Reluctantly he took the cap from me and placed it squarely on his head. He turned to his wife for approval, but when she bowed her head to snicker into her hands, the director general turned around sternly. “No,” he boomed. “Your cap has no sex appeal.” This ended all discussion on the uniform, and that is why the yobitai wore a uniform of American olive drab, with an Australian-type jacket and a Japanese Imperial Army sex appeal cap.
Probably the greatest contribution the American advisers made to the new Japanese army was to bring dignity to the individual yobitai. As the Japanese NPR members told me themselves, military customs in the Imperial Army were purposely designed to demean the heitai and all juniors. The Imperial officers were deliberately arrogant and often sadistically mean. The difference was eloquently described by an NPR sergeant who told me, “I served in the old army. The yobitai, today, as an individual is treated like a human being. In the old army, I would describe the training as fierce in a barbarous sense. Officers and noncommissioned officers kicked and slapped the heitai around. The horse was often treated better than a soldier. My sergeant in the old army was a brute. He taught with his fist and boot. Today, I am a sergeant. I teach our yobitai from a manual and they discuss their instructions and ask questions.”
It is interesting how the past lives on, even reflecting upon a nation. During the Korean War, I visited a training center behind the front lines to observe new recruits being trained for the South Korean army. To my amazement, I saw a South Korean major brutally slap a young recruit several times in the face because the youngster wasn’t learning to shoot as rapidly as the officer thought he should. When the major stopped slapping, a sergeant punctuated the instruction with several well-aimed kicks to the young man’s behind. Puzzled at this brutality, I turned to an American adviser and asked, “What the hell is going on here?”
“Oh that’s nothing, Colonel,” answered my American escort. “I’ve seen a general slap the hell out of a colonel. They tell me they picked that up from the Japanese army when it occupied Korea.”
“And you’re not trying to stop it?” I ventured.
“Hell no, we’re fighting a war here you know.”
After this experience, I was determined that there would be no slapping in the NPR. To my surprise, on return to Japan I read in a Tōkyō paper (by translation) that an NPR captain had slapped and kicked a Japanese civilian on a streetcar because the citizen had not risen to offer his seat to the captain. Shocked at this apparent resurgence of military arrogance and brutality, I asked General Hayashi to come over to my office. When I related the incident, he was disturbed but informed me that he had been previously apprised of the slapping. “What are you doing about it?” I asked General Hayashi.
“We are investigating the incident,” he replied.
“That’s good,” I agreed. “You know, General Hayashi, we cannot tolerate this undemocratic and brutal behavior. Please tell me what action you propose to take after you investigate the matter.”
A week later, General Hayashi came in to report on the incident. He advised me that the investigation substantially confirmed the newspaper account. After considering all facets of the situation, General Hayashi said he was going to fine the captain two weeks’ pay.
I couldn’t hold back my indignation. “I don’t understand you, General,” I began. “This is a very serious incident. It is serious because what you do in this case will determine policy and behavior for the future. Is the Japanese Army going to become a viable military force of a democratic people, or are you going to permit the officers of the new force to slap, kick, and push your citizens and soldiers around?”
“But,” protested General Hayashi, “The captain comes from a very influential family.”
“So what, General?” I retorted. “Is his family, and is he, more important than the NPR? Is he more important than the dignity of an individual citizen? This captain doesn’t look to me like an officer and a gentleman.” When I finished, General Hayashi appeared shaken. Three days later, he came into my office with a smile on his face. “We are going to try it your way, Colonel,” he said. “The captain has been dismissed from the NPR.”
I was pleased, and so was General Hayashi, to note that several Japanese newspapers carried complimentary editorials congratulating NPR Headquarters for its dedication to democracy and concern for human dignity. They cited the dismissal of the captain as a fundamental difference in the attitudes of the old and new armies.
Like all people the world over, the yobitai appreciated being treated as human beings. We may have been slow in bringing a martial spirit back to Japan, but we did inspire a sense of individual dignity and respect for the person of the yobitai. As one of them said, we set an example that was taking root in the nation:
When I became a yobitai I was especially pleased by the concern our American advisers showed for us. About a week after I joined, I cut my leg severely. Having served in the old Japanese army, I bandaged it as best I could, and went about my duties. Our American adviser stopped me and when he saw my wound, he immediately took me in his jeep to an American doctor. Why, you would think I was a governor of a prefecture the way they treated me. I now find that our own officers and doctors follow the American example.
I found that the yobitai liked their training and appreciated the fundamental differences between the old and new methods and tactics. Some seemed to regret that the new army was not as tough and severe as the old, but they thought their time was used much more effectively. Transportation to and from rifle ranges and maneuver areas saved hours of laborious marching. And there were no silly drills as in the old army, fighting airplanes with bamboo sticks. As one of the sergeants commented, “We don’t charge around madly in the old days. Today we practice firepower and movement. Our officers are now concerned about keeping casualties down. In the old army, no one cared about the life of a soldier.”
