E. Cheese's in 1994, and Chuck E. Cheese in 2019. Parent company ShowBiz Pizza Time also became CEC Entertainment in 1998.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: As of December 2022, there are 471 Chuck E. Cheese locations in the United States, and 99 locations in Canada, Chile, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Saudi Arabia, The U.A.E, Trinidad & Tobago, Peru, Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Costa Rica, Jordan, India, El Salvador, Bahrain, Suriname, and Qatar, meaning that there are 570 Chuck E. Cheese locations.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre was founded by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, who sought to expand video-game arcades beyond adult locations like pool halls to family friendly venues. His experience in the amusement park industry, and his fondness for Disneyland's Country Bear Jamboree, influenced his concept for Pizza Time Theatre. He has said, "It was my pet project ... I chose pizza because of the wait time and the build schedule—very few components, and not too many ways to screw it up."


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: When his first animatronic show was being assembled, Bushnell learned the costume he had bought for his main character, a coyote, was actually a rat, prompting him to suggest changing the name from "Coyote Pizza" to "Rick Rat's Pizza". His marketing team believed this name would not be appealing to customers and proposed "Chuck E. Cheese" instead. The company adopted the rat as their mascot.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: The first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater opened in San Jose, California, in 1977. In 1978, when Atari's then-corporate parent Warner Communications refused to open additional locations, Bushnell purchased the rights to the concept and characters from Warner for $500,000. Gene Landrum then resigned from Atari and was made the restaurants' president and chief operating officer. By late 1979, there were seven PTT locations, all in California. Its animatronics were produced fully in-house by PTT employees.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: To expand beyond California and the west coast, Bushnell began to franchise, resulting in a co-development agreement between himself and Robert Brock of Topeka Inn Management in June 1979. The agreement handed Brock exclusive franchising rights for opening Pizza Time Theatres in sixteen states across the Southern and Midwestern United States, while also forming a company subdivision, "Pizza Show Biz", to develop the Pizza Time Theatres.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Late in 1979, Brock became aware of Aaron Fechter of Creative Engineering, Inc. and his work in animatronics. In November 1979, he scouted Fechter's business and concluded that Creative Engineering's animatronics would be too strong a competition for Bushnell's work. Brock therefore requested that Bushnell release him from their co-development agreement, wishing to develop with Fechter instead.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In December 1979, Brock and Fechter formed ShowBiz Pizza Place Inc., and Brock gave notice to sever his development relationship with Bushnell. ShowBiz Pizza Place was conceptually identical to Pizza Time Theatre in all aspects except for animation, which would be provided by Creative Engineering. ShowBiz Pizza Place opened its first location on March 3, 1980, in Kansas City, Missouri.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Upon the opening of ShowBiz Pizza Place, Bushnell sued Brock and Topeka Inn Management over breach of contract. Brock immediately issued a counter-suit against Bushnell, citing misrepresentation. The court case began in March 1980, eventually settling out of court with Showbiz agreeing to pay Pizza Time Theatre a portion of its profits over the following decade. During this period, Topeka Inn Management changed its name to Brock Hotel Corporation and moved its headquarters to Irving, Texas. Both restaurants experienced increased success as the video game industry became more robust. To maintain competition, both franchises continually modified and diversified their animatronic shows.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In 1981, Pizza Time Theatre went public; they lost $15 million in 1983. By early 1984, Bushnell's debts were insurmountable, resulting in the filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Pizza Time Theatre Inc. on March 28, 1984. Brock then bought the floundering company, finalizing the purchase in May 1985 and merging the two restaurant companies into ShowBiz Pizza Time Inc.