Wait for a good opportunity in the European war situation, particularly collapse of mainland England, ending of the German-Soviet war, and success of our policies toward India.
…[S]trengthen diplomatic and propaganda measures vis-a-vis various countries in South America, Sweden, Portugal, and the Vatican. Conclude separate agreements with Germany and Italy not to make unilateral peace…. [F]ind ways to avoid immedi ately concluding peace with Britain at the time of its surrender, and immediately take measures that will force Britain to induce the United States [to make peace].
The document is reproduced in full in Yamada Akira, ed., Gaik shiry: kindai Nihon no bch to shinryaku (Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1997), p. 355.
83. Yamada Akira, Daigensui Shwa tenn (Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1994), p. 156.
84. Ibid., p. 156, citing Shwa jroku nen js kankei shorui tsuzuri, dai ikkan. At Okehazama in Central Honsh in 1560 the first of the great unifiers of Japan, Oda Nobunaga, defeated a much larger opponent and opened the path to a new national hegemony. The penchant for discussing their modern “total war” with analogies from feudal and prefeudal history was widely shared among Japanese officers.
85. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 921.
86. Kimitsu sens nisshi, entry of Nov. 4, 1941, p. 194. For their questions and answers, see Sugiyama memo, j, pp. 388–406.
87. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei rikugunbu: Dai T’A sens kaisen keii (5) (1974), pp. 338–39.
88. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 129.
89. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai nikan, kaisen (Ryokuf Shuppan, 1988), p. 265.
90. Nobutake Ike, trans. and ed., Japan’s Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences (Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 204; James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), p. 155.
91. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 921. Having registered in his diary the imperial conference of Nov. 5, Kido could only play down its significance when later questioned about it by American investigators after the war. Tj repeatedly denied the very existence of the Nov. 5 conference. When finally cornered, he lied again about its contents. Hirohito simply omitted all mention of it in his “Monologue.” The prosecutors at the Tokyo tribunal had great difficulty grasping the full import of this key meeting. See: “Case File No. 20, Tj Hideki.” in Awaya, Yoshida, eds., Kokusai kensatsu kyoku (IPS) jinmon chsho, dai gokan (Nihon Tosho Cent, 1993), pp. 108, 134; and the Tj interrogations of March 12 and 15, 1946, in Kokusai kensatsu kyoku (IPS) jinmonchsho, dai gokan.
92. Yoshida, Nihonjin no senskan, pp. 178–79; Senshi ssho: Rikukaigun nenpy, fu-heigo, ygo no kaisetsu (1980), p. 85.
93. Sugiyama memo, j, p. 431.
94. Sud Shinji, Haru nto o kaita otoko: Nichi-Bei kaisen gaik to “yuki” sakusen (Bungei Shunj, 1999), p. 176.
95. Moriyama, Nichi-Bei kaisen no seiji katei, pp. 222–25.
96. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai nikan, p. 256, citing Sugiyama memo, j, p. 536.
97. Ibid. , pp. 259–260, citing Sugiyama memo, j, p. 535 and Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 926–27.
98. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 928. Vol. 3 of Prince Takamatsu’s diary contains no entries for the crucial seventeen days from Nov. 14 to 30, 1941. Calling attention to this fact, editor Akagawa Hiroyuki asks whether Takamatsu or someone else destroyed this portion of the diary. “We investigated, and it didn’t seem as though it was deliberately removed, but still the true reason for these missing entries remains unknown.” TN, dai sankan (Ch Kronsha, 1995), pp. 422–23.
99. Ike, Japan’s Decision for War, p. 279; Sud, Haru nto o kaita otoko, p. 180.
100. Ike, Japan’s Decision for War, p. 279.
101. Sud, Haru nto o kaita otoko, pp. 188–189. Japan’s actions in Manchuria were an established fact neither Hull nor Roosevelt wanted to question for fear of immediately precipitating war.
102. Sugiyama memo, j, p. 542; Ike, Japan’s Decision for War, p. 282. Here I have generally followed Ike’s translation.
103. Ike, Japan’s Decision for War, p. 283. I have made slight alterations to Ike’s translation; Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn dai nikan, p. 287.
104. Sugiyama memo, j, p. 543; Ike, Japan’s Decision for War, p. 283. Kido, in his diary entry, simply stated that, “At 2:00 P.M. the imperial conference convened and war against the United States was finally decided upon by the emperor. At 4:30 the prime minister visited me and we conferred about the imperial rescript declaring war.” Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 931.
105. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn dai nikan, p. 291, citing Rikugunbu kaisen keii 5, p. 517.
