An Inoffensive Rearmament

by Frank Kowalski

  One of the first acts of the occupation forces in Japan was to demobilize the military forces of that nation. Having crushed and disbanded the Japanese military, SCAP then directed that no career military officer would be permitted in any position in the public life of the nation. This action was taken in accordance with the terms of surrender for Japan agreed upon at Potsdam and announced by the heads of the governments of the United States, Great Britain, and China. In part, these terms demanded that “there must be eliminated for all time the authority and the influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.”

  Our government firmly supported this worldview, and in August 1945 in the Initial Postsurrender Policy for Japan, General MacArthur was instructed as follows:

  High officials of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and General Staff, other high military and naval officials of the Japanese Government, leaders of ultranationalist and militarist organizations and other important exponents of militarism and aggression will be taken into custody and held for future disposition. . . . Former career military and naval officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, and all other exponents of militarism and ultranationalism shall be excluded from supervisory and teaching positions.

  Though Potsdam inspired the purge, the policy was a revolutionary blessing to the Japanese people. Without the purge, there could have been no reforms. It was the purge that enabled the people of Japan to get rid of the entrenched leadership that had carried the nation into war and destruction. It was the purge that permitted the country to take its first steps on the road to democracy. Unshackled from the stifling control of the parochial militarists, Japan responded enthusiastically to the social, political, economic, and governmental changes that the American occupation introduced. Swept up in this revolutionary spirit, there were few in Japan pressing for the return of the leaders of the old order. Neither the people nor the government wanted the military back. Prime Minister Yoshida and his cabinet were, of course, fully aware of the desirability of using experienced former officers in the NPR, but they were not prepared to precipitate a public debate on the issue.

  Since the prime concern of GHQ was to organize and deploy a Japanese force as soon as practical to fill the military void created by the departure of American divisions for Korea, those in the Dai Ichi Building were not eager to get into a hassle with the Joint Chiefs or the State Department about changing the purge directives. General MacArthur and his chiefs accordingly accepted the purge policy as an inconvenience, but not a block to building a Japanese force. It was generally agreed that by using Americans in top leadership positions, a satisfactory initial organization could be established. With one notable exception, General MacArthur’s staff recognized the advisability of putting off to the future inclusion of former military leaders in the National Police Reserve.

  The uncompromising exception was the irrepressible Major General Willoughby, MacArthur’s intelligence chief. Completely out of sympathy with announced policy, Willoughby was determined from the beginning to bring former Imperial career officers into the NPR—purge or no purge. Neither opposition from the staff nor hints from General MacArthur himself seemed to deter Willoughby. Initially the elements of his G-2 Section worked in the open, trying to convince everyone concerned that the new force could not be organized without the purged Imperial officers. When these efforts failed, pressure operations went underground. As the resistance continued, I was amazed to find to what extremes a group of influential, determined, thoroughly dedicated staff officers in an American military headquarters were capable of going to circumvent their government’s directives and even international agreements. Prewar Japan was not the only example of self-righteous military officers demonstrating that they knew better than anyone what was good for their country.

  It cannot be denied that from a military point of view, General Willoughby’s position was unassailable. It was logical. An effective military force, he contended, could not be organized, trained, deployed, and commanded by civilians. A military establishment required professionals, people with military training, and experienced career officers.

  General Willoughby argued that since the purge eliminated practically all former officers of the Imperial services, except a few lieutenants and captains, the purge had to go. If we limited the leadership of the NPR to these inexperienced and untried junior officers and inducted civilians, we could hope for nothing better for months to come than a conglomerate of ineffective small units. In the face of the deteriorating situation in Korea and the need for an immediate force able to defend Japan, he considered the decision to continue the purge a fatal mistake. In his opinion, the situation called for drastic action. There was no time to wait for a gradual buildup. The situation demanded the recall to the service of Japan the best-qualified military leaders in the nation. There were thousands of them, courageous, dedicated men eager and ready to serve in the new force. General Willoughby knew exactly where to find them because he had carefully planned and prepared for such an eventuality as the one that now faced the Far East Command in Japan.

  There are those in this country today who look upon General Willoughby as a rightist and extremist. General MacArthur is quoted as having called him “my lovable fascist,” and indeed after his retirement from the army, General Willoughby became the adviser to Franco of Spain. My generation of army officers, however, knew General Willoughby best as an instructor of military history at the infantry school. We enjoyed his flamboyant, exciting personality. His conferences were not only interesting, but they were packed with original thinking and sparked with challenging analyses. He was a realist in those days at Fort Benning. Later, after ten years in service on the staff of the Great Man, he may have imbibed too heavily of the heady wine of infallibility that flowed so freely in the General Headquarters of SCAP. But he was a top soldier and a meticulous planner. One could expect him to be prepared for history as it unfolded in Japan. When the war in the Pacific came to an end, G-2 GHQ SCAP had a major responsibility in connection with the disarmament and demobilization of the Japanese war machine. General Willoughby, however, had fought the Imperial forces too many years not to appreciate the tremendous military asset that the demobilized officers represented. He was too alert an intelligence officer to permit this asset to slip through his fingers.

