by

Dr. Thomas M. Huber

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FOREWORD

In 1945, to end the Pacific war, American strategic plans

foresaw an invasion of Japan's heavily defended home islands.

Operations Olympic and Coronet, America's proposed landings

on Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain, were the largest amphibious

invasions ever planned. Although precluded by war's end, preparations for both were extensive. To gain the element of surprise, Washington and theater planners developed Operations

Pastel and Coronet Deception, deception operations designed to

convey to the Japanese a false story of where the actual assault

landings would occur.

In Pastel: Deception in the Invasion of Japan, Dr. Thomas

M. Huber reveals the contents, origins, and effects of these two

comprehensive, coordinated deception plans as they related to

the scheduled invasion of Japan. He also provides the Japanese

perceptions as the plans unfolded. This special study reminds

us of the vital role of deception in operational planning.

December 1988 RICHARD M. SWAIN

Colonel, Field Artillery

Director, Combat Studies Institute

CSI Special Studies cover a variety of military history topics. The views expressed in this CSI publication are those of the author and not necessarily

those of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

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Pastel:

Deception in the

Invasion of Japan

by

Dr. Thomas M. Huber

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900

IIIIIIBIBIII __IN | ST i IT.UTE .IIIIIIIIIIIIIIU III UIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Huber, Thomas M.

Pastel: deception in the invasion of Japan.

Bibliography: p.

1. World War, 1939-1945 - Campaigns - Japan.

2. Deception (Military science). 3. Strategy.

I. Title.

D767.2.H83 1988 940.54'25 88-30420
Contents

Illustrations ............................................ v

Introduction ........................................... 1

Contents of Pastel ...................................... 3

Responsibilities for Implementing Pastel Two ............ 11

Contents of Coronet Deception ......................... 13

The Origins of Pastel .................................. 22

The Origins of Coronet Deception ...................... 31

The Likely Effect: Japanese Perceptions ................. 34

Pastel Versus the Japanese Defense Plans ................ 39

Pastel and Principles of Deception ...................... 41

Conclusion ........................................... 44

Glossary ............... ..... ...................... 47

Notes ..................................... .......... 49

Bibliography ................ .......................... 53

iii

Illustrations

Maps

1. Axes of advance in the western Pacific, 1944 ............ 2

2. Planned assaults in the Kyushu and Shanghai areas ...... 4

3. Parachute drops into the Kyushu interior ............... 9

4. Planned assaults for Coronet and Coronet Deception ... 15

5. Planned assaults in the Tokyo (Kanto) Plain area ....... 20

6. Planned and real landings in the Japan, Korea, and

northeast China areas .............................. 28

Figures

1. Implementation responsibilities for Pastel Two ......... 12

2. U.S. War Department agencies dealing with strategic

planning and deception, summer 1945 ................ 25

Table

1. Sequencing of fictional and real assaults in the tactical

deception plan for Coronet .......................... 20

v
Introduction

In the summer of 1945, Allied forces were closing in on

the Japanese home islands. Costly campaigns on Iwo Jima

and Okinawa led Allied planners to estimate a million casualties in invading Japan proper. Planners urgently sought for

ways to reduce the terrific numbers and soon fastened on an

obvious one: deception.

At the outset of World War II, American strategists had

many choices of where to attack the far-flung Japanese in the

western Pacific. Top planners ordered forces under General

Douglas MacArthur to move gradually northwestward from

the Solomons through New Guinea to the Philippines and forces under Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to move northwestward

through the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas (see map 1).

These two axes of advance were nearing their objectives by

the end of 1944. Washington planners at first assumed that

the war with Japan might last until 1948 or longer, and they

believed the American forces' next advances after the Philippines and Marianas must be made cautiously against Taiwan

and the China coast. Since war aims were increasingly fulfilled, however, planners in June 1944 already began considering landings in Japan proper after the Taiwan and China assaults.

By the end of May 1945, planners had shelved the China

operations altogether and considered a direct advance on

Japan only. To end the war quickly, planners adopted the ambitious, but potentially costly, strategy of invading Japan's

heavily defended homeland itself. Olympic and Coronet,

America's planned landings on Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain

respectively, represented the largest amphibious invasions

ever planned. To reduce these crucial operations' expected

high casualties and to guarantee success, planners felt it essential that the operations not be anticipated. Therefore, deception plans were developed to shield Olympic and Coronet

1
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from detection. How, then, did the American deception planners, at the peak of their experience, prepare to cover the allimportant invasions of Japan? The pages below explore the

content, origins, likely effect, and theoretical significance of

deception operations prepared for the invasions in 1945.

The deception plans for Olympic were developed under

the evocative name of Pastel. Pastel was first hastily sketched

by Admiral Nimitz' staff in May 1945 and, by the end of July,

had become a mature operational order. By that time, a

deception plan for a later operation, Coronet, had also been

outlined. The final deception arrangements were crafted by

MacArthur's and Nimitz' theater staffs and the Joint War

Plans Committee (JWPC) in Washington mainly from the

shadows of real operations that had been abandoned. Before

trying to grasp the remarkable dynamics that gave rise to

these plans, it will be useful to examine carefully the plans'

contents.

Contents of Pastel II 1 1 1 1 , , , , .- I I I

The final version of the deception plan to shield Operation Olympic (the invasion of Kyushu) was drafted by U.S.

Army Forces, Pacific (AFPAC), in Manila on 30 July 1945. It

was called Pastel Two. For strategic deception, the plan

provided for two fictitious assaults. The first was to be against

China's Chusan (Chou-shan)-Shanghai area, with a fictitious

landing date of 1 October 1945. The second false assault was

to be against Japan's Shikoku Island, north of Kyushu, with

the bogus landing set for 1 December 1945 (see map 2). For

operational* deception, Pastel Two prescribed fictitious large-

* The documents of the time used the term "tactical" to refer to all combat

activities below the strategic level, including the level of activities that today

are usually described as "operational."

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scale airborne assaults into the interior of Kyushu on the

nights before and after the real landings. 1

To explain force buildups around the Pacific, the plan's

"story" first projected an assault in the farthest plausible place

from Kyushu, namely, the Chusan-Shanghai area. This spot

was chosen also in hopes of preventing Japanese troop movements out of China. However, since it would soon be obvious

that the staging of U.S. forces was not oriented toward the

China coast, the story specified that the Chusan-Shanghai

operation should appear to have been canceled around 7 September. The target area would then be shifted to Shikoku.

The story suggested several reasons for this: the deterioration

of the Japanese position in China, satisfaction at the results of

the strategic bombing of Japan, and the advantageous acceleration of supply and redeployment activity preparatory to

a large-scale invasion.

The Chusan-Shanghai and Shikoku stories were to be sold

with leaflet drops, psychological warfare radio broadcasts, air

reconnaissance, bombing and strafing, and a submarine-borne

beach penetration landing. The operational deception storythe fictitious airborne strikes at the Kyushu interior-was to

be conveyed by placing large numbers of gliders on Okinawa

airstrips, by establishing a false airborne corps and division

headquarters on Okinawa, and by dropping supplies as if for

airborne troops the nights before and after the first day of

Olympic. 3 In addition, Pastel Two provided for comprehensive communications deception and for an orchestrated sequence of press releases to convey the story. It indicated as

well more specific projects, such as circulating rumors in Sixth

Army about the use of forces in the Chusan-Shanghai area

and sending rubber models of the Chusan-Shanghai terrain,

then later of the Shikoku terrain, to the various Pacific headquarters. 4

Many particular features of Pastel are of interest. The submarine-borne beach penetration unit was to be provided by

5
Admiral Nimitz, commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet

(CINCPAC), on Guam on request of the AFPAC G2 and

land in the Chusan-Shanghai area sometime before 18 August

to demonstrate U.S. interest. 5 Leaflet drops in the Shanghai

area were to be provided by the Far East Air Force (FEAF),

and the content was to be directed at Japanese military or

Chinese civilian morale. Drops were to be at the rate of two

per week in early August, three per week in late August, then

one every two weeks after the target shifted to Shikoku on 7

September, thus sustaining the threat at a reduced level.

FEAF was also to show U.S. interest in the Shanghai region

by conducting "aerial reconnaissance, photography, bombing,

and strafing missions." These missions were to be flown three

times per week before 7 September and once every two

weeks thereafter. The extension of leaflet drops and air

reconnaissance even after 7 September was required because

Pastel called for a latent threat to be maintained against the

Shanghai region even though Shikoku had been designated

the next main assault zone. The Japanese were to believe

that there was some chance the Americans might still land

near Shanghai, a belief that would fix Japanese forces in the

area. Finally, psychological warfare radio broadcasts were to

be transmitted to the Shanghai coast by the AFPAC

Psychological Warfare Branch. These broadcasts were to be

directed at the morale of the Japanese soldiers or Chinese

civilians. Chinese fishermen and junk operators were to be

warned to avoid the area north of Taiwan, beginning on 15

September 1945.6

Some or all of these measures were probably meant to be

implemented for the second main target area, Shikoku, as

well as for the first target area, Shanghai. The Shikoku

measures were not prescribed in the Pastel Two text,

however, probably because, being a little less pressing, they

could be put in directives issued later.

6
While Pastel assumed several kinds of operational cover,

it also advanced one positive ploy of operational deception:

large-scale, fictitious airborne strikes behind the Olympic landing beaches. The drama of the pretended airborne force was

to begin in mid-August and develop until the day after X day,

the day of the real landings. This elaborate hoax was intended to exploit Japanese fears of U.S. airborne operations.

