Japanese Aircraft-Carrying Super Submarine From WWII Located Off Hawaii

Freshly Exhumed sends this story from Reuters: "Scientists plumbing the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaii coast have discovered a Second World War era Japanese submarine, a technological marvel that had been preparing to attack the Panama Canal before being scuttled by U.S. forces. The 122-meter 'Sen-Toku' class vessel — among the largest pre-nuclear submarines ever built — was found in August off the southwest coast of Oahu and had been missing since 1946, scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa said. The I-400 and its sister ship, the I-401, which was found off Oahu in 2005, were able to travel one and a half times around the world without refueling and could hold up to three folding-wing bombers that could be launched minutes after resurfacing, the scientists said."

Comments

I for one

[xevioso]

welcome our new Japanese over...oh, wait...

Re:I for one

[real gumby]

welcome our new Japanese over...oh, wait...

Actually I thank you guys in the USA (well your grandparents) since if you had not fought that war I would not have been born. My mother had the "pleasure" of actually having Japanese overlords, and while my dad didn't it was only because the US occupied the country before the Japanese could do more than lob a few shells at it.

For that matter my inlaws were in a country run by the Nazis and would likely not have met either...and the US really didn't have to enter that war at all. Nor did they need to spend the money rebuilding the place.

So every time I see some boneheaded american thing (and it's a big place so there's no shortage of stupidity, shitheads and whatever) I remember that they are capable of greatness.

(apologies for the serious response to the flippant remark)

Re:I for one

[quenda]

Well, Hitler actually declared war on the United States first, not the other way round,

The US was well involved in the war against Germany already. They just don't like _declaring_ war. At least not on countries, just abstract nouns.

Captured at the end of the War

[EMG at MU]

Because it isn't clear from TFA: The US was in control of the sub when it was scuttled by Hawaii. It had been captured when Japan surrendered.

This is really cool because it's a piece of history and an engineering accomplishment but the only reason it was 'lost' was because the US sank it and then pretended that they forgot where they sank it so that they didn't have to give it back and have the Soviets study it.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[yurtinus]

I can't stop reading that last sentence of yours... I mean, I'm no grammar expert, but I can't tell if it really needs any punctuation in it. Hell, I don't *want* it to have any punctuation in it!

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[CrimsonAvenger]

the US sank it and then pretended that they forgot where they sank it so that they didn't have to give it back and have the Soviets study it.

Had nothing to do with "giving it back".

The USA and USSR had an agreement during the War that they would share in the spoils of war (like this submarine), and the USA didn't want to turn two of them over to the USSR (because the USSR didn't enter the war against Japan until after the Nagasaki bombing, but more importantly because we didn't want the USSR to get any "free" technology transfers). The USSR was a land power and not a sea power, we wanted to keep things that way....

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[bobbied]

The US actually sank three of these subs to keep them out of Soviet hands.

Only four where ever started, one was bombed in the ship yard and abandoned before it was finished and the other three where scuttled by US forces in various locations to keep the Soviet's from inspecting them. The end of WW2 was an interesting time to say the least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400-class_submarine

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[xevioso]

There's a very interesting take on the Soviets entering the war against Japan. They did it very very late, and were actually still fighting the Japanese for a few days after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The details on these engagements, from the Soviet perspective, can be found here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAAb8Plf20I

That whole series on the Soviet perspective is amazing.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[angel'o'sphere]

North Korea was enslabed by ... a north korean dictator, or by China, but certainly not by Russia!

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[nojayuk]

The last US bombing raid on Japan was carried out on the 14th or 15th of August, several days after the second nuclear bombing since up till then there had been no official notice of surrender by the Japanese government. There had been a reduction in operations for a day or two after the Nagasaki attack but no complete cessation.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a very interesting take on the Soviets entering the war against Japan. They did it very very late, and were actually still fighting the Japanese for a few days after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The details on these engagements, from the Soviet perspective, can be found here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAAb8Plf20I

That whole series on the Soviet perspective is amazing.

