Decisive Darkness: Part One – Majestic

by Paul Hynes

  By the end of 1945, American Gross National Product had amassed to 355 Billion Dollars, making half of the global economies overall GNP, favourable trade deals were secure in Latin America, and were being secured in Western Europe and the Middle East as countries began to recognise the growing American hegemony and the need for Dollars to rebuild their own shattered infrastructures. Coupled with the world’s largest Navy, the best equipped army, the most advanced air force and monopoly of the Atomic Bomb, a prosperous peace seemed not only possible, but secured.

  Nevertheless, the peace had not yet come. On August 14th, as Japanese surrender had been declared, it had all seemed to close, only to be cruelly snatched away by events in the Pacific War. Rejoice had turned to anger, drunken rioting broke out from the previous partying, individuals of East Asian appearance were assaulted and sometimes murdered, as if they were personally responsible for the Anami government. Unable to stage mass prosecutions, the vast majority of those involved would never face trial, a fact that would burn in the minds of East-Asian-Americans for decades to come.

  Vengeance against the Japanese double cross had been demanded, and it had been provided. Truman was applauded for his decisiveness in ordering the destruction of Kokura, the Mushroom Cloud towering over the city, was agreed to be a suitable response to the Japanese perfidy, many looked forward to the use of the next bomb,. With the government choosing to deliberately leave its people in the dark about the nature of Plutonium production, should the Japanese gain any insights themselves, many became impatient as to when the fourth bomb would be used, no response was given. Throughout September the American public read of the major British operations in South East Asia, and the daring Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, welcoming the critical defeats to Japan, but falling into a malaise at their own apparent inaction. If the Soviets had captured Japan’s northernmost island so easily, why couldn’t their own troops pull off the same fate? The reply that Japanese forces were concentrated in the south was a conclusive answer, however was one that fostered greater doubts in the minds of many Americans. If an invasion went ahead, would they be sending their boys into a meat grinder?

  The doubt lingered, as well as demands for something to be done other than an invasion, namely the destruction of Yamaguchi on October 15th. The public welcomed a fourth bombing, and overwhelmingly supported further atomic attacks, though reactions to the bomb were beginning to alter, it was no longer the war ending weapon that many had hoped that it would be, nor the weapon of righteous anger that it had been in the wake of the aborted Japanese surrender, it was simply yet another horrific weapon that the Japanese, and the war itself, could apparently withstand. Nonetheless it was hoped that if the bombs could be used continuously, rolled straight off the production line and on to Japan, the enemy would eventually break without a need for invasion. Impatience and dismay rose as the weeks went by without another atomic attack, or any large scale fire bombings for that matter, as the USAAF turned their attention towards strategic targets on Honshu and tactical targets on Kyushu, invasion seemed unnecessary yet Truman was pursuing it anyway, why? Did he simply want the glorious victory that a protracted campaign would not grant him? Was he more concerned about Japanese civilians than American boys?

  The delays caused by Typhoon Louise, an event itself which had been kept quiet, had left many hoping that an invasion was not going to be pursued after all. American troops continued to be transferred from Europe to the Pacific, but perhaps this was only in preparation for an occupation after Japanese surrender? It had been rumoured that another Atomic Bomb had not been sued against the Japanese because they were being stockpiled for one large knockout raid against several targets, and there was an element of truth to this, three bombs were going to be dropped on Japan simultaneously but it would not relieve those worried wives, parents, girlfriends, and family of the troops now making the final preparations before they stormed the beaches of Kyushu.

  Wartime censorship had been relaxed in some ways as the war appeared to wind down but if signs that any reporter knew that a third B-29 had left Tinian but had not come back appeared, the individuals in question quickly found themselves being reminded of their patriotic duty to not worsen the already declining morale of the American public and if they forgot they could expect to be charged for their seditious activities. They needn’t have bothered, the atomic attacks quickly slipped out of popular memory as Operation Majestic began in earnest.