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: After the merger, both restaurant chains continued operating under their respective titles, while major financial restructuring had begun. During this period, Creative Engineering began to sever ties with ShowBiz Pizza Time (officially splitting in September 1990), resulting in the unification of the two brands. By 1992, all restaurants assumed the name of "Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza". The name was then shortened to "Chuck E. Cheese's" by March 1994 after a redesigned concept.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In 1998, ShowBiz Pizza Time renamed itself CEC Entertainment, Inc. to reflect the remaining chain brand. CEC Entertainment has since acquired additional family restaurant properties, including 13 locations of the now-defunct Discovery Zone in 1999, and all locations of Peter Piper Pizza in October 2014. Peter Piper Pizza still operates under that name.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In the early 1980s, the restaurant franchise debuted in Australia under the name Charlie Cheese's Pizza Playhouse. The name change had to do with the common meaning of the word "chuck", which in Australia is a reference to the phrase "to throw up". Consecutively, Pizza Time Theatre, Inc. also opened at least one restaurant in Hong Kong and Singapore, which both closed shortly thereafter as a result of the initial company's 1984 bankruptcy.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: As of June 2020, Chuck E. Cheese operated 612 corporate and franchise stores, as well as 122 Peter Piper Pizza restaurants. They were located in 47 states across the United States and in 16 countries and territories around the world.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: By 2012, CEC was struggling with decreasing revenue. They ran a rebranding campaign, changing the rat mascot into a rock star guitar-playing mouse. In-store restaurant sales continued to decline through 2013 but merchandising and box office revenue increased.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In February 2014, Apollo Global Management acquired CEC Entertainment, Inc. for $54 per share, or about $950 million. In October 2014, under Apollo Global Management, CEC Entertainment announced that they would purchase their Phoenix-based competitor, Peter Piper Pizza from ACON Investments.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In August 2017, the company began to pilot a new design concept at seven remodeled locations (three in Kansas City, three in San Antonio, one in Selma, Texas), branded as Chuck E. Cheese Pizzeria & Games. These locations feature more upscale decor with a "muted" interior color scheme, an open kitchen, the "Play Pass" card system to replace arcade tokens, and the animatronic stage show replaced by a dance floor area. These changes, along with expansions to food offerings, were intended to help the chain be more appealing to adults and encourage family dining as opposed to primarily hosting parties.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In 2019, the corporation announced it would go public on the New York Stock Exchange through a shell company, Leo Holdings Corporation, in which Apollo will still own 51% of. "Bloomberg" also reported that after going public, Chuck E. Cheese would no longer have animatronic animals as part of the entertainment. The proposed merger between CEC Entertainment and Leo Holdings Corporation was terminated on July 29, 2019.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: The COVID-19 pandemic has been financially damaging to the parent company, and with an estimated $1–2 billion in debt, the possibility exists of all CEC properties being forced to close if bankruptcy refinancing fails. CEC Entertainment solicited $200 million in loans to finance a restructuring under bankruptcy protection. They also filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on June 25, 2020. CEC Entertainment, the owners of Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza chains, emerged from its June bankruptcy under the ownership selling of its lenders led by Monarch Alternative Capital.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Since the company's inception, one of the primary draws for the business has been its video arcade offering inside restaurants. Within the arcade, customers can play coin-operated video games or redemption games, the latter of which involves games of skill that reward players in the form of tickets based on score. Tickets can be redeemed later for merchandise, such as candy and toys.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: The coin-op games originally accepted brass tokens issued by the company, stamped with various logos and branding that evolved over time. The company experimented with a card access method as a replacement for tokens, which allowed customers to load credits onto a card that could then be swiped for access at arcade games and refilled later. It was tested under different names including "Chuck E.'s Super Discount Card" and "Chuck E. Token Card".