About 20 August, six gliders and their pilots were to be

sent to Okinawa airfields by FEAF to train conspicuously.

Thereafter, FEAF was to construct 12 dummy gliders on

Okinawa each week until a total of 100 was reached, all to be

displayed at or near military airfields. Besides that, a fictional

airborne corps headquarters and a division headquarters were

to be created on Okinawa around 1 September, and the 11th

Airborne, which actually existed in the Philippines, was to be

designated as the second division forming the fictional corps.

As an added touch of authenticity, 1,000 shoulder patches for

the fictional division were to be made and shipped by Joint

Security Control (JSC), an agency subordinate to the Joint

Chiefs of Staff (JCS) that handled intertheater deception matters.

These measures were to be followed by parachute drops

of equipment into the Kyushu interior on the night before

and the night after the Kyushu landings. These supplies

would appear to be intended for an airborne unit. On the

night of X-l, one drop was to be made behind each of the

three landing beaches: at the Kagoshima airstrip behind the

Kushikino landing beach, at the Shibushi airfield behind the

Ariake Bay beach, and at the Nittagahara airfield behind the

Miyazaki beach. On the night after the landings, drops were

to be made at the Kitahara airfield in the Kokubu area and at

the Miyakonojo North airfield in the Miyakonojo area. Three

to four planes were to be used for each day's drops, each

plane dropping materials as if to supply an airborne unit. The

7
objective was to hold some Japanese forces away from the

beaches on X day (see map 3).7

Pastel Two outlined comprehensive plans for communications deception by manipulation of radio traffic. Communications deception was to be practiced at both strategic and

operational levels, with AFPAC, CINCPAC, USFCT (U.S.

Forces, China Theater), and USASTAF (U.S. Army Strategic

Air Forces) all participating. The Signal Security Agency in

Washington was to conduct supratheater traffic analysis to

keep the theaters informed of the overall traffic pattern.

At the strategic level, radio traffic to the China theater

and the other major Pacific theater headquarters was to be increased to indicate the Chusan-Shanghai assault on 1 October

1945. After 7 September, these levels were to be reduced

somewhat "but still maintained at levels sufficiently high to

disguise normal variations resulting from preparations for

Operation 'OLYMPIC."' This pattern would encourage

Japanese listeners to conclude that the radio evidence was

anomalous or else that no large assault preparation was taking

place following the cancellation of the Shanghai mission.

Radio traffic between the War Department and the major

theater headquarters was to be "increased over existing levels

by the insertion of control messages." Book messagesnamely, the long messages that often were communicated just

after a high-level decision had been reached -were to be sent

on 4 to 7 September, the moment at which the story specified

Washington leaders would cancel the Shanghai operation.

Pastel Two provided, for operational radio deception.

Sixth Army radio activities during and after the staging period

were to be kept at levels established prior to staging. Naval

point-to-point channels were to be controlled to disguise the

assault forces' departure. Finally, naval broadcast transmissions were to be controlled so as not to reveal that a large amphibious force was at sea.

8
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In addition to radio traffic deception, the plan called for

media deception. Pastel Two set forth an agenda, to be implemented by Joint Security Control, that specified a series of

releases to the press or other sources used by the Japanese.

These releases were carefully orchestrated so as to suggest

and confirm the story indirectly. The plan laid out the

program in two-week blocks, and all of the fictional elements-namely, the Shanghai assault, the Shikoku assault,

and the airborne assaults-were developed for the period 30

July to 1 November. Apropos of airborne assaults, for example, the program in early August was to reveal the creation

of "training areas for rehabilitating airborne units" in the

northern United States. September releases were to describe

increases in the reconstitution of airborne units and "many

gliders passing through west coast ports." October press offerings were to emphasize airborne troops passing through

Pacific ports and a particular company's glider production

figures.

The strategic assault themes were to be sustained in a

similarly indirect way. In early August, the story was to be

conveyed that "shipping to China is now being made direct

across the Pacific on a small scale" and that a "large number

of selected Chinese" were being sent to the Pacific "to be

used as interpreters, some being especially trained in government and municipal administration." But already in late

August, the press releases were to note that "Shikoku is [the]

least defended of the Japanese main islands and provides

many potential fighter strips." In early September, it was to

be announced that the "U.S. High Command [is] closely

watching Japanese dispositions ... in Shikoku." Then, in late

October, spokesmen were to tell the press that "Gen.

MacArthur has indicated to [the] Joint Chiefs of Staff his inability to improve on the original target date of 1 December

for his next offensive." The planners, no doubt wisely, were

not going to divulge anything specific in the media about the

fictitious strategic assaults, relying instead on quasi-prelimi10
nary operations such as leaflet drops and beach penetration

parties to encourage Japan's precise identification of the targets. Revealing information too openly would only have

made the Japanese skeptical. l °

All in all, Pastel Two prescribed two levels of deceptionstrategic and operational-and several different dimensions of

deception, including (1) concrete "as if' preliminary operations such as beach landings, air reconnaissance, and displaying dummy gliders; (2) radio deception; and (3) media deception in which obliquely misleading information was given to

the public media or other sources the Japanese were monitoring. Holding all this complex orchestration together was the

story or, rather, the three stories of the Shanghai assault, the

Shikoku assault, and the airborne strikes on Kyushu.

Responsibilities for Implementing Pastel Two

Given the great scope of Pastel, its authors saw fit to

specify broad areas of responsibility for implementation.

Drafted by AFPAC headquarters, the plan specifically allocated responsibilities within AFPAC. The AFPAC assistant

chief of staff for operations, the G3, was to direct all AFPAC

commands and agencies in deception activities (see figure 1)

and also keep all AFPAC commands "informed as to the

status of various phases of this plan." Moreover, the G3 was

required to "arrange with Joint Security Control" and the

major theater headquarters in the Pacific "for assistance in

the implementation of this plan." ll

The AFPAC assistant chief of staff for intelligence, the

G2, was responsible for deception operations using its own internal means (with the one exception that the G2 was also to

"arrange with CINCPAC" for the Chusan area beach penetration party in August). The G2 had its own agenda of media

deception items, in addition to that entrusted to Joint Security

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Control. Besides items for straight release to the press, the

G2 agenda included activities such as "initiating rumors in 6th

Army regarding possible use of forces in Chusan area" and

"canvassing for local Chinese known to be familiar with

Shanghai areas."

AFPAC's chief signal officer was to direct radio traffic

deception within AFPAC and coordinate radio deception with

the other Pacific theater headquarters. The AFPAC

Psychological Warfare Branch was to arrange the Shanghai

leaflet drops with FEAF and make psychological warfare

13 radio broadcasts to the Shanghai area.

The FEAF theater headquarters also had extensive duties

under Pastel Two that included providing leaflet drops, bombing and reconnaissance, gliders for Okinawa, and drops of airborne materiel on Kyushu before and after X day. Naval,

Sixth Army, and Tenth Army forces had responsibilities

mostly for cooperating in communications deception and

providing tactical cover for unit movements where possible.' 4

In short, AFPAC's G3 handled the main business of coordinating the plan, while AFPAC's G2, chief signal officer, and

Psychological Warfare Branch; CINCPAC; FEAF; and

USFCT were to carry out appropriate parts of the plan using

their own means.

Contents of Coronet Deception

Meanwhile, deception plans for Coronet, the invasion of

the Tokyo Plain, were moving along several months behind

those for Olympic. These plans had no cover name, and when

the war ended on 15 August 1945, the Joint War Plans Committee had just drafted a set of them for forwarding to theater

planning staffs. The plans' latest version was thus titled "Staff

13
Study: Cover and Deception Plan for 'CORONET"'

(Coronet Deception), prepared 17-23 July 1945.

The communications and media deception plans were not

developed in detail in this early version, nor were any responsibilities for elements within a theater outlined. The story,

however, and the substantive operations conveying the story

were clearly set out. Both strategic and operational levels of

deception were developed as they were in Pastel Two.

Coronet Deception stipulated fictitious assaults on

Shikoku, southeast Korea, and Hokkaido and also local feints

on Y day (the day of the real Coronet landings) as tactical

deception. The story explaining such assaults was that, before

invading Honshu, the United States needed to tighten its

naval blockade and intensify aerial bombing of Japan. This

meant seizing Shikoku for bomber bases and as an advanced

fighter base for southern Kyushu; taking a lodgment on the

southeast coast of Korea to obstruct all Japanese force movement from the mainland and to complete the naval blockade

of Honshu; and finally, invading Hokkaido to cut off food supplies to Honshu, gain additional air and naval bases, and control the Tsugaru Strait. 15

The fictitious Shikoku assault was to take place on 1 April

1946, a month after the first actual Coronet landings, thus

holding forces on Shikoku even after Coronet began (see map

4). Like the other fictional assault areas, Shikoku was

separated from the Coronet target area by water, which would

make it harder to move forces from there back to Honshu for

battle reinforcement. "Southern Shikoku in the vicinity of

Kochi" was the indicated landing area.

Ground forces were to be manipulated to give the impression that a force was about to invade Shikoku. "An actual

commander" was to be assigned to command the fictional

Shikoku assault. Five infantry divisions being trained in the

Philippines for Coronet and one division in Okinawa were to

14
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15

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"be led to believe" that they were to operate in Shikoku. Fictional numbers were to be given to the Philippine divisions so

that radio broadcasts using these numbers could maintain

these divisions' fictional presence in the Philippines even after

their departure for Coronet. This impression was to be reinforced by having service troops show a flurry of activity in the

Philippine camps even after the divisions had departed.