  It was mid-Afternoon when news of the landings came, some cried, others cursed Truman and the military for sending American troops into an unnecessary quagmire however the majority of the American public acted much as they had when they first heard news of the invasion of Normandy, with a fervent determination to be calm about the whole situation, the initial reaction commonly being, "Well it's here at last." More news arrived in the following days, reporting the Japanese had massed their Kamikaze planes and boats as feared and that this had led to the deaths of thousands of American soldiers before they had even hit the beaches, the advance had been complicated by the terrain, Kamikaze harassment of supply, and the well dug in Japanese defenders who had proved hard to remove. Casualties continued to mount, the censors had to caution the papers that tried to show the mass of body bags and stretchers being loaded onto transport ships but it did not matter, as the days went by more American flags were presented to grieving families, the streets seemed filled with people wearing black, by early December a stranger bursting into tears on the bus was hardly given a second glance. The impression of an advance that was more or a crawl than a charge did not help morale. Older men compared the situation their experiences in the First World War, many began to wonder why Truman had chosen to throw America back in time when they had the weapon of the future at their disposal.

  On December 7th, 1945, four years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, mass vigils were held across the country, for the hundreds thousands of families who had lost sons, husbands and fathers, and for vast number who still had theirs in the field. Among the grieving and prayers, the discontent at the current situation was prevalent, it was noted more than once that ten times as many Americans had died in the invasion of Kyushu than had died during the Japanese attack that had motivated such anger four years ago, some commented in response that Truman’s actions had done more damage than Tojo’s. The majority present agreed with the policy of unconditional surrender their opposition not to the war itself, but the current policy of invasion. Surely the Japanese would break eventually if the blockade and atomic bombings were stepped up? Though able to see the glint of their candles outside, Truman was not concerned about these people, it was easy to be critical of military policy from the backseat, but they were fundamentally on side, for the moment.

  The minority were what he feared, those who favoured negotiating with the Japanese. If they agreed to leave Asia and demilitarise, not occupying their territory and allowing them to retain their political system seemed like a pretty square deal, especially if it took their sons out of the firing line. Truman had never put much stake in polling though the increasing public attraction towards this minority was beginning to become alarming. In August 1945, those who had favoured negotiating with the Japanese had only made up 10% of the population, now it was almost a quarter. What would happen if that number continued to rise? If the war was lost at home, how long could it continue across the Pacific?

  The reports of the anti-war vigils across the Pacific finally reached the Supreme War Council under the mountains of Matsushiro almost a week after the event. The hastily prepared translation of the AB Radiotjänst reporting of events had rather melodramatically exaggerated certain aspects of the Swedish account, such as when it had described the participants as “rioters” and the vigils as “anti-war rallies”, whether or not it had been done so deliberately did not matter to the Japanese Prime Minister who finally had some real progress to show to his detractors that the ‘Decisive Battle’ was proving to be successful despite their cowardly o
bjections.

  Though under normal circumstances many would have questioned how significant these events really were, it had been the first good news the Supreme War Council had had in quite a while. Their empire on the Asian mainland, the empire they had went to war to protect, collapse in front of their eyes with their dream of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere soon following in its wake. The Thais, Japan’s supposed allies, had made peace at the first sign of trouble and actively joined the enemy. Other than intern and punish the Thai civilians living and working within Japan, there was little Anami could do to respond as all of Japan’s presence in South East Asia evaporated. Indonesia remained nominally under their control but with the Japanese now wholly in hiding or at the bottom of the Pacific, it mattered little. Japan and her people were slowly beginning to transform.

  As the battles for Kyushu had raged on, it had been noticed that one of the more bizarre weapons in the Japanese arsenal had been taken out of commission. ‘Orphan Ann’, sometimes referred to as Tokyo Rose, and her propaganda radio show Zero Hour, had been off the air since late August. In their few moments of respite, many theories were entertained as to what her fate might have been. Some speculated that she had died in the bombing of Kokura theorising that the Radio Tokyo might have moved its operations to the relatively intact city of Kitakyuhsu had had been damaged heavily in the attack on the area, others pointed to the darker and more spiteful tone that Japanese propaganda broadcasts had adopted in the wake of the Anami coup, a few proposed that she had been directly involved in the change of Government and could now no long DJ as she was too busy running the country from the shadows in a role similar to Lady Macbeth.

