Authors: Japanese Reaping the Whirlwind: Personal Accounts of the German,Italian Experiences of WW II
Japanese correspondents in Germany have described the havoc wrought by Allied bombers in German cities, which are known to be much more solidly built than Japanese towns … The people’s reaction is: ‘What can we do when the authorities do nothing? Our cities will be simply wiped out.’ Similarly the government’s attempts to harden people’s nerves and prepare them against panic are having only negative results. I myself know families who would not allow their children to go far from home on sunny days last summer when everybody constantly expected air raids. The danger of air raids is freely and constantly discussed in the secrecy of family circles and fear is undisguised among friends in universities, factories, and practically all circles where one can talk frankly.
He also reported that ‘The government’s oft repeated guarantee that the Japanese homeland will never be directly attacked is spurious.’ And the country was ill-prepared:
It is now popularly known that Tokyo’s shallow subways will not afford protection against heavy bombs. Other cities are without shelters and those built, in spite of a severe shortage of construction materials, including steel, cement and even timber, are most inadequate … The greatest emphasis is laid on fire-fighting and all civilians, even women, are forced to train for two hours every morning from 5am to 7am, but the primitive methods used are characterized by the fact that the authorities are giving prizes to those who are able to throw water highest out of buckets.
It is little wonder that anyone who had relatives in the countryside and was not required to work in the factories fled.
The turning point came with the fall of Saipan in the Northern Marianas, which was taken by the US Marines on 7 July 1944 – more than a year before the end of the war – after a suicidal defence, during which some 8,000 civilians jumped off the cliffs. This allowed land-based B-29 Superfortresses to take off within range of Japan. The loss of Saipan was such a setback that Hideki Tojo and his entire cabinet resigned, to be succeeded by the government of General Kuniaki Koiso, which promised to carry on the fight with renewed vigour. Prince Higashi-Kuni, army general, member of the Supreme War Council and commander in chief of the Home Defence Headquarters, said:
The war was lost when the Marianas were taken away from Japan and when we heard the B-29s were coming out. We were informed by foreign cable that the B-29s … flew at the rate of 600km per hour at 13,000m high. We had nothing … that we could use against such a weapon. From the point of view of the Home Defence Command, we felt that the war was lost and said so. If the B-29s could come over Japan, there was nothing that could be done.
But the people were not told. Mr Abe, minister for home affairs, explained the government’s policy:
The reason we had no definite policy of air-raid shelter protection for the citizens is that we did not unduly wish to alarm our citizens concerning the necessity for underground shelters as we feared it would interfere with normal routine life and have some effect on war production. We did encourage citizens who could afford it to build their own family air-raid shelters.
After the high-altitude fire-bombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945, Tokyo Radio could still bluster:
If by any chance the enemy believed that he could demoralize the Japanese people, he has made a big mistake. The Emperor of Japan, on the morning of 18 March, deigned to pay an unexpected personal visit to the stricken districts of the Capital. He went on foot, exposing himself to the cold March wind. All the people, touched by his sympathy, renewed their determination to prosecute the war, saying: ‘This is a sacred war against the diabolical Americans.’
However, in a later broadcast, Tokyo Radio itself drew a rather odd comparison:
The sea of flames which enclosed the residential and commercial section of Tokyo was reminiscent of the holocaust of Rome, caused by the Emperor Nero.
Later, the Japanese simply gave up, as Mr Abe explained:
I believe that after the 23–24 May 1945 raid on Tokyo, civilian defence measures in that city, as well as other parts of Japan, were considered a futile effort.
According to the Japanese government’s official statistics, air attacks on Japan killed 260,000 people and destroyed 2,210,000 houses, leaving 9,200,000 homeless.