Staff officers in the Philippines were to prepare intelligence studies of Shikoku, and the officers of divisions involved were "to study maps and models of Shikoku as well as

Honshu." Planners also suggested a truck spill of Shikoku

maps in crowded Manila traffic, accompanied by a conspicuous effort "to quickly pick up and hide names on maps."

Troops were to see movies featuring cities on the Inland Sea,

and civil government experts and airfield construction units

were to be briefed for work on Shikoku. The division in

Okinawa was to be given amphibious training using Shikoku

beach names. Japanese prisoners of war might be allowed to

witness this and escape.

The Far East Air Force was to provide actual contact

operations with Shikoku. It was to drop leaflets telling

civilians to avoid airfields and beaches, beginning on 1 March

1946, the actual day of Coronet. "Parachutes and predamaged material" were to be dropped near Kochi on

1 January and then at intervals in March. "Time delay bombs

and rubber boats" would be dropped off assault beaches

"to simulate underwater demolition work." CINCPAC naval

forces also had a role, but it was not really specific to Shikoku

since carrier and submarine operations were to be applied

to the whole Japanese coast from Kyushu to Hokkaido.

The JWPC's plan for Coronet Deception also envisioned

extensive radio traffic deception, media misinformation type

deception, and special means deception for Shikoku and the

other false assaults, all to be coordinated between theaters by

Joint Security Control for all the bogus assaults. This activity

16
is merely mentioned in a few words, however, not spelled out

in detail as it was in the final version of Pastel, no doubt because Pastel had already been elaborated for implementation

by the AFPAC and CINCPAC theater staffs. 17

The fictional assault on Korea was to take place on 1 May

1946, a month after the Shikoku operations, to allow for fictional staging time. The phantom assault's main objective was

to prevent Japanese forces' being moved to Honshu before

Coronet began. It was also meant to be a plausible continuation of the policy of projecting a fictional strike at the Asiatic

mainland that had been a part of U.S. deception since the invasion of Okinawa.

As in the Shikoku operation, an actual commander would

be named, and eleven of the Coronet-bound divisions in the

Philippines plus one in Okinawa were to be told that they

were going to Korea. Fictional numbers were again to be assigned to the divisions and still used for a fictional radio

presence even after their departure for Honshu. Staff officers

were to study models of Korea, and troops were to see movies

of Korea.

FEAF was to drop leaflets, parachutes, and predamaged

materiel in Korea on 1 November 1945 and to simulate insertion of agents at intervals after 1 February 1946. Photo reconnaissance was to begin 1 December 1945. Naval deception

operations were to include simulated submarine-launched

commando raids on the southeast coast of Korea and radio

deception measures by submarine in the vicinity of Pusan between 1 December 1945 and 1 March 1946. Besides that,

operations against Korean ports were prescribed both to show

an interest and to serve as decoy operations for the convoying

to Vladivostok that was expected to begin.

Deception for the notional Korean assault included "special operations." Interpreters and civil government experts

for Korea were to depart the United States on 15 April 1946.

17
Arrangements were to be made for U.S. currency to be overprinted for use in Korea, and the Red Cross was to be alerted

to have personnel ready for transfer to Korea after the invasion. To increase the opportunity for the Japanese to discover the assault, the Red Cross offices in Chungking and in

Kunming were also to be advised of this. Sketch maps and intelligence notes of Korea, as well as a complete campaign

plan for the Korean operation, prepared by CINCPAC, were

to be planted as "lost" in Japanese-held territory by the U.S.

China theater commander (commanding general, China

[COMGENCHINA]). Finally, beginning on 1 November

1945, guerrilla forces were to infiltrate Korea and radio out

weather information. The weather information was to be useful for the real Olympic operation as well as for the fictional

Korea assault. Guerrillas were also to show American interest by blowing up rail bridges and carrying out other acts of

sabotage in Korea. 18

The fictional Hokkaido landings were to take place last on

1 June 1946 and were to hold Japanese forces on Hokkaido

and the Kurils even after Coronet began. Although deception

relying on actual ground troops was less developed than in the

other fictional assaults, some U.S. divisions bound for

Coronet were to be "embarked from Seattle with fictional assignments to the Aleutians." Also, simulated divisions were

to inhabit real bases. Aleutian bases were to be kept

prepared to stage six divisions. Radio traffic would then simulate four divisions remaining in the Aleutians in the winter of

1945-46 and three divisions staging through the Aleutians in

the spring. Radio traffic was also to reveal that a Canadian

division would stage through the Aleutians for Hokkaido.

Beginning on 1 February 1946, CINCPAC was to conduct

photo reconnaissance of Hokkaido and northern Honshu and

dump fast-spreading dyes off the Hokkaido coast where they

would be seen by the Hokkaido garrison. CINCPAC and the

commander, North Pacific (COMNORPAC), operating

18
jointly, were to have submarines land patrols in the Kurils to

place agents or capture prisoners. Leaflets were to be

dropped in the Kurils and Hokkaido warning fishermen to

avoid certain waters. Radio broadcasts to Hokkaido were to

warn civilians to avoid landing areas, and radio traffic "in [a]

compromised cryptographic system" was to reveal construction of rocket launchers in the Aleutians aimed at Japan.

Radio traffic deception and media misinformation deception

were again to be practiced, coordinated by Joint Security Control. The problems of the notional Hokkaido strike were compounded somewhat by the need to coordinate several theater

commands besides the usual ones of CINCPAC and AFPAC,

namely, COMNORPAC, and COMGENALASKA (commanding general, Alaska).19

Operational deception for Coronet was meant to deflect

attention from Sagami Bay, the main assault area to the south,

by giving the impression that Sagami was a cover operation

and by falsely suggesting progressive landings from south to

north (see map 5). The real first assault was to take place on

the Katakai-Choshi beaches northeast of Tokyo on 1 March

1945, Y day. The real main assault then was to be launched

on the Sagami beaches on the near south side of Tokyo on

Y+10.

The sequencing of the two real and two fictional assaults

was calculated to direct attention away from the real plan.

Preliminary operations were to be carried out at Sagami on Y7. No more was to be done at Sagami, however, until seventeen days later when five other coastal operations would already have taken place, thus giving the impression that the

Sagami preliminaries had been a feint (see table 1).

The preliminary operations included, predictably, "heavy

bombardment by air and surface vessels, the clearing of beach

obstacles, and minesweeping." For the fictional assault areas

of Kashima and Sendai, they also included "simulation of

destruction of underwater obstacles, . . . dropping at night of

19
Map 5. Planned assaults in the Tokyo (Kanto) Plain area

LEGEND

A, B, C, D See table 1

I _~^ Planned e real assaults,

' " Coronet

|I Fictional assaults, tactical,

Coronet Deception

HFONSH U =T

-NTable 1

Sequencing of Fictional and Real Assaults in the

Tactical Deception Plan for Coronet

Sequence and Dates of Assault Operations

A B B1 C D C1 A1 D1

Y-7 Y-4 Y day Y day Y+4 Y+8 Y+10 Y+10

Key

A Preparatory activity at Sagami, south of Tokyo, main assault area

B Preparatory activity at Katakai-Choshi, east of Tokyo, secondary assault

area

C Preparatory activity at Kashima, northeast of Tokyo, dummy assault area

D Preparatory activity at Sendai, far northeast of Tokyo, dummy assault

area

A, Actual main assault at Sagami

B1 Actual secondary assault at Katakai-Choshi

C, Dummy assault at Kashima

D1 Dummy assault at Sendai

Source: "Deception Plan for 'CORONET,' " Annex D, 24-27.

20

I - · _ _ ,

- I -- I
time delay explosives, rubber boats, and other items indicating assault activity," and "simulation of beach reconnaissance,

mine sweeping, movement of naval forces, involving the use

of smoke, pyrotechnics, radio and radar deception and jamming by submarines or aircraft rescue craft."

The second operation was to be an assault preparation in

the Katakai-Choshi area beginning on Y-4 and would be followed directly by the actual landings at Katakai on Y day. On

the same day, preliminaries were to be carried out at

Kashima, northeast of Tokyo, followed by the initiation of

preparations in the Sendai area, 200 miles northeast of Tokyo,

on Y + 4. On Y + 8, simulated landings were to take place at

Kashima using two divisions in transports. Only then were

the main assaults to begin at Sagami, with three divisions on

Y + 10, building to eleven by Y + 30. For good measure, also

on Y + 10, unloaded transports were to make a landing

demonstration off Sendai.

The pattern in this welter of operations was that they

moved steadily from south to north, with each preliminary

operation followed by a real or simulated assault four to eight

days later. This impression was to be strengthened with tactical radio traffic deception that was to "simulate by radio and

radar deception the northward, rather than the actual southward, movement of the relief bombardment and Sagami

follow-up forces on their withdrawal from Kashima."

The key exception, of course, was the actual main assault

at Sagami Bay. The interval between the preliminaries and

the assault was seventeen days, not four to eight, thereby suggesting that the preliminaries were a diversion. Moreover,

Sagami took place late in the sequence, at the southernmost

point, even though all the other operations had moved successively toward the north. The object of all this was to make it

difficult for the enemy to read from the preliminaries the existence, timing, and location of the Sagami main assault. The

demonstration at Sendai on Y+10 might seem superfluous

21
since the real landings had already begun, but since it was intended to pin potential reinforcements at Sendai, far from the

Tokyo beaches, it still struck American planners as

worthwhile. Tactical deception for Coronet, unlike that for

Olympic, was an elaborate romance of timing and locale.2

In any case, the content of Coronet Deception, like that of

Pastel Two, was highly diverse, relying on radio traffic deception, media deception, and "as if' preliminary operations, and

addressed the deception problem at both the strategic and

operational levels.