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Another primary draw for the centers since their beginning through to the mid-2010s has been its animatronic shows. There have historically been several different styles of animatronic shows in use within the company, details of which would vary depending on when the location opened, whether it was renovated, available room for animatronic stages, and other factors. Over the years, these animatronics have often been supplemented by (and in recent years been completely "replaced" by) costumed characters.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: When the first location opened in 1977, the animatronic characters were featured as busts in framed portraits hanging on the walls of the main dining area. The original show featured Crusty The Cat (the first character to face retirement as he was soon replaced with Mr. Munch in 1978), Pasqually the singing chef, Jasper T. Jowls, the Warblettes, and the main focus of the show, Chuck E. Cheese. By 1979, many restaurants had also added "Cabaret" shows in separate rooms of each restaurant. One of the early Cabaret characters was Dolli Dimples, a hippopotamus who played the piano and sang in the blues/jazz style of performer Pearl Bailey. The in-house control system consisted of a 6502-based controller in a card cage with various driver boards was called "Cyberamics".


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: While Fechter separately produced the Rock-afire Explosion animatronics for ShowBiz Pizza through the early 1980s, Bushnell and Pizza Time Theatre continued work on characters for their portrait format and newer balcony performance stage shows under the umbrella of the Pizza Time Players. Development on Cabaret concepts slowed greatly after Pizza Time Theatre Inc.'s bankruptcy in 1984 and its purchase by ShowBiz a year later. From 1985 to 1990, the merged company kept their brands (and their respective animatronics) mostly separate.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: After Fechter refused to sign over the rights to the Rock-afire Explosion to Showbiz Pizza Time, Inc., "Concept Unification" was undertaken beginning in September 1990 and continuing through 1992, to eliminate Fechter's characters from ShowBiz locations. The animatronics used for ShowBiz's Rock-afire Explosion band were redressed as "Munch's Make Believe Band", with new costumes. In the mid-1990s, the character Chuck E. Cheese began to see significant design changes. His vest (or suit) and derby hat were changed for a baseball cap, casual shirt, and optional sneakers in an attempt to appeal to a younger audience.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Beginning in 1998, the animatronics show installed into new stores, referred to as "Studio C", consisted of a single animated Chuck E. Cheese character created by Garner Holt alongside large television monitors, lighting effects, and interactive elements. The other characters appear as puppets on the TV screens. The control system dubbed "Cyberstar" was re-designed from the ground up and produced by Dave Philipsen. The last non-animatronic stage mass-produced for Chuck E. Cheese, "Circles of Light", premiered in early 2012.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In July 2012, the long-standing rat mascot was rebranded, changing to a slimmer rock star mouse who plays electric guitar. Voice actor Duncan Brannan, who for 19 years had characterized Chuck E. Cheese as a wise-cracking rat from New Jersey, was replaced with Jaret Reddick, the frontman and guitarist for the pop punk band Bowling for Soup.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: By 2015, the "Chuck E. Live Stage" also known as "Stage V2", which featured no animatronics at all, a modernized dance floor, and performances only with costumed characters, had been created. In 2017, the chain announced that animatronic shows would be removed entirely in favor of this design in seven pilot locations. After the pilot locations showed promise, retirement of animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese locations accelerated and continued through 2019, by which time 80 of its stores were expected to be retrofitted to the new design.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: Pizza is the main focus of the restaurant portion of the business, but the menu features other items as well including cold-cut sandwiches, chicken wings, salad bar access, and desserts. In addition, some Chuck E. Cheese locations offer alcoholic beverages.


title: Chuck E. Cheese

text: In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant began selling pizza, wings, desserts and more through food delivery services under the ghost kitchen Pasqually's Pizza & Wings. The Pasqually name comes from Pasqually P. Pieplate, who is a member of Munch's Make Believe Band, the Chuck E Cheese animatronic band. While food sold under this brand comes from the same brick-and-mortar kitchens as Chuck E. Cheese, the company claims to use different ingredients and recipes that cater to a more mature audience. Practically all of the Chuck E. Cheese stores in the United States are selling and delivering food under this virtual brand. In November 2022, A partnership started between CEC Entertainment and LankyBox, which is an American YouTube channel, for a delivery only service known as "LankyBox Kitchen", which serves pizza, mac and cheese, chicken wings, salads, french fries, and desserts. LankyBox Kitchen locations are based out of Chuck E. Cheese kitchens, this is further evidenced by one their items, "Foxy Churros", which are exactly the same as Chuck E. Cheese's item "Unicorn Churros".


