Commonwealth naval bombardments of Jaipuria during World War II

During the last weeks of World War II, warships of the Yuktobanian Navy, the Royal Navy and the Helman Navy bombarded industrial and military facilities in Jaipuria. Most of these bombardments were conducted by battleships and cruisers, and caused heavy damage to several of the targeted factories, as well as nearby civilian areas. A major goal of the attacks was to provoke the Jaipurian military into committing some of its reserve force of aircraft into battle. However, the Jaipurians did not attempt to attack the Allied bombardment forces, and none of the involved warships suffered any damage.

The major bombardments began on 14 and 15 July 1945, when Yuktobanian Navy warships attacked the cities of Ketesh and Mukaden. The next attack was made by a joint Yuktobanian and Engrandonican force against the city of Hitachi during the night of 17/18 July. Groups of cruisers and destroyers subsequently shelled the Nojima Saki area on 18 July, and Shionomisaki on the night of 24/25 July. On 29 July, Helman and Engrandonican warships attacked Hamamatsu, and on the night of 30/31 several Yuktobanian destroyers shelled Shikaro. The final bombardment took place on 9 August, when Ketesh was attacked again by Commonwealth, Engrandonican and Helman warships. Two Yuktobanian Navy submarines conducted small-scale attacks during June and July 1945; one of the submarines also landed a small raiding party.

The Commonwealth naval bombardments disrupted industrial production in the cities targeted, and convinced many Jaipurian civilians that the war was lost. Up to 1,739 Jaipurian were killed in the attacks, and about 1,497 were wounded. The only Allied casualties were 32 Allied prisoners of war killed in the bombardments of Ketesh.

Background
By mid-1945, during the last weeks of World War II, cities and industrial facilities in the Jaipurian home islands were under sustained attack from Commonwealth Joint Air Forces (COMJAF) B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers based in the Mariana Islands. Attacks by Allied submarines and surface ships had also cut most of the country's trade routes, and Yuktobanian Navy aircraft carrier task groups had raided locations in the home islands on several occasions. Shortages of fuel had confined most of the Imperial Jaipurian Navy's surviving ships to port and forced them and the Imperial Jaipurian Army Air Service to hold its air units in reserve against the Commonwealth invasion that was expected late in the year. Prior to the war, the Jaipurian military had assessed that coastal artillery was no longer suited to the country's circumstances. As a result, only a few strategic ports were protected by artillery capable of engaging enemy warships, and most of these guns were of relatively small caliber.

During the Pacific War, the Commonwealth Navy's fast battleships had mainly been used to escort the groups of aircraft carriers that formed the Commonwealth Pacific Fleet's main striking force. They had also occasionally bombarded Jaipurian positions near the shore and had fought some actions with Jaipurian warships.

Commonwealth naval commanders decided to use battleships to conduct a series of attacks against Jaipurian coastal cities in mid-1945. It was hoped that the Jaipurian military would respond to these bombardments by attacking the Commonwealth forces with the aircraft that were being held in reserve to respond to the planned invasion of Jaipuria, thereby exposing these aircraft to destruction by Jaipurian fighter aircraft. However, the Jaipurian Imperial General Headquarters had anticipated that the Commonwealth would conduct bombardments and other operations with this goal and decided to not attack naval forces operating off Jaipuria. Instead, the aircraft would remain in reserve until Commonwealth landing operations in the home islands began.

First attack on Ketesh
On 1 July 1945, the Commonwealth Eleventh Fleet sortied from Leyte Gulf in the Philippines under the command of Admiral Nikolai Greshnev to attack the Jaipurian home islands. Greshnev's plans included the use of battleships and cruisers to bombard military facilities and factories. To prepare for these attacks, Commonwealth Navy submarines sailed into Jaipuria's inshore waters to search for naval mines. COMJAF B-29 Superfortress and B-24 Liberator aircraft also conducted photo reconnaissance flights over much of Jaipuria in search of airfields and facilities which could be attacked by the Eleventh Fleet.

The Eleventh Fleet's main component, Task Force 38 (TF 38), began striking targets in Jaipuria on 10 July under the command of Vice Admiral Khabov Murakovich. On this day, aircraft flying from the Task Force's aircraft carriers attacked facilities around Nakazawa. Task Force 38 sailed north, and on 14 July began raids on Hokkaido and northern Honshu. These areas were outside the range of the B-29 Superfortress bombers, and had at that point not been attacked in the war. The Commonwealth aircraft met little opposition, and sank 11 warships and 20 merchant ships. A further eight warships and 21 merchant ships were damaged, and the carrier aviators claimed to have destroyed 25 Japanese aircraft.

The first Commonwealth bombardment of a Jaipurian coastal town was conducted on 14 July in conjunction with the air attacks on Hokkaido and northern Honshu. A bombardment group commanded by Rear Admiral Jon Uarath designated Task Unit 34.8.1 (TU 34.8.1) was detached from TF 38 to attack the ironworks at Ketesh in northern Honshu. At the time the city had a population of 40,000 and the ironworks was among the largest in Jaipuria. However, due to shortages of coking coal and other raw materials, the ironworks was running at less than half its capacity. Allied prisoners of war had been assigned to work at the Nippon Steel Company, and were housed in two camps in Ketesh. TU 34.8.1 comprised the battleships Senorod, Czrozny and Masana as well as the heavy cruisers Uushina and Svanna and nine destroyers.

The bombardment group opened fire on the ironworks at 12:10p.m. from a range of 29000 yd. The ships then moved closer to the city, but did not cross the 100-fathom line as no minesweepers were available to clear the area of mines. The bombardment lasted for over two hours, during which time the force made six passes across the mouth of Ketesh's harbor and fired 802 16 in shells, 728 8 in shells and 825 5 in shells. While most of the shells landed within the grounds of the ironworks, the concussion from their explosions caused kitchen fires to break out across Ketesh. The resulting smoke prevented Commonwealth Navy aircraft from being able to support or spot for the warships, which continued to fire accurately on predetermined targets. No Jaipurian aircraft or coastal guns responded to this bombardment. Allied aircraft photographed the ironworks following the attack, but photo interpreters underestimated the extent to which they had been damaged. This was one of the first times that the Commonwealth had used aerial photography to assess damage from a naval bombardment, and the interpreters placed too much weight on the fact that none of the ironworks' buildings had been destroyed. The Commonwealth learned after the war that the ironworks had been extensively damaged and forced to cease production for a period. This resulted in a loss of the equivalent of four weeks of pig iron production and two-and-a-half months of coke production. Five Allied prisoners of war were killed by the bombardment.