The Origins of Pastel

Having examined the contents of Pastel Two and Coronet

Deception, it is appropriate to ask where these plans came

from. As Olympic and Coronet were being developed in the

late spring of 1945, deception schemes to accompany these

operations were being worked out a month or so behind the

plans themselves. Until June 1944, U.S. planners had assumed

that south China and Taiwan would be the principal invasion

objectives of advancing Allied forces, including the British,

and that the war might last into 1948 or longer. In June 1944,

however, U.S. planners of the Joint War Plans Committee,

subordinate to the Joint Planning Staff (JPS), outlined a new

possibility, a rapid advance of U.S. forces by sea, culminating

in the early invasion of Japan itself. The Bonins, the Ryukyus,

and the China coast near Shanghai were to be intermediate

objectives, secured between April and June 1945, with a landing then on Kyushu to take place on 1 October 1945.

However, all of this was to begin only after the invasion of

Taiwan and the south China coast. These plans, in fact, were

titled "Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa

[Taiwan]." In other words, the June 1944 plans represented a

hybrid or transition phase that retained major invasions on

22
the China coast but added major invasions of Japan's home islands.21

A series of American successes caused planners to take

the next evolutionary step, which was to eliminate entirely the

earlier preoccupation with the China coast and aim American

advances solely at Japan. On 29 March 1945, the Joint Chiefs

of Staff set a tentative schedule for the overall invasion plan,

Downfall, which called for a 1 December landing on Kyushu.

Even so, the Navy leaders -Nimitz, head of CINCPAC, and

Admiral Ernest J. King, Navy chief of staff in Washingtonwere still thinking in terms of preliminary invasions of the

China coast at Shanghai, Shantung, and Korea, their "roundthe-China-Sea" strategy. General George C. Marshall, Army

chief of staff, opposed this, however, and queried MacArthur,

who in a 20 April message recommended a direct advance on

Japan without a China phase. The JCS adopted this course in

principle at the end of April and, after preliminary conferences between AFPAC and CINCPAC in mid-May, issued a

directive for Olympic on 25 May.22

The Navy plans for invading the China coast were dead as

of the May directive. But their ghost lived on in deception

plans for Olympic and Coronet. CINCPAC, on 13 May 1945,

produced an early draft of Olympic operations in which the

main premise of Pastel was already stated: a fictional attack

on the China coast near Shanghai with a fictional attack on

Shikoku simultaneously or later.23 Using Shanghai as the target area allowed CINCPAC planners to use their staff studies

for the already planned, but now set aside, Chusan-Shanghai

operation (Longtom). In fact, CINCPAC planners had just

finished drafting the Longtom plans on 18 April. CINCPAC's

early Olympic plan also alludes to Operation Bluebird as

being successful. Bluebird, the fictional attack on Taiwan and

the south China coast that covered the Okinawan campaign,

had also been based on a recently canceled real operation.

The premise of Pastel thus derived from a long tradition of

23
JWPC planners who had expected to actually invade the

China coast and also of CINCPAC planners whose commander had advocated real Chinese operations as late as

April 1945. Moreover, the China coast idea was influenced

by the recent apparently successful precedent of Bluebird.2

Although the Navy's notion eventually won out, several

other agencies besides CINCPAC were simultaneously active

in forming the plans for Pastel, especially MacArthur's

AFPAC in Manila and the JWPC in Washington. At a conference on Guam from 30 May to 4 June at which AFPAC

and CINCPAC planners were addressing Olympic, it was

decided that the AFPAC staff in Manila would "prepare a letter plan based upon CINCPAC concept dated 2 June."

CINCPAC officers would "visit Manila about 11 June" to confer and then take the plan back "to Guam for CINCPAC concurrence and dispatch."25

The Manila meeting of AFPAC and CINCPAC planners

took place on schedule and drafted the first plan labeled Pastel on 13 June 1945. This early Pastel resembled the mature

Pastel Two, except that the shift from the Shanghai objective

to the Shikoku objective was to be made abruptly on 1 October, the day of the false Shanghai landings. Pastel Two

would specify 7 September, not the landing day 1 October, as

the less abrupt date for the change of fictional objectives.

Also, the early Pastel contained no plans for operational

deception other than that it would be provided by the operational commanders' "maneuver of forces."

Meanwhile, entirely different agencies were generating the

overall deception plan known as Broadaxe. This plan was

created by the Joint War Plans Committee that, in 1943, had

grown out of and was subordinate to the Joint Planning Staff.

The Joint Planning Staff, in turn, was a staff agency subordinate to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (see figure 2). The JWPC,

in addressing deception matters, often cooperated with Joint

Security Control. Joint Security Control coordinated

24
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intertheater deception matters, among other duties, and

answered directly to the JCS, as did the JWPC's overseers,

the JPS.27

Early in June 1945, the JWPC and Joint Security Control

prepared a "General Directive for Deception Measures

Against Japan," which was adopted by the Combined Chiefs

of Staff on 16 June. This plan, later called Broadaxe, was

then sent to the theater commanders to guide their deception

planning. AFPAC and CINCPAC, however, had meanwhile

created Pastel with no knowledge that the JWPC directive

was coming. In other words, the two plans crossed in the

mail. Broadaxe proposed to give the Japanese the impression

that invasion of the homeland would be postponed indefinitely. Instead, the United States would try to seize more

bases on the homeland's periphery to tighten the naval blockade and increase air bombardment. Broadaxe therefore

called for a fictional assault on Taiwan in the late summer of

1945, an invasion of Hokkaido in the early fall of 1945, landings. in French Indochina in the fall of 1945, an attack on

Sumatra from India in the late fall of 1945, and an "advance

into the Yellow Sea" in the winter of 1945-46 to secure bases

"for air and inland operations."28

Except for the Hokkaido incursion, the various fictitious

operations in Broadaxe retained the China coast emphasis

that was the main preoccupation of Washington planners of

real operations before June 1944 and that was favored by the

Navy for real operations as late as April 1945. The round-theChina-Sea notion was also present in Broadaxe: U.S. forces

would invade the south China coast starting at Taiwan, then

move their attacks gradually northward. This concept would

exercise a powerful influence on the later deception plans for

Olympic and Coronet. Eventually, fictitious landings for

Taiwan, Shanghai, and south Korea would be planned to

cover real assaults on Okinawa, Kyushu, and Tokyo

26
respectively. The phantom landings moved round the China

Sea even if the real landings never did (see map 6).

Missing completely from Broadaxe was the Shikoku landing that figured prominently in Pastel. Planners faced the

dilemma that, after Okinawa, the fictitious landings targeted

on the Asian mainland might not be believed and that fictitious assaults located on the home islands would tend to

draw forces to the real assault areas. The designers of Pastel

and Coronet Deception would eventually deal with this

problem by allocating fictitious assaults both to the Asian

mainland and to the home islands, especially those home islands separated from assault areas by water.

After Broadaxe was issued, the AFPAC and CINCPAC

theater planners and the JPS and JWPC planners in

Washington all realized within a few days that Pastel and

Broadaxe had crossed. A meeting was immediately arranged

for 27 June 1945, at which theater- and Washington-based

conferees could reconcile the two plans. Members of the

CINCPAC Special Planning Group, representing also their

colleagues in AFPAC, traveled to Washington in late June

and met with members of Joint Security Control. Together,

these representatives revised the 13 June Pastel plan so that

its language was compatible with the larger mandate of

Broadaxe. Being for Pacific theater use, the Indochina and

Sumatra landings were not mentioned. And, in fact, nothing

substantive in the earlier Pastel was changed. The main

premises of Pastel, and indeed the format of the 13 June text,

remained essentially the same in the 27 June text. The

drafters of the 27 June meeting went out of their way to affirm that Pastel was derived from Broadaxe and that Pastel's

Shanghai landings were to further the "advances into the Yellow Sea" that Broadaxe advocated. But no detail of the plan

was altered in this connection, so the subordination of Pastel

to Broadaxe was purely rhetorical.29

27
I._l-~-~- 1~-1- 1~-1--*1 _~ C~·- - - -. 1-----I

LEGEND D :

Real assault

Planned real assault

Fictional assault

Letters indicate association a

between real and fictional

assaults 300 KM

I I

0 300 MILES

SCALE

Map 6. Planned and real landings in the Japan, Korea, and northeast China areas

28

- -- - -

J

IN
All this suggests that, although the theater staffs cheerfully paid lip service to the Washington deception planners' wishes,

nevertheless, the actual Pacific deception plans were shaped first and last by the Pacific theater headquarters. Moreover,

at least for Pastel, the CINCPAC headquarters seemed to

provide the basic ideas, and AFPAC formulated the details.