106. Inoue, Tenn no sens sekinin, p. 181.
107. Cited in Okabe Makio, “Ajia taiheiy sens no kaisen tetsuzuki,” in Kikan sens sekinin kenky 8 (Summer 1995), p. 29.
108. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, entries of Dec. 5, 6, 1941, p. 932; Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn dai nikan, pp. 361–63.
109. Okabe, “Ajia taiheiy sens no kaisen tetsuzuki,” pp. 29–30.
110. The opening line of the Senjinkun, adopted in Jan. 1941, read: “The battlefield is where the Imperial Army, acting under the imperial command, displays its true character, conquering whenever it attacks, winning whenever it engages in combat, in order to spread KD [the Imperial Way] far and wide so that the enemy may look up in awe to the august virtues of his majesty.”
111. J nikki, p. 119. The most credible version of Hirohito’s reaction to the Roosevelt letter is in Prince Takamatsu’s diary. On Dec. 10, 1941, Takamatsu recorded Hirohito telling him that the letter from Roosevelt came through Grew and that “We answered [Grew] just as we have been saying in government-to-government talks. What a meaningless thing to come and tell us.” Takamatsu then added that “because the media was distracted by the president’s letter on the night of the seventh, it helped conceal our military operation.” The least trustworthy version is Hirohito’s “Monologue” account, which blames Tg for his nonreply:
I knew beforehand…that a telegram would probably be coming to me by short-wave from Roosevelt; but it didn’t come. I was wondering what had happened…when, finally, at 3 A.M. on December 8, Tg [Shigenori] brought it to me. I understand that Ambassador Grew sought an audience so that he could hand it to me personally. I wanted to answer this presidential telegram but Tg said that already on the 6th “Two of our submarines were sunk off the coast of Hawaii; it is better not to answer now.” At his suggestion, I decided not to reply.
TN, dai sankan, p. 333; and STD, pp. 77–78.
112. J nikki, pp. 119–20.
CHAPTER 12
THE ORDEAL OF SUPREME COMMAND
1. The United States annually produced twelve times the steel, five times the amount of ships, one hundred and five times the number of automobiles, and five and a half times the amount of electricity that Japan did at the time it attacked Pearl Harbor. Yamada Akira, Gunbi kakuch no kindaishi: Nihongun no kakuch to hkai (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1997), pp. 219–20; Abe Hikota, “Dai T’A sens no keisuteki bunseki,” in Kondo Shinji, ed., Kindai Nihon sensshi, Dai T’A sens (Tokyd Shuppan, 1997), p. 824.
2. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 999–1000.
3. J nikki, p. 139.
4. Ibid., p. 218.
5. Ibid., p. 235. This entry, for Jan. 28, 1943, refers to a secular, not a religious, ceremony that dates from Jan. 24, 1869, the second year of the Meiji restoration, when the “tradition” was first introduced of using the ancient lyric poetry to tie the modern monarchy firmly to the past, and to the emperor’s subjects. It also serves as a reminder that the commander in chief was expected to be a poet.
6. Ibid., p. 293. June 30 and Dec. 31 were “Grand Purification” days, when Hirohito donned special garments made of white silk and flax in order to perform rites that wiped away the crimes “committed unintentionally by the nation.” See Ihara Yoriaki, Hoz, kshitsu jiten (Toyamab, 1938), p. 194.
7. Abe, “Dai T’A sens no keisuteki bunseki,” p. 839.
8. As of late Sept. 1943, the Imperial Army had only five of its seven
ty divisions in the Pacific—almost all of them in the south and southwest, where it had deployed about two hundred thousand light infantry troops. Until the last year of the war, despite the overwhelming fire-power that Allied forces concentrated against them, the army failed to abandon the doctrine of hand-to-hand combat. It neither drew new lessons from defeat nor restructured itself to cope with the kind of war it was actually fighting. Instead, as the war dragged on, the army reduced the size of its divisions while failing to increase either their fire-power or mobility; and it continued to underestimate American and British fighting capability. Thus everywhere the Japanese army fought, it dispersed rather than concentrated its forces, and threw in troops only as they were needed. See Abe, “Dai T’A sens no keisuteki bunseki,” pp. 830, 845, and chart 41 on p. 850; Yamada, Gunbi kakuch no kindaishi: Nihongun no kakuch to hkai, pp. 209, 221.
9. Nakao Yji, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” in Gunjishi Gakkai, ed., Dainiji sekai taisen (3), Gunji shigaku 31, nos. 1 & 2 (Sept. 1995), p. 110.
