Yet though the events of August 17 and 18 might have been seen as the first stirrings of a renewed Japanese war effort, MacArthur decided to follow what at the time must have seemed to many of his senior staffers to be a fairly risky course. Despite his very real anxiety about the motives for the attacks the Supreme Commander Allied Powers effectively chose to do nothing—at least for the moment. While the daily intelligence summary distributed within his command mentioned both days’ incidents, and though Allied units throughout the Pacific Theater were cautioned yet again to be prepared to defend themselves, no retaliatory offensive military action was ordered against Japan or the deployed Japanese forces in MacArthur’s area of command. There was no resumption of airstrikes, and no renewed bombardment of coastal targets in the Home Islands by Allied naval forces.
One possible explanation for MacArthur’s decision not to immediately retaliate for either attack might have been the results of the debriefings following each mission. The crews who flew on August 17 reported that the attacks against them were “uneager” and seemed somewhat haphazard in their execution.6 And though angered by the interception of their aircraft and saddened by the death of Tony Marchione and the wounding of Jimmy Smart and Joe Lacharite, the crews of 578 and Hobo Queen II agreed that the Japanese attacks against them did not seem coordinated or organized. Moreover, several of the crewmen from both days’ flights pointed out that as they left the Tokyo area their B-32s had over-flown several enemy airdromes where aircraft could be seen parked in alert revetments along the runways, yet no fighters rose from those fields to challenge the Dominators. Taken together, these observations strongly suggested that the pilots who shot up the two B-32s on August 18 were, as on the day before, diehards acting on their own initiative rather than as part of a larger, concerted, and ground-controlled effort. As soon as the debriefings ended Rudy Pugliese picked up the phone—a line to Kenney’s headquarters had been kept open for him—and reported this key finding directly to the FEAF commander.7 It is entirely conceivable that the information helped persuade MacArthur, who was presumably still at Kenney’s side, that the day’s events over Tokyo—despite constituting yet another breach of the ceasefire—did not warrant a resumption of Allied combat operations against Japan.
But there is another, far more likely explanation for MacArthur’s decision not to react militarily to the attacks against the B-32s on either day.
In his initial August 15 exchange of radio messages with Tokyo, the supreme commander had directed that the Japanese send to Manila
a competent representative empowered to receive in the name of the Emperor of Japan, the Imperial Japanese Government, and the Japanese Imperial Headquarters certain requirements for carrying into effect the terms of the surrender… . The representative will be accompanied by competent advisers representing the Japanese Army, the Japanese Navy, and Japanese Air Forces. The latter adviser will be one thoroughly familiar with airdrome facilities in the Tokyo area.8
MacArthur was equally direct in instructing the Japanese government on how the delegation was to make the journey:
The party will travel in a Japanese airplane to an airdrome on the island of Ie Shima, from which point they will be transported to Manila, Philippine Islands, in a United States airplane. They will be returned to Japan in the same manner. The party will employ an unarmed airplane… . Such airplane will be painted all white and will bear upon the side of its fuselage and the top and bottom of each wing green crosses easily recognizable at 500 yards… . Weather permitting, the airplane will depart from Sata Misaki [airdrome, on the southern tip of Kyushu] between the hours of 0800 and 1100 Tokyo time on the seventeenth day of August 1945.9
And, in a truly MacArthurian touch, he added that in all communications regarding the flight Tokyo was to use the code designation “Bataan”—a reference, of course, to the Philippine peninsula on Luzon where on April 9, 1942, American and Filipino forces under Major General Edward P. King Jr. had surrendered to the invading Japanese.10
Over the two days following the initial transmission to the Japanese of MacArthur’s directive there were various alterations in the delegation’s itinerary, and a second appropriately marked aircraft was added for the journey. The day finally agreed upon for the flight was August 19, with the Japanese delegation slated to land at Ie Shima at about 1:30 P.M. None of the messages that went back and forth between Manila and Tokyo on the seventeenth mentioned the attack on the four B-32s over Tokyo, and it is likely that MacArthur was waiting to see if the Japanese canceled the delegation’s trip following the August 18 interception of Hobo Queen II and 578. If that happened, he must have reasoned, it would be a strong indication that the attacks were part of a broader Japanese effort to repudiate the emperor’s surrender decision and continue the war. In that case he could certainly order the resumption of offensive action against the Home Islands. But if, on the other hand, the Japanese delegation carried through with the trip to Manila, it would be a clear sign that the August 17 and 18 attacks on the two Dominators—and the death of Tony Marchione and the wounding of Jimmy Smart and Joe Lacharite on the latter mission—had been the work of a relatively few diehards. And if that were the case, it would be up to the Japanese to deal with the hotheads and any renewed Allied bombardment would likely only prolong the mutiny and further complicate the surrender negotiations and the planning for the occupation.