The Soviets were late entering the war against Japan because their entire war economy was geared towards defeating the Germans in Europe. It's the Soviets that liberated the continent of Europe, the Americans/English only came for the ride. And even fighting only one enemy and what an enemy, that ended up costing the USSR a whole lot more than what the US lost in the war fighting on theaters.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[Ralph Wiggam]

Kim Jong Il was born in the Soviet Union, where Kim Il Sung commanded a Soviet military unit. Those two countries had a very strong relationship for many decades.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[DerekLyons]

The USA and USSR had an agreement during the War that they would share in the spoils of war (like this submarine), and the USA didn't want to turn two of them over to the USSR (because the USSR didn't enter the war against Japan until after the Nagasaki bombing, but more importantly because we didn't want the USSR to get any "free" technology transfers). The USSR was a land power and not a sea power, we wanted to keep things that way....

Which has more to do with postwar paranoia than anything else. Even the USN had given up on these boats after less than a year of studying them, as they were complete turkeys.* Despite their huge size, they weren't particularly advanced technologically and the aircraft carried were fairly short ranged with unimpressive payloads. They were extraordinarily vulnerable due to their poor handling characteristics and the need for extended periods on the surface to launch or recover their aircraft. Even minor flooding in the hangar could lead to a severe list and loss-of-control.
 
I got to spend an afternoon once with one of the guys who brought the I-400 to Hawaii from Japan. According to him, they were scared for their lives the entire trip due to it's poor performance and handling characteristics.
 
Though aircraft carrying submarines have been briefly examined from time to time since WWII, nobody has tried to build one. The submarine simply imposes too many restrictions on the aircraft and vice versa. Cruise missiles and soon drones are the exception that proves the rule - they're encapsulated and fit into standard torpedo tubes and thus do not impose notable restrictions on the boat.
 
*By comparison, some of the German boats taken over at the end of the war were in service for trials well into the 1950's.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[CrimsonAvenger]

The Soviets started fighting Japan as fast as they could

No.

Stalin stalled as long as he could about attacking Japan (we started nagging about it right after VE Day), but suddenly changed his plans when Hiroshima was destroyed. He ordered an attack with whatever was available as soon as possible so he'd have some justification for an occupation role in Japan (Uncle Joe wanted to divide Japan the way Germany wa divided).

Then the Nagasaki bomb was dropped. Shortly after, the Russians crossed the border into Manchuria to beat up on already beaten Japanese troops.

Then Japan surrendered.

And when Stalin said he wanted to station troops in Japan, MacArthur (who was effectively Shogun at the time) told him to pound sand....

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[toQDuj]

indeed, it is an engineering marvel: a submersible aircraft carrier! If that's not cool, I don't know what is.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[ArbitraryName]

North Korea was enslabed by ... a north korean dictator, or by China, but certainly not by Russia!

Are you serious? Are you familiar with the history of Korea post WW2 and leading up to the Korean War? Japan occupied Korea until the end of WW2. After their surrender, the US and Soviets split occupation at the 38th parallel (much like how Germany, whose history I hope you are familiar with, was divided). In brief, the Soviet Union installed the Communist system and Kim Il-sung in power.

North Korea could not have been more directly enslaved by the Soviet Union.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[Austrian Anarchy]

North Korea was enslabed by ... a north korean dictator, or by China, but certainly not by Russia!

In 1945, who took the surrender of the Japanese in North Korea? Stalin's Soviets. Who was busy resuming a civil war in China? Mao.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[nojayuk]

It took the Soviets months to position over a million troops around Manchuria, moving them from the Western front after V-E Day along the Trans-Siberian railroad along with tens of thousands of artillery pieces, tanks etc. Marshal Vasilevsky who planned and organised the operation is regarded by some as the greatest general in history for just this achievement. The attack took place exactly 90 days after Germany surrendered as Stalin had promised at Potsdam, the timing was in no way related to the US using its first nuclear bombs.

The Japanese and Manchurian troops the Russians faced had never actually been in combat, they were quite well supplied with equipment from local factories and fuel was abundant and they were well dug-in having had months to prepare for an attack they knew was coming. Unfortunately for them they were up against the soldiers who had taken Berlin, the toughest bastards in uniform that walked the earth at that time.

