by Paul Hynes
The Japanese philosopher Motoori Norinaga once stated that the human world keeps growing and developing while continuously changing through an eternity of history granted by the divine edict of Amaterasu, of whom Hirohito claimed ancestry. In its view history is not a line but instead adheres to a cyclical approach, according to which there is a constant recurrence of events, in this it was only natural that the tribulations of the Sengoku era, where the Shoguns had enfeebled the Emperor only to bring misery upon themselves, were to repeat themselves.
Though he had never dared use the title, the months preceding the August coup had seen the Anami regime take greater control of what was left of the Japanese war effort than ever before, with the Emperor in whose name they claimed to fight reduced to little more than a fragile ornament, as ineffectual as the evacuated the regalia that adorned his quarters in the Matsushiro Imperial Headquarters. Though they lived in close proximity in the tunnel fortress, Anami and Hirohito rarely interacted, and with the Emperor now effectively banned from meetings of the Supreme War Council, his news of the war was little better than that received by the Japanese populace, where worrying repetitions of exaggerated American casualty figures and promises of imminent victory offered only agonised frustration for the man who had seen the hopelessness of the situation months beforehand. The optimistic declaration that the American advance had been “halted” in Kyushu was of little comfort to one knowledgeable of Japan’s defensive plans. Now the streets of Tokyo were once again full of troops declaring their undying loyalty to the Emperor but the grandeur and might of the ceremony had vanished, as malnourished men and women pulled streetcars to block streets, whilst tanks which could not be spared fuel were fashioned into static emplacements.
It had been clear to the Emperor that the end was near, it had been made abundantly clear when he had still been able to receive access to real information that if the battle for Kyushu failed to be the decisive victory required then there was little chance of finding it when the Americans landed on Honshu. The aborted coup had given him a fleeting hope that the war might end without the need for the final sacrifice of Japanese youth but it had become apparent that this was wishful thinking. It now seemed like the cyclical nature of events had been proven once again, the Anami regime would see to it that it got the glorious slaughter that they had salivated over ever since defeat had become inevitable. Unfortunately for the living God, he had failed to grasp which stage of the cycle that his own destiny occupied.
The Shinto religion headed by the Emperor does not have the concept of the "last day": there is no end of the world or of history. In acknowledgement of the cyclical nature of events, the followers of the Shinto faith stress naka-ima or "middle present", to define the unfolding of history as told by the ancient Imperial edicts of the 8th century. According to this point of view, the present moment is the very centre in the middle of all conceivable times, not only the mortal realm. In this sense it has been considered that the death of God would have its own form of repetition.
The decision of the Japanese government to evacuate its Prime Minister before its Emperor was telling of how the mighty had fallen, yet the strength of their reverence, or at least of those now responsible for the Emperor’s safety, remained powerful enough to instil panic when word came of the swarm of American bombers that were approaching the mountain fortress. The decision over what to do was not aided by this temporary state of anomie, only heightened by news that the attempted aerial interception had failed. The Matsushiro he fortress was designed to survive impacts from ten ton Allied bombs, it could theoretically have survived even a large bombing raid unscathed, yet the possibility of a nuclear bombardment was not once that been taken into consideration during the initial planning. Nonetheless it was also hard to gauge to what area the bomb’s blast would cover in a mountainous environment, and whether an evacuation, either by car or small plane, would be able to cover the distance in enough time with the bombers only moments away.
Thus the decision rested on the former option, as the Emperor, his wife, Empress Kōjun, their young sons Akihito, and Masahito, and the barely older daughters, Atsuko, Kazuko, and youngest of them all, Takako, sat together underneath Mount Minakami where they had dwelled in their effective house arrest for months. As Bock’s Car appeared over the mountain his protectors realised to their dread that the other bombers indeed broken away leaving the signature three of an Atomic attack one that would fall in the valley between the Minakami and Zōzan mountains. Usually such a target would be avoided due to the Mountains absorbance of the blasts energy, such as they had in Nagasaki. With hollowed out tunnels underneath these mountains, it was an effect that was now being relied upon.
Had the construction of the tunnelling system differed, those sheltering underneath the mountains may yet have survived yet the rushed construction using forced labourers had ensured that the facility protecting the Emperor would not meet the standards that its architects had promised. As the mountains shuddered, the concrete interior began to dust, then crack, as the doors of the complex began to contort from the intense heat, before buckling under the blast Under the miniature earthquake the situation inside the Imperial residence would have become one of fire and falling brick as smoke filled the rooms. Whether the charred remains of the Imperial Family died from the carbon monoxide before their bodies had burned has often been left to the interpretation of those describing the event.
For those of the Shinto faith, the burial of Izanami-no-Mikoto was always doomed to repeat itself.
Many had also considered Nagano sacred. In the middle of the mountainous centre of Japan, with little strategic nor economic importance, the city only made sense as a location that the vast migratory wave of refugees would flock to in an attempt to find safety from the meticulous bombings of the rest of the Home Islands.