  Regardless of plausibility, all of these theories were to be proven wrong. Iva Ikuko Toguri, as some had suspected due to her knowledge of knowledge of American culture and her accent, was a ‘Nisei’, a Japanese-American born in Los Angeles who had been visiting an ailing relative in Tokyo when the Japanese had struck at Pearl Harbour. Thereafter, like all Americans resident in Japan, she was declared to be an enemy alien and denied a ration card, rejecting the coercive attempts by the Japanese authorities to have her renounce her American citizenship.

  For almost two years she had worked at Radio Tokyo as a typist before being discovered by Colonel Charles Cousens, in 1943. An Australian Prisoner of War who had been a popular Sydney Radio Announcer before 1939, Cousens had been captured by the Japanese during the summer of 1942 and had revealed his former career during his interrogation in Tokyo, he had found himself being given the choice between making propaganda broadcasts for Allied troops or execution and had chosen the former out of desperation, working alongside other Press Ganged Allied prisoners in the propaganda show, [i]Zero Hour[/i]. When encouraged by his producers to find an American woman to be their ‘Axis Sally’ similar to those of the Germans and Italians, Cousens chose Toguri. In contrast to the authoritative lecturing of Mildred Gillars, or the seductive taunting of Rita Zucca, Cousens wanted a voice and attitude that sounded like a more realistic American woman and Toguri’s world weariness fit perfectly as ‘Orphan Ann’ (named after the popular musical that Toguri had been fond of as a child) became more popular with Allied troops than any of her other Axis counterparts.

  She had never let go of her American identity however, or her patriotism and had helped to smuggle food to Allied Prisoners in Tokyo when possible, an activity that Cousens and many of the other Allied members of Radio Tokyo had also participated in. Though some of the Japanese technicians had known about this, their regard for their forced colleagues and their basic humanitarianism had kept them from alerting the feared Kempetai. Their charity would be their undoing, the dawn of the Anami regime saw several very virulent official condemnations of ‘defeatist’ and ‘seditious’ elements in Japanese society. Due to its role in relaying Japan’s views to the enemy, the Radio Tokyo’s propaganda department had come under intense scrutiny. Out of fear for their own lives many admitted their suspicions and on August 20th, the Toguri was caught in the act of passing food across barbed wire fences late at night and was arrested on the spot. Shortly after [i]Zero Hour[/i] was shot down as the Allied Prisoners were imprisoned en masse for the crime of being enemy agents. Interned along with the starving prisoners she had tried to save, Toguri found herself being separated from her Portugese Husband and was moved along with several hundred other internees to the city of Niigata, where she would help make up one of the many highly visible human shields that were designed to dissuade the Americans from using their Atomic Bombs. With little shelter, or food, she sat frozen and hungry, waiting for the war to end in the knowledge that both sides now despised her.

  Her radio work had not all been in vain, in their exiled travels many Japanese communists had become fluent in English, and in helping the Maoist guerrillas develop their own propaganda had listened to the enemy’s in turn. With his own background being in propaganda, Sanzo Nosaka had been happy to entertain the idea of a ‘Sapporo Sae’ to help spread the Japanese revolution but he had not expected such an opportunity to be discovered begging in the refugee camps for Japanese settlers in Manchuria.

