An Inoffensive Rearmament

by Frank Kowalski

  I had come to respect the chief of the General Group as an exceptionally competent man, an outstanding executive, and a fine soldier. He was learning his new trade rapidly, adapting comfortably to the new military organization, and winning the confidence of the American officers of the Advisory Group.

  Rumors began to circulate that Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi were considering resigning their posts. Deeply disturbed, I spent several days talking to General Hayashi, urging him to reconsider. He was unhappy about not only the public criticism of the NPR, but the fact that a severe disagreement had developed between Mr. Masuhara and himself over the question of whether men in uniform would be permitted to appear before committees in the Diet. General Hayashi felt strongly that men in uniform had an obligation to report in person to the Diet. I could not agree with his position, pointing out that the director general or whoever might be the civilian head of a future military establishment must be the responsive official. I agreed that it was desirable for men in uniform, under some circumstances, to appear before the Diet, but that such appearances should be made only with the authority of the director general or the civilian minister of the future defense power. I’m not sure that I convinced General Hayashi, but a very important principle of civilian control over the military was hammered out in the crucible forming the NPR.

  Both Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi were too deeply dedicated to their country to permit personal differences or official disagreements to stand in the way of duty. It was obvious to both that neither could quit his post; nevertheless we were all relieved when both remained at the helm of the NPR.

  The fight to disband the NPR nevertheless continued on throughout 1950. It festered in the disappointed breasts of a host of former Imperial officers. It embarrassed friends of the United States and spilled over in debate on the floor of the Diet. The struggle involved the top leaders in the Yoshida cabinet.

  The controversy came to an end when Prime Minister Yoshida, in October 1952, ordered the 75,000-man NPR to be expanded to 110,000 troops and changed its name to the National Safety Force (NSF). The first phase of Yoshida’s policy of “gradual rearmament” was completed, and the nation moved on to the intermediate step in the quiet amorphism of the Japanese army.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ADVISERS AND OPERATIONS

  NPR Headquarters was established in the Japanese Maritime School (Kōtō Shōsen Gakkoō) buildings in Tōkyō in the latter part of July 1950. Actually, at that time only General Shepard and I moved into the building to open the Civil Affairs Section Annex, the cover name by which the U.S. Military Advisory Group was to be known for the next two years. The Japanese director of the NPR was not selected until a fortnight later, and several weeks elapsed before Japanese headquarters personnel began to assemble. In the meantime, General Shepard assumed actual command of both Americans and Japanese. American Army officers were assembled to operate the new NPR in the field. The advisers became operators.

  Except for my slight acquaintance at that time with Colonel Albergotti, the key members of the CASA staff were all complete strangers to one another and to me. In order that we might become better acquainted and to coordinate our initial projects, I decided to hold daily staff meetings. I soon found, however, that everyone had so much work to do that the conferences were interfering with the accomplishment of our mission. Daily conferences were accordingly discontinued, and the section chiefs concentrated their attention on the organization and development of their respective offices and operational procedures.

  Our early days were especially difficult as none of the initial members of the CASA staff had ever had any experience on a military advisory group. And of course none of us had ever organized an army from ground zero. We proceeded cautiously, feeling our way along. Several weeks elapsed before I was prepared to publish firm staff procedures. As so much of the organizational work was accomplished in oral discussions with Japanese governmental agencies and individuals, we kept the general and each other informed through brief written summaries covering the major actions taken each day.

  Like all chiefs of staff, I had my troubles harmonizing individual members into an effective working team, as freewheelers are occupational hazards of any organization. By virtue of his official proximity and personal relationship with the commanding general, however, the chief is in a powerful position, and the members of the staff are usually quick to cooperate with him. Occasionally, however, there are those members who strive to establish a direct line to the general. I had two such individuals on my staff. At every opportunity, these two tried to bypass me. By riding close herd on them in the formative period, I pulled them under my control and, I am certain, avoided some serious difficulties for all concerned later.

  In observing many headquarters, I have noted that all chiefs of staff have their troubles with the special characters on the staff. MacArthur’s headquarters was loaded with wheelers and dealers. It was a well-known fact, for example, that Major General Willoughby, the intelligence officer, reported through General Edward M. Almond, MacArthur’s chief of staff, when that suited the interests of General Willoughby. Similarly, Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, chief of the SCAP Government Section, as MacArthur’s constant luncheon companion, enjoyed a direct line to the commander in chief, which of course he used daily. Even Major General William F. Marquat, chief of the SCAP Economic and Scientific Section, was in the habit of avoiding the chief of staff by slipping into MacArthur’s office on Sunday mornings. All military headquarters suffer in varying degrees from these prima donnas. It is indeed some kind of miracle General Almond succeeded as well as he did in coordinating the military and governmental activities of these unique headquarters. General Almond himself was no pushover. A star performer, he was not an easy chief of staff to approach.