Although it was certainly something of a gamble, MacArthur’s decision to delay any retaliation for the two consecutive days of attacks on the 386th’s Dominators was validated on the morning of August 19. Just after 6 A.M. a sixteen-member delegation led by Vice Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Torashiro Kawabe boarded a Showa-Nakajima L2D twin-engine transport at Haneda airport on the west side of Tokyo Bay. Fourteen minutes later the aircraft—a Japanese version of the American C-47 transport—landed at the navy airfield at Kisarazu, just across the bay in Chiba Prefecture. There the Manila-bound delegates were split into two eight-man groups, with each then clambering aboard a navy Mitsubishi twin-engine aircraft known to the Allies as the “Betty.” The two machines—a G6M1-L2 transport variant (“Bataan 1”) and a demilitarized G4M1 bomber (“Bataan 2”)—were both painted white and bore the green wing, tail, and fuselage crosses stipulated in MacArthur’s directive. The planes lifted off from Kisarazu at 7:07 A.M. and flew southwest, skirting the southern coasts of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Just after 11:00 the Japanese aircraft passed Sata Misaki—the southernmost point on Kyushu—and were joined by their American escort, two B-25J Mitchells of the 345th Bomb Group and a gaggle of P-38 Lightnings of the 49th Fighter Group. The onward flight to Ie Shima was uneventful, and the first Betty landed at 12:40. After a short time on the ground the sixteen delegates boarded an Army Air Forces C-45E four-engine transport for the onward flight to Manila.
MacArthur’s gamble had paid off. The arrival of the Kawabe delegation in Manila was a certain indication that Japan would indeed surrender, and that the August 17 and 18 attacks on the B-32s had been the work of mutinous individuals rather than part of a larger conspiracy to renew hostilities. And while MacArthur couldn’t have known it, the mere fact that the two Bettys bearing the sixteen-man delegation had made it to Ie Shima without being shot down by their own side was something of a victory as well.
THE PILOTS OF THE Atsugi-based 302nd Air Group who had taken part in the August 17 and 18 attacks on the B-32s over the Kanto Plain did so with the hearty encouragement of their commander, Yasuna Kozono. Though increasingly debilitated by both malaria and near-constant infusions of sake, the “Father of Japanese Night Fighters” had lost none of his anti-surrender zeal. Indeed, not only did the veteran aviator spur his pilots to continue the fight against the Allies, he took steps intended to prevent Kawabe’s delegation from ever making what he saw as the “treasonous” journey to Manila dictated by MacArthur.
It is unclear how Kozono learned of the proposed trip, but we do know that on August 16 he contacted Captain Hiro
shi Kogure—the Yoko Ku’s chief flight officer and a fellow anti-surrender zealot—and suggested that between them they could keep the Kawabe delegation from dishonoring Japan. They would accomplish that patriotic act, he said, through the simple expedient of jointly establishing an aerial picket line over the Kanto Plain. Fighters from Atsugi and Oppama flying alternating patrols over the region would shoot down any aircraft that lifted off from a Tokyo-area airfield bearing the all-white paint scheme and green crosses mandated in the Allied diktat. Because the members of the delegation were, in Kozono’s view, traitors to both the nation and the emperor, there would be no shame in killing them.11
Ironically, Kozono’s scheme to prevent the Kawabe delegation from leaving Japanese airspace was discovered and ultimately thwarted by a man who until just days before had himself been conspiring with both the 302nd Air Group commander and the Yoko Ku’s Kogure to prevent the nation’s capitulation.