  Under the guise of surveillance, he conceived and organized the Japanese Demobilization Bureau (Nihon Fukuinkyoku). Ostensibly the purpose of the bureau was to assist the Far East Command to demobilize the Japanese military establishment and to maintain records of all former Imperial officers. But long after the Japanese had been demobilized, General Willoughby continued to operate his Demobilization Bureau. Six years after the surrender, the bureau had become his personal agency for the eventual reconstruction of the Japanese military establishment.

  During the intervening years, Willoughby had gathered together in the Demobilization Bureau some of the most capable generals, admirals, and colonels who remained in Japan after those charged with war crimes had been tried and executed. In addition to maintaining records of those demobilized, the bureau made these former Imperial officers an adjunct of General Willoughby’s G-2 Section. Under the guise of performing surveillance of Japanese communists, they attended political and labor meetings, labeling those they distrusted or considered undesirable as “inimical” to the interests of the occupation. Backed by General Willoughby, the reports of the Demobilization Bureau officers were read by the highest American echelons. The militarists had been purged, but as General Willoughby’s special agents, the Demobilization Bureau exercised an important influence on the thinking of the occupation forces.

  As an agency of records, the bureau had complete information on some 70,000 career officers who had been serving in the Imperial forces at the time of surrender. The officers of t
he bureau became the national representatives of those on the purge list. They maintained close liaison with all these officers throughout the land and could reach with equal facility the lowest-ranking demobilized lieutenant or the highest-ranking general or admiral. The officers of the bureau lived in the hope that someday the United States, faced with an emergency like Korea, would be forced to turn to the military brotherhood of Japan for help. On July 8, 1950, when General MacArthur dispatched his historic letter to the prime minister directing the establishment of a four-division force of 75,000 troops, the Demobilization Bureau knew that its day had arrived.

  Under the basic directive of establishing the National Police Reserve, General Willoughby, as chief of the G-2 Section, was given responsibility with General Courtney Whitney, chief of the Government Section, for clearing all nominees for leadership in the organization. The Japanese National Rural Police, a national police organization serving in the rural areas of Japan, was given responsibilities by the Japanese government for recruiting for the NPR. Significantly the Public Safety Division of G-2 SCAP was responsible for surveillance and supervision of the National Rural Police. Accordingly, General Willoughby, as the chief of intelligence and the boss of the Public Safety Division, exercised a two-way control over the selection, clearance, and approval of the rank and file of the NPR. He had direct control through American channels and indirect control through the Public Safety Division.

  Under the directives, it was natural that the Public Safety Division of SCAP should work closely with our Advisory Group on the NPR recruiting program, but it became rapidly evident to me that Colonel Pulliam, head of the Public Safety Division, had one objective: to install the Imperial officers of the Demobilization Bureau in the NPR. When we spoke to him about the purge directive, he waved his hand disdainfully. We were building a Japanese army and to hell with international directives.

  One day, about the end of July, General Shepard asked me to come into his office. When I walked in I found a neat, soldierly, and forceful-looking Japanese talking to the general through our interpreter, Nicky Endō.

  “Colonel Kowalski,” General Shepard began, “I would like to present Colonel Hattori of the Japanese Imperial Army.”

  I extended my hand, perking my ears up sharply. Colonel Hattori, I mused. Who the hell is he? We exchanged pleasantries through Nicky, and shortly Colonel Hattori bowed to General Shepard and me and left the office.

  “That’s a good-looking soldier,” I said, turning to the general. “Who is he?”

  “You’re going to see a lot of him,” General Shepard answered. “That’s your opposite number.”

  “You mean, General, he’s going to be the chief of staff of the NPR?”

  “Well let’s say he’s General Willoughby’s nominee. Colonel Pulliam advises me that Hattori was a member of the Imperial General Staff. He is credited with having planned the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia. I am told he’s a top soldier. He’s General Willoughby’s number one man in the Demobilization Bureau. Yes, Willoughby wants him to be chief of staff.”

  “But what about the prohibition of the use of purgees in the NPR?” I asked with deep concern. “Is the purge directive to be revoked?”

  “That’s not our responsibility,” responded Shepard. “We organize and train them. I’m not responsible for recruiting them.”

  “But, General,” I persisted, “does General Whitney know about this fellow?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” answered General Shepard. “That’s a matter for Willoughby and Whitney. You and I, mostly you, have your work cut out for you. I am advised that the Japanese Demobilization Bureau is prepared to furnish us not only Colonel Hattori but a complete cadre of qualified former military officers for the NPR. I want you personally, without any member of the staff knowing it, to prepare a cadre list for a four-division force. Try to keep the list under a thousand. Show the rank and position of each cadre officer you think we’ll need. Try to have something for me tomorrow.”