As for MacArthur neither he nor the Japanese forces positioned there could stop the Russians taking the Kuril and Sakhalin islands, the only opposed landing of foreign troops on Japanese soil apart from Okinawa. They also grabbed off a large chunk of Korea into the bargain and many historians claim that only running out of supplies stopped them taking the rest of the peninsula.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[CCTalbert]

The book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" (Richard Rhodes) has a lot of interesting information, and different perspectives, on the atomic bombings. There's the traditional "we would have so many causalities" argument that's always made. But there were some other possible motivations that are very interesting, and the cynic in me tends to give them a lot of credence.

(Oh, and the book is fascinating, I think, a very good "geek" read. Things like the Nagasaki bomb having never been tested- there was so little Plutonium available they didn't want to waste any on a test, and they were *that* confident in the design they didn't feel a test was necessary. They just did the math.)

First, the development of "The Bomb" had been horrendously expensive, and mostly a "black" project. It was all going to come to light after the war. People involved in it needed a win- you couldn't have spent all that money for no reason and not expect to be crucified when it became known. So- "Bomb something, do it quick, we have to use it to justify having developed it!" Political CYA.

Also, there was a huge amount of concern about the Soviets. They had developed this huge army, and we didn't like how they thought- they were becoming the enemy. We needed to demonstrate that we had the ultimate big-stick so there wouldn't be any mistaking who the toughest kid on the block really was. Chest-thumping on a massive scale.

And also, there was concern about having to share the control of Japan after they surrendered. Things weren't going so well in Germany and we simply didn't want to have to include the Soviets in the process. If the war went on the Soviets involvement would necessitate including them... if we ended it quickly though, before they were really involved, we could leave them out. Like not sharing these subs :)

Personally I suspect all of these issues (and more) played into it. I think the "too many american lives would be lost" argument isn't really sufficient on it's own. But second-guessing secrets from 60-some years ago... who knows?

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[xevioso]

I think as in many decisions of this importance many things come into play. Of course when making a decision about whether or not to drop the bomb, Truman probably had some sort of mental list of "benefits" and "drawbacks", and all of the things you mentioned would have made that list.

But at the end of the day, he made that decision primarily because he wanted to "win" the war, and the fastest way to do that with the least amount of US casualties was to drop the bombs.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[nojayuk]

Whole lot of wrong there but "American chest-beating" after the war fed into the history books which took a very parochial view of the entire affair -- for example the Germans took 90% of their casualties in the East, the Allied landings at Normandy and liberation of Western Europe were a sideshow as far as they were concerned. So it is with the Japanese theatre of the war and latterly the use of nukes there. BTW the Nagasaki plutonium implosion bomb design was the one actually tested at Trinity, it was the Hiroshima uranium bomb that was considered simple enough it didn't need a test shot.

The nukes were a new wonder-weapon in a war filled with wonder-weapons, they were ready for use and they were used, that's all. The Allies already had city-killers, they were thousand-bomber raids causing firestorms that killed more people in a night in places like Tokyo than the Hiroshima bomb ever did. Sure the nukes were super-effective at the hypocentre, melting concrete and glass with the heat flash but the effects died away with distance whereas mattress-bombing with ten thousand tonnes of conventional explosives and 4lb incendiaries destroyed a much wider area. Here's an interesting thought -- bomber losses over Japan were tiny compared to the German campaign and in September the Boeing plant in Seattle built 300 B-29s and that's after the Japanese surrendered. It took them months to stop the production lines. All those bombers would have been available to continue conventional attacks on Japan even without the nukes.

As for scaring the Soviets, they had been fucked over by experts and in the end it was the hammer-and-sickle that flew over what was left of the Reichstag, not the swastika over Red Square. Nukes didn't scare them; if you want to play that game try getting a map of the Soviet Union at the end of 1945 and draw a few dozen two-mile-diameter circles, the effective damage area of a 20 kilotonne nuke on it and then look at what's left. That's assuming the US could actually make that number of nukes and deliver them to target -- Moscow was out of range from western Europe using B-29s and the greater-range B-36 was still getting debugged by the time 1946 rolled around.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[bobwalt]

In 1939 at battle of Khalkhyn Gol then commander Zhukov taught the Japanese a healthy respect for the Red Army. After that encounter the Japan did not want to challenge the Soviets. It came as quite a shock as they expected the that the Japanese warrior spirit would make them vastly superior to the Red Army. What they found, instead, was that the Red Army completely out classed them in modern warfare.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[fnj]

First, the development of "The Bomb" had been horrendously expensive

"The Bomb" was a mind-bendingly cheap and awesomely rapidly developed piece of world-changing technology. Anecdotally, it has been known for a long time that the total cost of the project during WW 2 was about $2 billion in contemporary dollars.