Captain Mitsuo Fuchida was a living legend in the Imperial Japanese Navy, renowned as the aviator who had led the first wave of the attack on Pearl Harbor and then participated in many of the early key battles of the Pacific war. By August 1945 the forty-three-year-old Fuchida was the senior aviation officer in the headquarters of the Combined Fleet, the navy’s primary ocean-going component. Deeply patriotic, he was initially horrified when he learned of the emperor’s decision to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. On August 12 an army liaison officer with whom Fuchida worked, Lieutenant Colonel Yoshida, approached the naval aviator about joining a coup d’état intended to prevent the nation’s surrender. Fuchida immediately threw his support behind the plot, and after securing the backing of Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi—the vice chief of the navy’s general staff and an ardent proponent of the kamikazes—the aviator reached out to his longtime friends Kozono and Kogure. Both officers readily joined the conspiracy, pledging that their respective units could be counted upon to continue the fight against the Allies and to offer whatever aerial support the coup plotters might require.
Fuchida’s enthusiasm for the coup d’état died, however, within twenty-four hours of its birth. On August 13, as he was on his way to a meeting with Onishi, Fuchida was buttonholed in a corridor of the Naval General Staff building by Emperor Hirohito’s younger brother, Prince Takamatsu. A navy captain himself and a classmate of Fuchida’s years earlier at Eta Jima, the Japanese naval academy, the prince obviously knew of the planned coup and of Fuchida’s role in helping to plan it. Gazing intently at the aviator, Takamatsu said he had just returned from a meeting with the emperor and was convinced of Hirohito’s sincerity in wanting to pursue the surrender as the best way to prevent further bombings like those that had engulfed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fuchida had been part of the navy team sent to Hiroshima immediately following its obliteration, and Takamatsu’s statement apparently struck home. Fuchida later recalled that at that moment he realized the only remaining thing in his life with any real meaning was his ability to help fulfill the emperor’s will. To do that he would have to reverse course completely and help quash the revolt that he had helped put into motion.
Over the following two days Fuchida used his position and personal prestige to convince several fellow officers in key positions to withdraw their support for the coup, and his efforts may well have contributed significantly to the revolt’s ultimate failure on the night of August 14–15. However, when on the sixteenth Fuchida was put in charge of arranging the details of the Kawabe delegation’s flight to Manila, he had to directly confront the two men whom he himself had brought into the conspiracy.
Fuchida called the Yoko Ku’s chief flight officer to requisition the unit’s Showa-Nakajima L2D for the delegation’s short hop across Tokyo Bay from Haneda to Kisarazu, and was stunned to learn that Kogure was still refusing to accept reality despite the failure of the coup. The men of the Yoko Ku would continue to engage any Allied aircraft that dared to violate Japanese airspace, Kogure said, and added that an aerial picket line intended to prevent the departure of Kawabe’s delegation was even then being put in place in cooperation with Kozono’s 302nd Air Group.
Realizing that Kogure was likely just following Kozono’s lead, Fuchida decided to go to Atsugi personally to convince his hotheaded friend that further resistance to the emperor’s wishes was dishonorable and that continued attacks on Allied aircraft despite the ceasefire could well result in the dropping of a third atomic bomb. Well aware that words would probably not sway the 302nd Air Group commander, Fuchida climbed into his staff car just after noon on August 18 wearing his sword and carrying a loaded pistol. Though he hoped Kozono would see reason and cease his resistance to the surrender, Fuchida was willing to kill his old friend if it became necessary.
The inherent danger of the task ahead was brought home to Fuchida when his driver halted the staff car outside Atsugi’s main gate. Sandbagged machine-gun emplacements manned by helmeted sailors guarded either side of the entrance, which was also blocked by wooden barricades strung with barbed wire. As Fuchida stepped from the car and slowly approached the gate, his hands in plain sight, the petty officer in charge of the gate guards walked forward and, noting his visitor’s rank, saluted smartly. Encouraged by this sign of military discipline, Fuchida smiled, identified himself, and announced that he’d come to meet with Kozono. The petty officer replied that he knew who Fuchida was and turned to signal his men to open the gate and remove the barriers. As he was climbing back into the staff car the senior aviator asked that the petty officer not announce his arrival to Kozono, whom Fuchida assumed would not be overly pleased to see him.