Still, although the planners at the 27 June meeting made

no real changes in Pastel, it did allow the Joint Chiefs of Staff

to accept the reworded Pastel as its own. The new Pastel was

thus issued as JCS Directive 1410 on 9 July 1945. This

marked the point at which the Pastel plan became national

policy. Its development was now almost complete. 30

Enclosure B of JSC Serial 6117, which was the memorandum revising Pastel after the 27 June meeting, directed

AFPAC and CINCPAC to prepare an implementation annex

"to show in detail specific responsibilities and timing" for the

new Pastel. The result was Pastel Two. AFPAC headquarters elaborated Pastel Two according to the JSC Serial

6117 directive and issued it on 30 July 1945. Following its

charter, AFPAC made no changes in strategic deception but

abundantly developed operational details for it. These details

were probably coordinated with CINCPAC at the joint meeting of the two commands on Guam on 21-23 July.

The operational deception in Pastel Two, which

prescribed large-scale fictional airborne assaults against Kyushu, was original to Pastel Two, however, and had no antecedents in the 13 June Pastel, or in Broadaxe, or in the 27

June Pastel. It is very possible that the operational airborne

scheme-all staged from Okinawa, CINCPAC's most forward

jurisdiction-was also devised by Navy planners and inserted

into the mainstream of joint theater planning at the Guam

meeting of 21-23 July.

Thus, Pastel Two, with its extensive implementative annexes drafted by AFPAC on 30 July, marked the completion

29
of deception planning for Olympic. This benchmark had been

reached without too much controversy. Up until April 1945,

planners had debated where the real assaults of Olympic

should take place, but once that was settled and Navy planners offered plausible deception proposals, there was not

much controversy over the location of the fictional assaults.

Some discussion continued, however. D. E. Fairbanks Jr.,

a naval officer, after reading Pastel, complained to Admiral

King's staff on 22 June that Shantung was a better objective

than Shanghai because it required a more urgent response

from the Japanese. Fairbanks also urged that Hokkaido, not

Shikoku, should be the homeland target because Japanese

home forces would be kept more dispersed. Fairbanks

wanted the CINCPAC planners to consider this when in

Washington on 27 June. 31 These perceptions did not

sway the CINCPAC planners and Joint Security Control members at the 27 June meeting, however.

Major General Clayton Bissell, the senior Army representative in the Joint Security Control group, told AFPAC

and CINCPAC chiefs in a 31 July memorandum that the 1

December date for the fictional Shikoku landing "would point

dangerously close to [the] actual target date for OLYMPIC."

Bissell was perhaps reiterating Joint Security Control's concerns that had earlier caused planners at the 27 June conference to change temporarily CINCPAC's Shikoku landing

date from 1 December to 25 December. 32 It is not clear

whether theater planners heeded this complaint either,

however. In any case, after two months of interaction between AFPAC, CINCPAC, JSC, and JWPC, Pastel Two of 30

July 1945 would prove to be the final evolution of deception

for Olympic.

30
The Origins of Coronet Deception

The evolution of the Coronet plans was briefer than Pastel's. When the war ended on 15 August 1945, planners had

still not conducted the many rounds of consultation for

Coronet Deception that had accompanied Pastel. This was

probably because Coronet was not to occur until 1 March

1946, so that resolving the details was less urgent. Moreover,

the detailed plans for Coronet itself would not be completed

by AFPAC until 15 August.33

When the war ended, Coronet Deception was still only a

staff study called "Cover and Deception Plan for

'CORONET,' JWPC 190/16" that had been prepared on

17 July 1945 by "the Joint War Plans Committee with representatives of Joint Security Control." 34 It is not clear exactly

what the provenance of JWPC 190/16 was. Coronet Deception was detailed, as the work of the Pacific theater planners

usually was, and followed closely the deception patterns established by Pastel. This may or may not mean that Coronet

Deception was based on material provided to the JWPC by

one of the theater staffs.

Presumably, the theater planners would have had little to

take issue with in Coronet Deception, since in its premises,

timing, choice of targets, and special methods, it closely followed Pastel, which all parties had just agreed to on 27 June.

It seems likely that, while working out Pastel, the main deception issues for the invasion of Japan had already been

resolved to the satisfaction of all participants.

As it happened, however, an Air Force planning staff

group (AFAEP) that had not been a prominent party in the

Pastel talks immediately objected to Coronet Deception.

AFAEP urged that the plan not be forwarded to theater commanders for information, which was the customary next step,

and instead should be redrafted according to its own recom31
mendations. Moreover, AFAEP's recommendations were persuasive.

The Air Force group opposed the deception proposal on

the point of Korea as a fictitious target. They felt that, after

the real Kyushu landings, the Japanese would not believe

Korea as a target. Even if the Japanese did believe it, they

would not alter their strategy, which was to move as many

troops as they could for defense of the homeland. Moreover,

if Japan did concentrate forces in Korea, they would come

from Manchuria not from forces earmarked for Japan.

Moreover, diversion of American attention from the Japanese

home islands might buoy the morale of the Japanese. The

Korean ploy, being of no benefit, was a waste of energy.

Instead of Korea, the Air Force planners recommended

an interesting alternative: two fictitious prongs of assault,

leapfrogging up the northern and southern coasts of Honshu

respectively from the Kyushu beachhead, keeping each leap

within range of fighter cover. The north coast advance would

aim. in several hops at the Fukui-Kanazawa area, and the

south coast advance would aim at the area between Osaka

and Nagoya. This would seem more plausible to the Japanese

than a Korea objective, given the real lodgment already made

on Kyushu. Moreover, it followed MacArthur's known

leapfrog strategy, which would make it easy to believe. The

Shikoku and Hokkaido fictitious landings were also more compatible with a Honshu leapfrogging approach than with a

Korea approach. Finally, moving along the coast could be explained by MacArthur's desire to rely as little as possible on

naval help because of his known "jealousy" of Nimitz. 35

The Air Force ideas were quite plausible. They relied on

ground movements determined by air war technology, namely,

fighter plane range (albeit fighters older than the long-range

P-51). This must have been compelling rationale for the Air

Force staff group. Indeed, they acknowledged that they had

32
considered such an actual plan, so the Japanese, too, would

be likely to see it as authentic. 36

By 7 August 1945, Captain H. R. Thurber, Admiral King's

chief of staff, had responded to the AFAEP notes in a

memorandum for King. Thurber criticized the leapfrog plan

because it would "draw forces up the island of Honshu . rather than keeping them dispersed away from the actual objective." He suggested that emphasizing "jealousy" between

MacArthur and Nimitz to the Japanese could boomerang and

be "harmful to Allied morale."

Thurber felt that keeping Korea as an objective actually

would prevent forces there from being moved to the

homeland. The Japanese might try to hold Korea even in an

emergency in order to contain the "American, Chinese, Russian, and Korean revolutionary threats" there. Moreover, a

Korean target would focus attention on the southwestern portion of the Japanese islands, away from the Tokyo Plain. Besides that, Thurber argued, the fictitious assaults on the

Taiwan and south China coasts to cover the Okinawa invasion

had been believed by Japanese intelligence, fictitious ChusanShanghai assaults for Olympic were already being believed,

and Japanese intelligence was also showing concern about an

assault on Korea. 37

Thurber consequently urged that the Joint Planning Staff

approve Coronet Deception in terms of the round-the-ChinaSea tradition that had infused Pacific deception since planning

for Okinawa and that had constituted real plans for the Navy

up until April. What Thurber did not say but might have said

is that suddenly changing the basic concept of deception

might confuse not only the Japanese but also the American

operators at all levels that were to implement it. In any case,

it was once again the Navy that served as the active advocate

of the Asian mainland component of deception.

33
Since the war ended on 15 August, barely a week after

Thurber's memorandum to King, it is not clear whether the

Joint Planning Staff actually approved Coronet Deception and

sent it to the theaters. Given, however, that the JCS, JPS,

JWPC, JSC, AFPAC, and CINCPAC had all agreed on the

similar outlines of Pastel five weeks earlier and that the Air

Force AFAEP was the only group saying "nay," it is likely that the theater commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff

would have quickly adopted Coronet Deception as the identifiable companion of Pastel.

On the whole, the development of deception plans for

Olympic and Coronet evolved smoothly. The discussion and

occasional dissent during the planning usually led to refinements rather than delay. There were major differences between JWPC's Broadaxe of 16 June and AFPAC's original Pastel of 13 June. Still, the JWPC and JSC gracefully acquiesced to the more detailed planning of the theaters at the

joint meeting of 27 June, while also establishing the fiction

that Pastel derived from Broadaxe. They performed the plan- ner's duty of supporting the best plan in hand whether it was

their own or not. The main conceptual outlines of both Pastel

and Coronet Deception probably originated in the CINCPAC

staff, which had been developing real round-the-China-Sea assault plans until April. The brief statement of Pastel in

CINCPAC's draft of Olympic of 13 May did not differ in its

essentials from the mature Pastel Two of 30 July 1945, ten

weeks later.

The Likely Effect: Japanese Perceptions

Having looked at the contents of Pastel and of Coronet

Deception, what were the deception plans' quality and importance? Pastel provided for fictitious assaults on Shanghai and

then on Shikoku, with false airborne attacks in Kyushu as

34
operational deception. Coronet Deception provided for fictional assaults on Shikoku, Korea, and Hokkaido and for a

complicated pattern of feints to conceal the timing and weight

of the Tokyo landings. Both plans used multiple means to

promote their stories, including real preliminary operations,

false information released through the news media and

agents, and radio traffic manipulation.

Given the great cost in energy and resources, one must

ask how much effect these deception operations might have

had on Japanese conduct. Even when deception operations

are actually carried out, it is difficult to measure their effect,

since the enemy's action may derive from considerations

other than the deception. Nevertheless, some useful conclusions can be drawn by examining the activities of Japanese

Imperial General Headquarters planners from January 1945

to the war's end.