After the Allied landings on Okinawa, the Koiso cabinet fell and on 7 April 1945 the emperor appointed Baron Suzuki, a retired admiral and president of the privy council, as premier. Suzuki explained the difficulty of his situation:
I was naturally in a very difficult position because, on one hand, I had to carry out, to the best of my ability, the mission given to me by the Emperor to arrange for the conclusion of the war, whereas if anyone heard of this I would naturally have been attacked and probably killed by people who were opposed to such a policy. So that on one hand, I had to advocate an increase in war effort and determination to fight on, whereas through diplomatic channels and any means available, I had to try to negotiate with other countries to stop the war.
On 1 May, the Imperial General Staff lamented the suicide of Hitler and the execution of Mussolini and announced a new policy of ‘Nippon single-handed against the world’. On 5 June 1945, they decided to hold a ‘Vassal’s Conference’ to decide on the future war guidance. As a result, Secretary of the Imperial General Staff Tanemura had to visit the ‘high-spirited General Tojo in his half-burnt house’ to go through the agenda, ‘since I felt sorry for him’.
In order to explain the agenda of the Vassal’s Conference to General Koiso also, I arrived at the Zushi Station at 2000 hours wearing my national uniform, but due to the darkness I could not find his residence. Therefore, a Navy Petty Officer and I slept in a cheap lodging house near the station and were annoyed by the fleas and bedbugs.
He caught up with General Koiso the following day and ‘left after eating white rice which I had not eaten for a long time’.
On 9 June, following the conference, a new ‘Gist of the Future War Guidance’, was issued, saying:
Policy: Based upon the firm belief that loyalty to His Majesty should be fulfilled even though one should be born seven times, the war must be accomplished completely with the unified power of the land and the unified power of the people in order to protect the nationality of our nation, to defend the Imperial Domain, and to attain the object of the war of subjugation.
Meanwhile, however, overtures were being made to the Allies via Moscow, as the Soviet Union had not yet declared war on Japan. But the negotiations faltered when Stalin and Molotov headed for Berlin to attend the Potsdam Conference. One of the results of the conference was the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender. When some began to voice their fear that the Soviet Union would break its neutrality agreement and attack Japanese forces in Manchuria, Secretary Tanemura berated his colleagues for defeatism. They should be planning for victory on the mainland, he said. The following day he wrote in his diary:
In the evening, I received an unofficial order from the Chief of the Military Affairs Bureau, Yoshizumi, transferring me as a staff officer to the Korean Army. Simultaneously with thanking my superior for the favour of giving me a place to die at this final phase of the war, I left the Imperial General Headquarters after five years and eight months with the feeling of utter shame in my inability to serve His Majesty, which led to the current situation. I will compensate for my past crime by burying my bones on the front line.
Tanemura was captured in Korea and spent four and a half years in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp before being returned to Japan in January 1950.
Meanwhile, on 6 August 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. One middle school student in Hiroshima described what happened:
I’ll never forget that day. After we finished our morning greetings in the schoolyard, we were waiting in the classroom for our building demolition work to begin. Suddenly a friend by the window shouted ‘B-29!’ At the same instant, a flash pierced my eyes. The entire building collapsed at once and we were trapped underneath. I don’t know how long I remained unconscious. When I came to, I couldn’t move my body. Cuts on my face and hands throbbed with pain. My front teeth were broken and my shirt soaked in blood. As I crawled along, encouraging myself, I somehow managed to poke my head out of the wreckage. The school that should have appeared before my eyes was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished and only smoldering ruins remained. Beyond the school toward the center of town, all I could see was a sea of flames. I was so terrified I couldn’t stop shaking. Moving my body a little at a time, I was finally able to work free of the collapsed structure. Making sure to head upwind to escape the fires, I made my way staggering haphazardly through the rubble of the city.
Fourteen-year-old Akihiro Takahashi was attending assembly at Hiroshima Municipal Junior High School, 1.5km (nearly a mile) from the centre of the blast.