Fortunately, the first man Fuchida encountered in the base headquarters building was Lieutenant Commander Toshio Hashizumi, an old acquaintance who also happened to be Kozono’s executive officer. Initially somewhat startled at Fuchida’s sudden appearance, the younger man quickly regained his composure and asked how he might be of service. When Fuchida said that he’d come to speak with Kozono and asked about the 302nd commander’s state of mind, Hashizumi responded that Kozono was ill, had been drinking heavily, and seemed headed for a mental breakdown. Fuchida immediately saw a way to resolve the crisis at Atsugi without resorting to violence. He first secured Hashizumi’s promise of support, then ordered the younger man to summon an ambulance.
That done, the two officers waited until the ambulance arrived and then walked to the door of Kozono’s quarters. Pausing for a moment to steel themselves, the men then burst into the room, seized Kozono, and wrestled him to the floor before he could draw his sword. Though bellowing like an enraged bull the 302nd commander could not free himself, and at Fuchida’s command the ambulance orderlies stormed in, quickly buckled the “Father of Japanese Night Fighters” into a straitjacket, and then rushed him to the ambulance for the drive to the mental ward at Yokosuka naval hospital. In one stroke Fuchida had eliminated possibly the greatest obstacle to Japan’s surrender, without drawing a single drop of blood.12
After a quick call to announce Kozono’s departure to Kogure, Fuchida secured the latter’s promise to stand the Yoko Ku pilots down, end the aerial picket line meant to stop the Kawabe delegation’s departure for Manila, and disable all remaining flyable aircraft at Oppama. That done, Fuchida then assumed temporary command of Atsugi and ordered Hashizumi to call all of the base’s personnel together in the vast open area behind the operations building. There, shortly before 2 P.M. Fuchida announced to the assembled men—some of whom had only just returned from the attacks on Hobo Queen II and 578—that they were to suspend all operations, give up their personal weapons, and begin removing the guns and propellers from all aircraft present on the sprawling installation. Fuchida remained on the base through the afternoon and into the evening to ensure that his orders were being followed and, after turning security for the airfield over to a loyal army unit, headed back to Tokyo.13 Though eighteen of Atsugi’s younger and more volatile pilots ignored Fuchida’s orders and flew their aircraft to army bases where they believed—incorrectl
y, as it turned out—that they would find like-minded aviators willing to continue the fight, Atsugi itself was secure.
Several miles to the south, the pilots of the Yoko Ku were also in the final hours of their war.
BY THE TIME SADAMU KOMACHI had finally given up his pursuit of John Anderson’s B-32 the Japanese pilot was some twenty miles off the east coast of the Boso Peninsula and near Oshima Island. Believing that he might at any moment be bounced by U.S. Navy carrier aircraft, Komachi had pushed his throttle to the stops in order to regain the relative safety of the Japanese mainland as quickly as he could.
On the flight back to Oppama the veteran pilot had time to consider the ramifications of the fight in which he’d just participated. The conclusion of every previous engagement in his eventful career—whether he’d downed an enemy aircraft or simply managed to make it back to base uninjured and with his fighter undamaged—had been cause for satisfaction. He’d always taken great pride in his skills, and in the fact that he’d put them to good use for his nation and his emperor. But something was different now. As he later expressed it, by taking part in the post-ceasefire interception he’d defiantly and enthusiastically disobeyed the direct orders of his military leaders—and far worse, he’d “become a traitor against His Majesty.” The sense of pride, accomplishment, and exultation that he’d always felt after engaging his nation’s enemies had evaporated almost as soon as he turned away from the damaged American bomber, to be replaced by an ineffable sadness and the growing realization that he’d allowed his hunter’s instincts to dishonor him, his country, and his emperor.14
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