The Japanese approach throughout 1945 was to anticipate

U.S. plans based either on past American operations or on

what Japanese staff members believed to be U.S. interests.

Neither method required current intelligence data, and indeed by the summer of 1945, the Japanese had lost their air

and submarine capabilities for directly observing their antagonist. So, as American planners painstakingly decided in

the first half of 1945 what to do in the second half, Japanese

planners also were deciding what the Americans would do.

Moreover, the Japanese estimated U.S. intentions merely by

simulating the Americans' decision-making process: they

looked at the facts to determine what military course best

served American policy.

The Japanese shadow process reached conclusions broadly

similar to those of the American planners. In the Imperial

General Headquarters' "Report to the Throne" of 19 January

1945, Japanese strategists announced that the Americans

would conduct a "two-pronged advance" from the Marianas

toward the Iwo Jima island group and from the Philippines

35
toward either Taiwan, Shanghai, or Okinawa. "The two

prongs of the advance would converge in the final assault on

the Homeland in the fall of 1945 at the earliest," they wrote.38

The next day, 20 January, Imperial General Headquarters

issued an "Outline of Army and Navy Operations," which

specified that the "strongpoints to be developed . . . include

Iwo Jima, Formosa [Taiwan], Okinawa, the Shanghai district,

and the South Korean coast." The outline mandated that

"preparations for the decisive battle will be completed in

Japan proper by the early fall of 1945." Imperial General

Headquarters issued an "Outline of Preparations for the

Ketsu-Go Operation" on 8 April 1945 that listed seven

"Ketsu" (Decision) operations to repel invaders, one for each

of six districts in Japan and one for Korea. Ketsu Number

Three was for the Tokyo area, and Ketsu Number Six for

Kyushu. These two were to receive priority, with final

preparations to be completed as soon as possible after 1 October. The Japanese outlined plans to funnel reserves from

other areas to Kyushu in case it were attacked or to Tokyo if

it were attacked before the Kyushu landings. No other contingencies appear in this series, meaning that the Japanese

thought these were the most likely possibilities.3 9

By early May, battle results in Okinawa led Imperial

General Headquarters to conclude that the invasion of

Kyushu would come in June. Forces were moved from the

Kurils and Hokkaido to Tokyo and Kyushu respectively.

Ketsu Number One, defense of Hokkaido, was accordingly

scaled down to a holding action only. Meanwhile, shore

preparations were behind schedule, and more so around

Tokyo than in Kyushu. Fortifications were 50 percent complete around Ariake Bay in Kyushu; 15 percent complete in

the Miyazaki, Satsuma Peninsula, and Fukuoka areas of

Kyushu; and not yet begun around Tokyo Bay. These events

suggested again that Imperial General Headquarters

36
responded to actual battle developments more than to independent intelligence. 40

By mid-July, most of the Japanese materiel had gone to

Kyushu rather than elsewhere. Since there were shortages of

ordnance, fuel, rations, and transportation to move them,

other areas were "drained" so that Kyushu could be rich in

supply. Kyushu, though it had only 50 percent of the mortars

and antitank guns its quotas required, had nevertheless stockpiled 100 percent of the ammunition, 94 percent of the fuel,

and 164 percent of the rations of the established quotas.

Even the Tokyo defense zone had supply levels that were far

below its quotas, leading planners to worry that effective resistance could not be sustained after the Kyushu campaign. The

priority given to supplying Kyushu shows beyond a doubt that

Imperial General Headquarters assumed from 8 April on that

Kyushu would be the Americans' first objective. This means

the Japanese arrived at these assumptions even before the

Americans themselves decided what they would do in April

and May.41

The Japanese assumptions were still somewhat inchoate,

however, and by no means unanimous. The debate crystallized over the "Situation Estimate for the Latter Half of

1945," issued in July. The main issue was whether the

Americans would attack immediately or after a long blockade.

A majority favored the former view, curiously mimicking the

course of the Americans' actual planning process. If there

was to be an invasion, the question was whether the

Americans would first take advance bases. The army intelligence staff at Imperial General Headquarters, especially

those in Chinese intelligence, were convinced the United

States would invade central or north China to "support . ..

the Chungking regime." Some officers in the army operations

group believed the Americans would land in southern Korea

or on Saishu Island in the Korea Strait. Any of these actions

would sever Japan's continental supply lines, and a north

37
China or Korea invasion would "check Soviet influence"

there. 42

The majority of the Japanese high command believed,

however, that the Americans would take only the northern

Ryukyus and possibly Saishu Island before they landed in

Japan proper. A minority felt the first attacks would be in the

Tokyo area, but the majority thought that, instead, the

Americans' initial landings would take place in Kyushu and

Shikoku to acquire the air and naval bases there, followed by

final operations on the Tokyo Plain.43

The "Situation Estimate for the Latter Half of 1945"

stated the minority views as secondary possibilities. The

Shanghai area and southern Shantung were specified as the

likely invasion points in China. Invasions in southern Japan

were indicated as possible any time after September if China

was not invaded and in late fall if it was invaded. Likely target coasts were Tanega Island, southern Kyushu, and southern

Shikoku. This very remarkable situation estimate went on to

say that, after the Americans secured the southern bases, they

would invade the Tokyo Plain. "This operation may be

covered by a diversionary feint at Hokkaido," the estimate

noted.44

By the time of the July estimate, the war was almost over,

but Japanese planners were still anxious. They could no

longer observe American bases with submarines and planes,

so they feared the Americans might prepare an invasion of

Tokyo before Kyushu, and they would not know it. The planners had access to radio intelligence but felt it was "not completely reliable," especially regarding "direction, time, and

strength of the attack." They fretted, moreover, that the

Americans might forget the well-walled shores of Kyushu and,

instead, invade the Nagoya area. Such an operation would cut

Japan in two at slight cost because Nagoya was almost undefended and would prevent reinforcements from reaching

the Tokyo Plain from the south. The Japanese high command

38
feared that the Americans would strike Nagoya, whatever

their earlier plans or interests, precisely because resources

had been concentrated in Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain.

Similarly, planners worried that the Americans might land unexpectedly on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu instead of the

Tokyo side. The Korea Strait was under American control,

and the Sea of Japan coast also was almost undefended.

These anxieties were only laid to rest by the end of the war on

15 August.45

In a word, the Japanese by the summer of 1945 believed

that there would be attacks on southern Kyushu and the

Tokyo Plain, but they also feared attacks on Shikoku, northern Kyushu, the China coast, and Korea. Besides that, they

feared the Americans might divert their attacks to central

Japan merely because that area was lightly defended, and in

any case, they felt they had to make some defensive arrangements for all of Japan and Korea.

Pastel Versus the Japanese Defense Plans

The Japanese assessments of 1945 are important for gauging the effect of Pastel and Coronet Deception, even though

the deception plans were not yet carried out. This is because

the Japanese analysis shows both the extent to which deception was needed and what patterns of deception the Japanese

were predisposed to believe. For one thing, the Japanese estimates show the remarkable extent to which Japanese

strategists could construct future American intentions prior to

any observation of their being implemented. The basic

parameters of the American exercise were obvious, and deception was unlikely to persuade the Japanese of fictional operations outside certain limits.

The Japanese plans show that the U.S. Navy's steady insistence that the China coast was a good target for deception

was correct. In January, the Japanese ordered Taiwan, Shang39
hai, and the south Korean coast to be fortified. Even as late

as July, the timing the Japanese predicted for the Kyushu landings was contingent on possible landings in China or Korea.

The Americans' deception for their Okinawa, Kyushu, and

Tokyo invasions targeted Taiwan, Shanghai, and the south

Korean coast respectively, and the Japanese considered all

these areas real targets. In short, the Japanese predispositions show that the U.S. Navy's round-the-China-Sea deception strategy was on the mark.

The same can be said of the fictional Shikoku landings,

which were to be the second phase of Pastel and the first

phase of Coronet Deception. As of the July 1945 situation estimate, the Japanese assumed that Shikoku as well as Kyushu

would be an invasion target. Therefore, the Japanese would

probably have believed the fictional threats prepared for

Shikoku. For the Japanese, however, Shikoku was seen as a

part of the Kyushu expedition not an alternative to it. So Pastel was extremely unlikely to have persuaded them that

Shikoku was the only objective in place of Kyushu. The fictional Hokkaido threats, on the other hand, might have been

less successful than the Shikoku project since the July 1945

situation estimate had already anticipated that there would be

a distractive feint toward Hokkaido and since Hokkaido had

already been reduced to a defense-only status in the Japanese

adjustments of June.

As for operational deception, the Japanese anticipated airborne operations against airfields, so Pastel's fictional airborne activities on Okinawa might have worked. On the

other hand, unfortunately for Pastel planners, the Japanese

had guessed exactly the three Kyushu landings' real target

beaches: Miyazaki, Ariake Bay, and Satsuma Peninsula. The

designers of Pastel's operational deception might have done

well to have arranged some of the elaborate shell-game style

feinting, adding a fictional beach or two, especially Fukuoka,

that Coronet Deception would. 46

40
Operational deception for Coronet, with fictional landings

at Kashima and Sendai, was likely to have been successful,

since the Japanese anticipated attacks at Kashima. Moreover,

the Japanese believed it was likely that the main assault

would come on the Kujukuri (Katakai-Choshi) shore with a

secondary one at Sagami or Kashima. That Sagami was only a

fictional or secondary target was precisely the story that

Coronet Deception was trying to convey, so the Japanese

might have been easily convinced. 4

Examining the Japanese estimates shows that, all in all, it

is remarkable how well the Japanese judged the main outline

of American intentions, but it is also remarkable how well

American planners chose what the Japanese would view as obvious secondary possibilities and exploited them for deception. It is hard to see what more could have been done to outmaneuver Japanese strategists short of changing the goals of

the real operations. Mounting a fictitious threat against

Nagoya might actually have caused the nervous Japanese staff

to draw troops away from Kyushu, but requiring the American

planners to have come up with this in response to an eleventhhour concern within the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters would have been expecting a great deal.