Some, nevertheless, were critical that the yobitai had no one to hate. At best the enemy was identified as insurgents or rioters. And they missed the old bonds of comradeship of the old army. One yobitai remarked, “No matter how hard you quarreled and exchanged blows in the old army, we all felt a close affinity for each other. Friendships in the NPR are very thin.”
Periodically, the newspapers would criticize the leadership of the NPR. The criticism was in a great measure justified in the case of officers at the higher echelons. Most of these were either police officers or inexperienced civilians. But at the company and battalion levels, I found the young officers eager, alert, hardworking, and as professional as any young officers I have ever known.
I was in the field one day watching an NPR company in an infantry attack exercise. The young Japanese company commander was especially aggressive in pushing his troops. Just before they made their final assault on the objective, an American umpire came up to the company commander and said, “Captain, you are receiving withering machine gun fire from the enemy; you have lost about 30 percent of your men. What do you do?”
“I continue the attack, sir,” answered the young officer.
A little later, the American umpire approached the captain again and he said, “Your attack is stopped. Enemy artillery is falling on you. What do you do?”
“I fight here,” answered the company commander.
Once again the American umpire came up to the company commander. “Captain, you are under heavy artillery fire. Enemy attack planes are diving on you. What do you do now?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the captain answered, “I die here.” As a Japanese man, he was responding to a national conditioning that is deeply rooted in the people. There was no question in my mind that he would have died there whether he had on the Imperial uniform of the emperor’s army or the battle green of the NPR. As my trusted interpreter, Kitamura-san, once said, “Every Japanese has bushidō in him.”
There has remained also a unique spirit in the new Japanese army that has its roots deeply in the soul of a self-sacrificing peop
le. This spirit tends to surface in many diverse ways. It is Asian in source and cannot be understood by the Westerner. It assumed varied forms in the soldiers of new Japan.
A few weeks after the establishment of the NPR, a young yobitai met a tragic death emulating his samurai forebears. Before dying, he had carefully written a note to his village. In his letter, he related that disturbed by the hard life he and his family were forced to live after the defeat of his country, he had joined the Japan Communist Party. He worked diligently for communism, spreading propaganda against the Americans. But soon he became disillusioned with the communists. To pay for his infidelity, he volunteered for service in the NPR. He was amazed at the efforts of the Americans to make the new Japanese army an effective military force. He tried to emulate them and worked with all his heart and soul to be a useful soldier of Japan. But he was unhappy and unworthy. There was only one thing he could do to expiate his terrible crime against his family, his village, his nation, and the Americans. He decided to commit “hara-kiri,” otherwise known as seppuku.
When the company one morning went out to drill, he stayed behind in his barracks. He took a clean sheet from his bed and spread it on the barracks floor. Then, kneeling on the sheet before his ancestors and gods, he disemboweled himself. With his life oozing out, he scribbled his last words, “Makaasaa [MacArthur] Banzai!”
By October 1951, the purge was partially lifted and selected former army and navy officers began to be inducted into the NPR. At first, only captains were permitted to join. Later, commissions were offered to a limited number of majors and lieutenant colonels. Finally, the NPR opened to a few former colonels of the Imperial Army. At this point, some of the newspapers in Japan became deeply concerned. On October 15, 1951, an evening edition of one newspaper carried a piece under the heading “Revival of the Old Army.”
It is reported that now some of the purgees may participate in public life, former army and navy officers have been commissioned in the NPR. Since there are many outstanding men among the old officers, we raise no objection to their employment, recognizing their capacity to serve Japan well. Our only concern is that they shall not revive the old ideology and methods of commanding troops. In fact it would be terrible, if there remained such ideas in the minds of these officers. Indeed, if there are such men among those who have now joined the NPR, the future of the new army will certainly be contrary to the expectations of the nation. The new generation which fought colonial battles is gone. We cannot again tolerate an army of ignorant unscientific leaders who brought upon us the miserable defeat of World War II. The present generation would be mad to contemplate revival of a past age.
A year later, by the middle of October 1952, the new embryo army of Japan had completed its first phase. The National Police Reserve had been expanded and the name changed to the National Safety Force. The Asahi reported the event:
This was the day on which the National Safety Force was born. The men had gone to bed as yobitai. They assembled now for a review to commemorate the inauguration of the immediate phase of rearmament of Japan. The National Safety Force has at last assumed the role of a national defense force in name as well as substance. The original NPR which was organized to maintain peace and protect the nation against subversion from within has finally dropped its outer “police” garment and stands now in full armor. The men of the new force are beginning to assume the rugged features of the samurai—the defenders of Japan today.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CONFUSION AND CONFLICT
“Ambiguous” is perhaps the best word that can be used to describe the NPR in its formative days. I have already indicated that initially only a few Americans and the topmost leaders of the Japanese government really knew the true purpose of the organization. General MacArthur and the American Advisory Group conceived a broad general blueprint for the development of the force into an army, but this vague plan depended upon many uncertain factors: world opinion, Japanese reaction, availability of American weapons, and Prime Minister Yoshida’s mood. On the Japanese side, violent political forces pulled the cabinet and the government first in one direction then another. The Socialist Party and the splinter groups on the left held the government’s feet close to the fire, demolishing all the proposals for rearmament of the nation by raising the prohibition against war and war potential. Accordingly, officially and legally, Yoshida had no choice but to maintain that the NPR was a police force. Even as the organization was being equipped with artillery and tanks, government spokesmen steadfastly denied that Japan was rearming.