  My orders were clear.

  That night, I hurriedly studied the tentative tables of organization that Colonel Albergotti was developing for the NPR and concluded that an effective force of 75,000 troops could be organized with a cadre of 917 qualified Japanese officers. The next day, I submitted my suggested list of positions to General Shepard, who after a short discussion approved my recommendations. That afternoon, the Japanese Demobilization Bureau was put to work searching their files to find 917 individuals with the qualifications and rank necessary to fill our requirements.

  General Willoughby now disregarded all directives. Two days after I had met him, Colonel Hattori was back in our headquarters with Colonel Pulliam and six former officers of the Imperial Japanese Army. Pulliam told us the Japanese had been selected to command the six NPR induction centers that were to be established. In the brief conversation I had with the members of the Japanese cadre, I learned that they had been assembled from all over Japan. It was obvious that these officers had been chosen long ago for the roles they were now to play in the recruitment program. Each had already been assigned to a specific station and was at our headquarters for his final orientation before taking command of his post. Willoughby had done a tremendous planning job and now Pulliam and Hattori were executing his plan with perfection.

  The situation was moving so rapidly that I hardly had time to think about the change in policy we had undergone. Obviously, as far as the NPR was concerned, the purge was off. I was deeply disturbed by this turn of events and decided that I should know more about Colonel Hattori and those of his colleagues who would assume high posts in the new military establishment. Some very interesting information was uncovered for me.

  Colonel Takushirō Hattori was born in 1901. At the outbreak of the Pacific War, he headed the Strategic Section of the Imperial General Staff (Daihonei Rikugun Sakusenka). Later he served as one of the military secretaries to the prime minister, General Hideki Tōjō.

  In 1936, Colonel Hattori was alleged to have been a member of the notorious “Manchuria Clique” within the army. This was a group of military officers who had become convinced that the civilian government was either corrupt or incompetent. Foreign policy, they contended, especially for Manchuria and North China, should be determined by “those on the spot” in Manchuria, meaning of course the military clique. They further argued that such policy should conform to what they described as “absolute military necessity” in the field and that it was up to the civilian government to adjust itself to these necessities. “A very interesting person, this Colonel Hattori,” I thought.

  In 1944, Colonel Hattori became a member of a special group of influential staff officers of the Imperial General Staff who were responsible for coordinating the overall policy of the conduct of war. The regular group included four army colonels and four navy captains and was joined from time to time by aides to the prime minister and the war and navy ministers. Colonel Hattori obviously was one of the key officers of the Imperial General Staff.

  After the surrender of Japan, officers who had held posts such as these were purged or worse, but Colonel Hattori, probably because of his special qualifications, was singled out for service with SCAP and assigned to the Demobilization Bureau. He and his colleagues escaped the purge because it became obvious to the occupation authorities that if the staggering task of demobilizing and repatriating the Japanese Imperial forces was to succeed, SCAP had to utilize knowledgeable former military officers of the Imperial Army and Navy. Accordingly, an executive directive was issued providing that “a person (otherwise qualifying as a purgee) who cannot be replaced by others may be appointed to public office by the authority of the Prime Minister.” This enabled the G-2 to organize the Demobilization Bureau and staff it with former Imperial officers.

  Colonel Hattori, in the five years since the end of the war, had surrounded himself with many distinguished officers, including at least two aides of General Tōjō: Colonel Susumu Nishiura, who had been chief of
the Military Affairs Section of the War Ministry (Rikugunshō Gunmuka), and Colonel Kumao Imoto, former member of the Strategic Section of General Staff. There were others of equivalent stature, I was told, who would surely join Colonel Hattori in the NPR. I thought, “It’s not for me to ask why, but to do or die.”

  In preparing the initial weekly report, which was to be submitted to the chief of staff of GHQ from our Advisory Group, General Shepard asked me to include a statement that he had conferred with Mr. Mori concerning the organization of the NPR. I was puzzled because I could not remember any visitor by that name. I also noted to my surprise that he had not asked me to report on the meetings we had with Colonel Pulliam, Colonel Hattori, and the former Imperial colonels. When the report was typed, I walked in with it to General Shepard’s office. As he reached for his pen to sign it, I asked, “General, who is Mr. Mori? I don’t remember him visiting us.”

  His hand stopped as though he had been shot, and when he looked up, his face was flushed. “That’s Colonel Hattori,” he answered.

  “I don’t understand,” I began “This report goes to the Chief of Staff of GHQ.”

  “Mori is a G-2 cover name for Colonel Hattori,” explained General Shepard. “Colonel Pulliam asked me to use it. He said that General Willoughby didn’t want G-3 and the Governmental Section to jump him about using purgees in the NPR. He wanted me to give him time to discuss the matter with General MacArthur personally.”