Pastel and Principles of Deception

Having examined the likely effect of Pastel and Coronet

Deception in light of the empirical record of Japanese estimates, it is now appropriate to consider the deception plans

from a theoretical perspective, since this may provide some

additional insights.

In his monograph Strategem: Deception and Surprise in

War, Barton Whaley observes that a plan should encompass

many possible alternative operations. If only one obvious possibility is developed, the planner "forfeits surprise," and his

41
antagonist can bring all his forces to bear on the single objective. On the other hand, if the planner develops even one additional alternative, this may halve his adversary's effectiveness. Adding further alternatives also helps, but at a diminishing rate. Moreover, if the enemy perceives no additional

strategic alternative, small tactical ruses, such as creating

dummy artillery or dummy radio traffic, will have no effect. 48

Whaley's so-called "Theory of Strategem" effectively illuminates both the extreme importance of Pastel and Coronet

Deception and these plans' basically sound approach. Pastel

presented several plausible alternatives to the Japanese,

thereby obliging them to keep many of their forces dispersed.

This was about as much as could be done, since as Whaley

also observed, any operation can be dissimulated to some extent, but none "to the full extent."49

The direction taken by the Pastel planners can also be better understood by considering Donald Daniel and Katherine

Herbig's theory of types of deception. According to Daniel,

there are two types. The first is "ambiguity-increasing deception," which confuses the adversary so he is unsure of what to

believe. It tries to keep ambiguity "high enough to protect

the secret of the actual operation." Daniel's second type of

deception is "misleading deception," which does not increase

ambiguity for the target but, rather, "builds up the attractiveness of the wrong alternative" in a positive way by providing

information that is clear but false. The adversary thus

prepares for the wrong operation. In practice, Daniel points

out, ambiguity deception and misleading deception blend into

each other. Their outcomes tend to be "utter confusion" and

"convinced misdirection" respectively. 50

Pastel and Coronet Deception blended these two types of

deception. Pastel planners used misleading deception in

order to achieve ambiguity deception. They could not have

expected the Japanese to accept this misdirection literally and

to believe that there would be attacks on south Korea and on

42
Shikoku but that Kyushu would be spared. However, by

plainly indicating that Korea and Shikoku were to be the landing targets, the planners created an element of ambiguity in

the Japanese analysis so that they could not be certain of the

number of landing assaults there would be or where or when

they would occur. As a result, the Japanese were obliged to

keep-their forces at least partially dispersed.

Daniel and Herbig also compare the work of a deception

planner to that of a playwright. To convey his story, the planner must use "scenery, props, costumes, principals, extras,

dialogue, and sound effects," and control the timing and sequence. The deceiver must use many information routes, or

"channels," to transmit his story to the deceived. In this, the

Pastel planners did fairly well. They created their stories and

then promoted them in many ingenious ways. They did not

use props, costumes, extras, dialogue, action, and sound effects exactly, but they did use dummy gliders, shoulder

patches of nonexistent corps, fictitious divisions, concocted

stories in the press, air reconnaissance in areas not to be attacked, manipulation of radio traffic, and much more besides.

They used everything from rumors to dropping life rafts-that

is, they used many channels to send their story and actually

had a detailed timetable, a script, that coordinated the release

of different parts of the story. A good deception planner is

like a playwright who carefully orchestrates many small elements of reality to give the impression of a larger, but

fictitious, reality. In this capacity, the Pastel strategists were

resourceful. 1

Daniel and Herbig point out further that good deception

partially "meshes" with the reality. If some features of the fictional operation are the same as those of the real operation,

the enemy can verify them by observation. This also serves as

a kind of cover for the real operation, since its activities can

be explained as being for the fictional purposes. 52 The Pastel

planners, of course, observed this caveat, since the story they

43
devised required major force buildups in Okinawa, Hawaii,

and elsewhere, much like those of the real operations. At

many points, the planners were wise enough to mesh their fictions with reality.

Theorists like Daniel, Herbig, and Whaley distinguish between cover (concealing reality) and deception (projecting a

false reality). The Pastel and Coronet Deception staffs

devoted little attention to cover except in radio traffic and

radio content. This was probably because they believed, with

some reason, that the Japanese could not closely observe the

bases where assault preparations were to be conducted. Indeed, the Pastel planners had the opposite problem: their fictional preparations-dummy gliders on Okinawa tarmacs, for

example-risked being ineffective because of the Japanese inability to observe them. Under other circumstances, however,

Pastel's creators would have had to be criticized for their

nearly complete lack of attention to cover.

On the whole, however, Pastel and Coronet Deception

were fairly sound plans from a theoretical point of view. They

projected plausible alternative assaults and conveyed a story

that indicated specific assault landings other than those the

Americans were actually preparing for, thereby perplexing the

Japanese analysis with an unavoidable element of ambiguity.

The two plans employed many methods and routes to transmit their story and coordinated them according to carefully

made timetables. Both plans made their fictions compatible

with much that might be actually observed.

Conclusion

The deception plans for Olympic and Coronet were comprehensive, involving the coordination of multiple theaters

and deception practice at both the strategic and operational

levels of war. The plans were developed in a timely way, only

44
shortly after the real operations plans, by cooperating planners in the theaters and in Washington. Japanese perceptions

were such that, although the Japanese could not easily have

been misled about the main thrust of the invasion plans, the

American deception would nevertheless have fanned remaining Japanese doubts. This was in part because the Americans

applied deception theory well. They promoted several

plausible alternatives and conveyed them with an ingenious

variety of methods.

Pastel was painted in subtle strokes, the shadow of a

shadow. Little attention has been paid to Pastel in the past

because it is only the fictional obverse of events that never

took place. But Pastel deserves to be studied. It was

prepared in earnest by planners who believed the most important operations of the Pacific war hinged on its quality. Pastel

was an outstanding product of the American deceptionists' art.

45
I
Glossary

AFAEP

AFPAC

Broadaxe

Bluebird

CINCPAC

COMGENALASKA

COMGENCHINA

COMNORPAC

Coronet

Coronet Deception

FEAF

JCS

JPS

JSC

JWPC

Longtom

Olympic

Pastel

Pastel Two

See note 35.

U.S. Army Forces, Pacific; headquarters in

Manila

Early comprehensive deception plan for

Olympic and Coronet, drafted by JWPC and

JSC on 13 June 1945

Deception plan to cover the invasion of

Okinawa, which prescribed fictional assaults

on Taiwan and the south China coast

commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet;

headquarters on Guam

commanding general, Alaska

commanding general, China

commander, North Pacific

Planned invasion of the Tokyo (Kanto) Plain

Early deception plan for Coronet, drafted by

JWPC on 17 July 1945

Far East Air Force

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Joint Planning Staff

Joint Security Control

Joint War Plans Committee

Planned invasion of Chusan-Shanghai area

Planned invasion of Kyushu

Early versions of Olympic deception,

drafted by AFPAC and CINCPAC on

13 June 1945 and by AFPAC, CINCPAC,

and JWPC on 27 June 1945

Olympic deception plan in its final version,

drafted by AFPAC on 30 July 1945

47
USASTAF U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces

USFCT U.S. Forces, China Theater

X day Planned day of the first Kyushu landings,

1 November 1945

Y day Planned day of the first Tokyo Plain landings, 1 March 1946

48
Notes

1. U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, "Staff Study: 'PASTEL TWO,' Cover and

Deception, OLYMPIC Operations" (Manila, 30 July 1945), 1, 3-5,

available at Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center,

Washington, DC. The archives is hereafter cited as OA-NHC. The

"author" of this document is hereafter cited as AFPAC.

2. Ibid., 3.

3. Ibid., 4-6; and Annex 3c, 1-2.

4. Ibid., Annex 3c(1)(b), 1; Annex 5a; and Annex 5b(2).

5. Ibid., 6; and Annex 3c(1)(b), 1.

6. Ibid., Annex 3c.

7. Ibid., 4-5; and Annex 5b(2), 1.

8. Ibid., Annex 5a, 1-2.

9. Ibid., Annex 5a, 2-3.

10. Ibid., Annex 5b(2), 1-3.

11. Ibid., 5-6.

12. Ibid., 6; and Annex 3c(1)(b), 1.

13. Ibid., 5-6; and Annex 3c, 1.

14. Ibid., Annex 3c, 1.

15. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint War Plans Committee, "Staff Study:

Cover and Deception Plan for 'CORONET,' JWPC 190/16"

(Washington, DC, 17 July 1945), Enclosure, 2-4; and Annex D, available at OA-NHC. The "author" of this document is hereafter cited as

JWPC.

16. Ibid., Annex B, 12-16.

17. Ibid., Annex A, 10; Annex B, 17; and Annex C, 23.

18. Ibid., Annex A, 6-10.

19. Ibid., Annex C, 19--23.

20. Ibid., Annex D, 24-27.

21. Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division,

United States Army in World War II (1951; reprint, Washington, DC:

49
Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1970), 335-38.

