An Inoffensive Rearmament

by Frank Kowalski

  Suddenly, near some low trees, there was a violent movement in the mass of people. The group seemed to pack in upon itself, then burst like agitated ants. Stones began to fly. I saw the Japanese police rush in. I thought I saw an American captain and two enlisted men join the police as they moved into the mob, but I may have been wrong. It is possible that the Japanese police were trying to rescue the Americans from the mob.

  I recall at that time asking my Japanese friend, “What the hell are all the Americans doing there?” He didn’t bother to answer but was yelling and pulling at me. “This is bad, Colonel. Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t have to be urged. This was the first time I had seen a Japanese crowd directly attack Americans. I later learned that the mob threw one of the soldiers into the palace moat and the other two were mauled.

  This rough affair created great excitement at the Dai Ichi Building. I was later told that the “People’s Rally” was communist-organized, and the sudden riot against the Japanese and the Americans was communist-inspired.

  SCAP obviously could not tolerate this affront. Seven days after the gathering on the Imperial Palace Plaza, General MacArthur directed the Japanese government to purge the 221 executive members of the Communist Party Central Committee. The newspapers headlined the event, featuring General MacArthur as the man who knocked the “brains” out of the Communist Party.

  Meanwhile the third major offensive of our “total diplomacy,” which was directed at destroying Russian prestige and influence in Japan, was progressing rapidly toward a successful conclusion.

  When the war in the Pacific ended, the powers that fought Japan established in Tōkyō an international body known as the Allied Council for Japan. Although the authority of the council was vague, its general purpose was to serve as an advisory council for the Allied supreme commander. It was intended that the council would consult with and help General MacArthur to administer the country, and the council met from time to time, but since SCAP was an American general commanding what essentially was an American occupation headquarters, the council had little influence or impact on the administration of Japan.

  The Soviet Union was represented on the council by Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko, who had about fifty Russians on his staff. The offensive to drive the Russians out of Tōkyō was undertaken at the highest level. General Derevyanko found himself under increasing attack from both American and Australian representatives. In every conceivable way, the Russian representatives were shown that they were not welcome in the country. Rumors began to circulate that since Japan was under American occupation anyway, there was no reason to have the Soviet Union tell us how to govern the country, and the Allied Council was to be discontinued. Council meetings became infrequent and finally ceased altogether. The Soviet Union’s representatives, always isolated, now lost their reason for being in Japan. On May 28, 1950, without any previous warning, about a month before the North Korean invasion was launched, General Derevyanko and forty-six members of his staff sailed for Russia with their wives and children. The walkout was never explained. In the Western press, the departure was hailed as a great defeat in the Far East for the Russians.

  Thus, by early June 1950, only a few weeks before the North Koreans drove south into Seoul, the United States, working closely with the Japanese government, struck three major blows against Soviet prestige in Japan. First, the Russians were rudely shut out of negotiations for an Allied peace treaty with Japan. Second, General MacArthur decapitated the Soviet-sponsored Japan Communist Party. And third, the Soviet representatives on the Allied Council for Japan were literally driven out of the country. American firmness and power had been clearly demonstrated.

  No one can criticize the actions taken. What is bothersome, in retrospect, is that we failed to anticipate any reaction from the other side, or if we did, we failed to do anything about their capabilities. We seemed to be enthralled with our own huge successes. Actually, we should have recognized that the Soviet Union could not take these blows to its national prestige and influence in the Far East, no more than we could have weathered similar defeats. Our counterintelligence agencies should have been especially alert, for international power responds to the same laws of action and reaction as any other human behavior.

  What is even more significant is that we failed to understand that international reaction is motivated by self-serving interests and is contained only by power adequate for the situation. Although our actions in Japan had been bold and decisive, we lacked the power needed to contain the Soviet capability for reaction in the Far East.

  What were the capabilities of our military forces in Japan? The Pacific War had ended five years before. The Japanese people and government had turned out to be pliable, responsive, and remarkably friendly. For American officers and noncommissiond officers (NCOs), and particularly their families, life in Japan was comfortable. For the soldiers, most of whom were youngsters, entertainment and women were cheap. There was much emphasis on saluting, but military training was not exacting; the men and their officers enjoyed the name and life of occupationnaires, a kind of governmental tourists with extended visas in the pleasant clime of Japan.

  There were good reasons for this softness. In occupied Japan, soldiering was not a premium. There were other very important tasks assigned to the Army. To begin with, many of our military personnel were helping the Japanese people recover from a devastating war and were carrying out the democratic reforms America was introducing. Our officers and soldiers were engaged in such governmental activities as surveillance of the land reform program, distribution of rice and fish from the farms and fishing villages to the large cities where food was in short supply, and surveillance of tax collection. All these programs were important not only to Japan but to the United States, for America had to supply Japan with about 15 percent of its food requirements, and delinquent Japanese taxes meant that the United States would have to balance the Japanese budget with American dollars.