  The most inaccessible person, however, was the great SCAP himself. He had become so insulated in his ivory tower that except for the three generals mentioned above, he talked only to his chief of staff, conferred occasionally with the Japanese prime minister, and only annually accepted the homage of Emperor Hirohito. He, of course, had no telephone. It is reported that during staff meetings, MacArthur monitored the discussion from an adjoining room. When a decision was necessary or MacArthur disapproved of staff proceedings, he would surreptitiously signal to the chief of staff, who would jump up from the conference table to receive instructions from the supreme commander. Major generals, such as Major General Shepard, who was MacArthur’s chief of the Civil Affairs Section, deputy chief of staff of ROK Headquarters, and the man designated to organize the Japanese army, considered themselves highly honored to be permitted a private audience with the general once during a two- or three-year tour in Japan.

  In CASA, the situation was pleasantly different from the rarefied atmosphere of GHQ SCAP. Here General Shepard was so accessible to everyone that my difficulty was to keep people out of his office so that he would have time to handle urgent business. The little people, particularly the coffee sukoshis and the stubborn little old Japanese man who delivered ice, must have been especially delivered to plague me.

  When Sergeant Ratcliff and I made our office floor plan for the CASA headquarters, naturally we selected a large impressive room for the commanding general. But Shepard was a simple, humble man. Paying no attention to the floor plan, he established himself in what we considered an insignificant room adjacent to the entrance of the building. No arguments or pleading by Sergeant Ratcliff or myself had any influence on the old man. He remained to the last day of his tour with CASA in his little room, watching everyone who entered the building. His door was always open. Shepard was a rare exception among generals.

  An embarrassing situation developed when Sergeant Ratcliff liberated a water cooler from an unsuspecting organization and had it moved to CASA. Some days after the installation of the water cooler, I heard a noisy commotion in the hall with the unmistakable voice of Ratcliff shouting, “No go in! No! General busy. I sign. I sign.” I walked out
and found the forceful sergeant trying to take some kind of paper away from a wizened little old Japanese man who had delivered ice for the cooler. The little man was holding his own, fending the sergeant off with one hand while he edged himself with determination toward the general’s office. When I walked up to the struggling pair, the sergeant had secured a firm grip on the collar of the little ice man. Ratcliff was beaming triumphantly.

  “Get a load of this nip, Colonel. He wants the general to sign his ice receipt. He made the general sign the damn poop sheet every day this week, but I caught him today, before he could get in.”

  At that moment, General Shepard came out of his office. The iceman darted forward before Ratcliff could stop him and handed the ice receipt to the general, who dutifully signed it and went back into his room without a word to either of us. Beaming happily, the little fellow bowed politely first to me, then to Ratcliff, and sucking in a loud hiss of air through his toothy mouth, he left the building. In typical Japanese fashion, having his ice receipt signed by General Shepard on the first day he delivered the ice, the old fellow would accept the signature of no one else that summer. On several occasions, when General Shepard was in conference with top Japanese government officials, the ragged little old man would force his way into the general’s office, stop the conference, thrust his ice receipt in front of Shepard, get it signed, and then, backing out politely, he would bow and hiss while the Japanese officials looked on in amazement.

  As our staff grew, we gave more and more attention to our personal comforts. Everybody liked coffee, so Sergeant Ratcliff hired some Japanese girls to make and serve coffee for the headquarters. The girls were tiny things whom someone promptly christened “coffee sukoshis” (literally, coffee “little,” or little coffee girls). The five of them, holding hands, would serve General Shepard coffee in his office amid giggles and embarrassed wigglings. What a pack of trouble they were for me! Every Wednesday, the general gave them a box of Hershey bars. The other days of the week except Sundays, when they did not work, the general listened to their personal troubles. He would call me in to solve the problems. Saturday was my worst day with the little coffee girls. On this day, the medical officer and the administration officer would together inspect the kitchen and coffee. Regularly every Saturday, the medical officer would “skin” the administration officer to bawl out the coffee sukoshis, who would promptly start crying, and then all five, holding hands, would run for sympathy to the general. Invariably, the old man would side with the sukoshis, and on those days, the administration officer would find himself uncomfortably facing the sarcasm of the medical officer and the unrelenting glare of General Shepard.

  Always the general would call me in and ask, “What are you and that dumb administration officer trying to do to the coffee sukoshis?” I would shake my head hopelessly, mumble something, and go out. On occasion, if the administration officer was successful in the footrace to the front office and got to me in time, I could run in and explain to General Shepard the administration officer’s side of the story before the coffee sukoshis arrived in tandem at his door. On these fortunate occasions, the general would listen as usual to the girls’ complaints, but at least the harassed administration officer and I would win a moral victory over the sukoshis. Every time I saved face for the administration officer, I earned the wrath of the coffee sukoshis. After these pyrrhic victories, it usually cost me several bars of candy before I found my coffee good enough to drink.