A detailed audit of nuclear weapons costs was completed in 1998, and the part from pre-Manhattan-Project research beginning in 1940, after 1939's Einstein-Szilard letter, through FDR's formal approval of the program in October 1941, through and past the end of the war until December 31, 1945 determined the total cost to be:

$1,889,604,000 in contemporray dollars, corresponding to
$21,570,821,000 in constant 1996 dollars

That compares to a total outlay for WW 2, for the US alone, of:

$296,000 000 000, corresponding to
$4,114,000,000,000 in constant 2008 dollars

In other words, the Manhattan Project accounted for 0.6% of all US WW 2 spending. More was spent on small arms alone (NOT ammunition) than for the Manhattan Project.

Parenthetically, the absurdity of post-9/11 domestic security enhancements alone (Operation Noble Eagle) saw about 50% more real dollars spent than the Manhattan Project! That's $33 billion spent to counter an outlay of well under a million dollars by Al Qaeda - a few airline tickets, living expenses for 20 people for a few months to a few years, and elementary flight training. Is a minimum of three million percent of differential asymmetrical enough to impress?

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[mjwx]

North Korea was enslabed by ... a north korean dictator, or by China, but certainly not by Russia!

Are you serious? Are you familiar with the history of Korea post WW2 and leading up to the Korean War? Japan occupied Korea until the end of WW2. After their surrender, the US and Soviets split occupation at the 38th parallel (much like how Germany, whose history I hope you are familiar with, was divided). In brief, the Soviet Union installed the Communist system and Kim Il-sung in power.

North Korea could not have been more directly enslaved by the Soviet Union.

With Soviet planes being flown by Soviet pilots in the Korean war. This is why the MIGs never left North Korean airspace, they didn't want the Americans finding out it wasn't Chinese or Korean pilots shooting down their bombers.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[able1234au]

Read up on the Okinawa campaign and how costly that was. There was no indication that the Japanese would have surrendered without the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan would create a much higher potential loss of military and civilians on both sides. Morally there is no difference between a nuclear bomb and conventional bombing. Dead is dead.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the effect of saving the Japanese from themselves. They were preparing to have civilians attack the invaders with pitchforks, spears and machetes. Imagine how that would have gone. The "they would have surrendered without the bomb" argument is a more recent one. The U.S. expected to be fighting into 1946 and so did the Japanese. The loss due to starvation would probably have exceeded military losses.

The moral issues on the bomb came up after the war. Particularly when we realised there were enough bombs to wipe out humanity, and still are. Also, there has been a lot of whitewashing of the Japanese since the war. If you read up on their actions in China and the Pacific you will probably feel a lot less sorry for them. Their humanity was severely lacking. Luckily it is a different story today. But the Japanese do not fully acknowledge what they did in the war and a lot of the history is not taught to the young. This contrasts with Germany which basically acknowledged what was done and set about purging it from society. That is not the Japanese way, though.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[Dr. Evil]

"They had developed this huge army, and we didn't like how they thought"

The U.S. and allies couldn't have reinforced Europe or delivered troops to Japan fast enough to hold back the Soviet army. It seems to me that dropping the bomb was to protect the armies of Western Europe and Japan from having to fight a losing battle against the Soviets.

If the Soviets would have taken the coast of Japan and the coast of France, it would have been a very different world. Japan was practically defeated when the bomb was dropped.

Dropping the bomb stopped the Soviet advancement. I don't think this was a political CYA.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[rahvin112]

The high number of eastern front casualties had more to do with the ruskies refusal to take prisoners than size or scale of commitments. The first encirclement at Stalingrad resulted in the surrender of 250K German soldiers. Not one survived to return to Germany. On the western front prisoners were taken and were returned to Germany after the war. This also made the eastern front far more bloody because later on the Germans fought to the last man because surrender meant death.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[Talderas]

Your revisionism is just as bad. The Soviets were never a party to the Geneva convention. This results in a major shift in how the eastern front developed. At the most basic level, it meant that Germans were not going to surrender (regardless of whatever insane order Hitler may have issued) because they would not have been offered the protections provided by the Geneva convention. This also created a bad feedback loop as the Germans would fight tooth and nail until the end over surrender which would necessitate larger numbers of Soviet troops which in turn would require more German troops that would still fight tooth and nail. This would be exacerbated since Soviet soldiers were expected to fight to the death.