  As a consequence, our officers and soldiers became more government officials than military fighters. The organized Army units also found it difficult to train because Japan is a land of rugged mountains, and where the terrain permits military training, the land is intensely cultivated. What had been firing ranges and training areas before the war were now farmlands. In addition, because Japan was not suitable for classical armor operations, a decision had been made not to assign tanks to its defense. Accordingly, when Korea exploded, we had no armor in the Far East. All these factors tended to produce in Japan an American Army of barracks soldiers.

  General MacArthur, as the supreme commander, was lord of all he surveyed. Only incidentally was he responsible for the supervision of the Far East military force as its overall commander. In the five years of the occupation, MacArthur had mellowed and now lived the life of a retired gentleman soldier, more interested in keeping Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in power than in maintaining the efficiency of his divisions. The great white conqueror had isolated himself completely, living in the spacious American Embassy Chancery and working in his Dai Ichi Building. For years prior to the Korean War, he had disassociated himself from his men. No one knew for sure whether General MacArthur had ever inspected the troops outside of his capital city.

  For the Japanese, General MacArthur was the symbol of authority. He filled an emotional void that had been created when the emperor was put in mothballs by our forces. At a time when it was unlawful for the Japanese people to display their national flag, MacArthur was a good substitute. They petitioned him for their rice rations, gratefully accepted his benevolent constitution, marveled at his dignified utterances, paid homage to him each day as he entered and departed from the Dai Ichi Building, and honored him with presents of the most elegant grasshoppers in the land.2

  The following story about General MacArthur may have more truth than humor. A new arrival from the United States was being oriented by one of the old Japan hands. They were in a village one day observing the operations of the n
ewly organized agricultural cooperative. The recently arrived American, admiring the wonders of the occupation, asked his more experienced associate what the farmers thought of MacArthur. “Let’s ask one of them,” answered the old hand. Turning to a Japanese in the rice paddy, he asked the graybeard what he thought of the supreme commander for Allied powers. The man listened intently as the interpreter framed the question, then after a long, thoughtful silence he answered very seriously, “The emperor picked a good man to run Japan.”

  Our military weakness was especially transparent in Tōkyō. On June 19, I attended a military review held on the Imperial Palace Plaza in honor of Secretary of Defense Johnson. A special reviewing platform had been constructed for the secretary, military staff, and distinguished guests. I don’t believe I have ever witnessed such a galaxy of stars as flashed on that day in the Tōkyō sun. In the place of honor was Mr. Johnson and next to him was General MacArthur, with General Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  The Tōkyō newspapers called the affair a “gigantic military review.” They must have been referring to the squads of generals on the reviewing stand. Personally, I was shocked by the stark reality of our military weakness in the Far East. For it was obvious that the GHQ had scraped the bottom of the military barrel from the environs of Tōkyō to assemble a conglomeration of 12,000 “troopers” from the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and WACs, or Women’s Army Corp. It was a pathetic picture, sadly demonstrating the depth to which our military position in the Far East had degenerated. If Johnson, as a civilian secretary, could not recognize our inadequacy on that day, surely General MacArthur and General Bradley, both distinguished soldiers, knew that we were playing world power politics with inadequate military capabilities.

  Socially, the review was a huge success. American ladies sitting in the stands on the left of the secretary’s platform sighed with deep emotion as they admired the elegance of General MacArthur. And he looked magnificent, head high, chin up, blanketing a huge shadow over Secretary Johnson, General Bradley, and the lesser generals who crowded the reviewing stand.

  It is doubtful, however, that the “gigantic military review” impressed the Russians. If they could have been as blinded by our military elegance as were our ladies and national leaders, everyone would have been much better off. But on the eve of the Korean aggression, we had been fooling ourselves so long and so effectively that we believed our own propaganda. The dollar had become so much of a symbol of power in the United States that we believed it could buy anything in the world, even the defeat of international communism. Glibly, we talked of loans and military aid to Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. At the same time at home, we were cutting our own military forces. Like the Romans, we were going to buy mercenaries to fight for us, or so we thought.

  In June 1950, the newspapers were proclaiming that in the forthcoming meeting with Secretary Johnson and General Bradley, General MacArthur would unfold his program for securing Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and all of Southeast Asia. According to the press, MacArthur’s plan was a great bargain. He had found a way for the whole of Southeast Asia to be “bolstered by US aid at low cost.” The American public and the free world were also pleased to learn, one week before the communists’ attack, that MacArthur was reassuring his distinguished visitors in Tōkyō that “South Korea is being effectively buttressed against Communist assault and subversion by American support of the Syngman Rhee regime.”