We were about to form lines facing the front, when we saw a B-29 approaching and about to fly over us. All of us were looking up at the sky, pointing out the aircraft. Then the teachers came out from the school building and the class leaders gave the command to fall in. Our faces were all shifted from the direction of the sky to that of the platform. That was the moment when the blast came. And then the tremendous noise came and we were left in the dark. I couldn’t see anything at the moment of explosion … We had been blown by the blast. Of course, I couldn’t realize this until the darkness disappeared. I was actually blown about 10m. My friends were all marked down on the ground by the blast just like this. Everything collapsed for as far as I could see. I felt the city of Hiroshima had disappeared all of a sudden. Then I looked at myself and found my clothes had turned into rags due to the heat. I was probably burned at the back of the head, on my back, on both arms and both legs. My skin was peeling and hanging like this. Automatically I began to walk heading west because that was the direction of my home. After a while, I noticed somebody calling my name. I looked around and found a friend of mine who lived in my town and was studying at the same school. His name was Yamamoto. He was badly burnt just like myself. We walked toward the river. And on the way we saw many victims. I saw a man whose skin was completely peeled off the upper half of his body and a woman whose eyeballs were sticking out. Her whole body was bleeding. A mother and her baby were lying with skin completely peeled off. We desperately made a way crawling. And finally we reached the river bank. At the same moment, a fire broke out. We made a narrow escape from the fire. If we had been slower by even one second, we would have been killed by the fire. Fire was blowing into the sky becoming four or even five metres high. There was a small wooden bridge left, which had not been destroyed by the blast. I went over to the other side of the river using that bridge. But Yamamoto was not with me any more. He was lost somewhere. I remember I crossed the river by myself and on the other side, I plunged myself into the water three times. The heat was tremendous. And I felt like my body was burning all over. For my burning body the cold water of the river was as precious as treasure. Then I left the river, and I walked along the railroad tracks in the direction of my home. On the way, I ran into an another friend of mine, Tokujiro Hatta. I wondered why the soles of his feet were badly burnt. It was unthinkable to get burned there. But it was undeniable fact the soles were peeling and red muscle was exposed. Even I myself was terribly burnt, I could not go home ignoring him. I made him crawl using his arms and knees. Next, I made him stand on his heels and I supported him. We walked heading toward my home repeating the two methods. When we were resting because we were so exhausted, I found my grandfather’s brother and his wife, in other words, great uncle and great aunt, coming toward us. That was quite a coincidence. As you know, we have a proverb about meeting Buddha in Hell. My encounter with my relatives at that time was just like that. They seemed to be the Buddha to me wandering in the living Hell.
On 8 August, the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations and declared war. The following day a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Potsdam Declaration was accepted by the Emperor on the 14th. However, there was little support for this decision among his advisors. According to Admiral Toyoda, chief of the naval general staff and a member of the six-man Supreme War Guidance Council:
I might add, that even on 15 August, when the Imperial Rescript to terminate the war was actually issued, we found it difficult to hold down the front-line forces who were all ‘raring to go’, and it was difficult to hold them back.
On 15 August 1945 – the 15th day of the eighth month of the 20th year of
Showa
– Emperor Hirohito broadcast for the first time to his people, telling them they must ‘endure the unendurable’. But he did not have the support of his officers. Major-General Miwa told his captors:
As far as the army is concerned, the termination of the war was declared by the Emperor and not by the Army.
Lower down the ranks, the feeling was different. George Fukui fought on Cebi Island in the Philippines opposite the 21st Reconnaissance Troop of the Americal Division. After the war he said:
My parents expected me to become a Japanese citizen with the proper Japanese spirit … in a militaristic and totalitarian country such as Japan was back in those days, you would naturally be forced to make a drastic change in thinking. That’s what happened to me. I became almost more American than an American because I was able to compare values. To this day I root for America in the Olympic games, believe it or not. I prefer the sight of the Old Glory to the flag of Japan. The sound of your national anthem is real music to my ears. The anthem of Japan, which is not even officially recognized as such, lauds the emperor and every time it is played I plug my ears. I thought I was about the only guy to do so in our veterans’ association but to my surprise I found that there are other guys like me. I am not a very loyal Japanese, I’m afraid. You might regard me as a misplaced American.