title: Kim Dickens

text: Kimberly Jan Dickens (born June 18, 1965) is an American actress. Her film debut was in the 1995 comedy film "Palookaville". Dickens played lead roles in the films "Truth or Consequences, N.M." (1997), "Zero Effect" (1998) and "Mercury Rising" (1998). Her other films include "Great Expectations" (1998), "Hollow Man" (2000), "House of Sand and Fog" (2003), "Thank You for Smoking" (2005), "The Blind Side" (2009), "Gone Girl" (2014), "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" (2016), "Lizzie" (2018), "Land" (2021), and "The Good Nurse" (2022).


title: Kim Dickens

text: On television, Dickens had regular roles in the drama series "Deadwood" (2004–2006; ), "Treme" (2010–2013), and "House of Cards" (2015–2017). She stars as Madison Clark in the AMC horror drama series "Fear the Walking Dead" (2015–2018; 2022–present).


title: Kim Dickens

text: Dickens was born in Huntsville, Alabama to Pam (Clark) Howell and Justin Dickens, a country-western singer. She graduated from that city's Lee High School and attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in communications. Dickens soon moved to New York City, where she worked as a waitress, to continue her studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.


title: Kim Dickens

text: Dickens made her stage debut in a student production of David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", at Vanderbilt University. In 1995, she made her professional screen debut in Alan Taylor's comedy film "Palookaville", playing Vincent Gallo's character's girlfriend. Dickens spent the following year playing supporting roles in the made-for-television films "Voice from the Grave" and "Two Mothers for Zachary". In 1997, Dickens returned to film, playing female leading role opposite Vincent Gallo again in neo-noir thriller "Truth or Consequences, N.M.", directed by Kiefer Sutherland. The film received negative reviews from critics. In 1998, she appeared in "Great Expectations", a film adaptation of the Charles Dickens's novel, and had the female leading roles in "Zero Effect" and "Mercury Rising". In 1999, she starred alongside Antonio Banderas in the comedy film, "The White River Kid".


title: Kim Dickens

text: In 2000, Dickens had co-starring roles in films "Committed" opposite Heather Graham, "Hollow Man" with Elisabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon, and "The Gift" starring Cate Blanchett. The following year, she played the lead in the independent film, "Things Behind the Sun". Dickens received critical acclaim for her performance, and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead nomination. Later in 2001, Dickens was a regular cast member in the short-lived CBS police drama series, "Big Apple". In 2003, she co-starred opposite Felicity Huffman and Eric Stoltz in the Showtime miniseries "Out of Order".


title: Kim Dickens

text: During the 2000s, Dickens mostly worked on television, playing Joanie Stubbs, the madam, in the HBO western "Deadwood" from 2004 to 2006. She was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2007 for this role. She was a regular cast member in the unaired HBO comedy series, "12 Miles of Bad Road" starring Lily Tomlin and Mary Kay Place. She had recurring roles on "Lost" and "Friday Night Lights". In film, Dickens co-starred in "House of Sand and Fog" (2003) with Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley, "Thank You for Smoking" (2005), "Wild Tigers I Have Known" (2006), "Red" (2008) and "The Blind Side" (2009).


title: Kim Dickens

text: From 2010 to 2013, Dickens was a regular on the HBO ensemble drama series, "Treme", as chef Janette Desautel. From 2013 to 2014, she had a recurring role as Colette Jane in the FX crime drama, "Sons of Anarchy". In 2015, she had a recurring role in the Netflix political drama "House of Cards". In film, she co-starred in "Footloose" (2011) and "At Any Price" (2012). In 2014, she had a major supporting role as Detective Rhonda Boney in the psychological thriller film "Gone Girl", directed by David Fincher, and in 2016, co-starred as the lead character's mother in Tim Burton's film "Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children".