Contrast that against the Western front where that wasn't the case. Instead of brutally slaughtering each other Germany did commit surrenders to the Allies. The Ruhr pocket (around 700,000 total soldiers) saw at most a fatality rate of 15-17% at the top end. Surrender was an option here and when that's available war is more humane and fatalities drop. Further, once the Allies started crossing the Rhine in force (which preceded the collapse of Germany resistance on the Western front) they started floating and holding the idea of refusing to accept surrenders or even permit refuge traffic to pass through their lines in the hopes that Germany would capitulate sooner. The Germans were essentially withdrawing units to delay the Russians so as to evacute as much of the civilian population as possible into Allied territory to save them from the Soviets.

In the end a Soviet flag was flying over Berlin because Eisenhower made the decision that 100,000 casualties weren't worth it for what amounted to a political objective. The Soviets were only ever in that position because Hitler made the decision that there should be no retreat, leading to a larger slaughter of German soldiers than was necessary, and Germany failed to contain and eliminate the Overlord beachhead which lead to divisions being transfered from the Eastern to Western front.

Re:Captured at the end of the War

[nojayuk]

The Germans had most of their military forces in the East because that's where most of the actual fighting was taking place especially after the withdrawal from North Africa. Stalin wanted the Allies to invade Western Europe to take some pressure off his forces and the Normandy landings in June 1944 did so, but not to any great extent. By the end of 1944 the majority of German military forces in were still concentrated on fighting the Russians in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to keep them from Berlin and German soil. The efforts by the Germans to stop the liberation of France and the Low Countries was negligible in comparison. It just seems important to us in the West because it was Our Boys doing the fighting there but none of the western Allies ever faced a single meatgrinder fight like, say, Citadel/Kursk (Soviet casualties of over a million men, 8000 tanks lost or damaged, and it was considered a Soviet win!) and Kursk was only one of several such bloodbaths. The famous Battle of the Bulge in contrast cost the western Allies about 100,000 casualties, peanuts in comparison to Citadel/Kursk.

Calling All Arpeggio of Blue Steel fans:

[Hartree]

I-401?

They've found Iona! (If she was on the bottom, this doesn't bode well for the ending of the latest episode.)

But I thought she was still closer to Iwo Jima.

DAYUM!

[new death barbie]

"able to travel one and a half times around the world without refueling"

Even their SUBMARINES get great mileage!

HuffPost has video

[DaveAtFraud]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/02/japanese-submarine-world-war-ii_n_4375090.html

Re: Japanese, your Lord !

[Stormy Dragon]

Clearly buying from companies like Ford, the huge multinational corporation with a vaguely English sounding name primarily owned by international banks that makes cars in the US from mostly foreign parts is far more patriotic than buying from companies like Honda, the huge multinational corporation with a vaguely Japanese sounding name primarily owned by international banks that makes cars in the US from mostly foreign parts.

Toyota and Honda are NOT owned by banks !

[Taco Cowboy]

Unlike Ford or GM, Toyota and Honda are definitely NOT owned by banks !

Toyota is owned by the group of inter-connected companies that is controlled by the Toyoda clan of Japan.

Same with Honda - owned by the group of inter-connected companies that is controlled by the Honda clan of Japan.

Re:Toyota and Honda are NOT owned by banks !

[Stormy Dragon]

The clan owned zbaitsu did not last past WWII, having failed to survive the twin blows of Japanese nationalization and the US occupation. Like most big Japanese enterprises, the Toyota Group is a keiretsu, a group of interlocking business built around a bank and a trading company. In the case of the Toyota Group, the bank controlling everything is the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

Which in turned is owned by companies like Mellon Bank, State Street Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, etc.

Re: Toyota and Honda are NOT owned by banks !