  Yamaguchi Yoshiko, also known as Li Xianglan, had been one of the most prominent celebrities across the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere thanks to both her singing and acting with her laid back, western-style music and her now and then satirical performances on film. Born as a Japanese settler in Manchuria, and with her role as a ‘Japan-Manchuria Goodwill Ambassadress’ she lacked a fan base in either the Kuomintang or the Chinese Communist Party, both of whom wanted to execute her for treason. Fully aware of this, she had been perhaps the only civilian to flee north as the Soviet Union had torn to pieces the Japanese rule in China that she had helped endorse in the belief that the Red Army would not be so unforgiving. Exchanging make-up with dirt and disguising herself as a peasant, she had successfully moved into Manchuria, where she heard the news that Japan had not in fact surrendered and found herself placed in a camp for Japanese settlers where they were told they would be returned to Japan when the war was over. Life in the camps were brutal as the Chinese guards exacted revenge for fourteen years of Japanese crimes, with their Soviet allies often turning a blind eye. As a beautiful woman she had felt particularly vulnerable and when men and women came recruiting for a better life in the Japanese People’s Emancipation League she had willingly accepted under a false alias to ensure that she would be out of China before a CCP guard noticed her and carried out the death sentence that Mao had put on the heads of all ‘Imperialist Collaborators’.

  Wary of accepting new collaborators into their movement, she had been cross-examined when she had arrived on Hokkaido and as her story had fell part under interrogation, she revealed who she truly was. Soon she was in front of Nosaka himself, who gave her two options, she could renounce her Imperialist actions by helping to make propaganda for the JPEL, or she could be handed over to the Chinese Communist Party. Thus as the Soviets bombarded Northern Honshu with Shells, they began to send another weapon over the Tsugaru Strait, Jazz.

  Banned on the Home Islands for its western influences during the war, the genre was reborn on Hokkaido as a collection of established Japanese and Soviet artists, some new found prodigies (Toshiko Akiyoshi had begun her career playing in a Soviet commandeered Bar) and by Yoshiko herself as she hosted the ‘The Three O'Clock You’, tempting Japanese troops and civilians to rise up with her news of Japanese feudalism and defeat, her promise of freedom and three meals a day, and her provision of banned but demonically catchy music that many on Honshu found hard not to listen to, especially due to the fact that she would sometimes inform listeners of where the Red Army planned to bomb or shell in her own affectionate manner.

  With most only knowing a few words of Japanese, the Red Army troops would often ignore the show as was officially encouraged. They did not need distractions, as they prepared to bring the revolution to Honshu far more directly.

  Whilst the Americans only held a sliver
of territory on southern Kyushu and the Anami government remained confident they could keep it that way, all of Hokkaido was now under the control of the treacherous Soviets, a defeat humiliating enough in itself for those who considered such territory to be sacred but also one that the ordinary Japanese soon felt the pain of.

  Before the war, Japan imported about 20% of her dominant food staple, rice, from Korea, Formosa, and South East Asia. The destruction of Japanese shortage through the American blockade and bombing of ports had reduced this to a trickle, no rice at all being imported from South East Asia after March 1944. The ambitious program of feeding the nation on domestic production alone, which had been laid down in January 1945 had fallen short, with a poor rice harvest only reaching 60% of the quota being met in the quarter January-March and even less by the Fall. Moreover, rice for the Armed Forces had been withdrawn in ever increasing quantities to ensure that the Decisive Battle would not be lost to starvation before the Americans arrived. This had left 40% less rice for civilian consumers than there had been when the war began with an even worse situation for those seeking meat, fish, or vegetables.

  As a result of the dwindling inventories of basic foods, the daily ration amounted to fewer than 1,500 calories, about 65% of the minimum Japanese standard for the maintenance of health and work efficiency. This was not a starvation diet, although malnutrition began to grow steadily as people tried to bolster their diet with insects, worms, and soups made out of grass and acorns. When the Soviets had invaded Hokkaido, only 5% of Japan’s large population inhabited the island, with the rest of the area being covered with farmland that had accounted for around 25% of Japans agricultural production. As the Japanese glared at their Soviet enemy from across the Tsugaru Strait, it was evident that no further shipments would be coming from the island, something they were constantly reminded of by the large howitzers the Soviets had placed in the southern tip of Hokkaido.