title: Kim Dickens

text: In August 2015, Dickens began playing Madison Clark in "The Walking Dead" companion series, "Fear the Walking Dead", on AMC. Dickens left the series in June 2018. She returned to the series in 2022.


title: Kim Dickens

text: In December 2021, it was announced on "Talking Dead" that Dickens would be returning to "Fear the Walking Dead" in the seventh season and would be a series regular in its eighth season. Dickens herself made a surprise guest appearance on the show to make the announcement to fans personally.


title: Kim Dickens

text: Dickens moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s. She is currently in a relationship with actress Leisha Hailey, known for "The L Word".


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a cotton plantation owner, horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and slave trader. In June 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without any prior military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". He used his cavalry troops as mounted infantry and often deployed artillery as the lead in battle, thus helping to "revolutionize cavalry tactics", although the Confederate high command is seen by some commentators to have underappreciated his talents. While scholars generally acknowledge Forrest's skills and acumen as a cavalry leader and military strategist, he has remained a controversial figure in Southern racial history for his main role in the massacre of several hundred Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, a majority of them black, coupled with his role following the war as a leader of the Klan.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: In April 1864, in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history", troops under Forrest's command at the Battle of Fort Pillow massacred hundreds of troops, composed of black soldiers and white Tennessean Southern Loyalists fighting for the Union, who had already surrendered. Forrest was blamed for the slaughter in the Union press, and this news may have strengthened the North's resolve to win the war. Forrest's responsibility for the massacre continues to be actively debated by historians.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest, who was a Freemason, joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1867 (two years after its founding) and was elected its first Grand Wizard. The group was a loose collection of local factions throughout the former Confederacy that used violence and the threat of violence to maintain white control over the newly enfranchised former slaves. The Klan, with Forrest at the lead, suppressed voting rights of blacks in the South through violence and intimidation during the elections of 1868. In 1869, Forrest expressed disillusionment with the lack of discipline in the white supremacist terrorist group across the South, and issued a letter ordering the dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan as well as the destruction of its costumes; he then withdrew from the organization. In the last years of his life, Forrest insisted he had never been a member, and made public calls for black advancement.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: In June 2021, the remains of Forrest and his wife were exhumed from Health Sciences Park, where they had been buried for over 100 years and a monument of him once stood. They were later reburied in Columbia, Tennessee. In July 2021, Tennessee officials voted to move Forrest's bust from the State Capitol to the Tennessee State Museum.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 13, 1821, to a poor settler family in a secluded frontier cabin near Chapel Hill hamlet, then part of Bedford County, Tennessee, but now encompassed in Marshall County. Forrest was the first son of Mariam (Beck) and William Forrest. His blacksmith father was of English descent, and most of his biographers state that his mother was of Scotch-Irish descent, but the Memphis Genealogical Society says that she was of English descent. He and his twin sister, Fanny, were the two eldest of 12 children. Their great-grandfather, Shadrach Forrest, moved between 1730 and 1740 from Virginia to North Carolina, where his son and grandson were born; they moved to Tennessee in 1806. Forrest's family lived in a log house (now preserved as the Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home) from 1830 to 1833. John Allan Wyeth, who served in an Alabama regiment under Forrest, described it as a one-room building with a loft and no windows. William Forrest worked as a blacksmith in Tennessee until 1834, when he moved with his family to Salem, Mississippi. William died in 1837 and Forrest became the primary caretaker of the family at age 16.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: In 1841 Forrest went into business with his uncle Jonathan Forrest in Hernando, Mississippi. His uncle was killed there in 1845 during an argument with the Matlock brothers. In retaliation, Forrest shot and killed two of them with his two-shot pistol and wounded two others with a knife which had been thrown to him. One of the wounded Matlock men survived and served under Forrest during the Civil War.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest had success as a businessman, planter and slaveholder. He acquired several cotton plantations in the Delta region of West Tennessee, and became a slave trader at a time when demand for slaves was booming in the Deep South; his slave trading business was based on Adams Street in Memphis. In 1858, Forrest was elected a Memphis city alderman as a and served two consecutive terms. By the time the American Civil War started in 1861, he had become one of the richest men in the South, having amassed a "personal fortune that he claimed was worth $1.5 million".