  In addition to being an excellent cover for organizing the NPR, the Civil Affairs Section Annex was well suited to assist in the initial development of the Japanese military force. Besides our headquarters in Tōkyō, there were eight civil affairs regional headquarters located in the key geographical subdivisions of Japan. The staffs at these regional headquarters were not large, but all the military and civilian personnel had had considerable experience working with local Japanese officials and community leaders. The regions knew their areas, were in direct communication with our office, and maintained close liaison with all Japanese institutions and activities under their surveillance. Most important, at a time when every officer and person that could be spared went to Korea, civil affairs was a going concern in Japan. In July, August, and September, while our troops departed Japan and fought in Korea, the civil affairs regions located camps for the NPR, processed supplies and weapons, and organized the first raw Japanese recruits who reported into their regions. The military and civilians of those field organizations performed magnificently and deserved the lion’s share of credit for helping to secure our military bases in Japan while our divisions struggled to retain a toehold on the Korean peninsula.

  CASA’s overriding mission in those hectic early days was to put a Japanese military force in the field immediately to take the place of the American divisions that had gone or were on the way to Korea. Our plan called for recruiting, inducting, and deploying in camps 75,000 recruits in a period of two months. Since we wanted maximum distribution of the force, this meant that in that period we had to locate and prepare for occupation about fifty camp facilities. Fortunately, we were able to house about 40,000 of the 75,000 troops in camps previously occupied by American forces. The remainder of the units had to be located in various factories, schools, workers’ dormitories, and any facility that had some kind of roof. We pushed the Japanese contractors unmercifully to prepare these camps for our first inductees.

  As I was responsible for the final approval of the camp facilities, my office was always crowded with Japanese governors, mayors, and lesser politicians promoting their particular locations. Even months after the entire force had been established in its camps, the politicians continued to visit me to give glowing reports on the facilities they had available for camps in their areas.

  On the day after President Truman relieved General MacArthur from his command (April 11, 1951), three Japanese governors came in to pay their customary courtesy call. While we exchanged greetings and drank coffee, I thought it would be interesting to see what the Japanese thought of General MacArthur’s departure. So I asked, “What do you think, gentlemen, of what President Truman did to General MacArthur?”

  “Ahh!” responded one of the governors. “Truman-san does not beat around the bush.” I am sure his was the most poignant evaluation of the MacArthur affair.

  A second governor, evidently deeply concerned about “face” for Japan, said with real disappointment in his voice: “General MacArthur has five stars. General Ridgway only three.” At the time General Matthew B. Ridgway replaced General MacArthur, Ridgway was a lieutenant general, whereas MacArthur, of course, was a five-star commander.

  While we rushed frantically all over Japan searching for camps, initial directives went out through Japanese rural police channels to recruit the men. To our great relief, 400,000 Japanese volunteered for the force of 75,000. There would be no problem recruiting people. But who would command this mob when it assembled in the various camps, and who was going to train them? Even as the recruits began to report to the rural police induction centers, there were only a handful of Japanese officials at the desks in the director’s civilian office, and the top Japanese to wear a uniform had not yet been selected.

  As the time approached for opening, our first camps were faced with two impossible obstacles: the lack of American personnel and the total inexperience of the Japanese staff. With Korea crying for American personnel, GHQ had absolutely no one to give us. On the Japanese side, with purgees eliminated from the force there was no one with any military experience in the NPR Headquarters, and no one in the field to command a camp. This was a bootstrap operation in every sense of the expression.

  Americans, accordingly, had to assume command of the NPR at the national level and at the camp level in the field. At the national level, CASA became a Japanese headquarters. At the camp level, we decided to assign one American officer, preferably a major, to each one thousand Japanese inductees and a maximum of two to each camp. Most of the NPR camps were st
affed by one American officer and two enlisted personnel. These Americans brought their Japanese inductees into camp, housed them, fed them, organized them into battalions, selected leaders from among the recruits, and gave them their initial training as soldiers.

  To paraphrase from the past, “Never have so few controlled and trained so many.” I shall never forget the hectic experience we had with the initial one thousand inductees we moved into an abandoned American camp. I had been frantically calling GHQ for a week begging for an American officer to command our first Japanese camp. Even on the day the recruits for this camp were being processed by the National Rural Police at their induction centers (a two-day affair), we had no American to assign to command them. I was seriously considering sending my deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Glover, when an American major stuck his head into my office. He wore the cross rifles of an infantryman. My hopes soared. “Who are you?” I asked, my excitement growing.

  “Major Kenneth Stevens,” he answered, saluting. “I was told at GHQ to report to Colonel Kowalski.”

  “You’re in the right place,” I rejoiced to myself. “Sit down, Major Stevens, I’m Colonel Kowalski.”

  “Is this where I get lined up for Korea?” he asked hopefully.

  “No, Major,” I answered. “Here you get lined up for the NPR.”