Cline cites JPS 476, "Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa [Taiwan]," 6 June 1944.

22. Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Reports of General

MacArthur: The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, 2 vols. in 3

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966, 1950),

1:395-99.

23. U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, "Brief of OLYMPIC: Naval

and Amphibious Operations, CINCPOA Staff Study" (Guam, 13 May

1945), Appendix F: Cover and Deception, 98-102, available at the

Military Reference Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, hereafter cited as MRB-NARA. The

"author" of this document is hereafter cited as CINCPAC.

24. For the reference to Bluebird, see ibid., 98. For awareness of the

Navy's planning of China invasions up to the spring of 1945, I am indebted to Roy Skates who, in his unpublished article, "The Decision to

Invade Japan" (N.p., n.d.), refers his reader to "Various messages in

Nimitz' Command Summary, Book 6 (1 January-1 July 1945), Naval

Operational Archive, Washington, D.C."

25. AFPAC and CINCPAC, "Joint Staff Study: OLYMPIC, Naval and

Amphibious Operations" (Guam, 18 June 1945), Appendix H, H5,

available at MRB-NARA. This text sets out the resolutions on "Deception Planning" reached at the AFPAC-CINCPAC meeting in Manila,

16 May 1945.

26. AFPAC, "Cover Plan 'PASTEL,' Cover and Deception Plan, OLYMPIC Operation" (Manila, 13 June 1945), 5-6, available at MRB-NARA.

27. Cline, Washington Command Post, 239-41.

28. JWPC, "General Directive for Deception Measures Against Japan,

CCS 284/16/D" (Washington, DC, 16 June 1945), 1-7, especially 4-5,

available at OA-NHC.

29. For an itemization of the language changes agreed to on 27 June 1945,

see JWPC and CINCPAC, Special Planning Group, "Suggested

Revision of Cover Plan PASTEL, Memorandum for Joint War Plans

Committee, J.S.C. Serial 6117" (Washington, DC, 29 June 1945), 1-5,

available at OA-NHC. For the text of the new Pastel of 27 June, see

"Enclosure A to J.S.C. Serial 6117, Cover Plan 'PASTEL,"' 1-7, available at OA-NHC.

30. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Planning Staff, "Plan 'PASTEL,' J.C.S.

1410" (Washington, DC, 6 July 1945), available at OA-NHC.

50
31. D. E. Fairbanks Jr., "Comments on 'Over-All Cover and Deception

Plan for the OLYMPIC Operation,' Memorandum for F-1"

(Washington, DC, 22 June 1945), available at OA-NHC.

32. Major General Clayton Bissell, Joint Security Control, U.S. Joint

Chiefs of Staff, "Memorandum for CINCAFPAC re PASTEL Meeting

of 27 June" (Washington, DC, 31 July 1945), available at OA-NHC.

33. AFPAC, "Staff Study: 'CORONET,' Operations in the Kanto Plain of

Honshu" (Manila, 15 August 1945), available at MRB-NARA.

34. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Security Control, "Memorandum for

the Joint Staff Planners re Staff Study of Cover and Deception Objectives for CORONET" (Washington, DC, 16 July 1945), available at

OA-NHC.

35. [U.S. Army Air Forces, Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Plans], "AFAEP

Notes [on] JWPC 190/16" (Washington, DC, early August 1945), 1-4,

available at OA-NHC. The AFAEP Notes and responses to them appear in files dealing with Coronet in the Navy Yard's Operational Archive. There is no indication on this document as to what the acronym

AFAEP meant. AF was a common abbreviation for the Army Air

Forces in the World War II period. The U.S. Air Force Historical

Research Center at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, checked

numerous records for me and supplied the name of the subsidiary

Army Air Forces office that I have used here in brackets as the most

probable author of the document. This, however, is only an educated

guess.

36. Ibid., 3.

37. Captain H. R. Thurber, U.S. Navy, "Memorandum for Admiral King

re AFAEP Notes on JWPC 190/16" (Washington, DC, 7 August 1945),

cover page and enclosure, 1-4, available at OA-NHC.

38. Supreme Commander, Reports of General MacArthur, vol. 2, pt. 2, 577.

39. Ibid., 583, 585, 601-5; and U.S. Army Forces Far East, Military History

Section, Japanese Monograph no. 17: Homeland Operations Record

(Washington, DC: Distributed by the Office of the Chief of Military

History, 1959), 201-4, hereafter cited as JM 17.

40. Supreme Commander, Reports of General MacArthur, vol. 2, pt. 2, 621-

23.

41. Ibid., 631-32; and JM 17, 126.

42. Supreme Commander, Reports of General MacArthur, vol. 2, pt. 2, 635.

43. Ibid., 636.

51
44. Ibid., 639-40.

45. Ibid., 644, 646.

46. JM 17, 126-30.

47. Ibid., 70-72, 85.

48. Barton Whaley, Strategem: Deception and Surprise in War (Cambridge,

MA: Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1969), 129-32, 134-35, 138.

49. See Barton Whaley, "Toward a General Theory of Deception," in

Military Deception and Strategic Surprise, edited by John Gooch and

Amos Perlmutter (London: Frank Cass, 1982), 190.

50. Donald Daniel and Katherine Herbig, "Propositions on Military Deception," 157-78, in Military Deception and Strategic Surprise.

51. Ibid., 159, 161.

52. Ibid., 170.

52
Bibliography

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Staff. "Memorandum for CINCAFPAC re PASTEL Meeting of 27

June." Washington, DC, 31 July 1945. Available at the Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

Cline, Ray S. Washington Command Post: The Operations Division. U.S.

Army in World War II. 1951. Reprint. Washington, DC: Office of the

Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1970.

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and Amos Perlmutter, 153-77. London: Frank Cass, 1982.

Fairbanks, D. E., Jr., "Comments on 'Over-All Cover and Deception Plan

for the OLYMPIC Operations,' Memorandum for F-l." Washington,

DC, 22 June 1945. Available at the Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

Skates, Roy. "The Decision to Invade Japan.," Unpublished article. N.p.,

n.d.

Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Reports of General

MacArthur: The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific. 2 vols. in 3.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966, 1950.

Thurber, H. R., Captain, U.S. Navy. "Memorandum for Admiral King re

AFAEP Notes on JWPC 190/16." Washington, DC, 7 August 1945.

[U.S. Army Air Forces. Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Plans]. "AFAEP

Notes [on] JWPC 190/16." Washington, DC, early August 1945. Available at the Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center,

Washington, DC.

U.S. Army Forces, Far East. Military History Section. Japanese

Monograph no. 17: Homeland Operations Record. Washington, DC:

Distributed by the Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959.

U.S. Army Forces, Pacific. "Cover Plan 'PASTEL,' Cover and Deception

Plan, OLYMPIC Operation." Manila, 13 June 1945. Available at the

53
Military Reference Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

."Staff Study: 'CORONET,' Operations in the Kanto Plain of Honshu." Manila, 15 August 1945. Available at the Military Reference

Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington,

DC.

."Staff Study: 'PASTEL TWO,' Cover and Deception, OLYMPIC

Operations," Manila, 30 July 1945. Available at the Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, and U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet.

"Joint Staff Study: OLYMPIC, Naval and Amphibious Operations."

Guam, 18 June 1945. Available at the Military Reference Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. "Brief of OLYMPIC: Naval and

Amphibious Operations, CINCPOA Staff Study." Guam, 13 May 1945.

Available at the Military Reference Branch, National Archives and

Records Administration, Washington, DC.

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Security Control. "Memorandum for the

Joint Staff Planners re Staff Study of Cover and Deception Objectives for

CORONET." Washington, DC, 16 July 1945. Available at the Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Planning Staff. "Plan 'PASTEL,' J.C.S.

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U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint War Plans Committee. "General Directive

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Washington, DC, 17 July 1945. Available at the Operational Archive,

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54
Committee, J.C.S. Serial 6117." Washington, DC, 29 June 1945. Available at the Operational Archive, U.S. Naval Historical Center,

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Whaley, Barton. Strategem: Deception and Surprise in War. Cambridge,

MA: Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1969.

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London: Frank Cass, 1982.

55
- Dr. Thomas M. Huber -

Dr. Thomas M. Huber is a research fellow

at the Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. A graduate of Oberlin College,

he received his master's degree in history from

the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and his

doctorate in history from the University of

Chicago. He has taught in the Duke University,

University of California-Berkeley, and Stanford

University history departments. Dr. Huber lived

and studied in Tokyo for several years and is

the author of The Revolutionary Origins of

Modern Japan (Stanford, 1981) and numerous

articles and reviews.

COMBAT STUDIES INSTITUTE

Missions

The Combat Studies Institute was established on 18 June 1979 as a

department-level activity within the U.S. Army Command and General Staff

College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. CSI has the following missions:

1. Conduct research on historical topics pertinent to the doctrinal concerns of

the Army and publish the results in a variety of formats for the Active

Army and Reserve Components.

2. Prepare and present instruction in military history at USACGSC and assist

other USACGSC departments in integrating military history into their

instruction.

3. Serve as the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command's executive agent

for the development and coordination of an integrated, progressive program

of military history instruction in the TRADOC service school system.

I I -·I~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ct I · · II -- _·cl
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

_- _- _- _ -a·--r·--- _- _Q·--~·-- __--~· -~-Ql ee·YO···rs _ As ~.~_ _0|_a_