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest was well known as a Memphis speculator and Mississippi gambler. In 1859, he bought two large cotton plantations in Coahoma County, Mississippi and a half-interest in another plantation in Arkansas; by October 1860 he owned at least 3,345 acres in Mississippi.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Nathan Bedford Forrest was a tall man who stood in height and weighed about ; He was noted as having a "striking and commanding presence" by Union Captain Lewis Hosea, an aide to Gen. James H. Wilson. Forrest rarely drank and abstained from tobacco usage; he was often described as generally mild mannered, but according to Hosea and other contemporaries who knew him, his demeanor changed drastically when he was provoked or angered. He was known as a tireless rider in the saddle and a skilled swordsman. Although he was not formally educated, Forrest was able to read and write in clear and grammatical English.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest had twelve brothers and sisters; two of his eight brothers and three of his four sisters died of typhoid fever at an early age, all at about the same time. He also contracted the disease, but survived; his father recovered but died from residual effects of the disease five years later, when Bedford was 16. His mother Miriam then married James Horatio Luxton, of Marshall, Texas, in 1843 and gave birth to four more children.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: In 1845, Forrest married Mary Ann Montgomery (1826–1893), the niece of a Presbyterian minister who was her legal guardian. They had two children, William Montgomery Bedford Forrest (1846–1908), who enlisted at the age of 15 and served alongside his father in the war, and a daughter, Fanny (1849–1854), who died in childhood.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest's grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest II (1872–1931), became commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia and secretary of the national organization. A great-grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest III (1905–1943), graduated from West Point and rose to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army Air Corps; he was killed during a bombing raid over Nazi Germany in 1943, becoming the first American general to die in combat in the European theatre during World War II.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: After the Civil War broke out, Forrest returned to Tennessee from his Mississippi ventures and enlisted in the Confederate States Army (CSA) on June 14, 1861. He reported for training at Fort Wright near Randolph, Tennessee, joining Captain Josiah White's cavalry company, the Tennessee Mounted Rifles (Seventh Tennessee Cavalry), as a private along with his youngest brother and 15-year-old son. Upon seeing how badly equipped the CSA was, Forrest offered to buy horses and equipment with his own money for a regiment of Tennessee volunteer soldiers.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: His superior officers and Governor of Tennessee Isham G. Harris were surprised that someone of Forrest's wealth and prominence had enlisted as a soldier, especially since major planters were exempted from service. They commissioned him as a lieutenant colonel and authorized him to recruit and train a battalion of Confederate mounted rangers. In October 1861, Forrest was given command of a regiment, the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry. Though Forrest had no prior formal military training or experience, he had exhibited leadership and soon proved he could successfully employ tactics.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Public debate surrounded Tennessee's decision to join the Confederacy and both the Confederate and Union armies recruited soldiers from the state. More than 100,000 men from Tennessee served with the Confederacy and over 31,000 served with the Union. Forrest posted advertisements to join his regiment, with the slogan, "Let's have some fun and kill some Yankees!". Forrest's command included his Escort Company (his "Special Forces"), for which he selected the best soldiers available. This unit, which varied in size from 40 to 90 men, constituted the elite of his cavalry.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest won praise for his performance under fire during an early victory in the Battle of Sacramento in Kentucky, the first in which he commanded troops in the field, where he routed a Union force by personally leading a cavalry charge that was later commended by his commander, Brigadier General Charles Clark. Forrest distinguished himself further at the Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862. After his cavalry captured a Union artillery battery, he broke out of a siege headed by Major General Ulysses S. Grant, rallying nearly 4,000 troops and leading them to escape across the Cumberland River.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: A few days after the Confederate surrender of Fort Donelson, with the fall of Nashville to Union forces imminent, Forrest took command of the city. All available carts and wagons were pressed into service to haul six hundred boxes of army clothing, 250,000 pounds of bacon and forty wagon-loads of ammunition to the railroad depots, to be sent off to Chattanooga and Decatur. Forrest arranged for heavy ordnance machinery, including a new cannon rifling machine and fourteen cannons, as well as parts from the Nashville Armory, to be sent to Atlanta for use by the Confederate Army.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: A month later, Forrest was back in action at the Battle of Shiloh, fought April 6–7, 1862. He commanded a Confederate rear guard after the Union victory. In the battle of Fallen Timbers, he drove through the Union skirmish line. Not realizing that the rest of his men had halted their charge when they reached the full Union brigade, Forrest charged the brigade alone and soon found himself surrounded. He emptied his Colt Army revolvers into the swirling mass of Union soldiers and pulled out his saber, hacking and slashing. A Union infantryman on the ground beside Forrest fired a musket ball at him with a point-blank shot, nearly knocking him out of the saddle. The ball went through Forrest's pelvis and lodged near his spine. A surgeon removed the musket ball a week later, without anesthesia, which was unavailable.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: By early summer, Forrest commanded a new brigade of inexperienced cavalry regiments. In July, he led them into Middle Tennessee under orders to launch a cavalry raid, and on July 13, 1862, led them into the First Battle of Murfreesboro, as a result of which all of the Union units surrendered to Forrest, and the Confederates destroyed much of the Union's supplies and railroad track in the area.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Promoted on July 21, 1862, to brigadier general, Forrest was given command of a Confederate cavalry brigade. In December 1862, Forrest's veteran troopers were reassigned by General Braxton Bragg to another officer, against his protest. Forrest had to recruit a new brigade, composed of about 2,000 inexperienced recruits, most of whom lacked weapons. Again, Bragg ordered a series of raids to disrupt the communications of the Union forces under Grant, which were threatening the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Forrest protested that to send such untrained men behind enemy lines was suicidal, but Bragg insisted, and Forrest obeyed his orders. In the ensuing raids he was pursued by thousands of Union soldiers trying to locate his fast-moving forces. Avoiding attack by never staying in one place long, eventually Forrest led his troops during the spring and summer of 1864 on raids into west Tennessee, as far north as the banks of the Ohio River in southwest Kentucky and into north Mississippi.