  Everything was rosy. No one questioned reality. Our great public figures guaranteed our security. It was a small wonder then that only a few days before the communists marched into South Korea, peacemaker Dulles should glare defiantly across the 38th parallel, while Chairman Bradley should relax in the Tōkyō Army Exchange Store examining a fishing pole.

  To all outward appearances, by the middle of June, our “total diplomacy” in Japan had been a resounding success. The Communist Party had been decapitated. Russians had been driven out of the country. And a decision had been made to sign a unilateral peace treaty with the Western Allies. We had been tough, and the Soviet position in the Far East had been sorely rocked. Yet the situation was loaded with danger because our hard line rested on a pathetically soft military capability. Although no one seemed to be concerned, reaction from the communist world was inevitable and only a question of time. The counterattack in Korea caught us unbalanced and unprepared. It will be the same every time we act from our emotions rather than reason and when our commitments are beyond our military capability.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BASIC PLAN

  At the time the Korean tragedy exploded upon the world, I had completed two and a half years’ duty in Japan, serving in various military government assignments throughout the country. Two months before the communist attack, I had come to Tōkyō as executive officer to Major General Whitfield P. Shepard, then chief of the Civil Affairs Section, at General MacArthur’s headquarters. It was a pleasant assignment, especially desirable as my wife and two children were comfortably located in a Western-style Japanese house on the outskirts of beautiful Meiji Park, a fifteen-minute drive from the office.

  By early July, however, as the first understrength battalions of the 24th Infantry Division were flown from southern Japan onto the Korean Peninsula, the tempo at the Dai Ichi Building, MacArthur’s GHQ in Tōkyō, reached fever pitch. The war struck hard and furiously. Each day more and more of my friends disappeared from their usual jobs, without a word of good-bye. A few days later, I would read about them in the official reports, making history in Korea, or filling a space on the casualty list.

  The Korean War caught MacArthur’s headquarters completely by surprise. A makeshift staff, known as Republic of Korea (ROK) Headquarters, was hurriedly thrown together at the Dai Ichi Building to direct the war against the communists. Officers for this small command headquarters came from various sections in GHQ. Many continued to work in their primary assignments, running the war on a part-time basis in addition to their other duties. It was fortunate that this stopgap arrangement continued only for a few weeks because for some of the officers the dual responsibilities became a nightmare.

  General Shepard, my boss during this hectic period, became deputy chief of staff of ROK Headquarters and worked round the clock. He was on the job sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, without the benefit of time-and-a-half pay. Meanwhile, General MacArthur was making headlines in all the newspapers. His majestic, “We go!” as he climbed on board his plane and set out for Korea bordered on comic opera except for the tragic seriousness that gripped those of us who wondered how many would have to follow.

  Conferences at the Big House, as the Dai Ichi Building was called, were practically continuous, with General Shepard assuming a more and more secretive role. This was unusually disconcerting as he habitually discussed his problems with me.

  On July 9, the telephone rang and when I answered, Major General W. A. Biedelinder, the G-1 (Personnel) GHQ, wanted to talk to Shepard. I buzzed the general and in accordance with our operating procedure remained on the phone listening.

  “Say, Shep,” General Biedelinder began, “we want your exec [executive officer] to command a regiment in Korea. Will you make him available?”

  I could hardly believe my ears. Command a regiment in Korea! I had been hoping for such an assignment for days. There was a long silence, so characteristic of a Shepard reaction, and then he finally answered, “I’ll be over to talk with you in a little while.”

  I hung up the phone and waited. I knew that General Shepard was aware that I had been listening, but he hardly stirred in his office; the place remained quiet as a tomb. After fifteen minutes of this cat-and-mouse game, I could stand the suspense no longer. I walked into his office and said, “General, I want to go to Korea.”

  No answer.

  “General,” I began again. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but this is my chance to command a regiment.”

  He cocked his head to one side, as was his habit, then, fixing me with a col
d gray stare, he said, “You’re not going. I need you here.”

  His reaction made no sense to me. Anyone could do my job, but to command a regiment—that was a job for a soldier. But my arguments were as effective as ramming one’s head against a concrete wall. I have never worked for a more stubborn man. Finally, as he got up to leave, he gave me slight hope. “I will talk to you after I see Biedelinder.”

  In about an hour, he returned from his talk with G-1, and as he walked past my desk, he motioned for me to follow him into his office. “Close the door and sit down,” he ordered.

  I obeyed, my pulse beating wildly. As I sat down in a chair facing him, the general clasped his hands and with great seriousness began. “Frank, I know how much you want to command a regiment, but you are not going to Korea. I cannot let you go because you and I have a big job to do here in Japan. I have been designated by General MacArthur to organize the National Police Reserve [NPR], a Japanese security force of 75,000 men with four divisions. This is the beginning of the Japanese army. You are going to be my chief of staff, so forget Korea.”