Operation PX

You're a resident of San Diego, California, the year is 1945, the month and day is September 22nd. The worst of the Second World War is over, with Japan's surrender surely close. You're watching the last bit of light in the western sky, feeling thankful, maybe a little selfishly, that the war stayed in other countries, and didn't come to the U.S., except for a few reports of balloon bombs reaching home, but even that was far away in Oregon, not here in sunny Southern Cali. You would be in combat in only one month, because you're training to be a fighter pilot, but you think it to be unlikely with Japan's condition. You think about the future, how hard these last 4 years or even the last 6 years have been. It seems like forever ago that Hitler's troops invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, although it was only 6 years ago. You think about the awful scenes of D-Day, soldiers falling dead on the beaches without even firing a shot at the enemy, the awful battles that followed and finally the liberation of Nazi concentration camps just in May and June of this year... Then you think about the bright spots, like the liberation of Paris by the Ivy Division, soldiers, or rather veterans of the Utah Beach landings, the joyful faces of children freed of opression and soldiers having a break from hot combat, then the celebration everywhere on Victory in Europe day, the wave of releif that came over when you heard that Nazi Germany surrendered, the feeling of victory. All of the sudden your thoughts are interupted by the sound of what seems to be unfamiliar airplane engines, and the sound of explosions and crashes, not too far away but close enough. You hear the sound of supercharged Packard-built Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the sound of our great P-51 Mustangs. You feel comfort in that, but it doesn't last long because you hear people screaming from your neighborhood instead of P-51s. You grab your bag, flashlight, coat and hat and step outside and take a look around, seeing glowing, flickering orange light in the distance, knowing that enemy airplanes must have attacked like the kamakaze pilots you read about in the paper attacking the U.S. Navy in almost every battle. You don't understand why they attacked a small neighborhgood like yours, but you know that you need to get out and go to the Air Force Base to see what happened. You've been on leave for nearly a week and a half, expecting not to go back, but this changes everything. You grab your keys and your pet parakeet, along with your uniform, making sure all your papers and IDs are with it, and your personal pistol, and head out the door again, this time for your car. You start your car and speed off, hoping another attack doesn't happen. You finally reach the gate and show the guard your ID and ask him what happened. He says

"There's been a kamikaze attack, our fighters couldn't be scrambled in time so they got through." Just then, a P-51 screams overhead. "There's one now. Go on through and talk to the Colonel, he'd be the most updated on this."

He motions for the gate to be opened and you drive in. Once you get to the Colonel's office, you're stopped by a guard that asks for your ID, looks at it and lets you in the door. You ask the Major, just below the Colonel in rank, if you can see the Colonel, to which he responds

"No, he's very busy." Then you ask him what happened. "Well, from what I know, the Japanese flew long-range fighter-bombers from a carrier far offshore, and they flew into neighborghoods and cities across San Diego, for apparently no reason. We've blocked off the area in case any of the pilots bailed before their planes crashed, they could have been carrying other soldiers to cause chaos, or something else. We're still investigating it, after all, it happened only 45 minutes ago. We have a lot of fighters and anti-ship planes dispatched, as well as many boats and subs. That's all I know at this time."

You feel satisfied, but also distraught. What did they attack for? Did they even attack for a reason? You are tired, having been up since 2:00 A.M. this morning because a car ran into another car and their owners argued and the police were called. You consider going to your quarters on the base, but you're still shaking because of the adrenaline rush. You go outside and into one of the watchtowers, seeing the fires spread out in a few places, and the police and fire department trucks' lights flashing around the fires, and you hear their sirens. More P-51s fly over, their superchargers making the characteristic sound of a Mustang. You wish you were up there, maybe you'd have a better idea of what was happening, maybe able to thwart a second wave of attacks, if they came. You decide it's better to get out of the towers, you've heard enough stories from the front lines about the enemy strafing the towers with their machine guns, and you don't want to be one of those casualties. You go to the mess hall for coffee, and while you sit down you fall asleep before you even drink any coffee. You wake up in your quarters, looking at your watch reading 07:23. You see the sun break through the overcast for a few seconds, and then you walk outside towards the office. The Major asks how you slept, jokingly, and updates you on the situation.

"As it turns out, the situation is much worse than anyone could have expected. The Japanese have attacked with biological weapons from our inspection of the attack areas. We've quarantined the immediate city and have health officials clearing it up. We're keeping everyone at home and using our planes to drop food, when needed. We still don't know the extent of the damage. Dismissed, Corporal."

The events I have depicted did not actually happen, but they could have easily happened, and it would have been very real and deadly if it had.

After I just set the mood with the writing above, I can now go to the actual informative part of this post, or the article. 

The Japanese had been at war with China since 1937, in the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted for longer than the Second World War, actually, from 7th July, 1937 to 2nd September 1945, WWII being from 1st September, 1939 to either August 15th or September 2nd 1945 as well.

The Japanese military had used biological weapons against the Chinese a multitude of times, including bubonic plague in the for of infected fleas, and their Unit 731 had done numerous tests on Chinese, Russian and American prisoners, much too horrific for me to write about here, tests including infecting the prisoners to different diseases and making weapons out of the diseases. In the case of the would-be attack on southern California, there were ceramic "bombs" filled with plague-infected fleas that the Aichi M6A floatplanes launched from the I-400-class carrier submarines. The planes would drop their payload and, since Japan was losing, they would make kamikaze attacks on different targets. By September 22nd, there would have been 5 carrier-subs built and in service, each carrying 3 airplanes, a total of 15 aircraft would be deployed and those would attack different parts of southern California, and then crash. The crews of the submarines, a total of 722 men and officers, 144 for each ship, would infect themselves with various diseases and go to the shore and attempt to spread it that way. If they actually would have done it, I don't know. If they had, the world may be a very different place today. I doubt it would mean the victory of Japan, they would have surrendered in this scenario eventually, and in this scenario the bombs had not been dropped yet, so that would have likely come as well. It would have been a last-ditch revenge attack, of no tactical importance, only to inflict destruction on the Allies. Needless to say, it would have been terrible, and possibly millions would have died because of it.

In addition to this, if General Douglas MacArthur had not surrendered the island of Bataan in April 1942, Japan would have used plague bombs on Allied forces, which is arguably worse than the Bataan Death March. Japan also was going to use plague bombs at the Battle of Iwo Jima in early 1945, but the aircraft never reached their destination for some reason. 

At this time, I can't post images in the body of the blog, but you can see the airplanes that would have been used in the thumbnail, and I'll post the picture of the I-400-class submarine elsewhere.

Thank you for reading, and remembering what could have been the deadliest military attack in history.

 For those of you that read my articles about the atomic bombings, the number of deaths from both the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were about 230,000 soldiers and civilians at the maximum approximation, whereas in all the uses of biological warfare on China, and human experiments by the Japanese military, there were nearly 600,000 deaths in total. The Japanese mostly killed civilians in their biological warfare operations in China, as well. 

Again, thank you for reading. 

JAS REXUS, ANNO DOMINI MMXX