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: Forrest returned to his base in Mississippi with more men than he had started with. By then, all were fully armed with captured Union weapons. As a result, Grant was forced to revise and delay the strategy of his Vicksburg campaign. Newspaper correspondent Sylvanus Cadwallader, who traveled with Grant for three years during his campaigns, wrote that Forrest "was the only Confederate cavalryman of whom Grant stood in much dread".


title: Nathan Bedford Forrest

text: The Union Army gained military control of Tennessee in 1862 and occupied it for the duration of the war, having taken control of strategic cities and railroads. Forrest continued to lead his men in small-scale operations, including the Battle of Dover and the Battle of Brentwood until April 1863. The Confederate army dispatched him with a small force into the backcountry of northern Alabama and western Georgia to defend against an attack of 3,000 Union cavalrymen commanded by Colonel Abel Streight. Streight had orders to cut the Confederate railroad south of Chattanooga, Tennessee to seal off Bragg's supply line and force him to retreat into Georgia. Forrest chased Streight's men for 16 days, harassing them all the way. Streight's goal changed from dismantling the railroad to escaping the pursuit. On May 3, Forrest caught up with Streight's unit east of Cedar Bluff, Alabama. Forrest had fewer men than the Union side but feigned having a larger force by parading some repeatedly around a hilltop until Streight was convinced to surrender his 1,500 or so exhausted troops (historians Kevin Dougherty and Keith S. Hebert say he had about 1,700 men).