The Japanese government was not blind to this reality and even before large scale American bombing had begun from bases in Saipan, evacuations to the city where already underway, the first to come where Tokyo schoolboys in the late summer of 1944. These children were largely welcomed into the local community, a situation aided by the fact that they were provided with their own food and their own lodgings. As the bombing worsened, individuals with neither food nor shelter began to appear in the city in the tens of thousands, with the population facing their own shortages this was viewed nowhere near as warmly, refugees often found themselves having to make do with what they had taken with them and as the situation grew increasingly desperate, instances of theft and resultant disturbances increased exponentially. As the cities final evacuees appeared in the form of the Imperial family and their entourage, they were moved stealthily through a city on the brink of a war with itself.
The city had been chosen to be the location for the Imperial Redoubt not only because of relatively unmolested rail and road links it had to the mountains that the fortress would be built under but also due to the Japanese governments view of the population as relatively simple people who could be kept in the dark about the Emperor’s presence nearby. In reality it would prove impossible to keep the nature of the VIP’s under the mountains secretive, as Imperial Regalia was moved under the city, alongside Government civil servants and increasing numbers of troops. The fact that Nagano had become the political and military centre of Japan was a poorly kept secret amongst the local population, despite the rigorous actions of the Kempetai in ensuring that it would never be spoken aloud publicly.
Though there had been fears that such information might cause civil disturbance, the population would show a remarkable amount of calm whilst living in close proximity to such a large potential target. Due to what little flak guns and aircraft produced going to the front, the air defence of Japanese cities had been worse than ever in the late months of 1945 with Allied aircraft effectively flying without opposition as they attacked targets on the Japanese mainland, as such Nagano’s new level of importance gave citizens a sense of security in a nation where there were few truly safe places, a r
eality that made it all the more attractive for the population to remain inside the city. The presence of various elites also ensured that Nagano was provided with a larger importation of food than most Japanese cities, some of which inevitably trickled down to civilians, whilst the army began to control the number of evacuees entering the city preventing riots that many in the city had feared were inevitable.
Life was hungry and hard but the citizenry slept at night with a security that few others could enjoy, that when the sun rose they would still be alive and that the roof over their heads would remain. The events of February 20th are still referred to today by some Japanese as the ‘National Nightmare’, yet as the sun rose for a second time from the mountains was very much a living torment.
As the tunnels that had housed the remnants of Japan’s governmental and military hierarchies shuddered and collapsed, the Atomic fire came spilling out of the mountainous valley to claim its first victims. The population of Matsushiro was made up largely of civilians despite the significant military presence around the Imperial Fortress, yet Atomic warfare offered no distinction to those who screamed in horrific oblivion as their eyes burned in their sockets and their skin melted from their bones.
The subsequent blast tore the weak construction of the Matsushiro district to pieces, carrying the burned and blinded along with it. Those who had survived the initial heat were now grievously wounded by both the sheer force of blast as well as the terrific heat that accompanied it's wave, as the large parks that surrounded the region were set alight, the looming firestorm surged towards those able to walk, in terror they began to stagger towards the banks of the Chikuma, first to drink as the flames grew around them, before attempting to cross to what they prayed would be a safe haven.
Ever since they had been informed that the Emperor and the Government would be relocating to the outskirts of the city, it had become clear to the city fathers of Nagano that their city might become a target for a heavy bombing campaign. As such plans had been put in place to ensure that a heavy bombing of Mastsushiro would not spread to the rest of city, in doing this however they failed to gauge both the physical and the psychological effects of a nuclear attack.
Japanese civil defence usually operated on the mantra of fight over flee, that civilians should not attempt to evacuate themselves from the fires but actively participate in their containment, this strategy relied upon a solidarity that had already been complicated by the tensions between the indigenous citizens and the refugees from outside the city, as well as a struggle to pass on planning of an expected attack whilst also maintaining that the Emperor was not present in the city. Though these weaknesses may have been weathered ordinarily, the pain of physical blindness and often being blown off one’s feet, only to recover vision to see the looming presence that had featured in American propaganda leaflets and the horror stories of refugees from Yamaguchi and Hiroshima, in the shadow of the Mushroom Cloud the city descended into a panic. The grow rumbled underneath the feet of those now attempting to get as far as possible from the promised ‘Atomic Sickness’ and the flames crossing over from the side of river, carried by debris and the shambling victims whose burns were set alight once more by the blaze.
When the carbon-dioxide content of inhaled air is greater than 30 per cent, it causes diminished respiration, fall of blood pressure, coma, loss of reflexes and anaesthesia. For many of the firemen struggling to cope with the nausea of temporary blindness, many found themselves in the midst of clouds of smoke preceding the fires they had been readied to fight. As the carbon-monoxide content of inhaled air exceeded 1.28 per cent, civilians and fire crew who stayed near the burning front spreading across the city. The population began to flee in a confused riot, as they fought first strangers and then their neighbours in the hope of escape. Across the city the fires spread, untended by the screaming mass of mankind who had chose to try to escape rather than defend homes infected with the whispered rumours of Atomic Sickness that would surely damn them if they didn't attempt to get out.
