Japan's Most Desperate WW2 Attempt to Destroy the US Air Forces

With the Allies closing in, Germany and Imperial Japan launched spectacularly daring last-ditch missions to save themselves in the dying months of World War 2.

While the German High Command launched the Ardennes Offensive, marking the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge, Japan launched one of the most important operations in the nation's history on the other side of the world.

The Imperial Headquarters was aware that the US Armed Air Forces were about to lay waste to mainland Japan from air bases in China. Resentful from years of prolonged fighting, the top Japanese commanders approved Operation Ichi-Go, to be launched in April of 1944.

By then, China had been in a decades-long civil war, and the growing pressure from both sides would influence the animosity towards Japan, as well as stoke a tense relationship with America. Japan’s hail-mary was going to try to fracture the region’s fragile alliances and unleash chaos.

Ichi-Go would be the largest warfare operation in the history of the Japanese Army, and its consequences would have an impact on China far beyond what was expected…

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