In every country of the world, governments officially deny what may be an obvious fact in order to avoid diplomatic embarrassments. But in Japan, the leaders of Yoshida’s administration, on the matter of the NPR, had to lie through their teeth to their own people and to their friends and opposition in the Diet. This created many critical and embarrassing situations in the country.
In the public double-talk that was so much a part of the history of Japanese rearmament, I was especially sympathetic with the role that Mitoru Eguchi, deputy director general of the NPR, played. An experienced governmental official, Eguchi participated in these political encounters as becomes a professional, never losing his equilibrium or fine sense of humor. After each interrogation, on returning to headquarters, he would come down to my office to advise me of the questions he had been asked and how he had answered them.
I gathered from these meetings that although the Communist Party members of the Diet were often obnoxious in their queries, neither Eguchi nor the government was disturbed by what the Communist Party said or did. The left Socialist Party, however, enjoying a strong following among the people and forming the core of the opposition, forced the government to run for cover every time its members began to ask questions about the NPR. With Socialists maintaining that the NPR was an army, established in violation of the constitution, their questions invariably generated unfavorable publicity in the press for the government. Typical of these encounters was an interrogation of Eguchi in a Diet hearing about a year after the organization of the NPR.
On that occasion, a Socialist Party member of the Diet was obviously looking for headlines. With Eguchi in the witness chair, he began, “According to the newspapers, the NPR is now armed with bazookas. If that is so, the NPR is an army. Why is it then camouflaging as a police organization and using the name of a police reserve? You are only trying to fool the people of Japan.”
Eguchi responded with the official Japanese government position: “The NPR is a police reserve. It was established to assist and support the nation’s police reserve. It is organized into units and equipped with weapons to provide necessary support for the police.”
But the Socialist interrogating was not to be shaken off the trail so easily. “If that is so, why don’t you teach the members of the NPR so-called police spirit which the others policemen are receiving? Why doesn’t the NPR send men to the Police College [Keisatsu Gakkō]?”
Eguchi continued his well-drilled answers, prepared with the care and logic of a politician in the United States. “The NPR, as a police reserve, is not responsible for supervising traffic or census taking. It is trained to operate in units. Therefore, it is not necessary to send individual NPR men to the police college for individual training as policemen.”
As the questioning proceeded, it developed that the Socialist Party member of the Diet was a citizen of the town of Takada in Niigata Prefecture. The NPR at that time was negotiating with local authorities there for the release of a tract of land that had been a former artillery range. Referring to these negotiations, the Socialist addressed himself to Eguchi: “I have been advised that your camp commander of Camp Takada has approached our local administration office and requested release of the former imperial army artillery training areas there. The camp commander said he needed the land in the very near future for artillery practice. Is the NPR going to have artillery?”
At the time he recounted the incident to me, Eguchi admitt
ed with a smile that the question floored him, and for a while, he didn’t know how to answer. Finally, he told the Diet committee that the camp commander was obviously not well informed or he was exaggerating the situation in order to make a good case for his request. The fact was, Eguchi informed his interrogator, no one in NPR Headquarters knew for sure whether the police reserve was to be armed with artillery. The key words in his answer were, of course, the words “for sure.”
At this point, the Socialist broke in: “Well, if the NPR is not getting artillery, it has no need for an artillery range and I’m going to tell the local administrator in Takada not to release the training area to the NPR.”
“No, don’t do that,” cried out Eguchi. “The NPR truly needs additional training areas.” Everyone in the hearing room laughed. No one was fooling all the people.
While these maneuvers were going on in the Diet, GHQ and the American Advisory Group were urgently pressing the Japanese government to expand its embryo army and to rewrite the defense ordinance to provide for a more effective military organization. By the end of 1951, the NPR had developed to the stage where we thought that it was ready to be equipped with artillery and tanks. The official statements of the prime minister, however, created some doubts about the government’s willingness to expose itself to further criticism from the opposition by accepting such obvious military weapons. Indeed, a police force armed with artillery and tanks would be an odd police organization even in Japan. Accordingly, it was suggested that I feel out Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi on the question of equipping the force with these heavy weapons.
A favorable opportunity presented itself during a social call I made on the director general one evening in his private railroad car while he was on an inspection visit in Hokkaidō. As we were all concerned about the constitutional question, I asked Mr. Masuhara and General Hayashi whether they thought that the constitution would have to be amended before the NPR could be converted and expanded into a modern military force.
An Inoffensive Rearmament Page 19