By the next, the safe haven for over a million people was now so much rubble, amongst the screams for loved ones missing or for the few with medical experience to tend to their wounds, few speculated over the fates of those who had governed the country under the now blackened mountains.
Enshrouded in the rhetoric of militarism, professionalism and elitism, the adherents of the cult of the armed junta that dominated late-Showa period Japan may have liked to see themselves as a strategic mechanism, designed to cultivate feelings of loyalty and emotion that would serve as future pioneers and defenders of empire and its holy sovereign. As the news from Nagano arrived in Tokyo headquarters of the First General Army, with the rumblings of Allied bombs echoing from above, it is a testament to this arrogance that few came to the conclusion that they had utterly failed to meet their delusions. Yet not all were so blind to reality.
The term used to designate the death of the emperor and which may not be used for anybody besides the emperor is borrowed from the word within the Chinese vocabulary, Hōgyo, meaning 'the collapse'.
Or, in its literal form; crumbling, as of a mountain.
Whilst it had been noted that something was wrong when ‘Tokyo’ Radio, which had been moved to Nagano along with many other government ministries, stopped broadcasting abruptly, the sight of a Mushroom Cloud arising over the mountains only came to Tokyo hours after the event and it would take several hours further to confirm that the blackened husks of the mountains which had surrounded the impact around the still burning city could not possibly be harbouring any life.
Those who had feared that Anami was secretly plotting all along to kill the Emperor to install himself in the position were now at their greatest moment of anxiety and had the General chosen to announce such intentions it’s quite possible that he would have faced yet another coup that might have ended the war there and then. Instead he gave little reaction when receiving the news in the middle of a briefing on the continuing transports of chemical shells to the expected American landing zones. With little grace and great exertion he wheeled himself from the strategic briefing room to his private quarters.
In the historiography of Japan’s penultimate wartime Prime Minister, the events that followed have been subject to several different interpretations. It could be argued that the great shame he felt at having failed to protect his Emperor had become overbearing. Others have argued that he had finally come to the realisation that the chain of events he had set in motion were now inescapable by any mortal action, especially as he now sat crippled at a table of younger men who still hoped that he would lead them to the final victory. Emperor Meiji had left Japan dominant over China and triumphant over Russia. He now faced a legacy of Chinese victory, the Russian occupation of Japanese soil and the Imperial Family buried under the crumbling mountains meant to only ever be allegorical. Within the reality of this fact, he had only one honourable outlet left.
There was an inherent tradition within the act. The last mention of suicides of senior subjects at the death of an Emperor would go back to the 5th century and its authenticity is not above serious doubt. On the other hand, the custom of suicide at the death of their lord was en vogue with Japanese military's Samurai descendants until it was severely repressed at the beginning of the 18th century, with threats of reprisals on the families of those who would thus commit suicide. Yet Anami had no-one to suffer his mistakes, other than the nation.
Aides, believing their commander to be in deep meditation in the wake of the appalling news, nonetheless sought to disturb him with reports that several Kamikaze airfields were choosing to throw themselves at the aircraft of the American and British Fleets currently bombarding the coast out of fear that they would soon be destroyed by Allied bombing. They wished to know what orders should be given, was there logic in such a pre-emptive strike?
From the formerly booming voice of exaltation came only a mixture of gasps and gargles, as the white cloth tied around the General’s chest slo
wly stained red from the protruding blade. His words were barely intelligible but were thankfully recorded by a witness for posterity.
"I—with my death—humbly apologise to the Emperor for the great crime.”
Decisive Darkness will continue in Part 2 – Coronet.
Also available from Sea Lion Press
The Curse of Maggie Tom Anderson
Since 1979 just four men and one woman have occupied Number Ten Downing Street and the office that comes with it, all but one serving for many years. But things could have been different. By contrast, since that same year of 1979, Japan has changed its Prime Minister 14 times and Italy 22 times. What if we lived in a world where Britain was just as much a land of mayfly Prime Ministers as those countries, where no-one since Margaret Thatcher has successfully held the office of Prime Minister for a full five-year parliamentary term? A world where one might almost think that Number Ten was… cursed.
The Curse of Maggie is the tale of another history, a history where our memories of the last three decades are hauntingly familiar yet subtly different, their events shaped by the decisions of many more men and women at the apex of power — but never for very long.
Available now.
Fight and Be Right Ed Thomas
Winston Churchill remains one of the most famous figures in modern history.
But if you had asked about Churchill in the late nineteenth century, another political giant would come to mind, one almost entirely forgotten today. Like Winston, he had the ability to coin a memorable phrase and make a great speech; like Winston, he was also a mercurial opportunist with a fondness for drink who delighted in irritating his more genteel colleagues.
Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston’s father, had all of his son’s gifts, perhaps even more; but on the few occasions when history remembers him at all, it is as a tragic figure who died early and never quite fulfilled his vast potential.