[Jeeeb]

Close. Toyota is part of the Mitsui group with Mitsui Sumitomo at the center. Although Mitsui's stake in Toyota is relatively small and they are not the only bank. The remainder is cross holdings from other Mitsui Keiretsu members or publicly traded stocks. SMFG is in turn publicly traded on several stock exchanges in Japan and the NYSE. That said the head of Toyota is still from the Toyoda family. MUFJ is head of the Mitsubishi group which includes Mitsubishi motors. They also are publicly listed in several Japanese exchanges and the NYSE. Japan has huge amounts of capital and foreign exchange, so foreign holdings of Japanese corporations is low. It mostly goes the other way.

Re:Toyota and Honda are NOT owned by banks !

[Taco Cowboy]

In the case of the Toyota Group, the bank controlling everything is the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group

Wrong !

The stake of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in the Toyota Group is small.

The vast majority of the Toyota Group, as has outlined by user Jeeeb, is under the control of the Mitsui Group and the Marubeni Group.

Incidentally, neither Mitsui Group nor Marubeni Group, NOR the Mitsubishi Financial group, is under the control of foreigners (either foreign banks and/or foreign individuals).

Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Marubeni, and Yamaha are among the most vital clans in Japan. The clans can be traced far back to the Samurai era, and their influence on Japan is much MUCH MORE than you can ever imagine.

I myself have many investments in Japan. I am very familiar with the corporate structure (and who own what) in Japan.

Re: Toyota and Honda are NOT owned by banks !

[MightyYar]

That said the head of Toyota is still from the Toyoda family.

While that is true, IIRC that is only because the Japanese have a tradition of adult adoption. In short, the most promising executive gets adopted into the family of the current head of the company.

Engineering the I-400 SuperSub

[mybecq]

PBS has a great documentary about its design and construction. You can even watch it online for free. (Cookies probably required.)

Russia only triumphed due to US assistance

[drnb]

It's the Soviets that liberated the continent of Europe ...

The people or eastern Europe who were "liberated" by the Soviets don't seem to agree. They seem to feel they merely exchanged one brutal repressive dictator for another. Keep in mind that Stalin was initially Hitler's partner. The war formally started in Europe when Hitler invaded Poland, what it conveniently not mentioned is that Hitler only took half of Poland. Hitler and Stalin had a pre-arranged deal, Hitler would take the the western half and Stalin would take the eastern half of Poland. Stalin invaded Poland right after Hitler on the pretext of coming to their defense but never engaged the Germans, it was just theatre. Stalin also went on to commit massacres in Poland just like Hitler.

... the Americans/English only came for the ride. And even fighting only one enemy and what an enemy, that ended up costing the USSR a whole lot more than what the US lost in the war fighting on theaters.

Russia only survived long enough to make that fight because of US aid. Weapons, ammunition, food, etc. Without the US aid the Russians may very well have been pushed over the Urals. Once that happened the Nazis could have bottled up the mountain passes.

That said, I agree that the Russians did the bulk of the fighting and suffered greatly. However lets not be ridiculous and pretend they triumphed on their own, they did not. US aid was critical for their survival.

Re:Revisionism much?

[Talderas]

That's correct. A lot of people make a mistake of looking at the battle in Europe and ignoring the political aspects that had taken place regarding how the Western front shaped up. The EAC zones of control had been established before the Yalta conference, I believe, and we definitely established before the Allies even entered Germany. Since the Combined Chiefs of Staff failed to give Eisenhower any orders or guidance on how to handle entering the Soviet zone (which contained Berlin) Eisenhower was basically at a point where he didn't actually have the authority to withdraw units out of the Soviet zone and was potentially going in opposition to the CCS if he did infact withdraw Allied units if the Soviets wanted to occupy their zone.

I've been reading Eisenhower At War (written by his grandson David) and this has been a fascinating eye opener about the Allied fronts during World War II. I think one thing people often forget is that the western front was far more complicated than the eastern front. It wasn't just nations acting independently towards a united goal the Allies were nations acting collectively towards the same goal. Eisenhower to manage not only the military aspects of the front but also all the politics involved with having both British, American, and latter French goals trying to be pushed through his command that he had to deal with. Comparatively, the Soviets had Soviet goals and politics to deal with and no other coalition member.