10. Senshi ssho: rikukaigun nenpy, fu heigo ygo no kaisetsu (1980), p. 104; Shiry Chsakai, ed., Daikairei: kaisetsu (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1978), p. 122; see also the interpretation of these moves in Nakao, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” p. 110.
11. Shiry, Daikairei, kaisetsu, p. 97.
12. Sugiyama memo, ge, pp. 81–82, cited in Nakao, pp. 110–11. The policy document was entitled “Kongo torubeki sens shid no taik” (Outline for conducting future war guidance). Its third item stated: “We will decided on concrete measures for more positive war guidance after giving consideration to our national power, changes in operations, the war situation between Germany and the Soviet Union, U.S.–Soviet relations, and trends in Chungking.”
13. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 180.
14. Ibid., p. 181.
15. Kita Hiroaki, Gunritsu htei: senjika no shirarezaru “saiban” (Asahi Sensho, 1997), pp. 53–54.
16. HSN, p. 376; Kita, Gunritsu htei: senjika no shirarezaru “saiban,” pp. 54–55.
17. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 185; Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, pp. 135–38.
18. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 136, citing Senshi ssho: Shwa 17, 18 nen no Shina hakengun, n.p. On the Gog operation see also Senshi ssho: Dai hon’ei rikugunbu, 5, Shwa j shichi nen jnigatsu made, pp. 76–81.
19. Yamada Akira, “Nihon fuashizumu ni okeru dagekiteki gunjiryoku kensetsu no zasetsu: Nihon kaigun kkheiryoku no tokuch oyobi sono hkai no gunjiteki yin,” Jinbun gakuh, Tokyo Toritsu Daigaku Jinbun Gakubu 199 (Mar. 1988), p. 104, citing Senshi ssho: Nant hmen kaigun sakusen (1) (1971), pp. 272, 284, 288, 294, 319.
20. Tanaka Nobumasa, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, dai sankan: hkai (Ryokuf Shuppan, 1986), pp. 203–4. Citing only Japanese sources, Tanaka estimates U.S. losses in the Battle of Midway at 354 dead, of whom 210 were pilots.
21. Sugiyama memo, ge, pp. 130–31. At the liaison conference of June 10, the navy reported only one aircraft carrier sunk, one missing, and one heavily damaged.
22. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 966–67.
23. Nakao, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” p. 111.
24. “Commentary” by Nomura Minoru in J nikki, p. 8. J served as a naval aide to Hirohito from Nov. 15, 1940, to Jan. 19, 1944.
25. Ibid., pp. 288–92.
26. Ibid., pp. 6–7.
27. Ury Tadao, “Kokusaku eiga, Nihon nysu shshi,” in Bessatsu Ichiokunin no Shwashi: Nihon nysu eiga shi (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1977), p. 522.
28. J nikki, pp. 142–43.
29. Ibid., p. 159.
30. Ibid., pp. 142–44.
31. Ibid., p. 144.
32. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 949.
33. Nakao, “Dai T’A sens niokeru bsei teni chien no yin,” pp. 112-13; Jo Eiichiro’s diary.
34. J nikki, pp. 149, 151–53.
35. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 196. Just as Japanese war planners in late 1941 and again in late 1942 underestimated American industrial and military capacity, so they erred in seriously overestimating Germany’s industrial capacity. According to historian Abe Hikota, the Army General Staff estimated that Germany in Oct. 1942 was producing monthly 2,000 tanks and and 3,000 airplanes, when its actual production in Dec. 1942 was only 760 tanks and 1,548 planes. The general staff was off by factors of 2.6 on tanks and about 1.9 on airplanes. See Abe, “Dai T’A sens no keisuteki bunseki,” p. 853.
36. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 970.
37. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 196, citing “Yhei jik ni kanshi sj,” July 11, 1942 (unpublished).
38. Senshi ssho: Dai hon’ei rikugunbu 5 (1973), p. 350.
39. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, pp. 198–99.
40. Domon Shhei, Tatakau tenn (Kdansha, 1989), p. 61.
41. Ibid., p. 63.
42. Nakao, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” p. 118, citing It Shtoku, Teikoku rikugun no saigo—kessen ed. (Kadokawa Bunko, 1973), p. 25.
43. Tg Shigenori, Jidai no ichimen: taisen gaik no shuki (Kaizsha, 1952), pp. 294, 298.
44. Ibid., pp. 296–97; Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 980–81, entry of Sept. 1, 1942. Tj did not relinquish the foreign ministership until Hirohito appointed Shigemitsu Mamoru to that post on Apr. 20, 1943. After leaving office, Tg turned against Tj and advised the senior statesmen and the court entourage during 1943 to force Tj to step down. Tg Shigenori, Gaik shuki (Hara Shob, 1967), p. 314.
45. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 203; Grace P. Hayes, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II: The War Against Japan (Naval Institute Press, 1982), p. 190.
46. Ugaki Matome, Senmoroku (Hara Shob, 1968), p. 224.
47. Ibid., p. 224.
48. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 205.
49. Domon, Tatakau tenn, p. 65.
50. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, pp. 199, 201.
51. Ibid., p. 201.
52. Ibid., p. 202.
53. Nakao, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” p. 119, citing Senshi ssho: Minami Taiheiy rikugun sakusen (2) (1969), p. 444.
54. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 207.
55. Ibid., p. 218.
56. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 999; J nikki, p. 218; Domon, Tatakau tenn, p. 68.
57. Senshi ssho 63, daihon’ei rikugunbu (5) (1973), p. 561.
58. Nakao, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” p. 119, citing Imoto Kumao, Sakusen nisshi de tsuzuru Dai T’A sens (Fuy Shob, 1979), p. 275.
59. Right after the imperial headquarters conference ended, Hirohito reportedly told Sugiyama, “I was thinking of bestowing an imperial rescript if they could recapture Guadalcanal. What do you think? The officers and men fought hard and suffered. So why not grant them an imperial rescript. If I do grant one, when would be the best time?” The rescript was granted on January 5, 1943, but not publicized. See Boei Kenshjo Senshishitsu, “Senshi shiry riku dainig (Nant hmen sakusen shiry): Sanada Jichir shsh shuki, June 25, 1956,” p. 19.
60. Ibid., pp. 18–19. These are Sanada’s handwritten notes, based on his diary, of the circumstances leading up to the imperial decision to withdraw from Guadalcanal.
61. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, pp. 213–14.
62. Charles W. Koburger, Jr., Pacific Turning Point: The Solomons Campaign, 1942–1943 (Praeger, 1995), p. 75.
63. J nikki, p. 235; Koburger, Pacific Turning Point, p. 78.
64. Senshi ssho: Nant hmen kaigun sakusen (3): Ga totesshugo (1976), p. 106.
65. Koburger, Pacific Turning Point, p. 90. U.S. losses on New Georgia were about one thousand killed and four thousand wounded.
66. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 140, citing Sat Kenry, “Dai T’A sens kaikoroku.”
67. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 1020.
68. Kido Kichi kankei bunsho, pp. 128–29.
69. Sugiyama memo, ge, “Kaisetsu,” pp. 20–21. The briefings were held on June 6 and 7.
70. Ibid., p. 21.
71. Yamada, “Shwa te
nn no sens shid: jh shka to sakusen kanyo,” in Kikan: sens sekinin kenky 8 (Summer 1995), p. 20.
72. For the full exchange at the Aug. 5, 1943, audience, see Sugiyama memo, ge, “Kaisetsu,” pp. 24–25.
73. Nakao, “Dai T’A sens ni okeru bsei teni chien no yin,” p. 120, citing “Sanada Jichir shsh nikki” (unpublished).
74. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, pp. 240–42, citing Daihon’ei kaigunbu, reng kantai (4), pp. 493–94.
75. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei rikugunbu 7: Shwa jhachinen jnigatsu made (1973), p. 148.
76. Ibid., pp. 158–59.
77. Sugiyama memo, ge, p. 471.
78. Ibid., pp. 471–472.
79. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p, 239.
80. For the draft made at the Imperial Headquarters Government Liaison Conference on September 25, 1943, and adopted five days later at the imperial conference, see Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei rikugunbu (7), Shwa jhachi nen juni gatsu made (1973), p. 185, Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 242; and for the full text of the Sept. 30, 1943, policy document (“Kongo torubeki sens shid no taik”) see Yamada, ed., Gaik shiry kindai Nihon no bcho to shinryaku (Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1997), pp. 373–74.
81. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 242.
82. J nikki, p. 324.
83. Harry A. Gailey, Bougainville 1943–1945: The Forgotten Campaign (University Press of Kentucky, 1991), p. 3.
84. J nikki, p. 341.
85. J nikki, “Kaidai,” pp. 19–20.
86. Stephen Taaffe, MacArthur’s Jungle War: the 1944 New Guinea Campaign (University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 3, 53.
87. Inaba Masao, “Shiry kaisetsu” and “Tj rikus no sanb sch kennin keii” in Sugiyama memo, ge, p. 31.
88. Ibid., pp. 26–34.
89. Domon, Tatakau tenn, p. 99.
90. Hatano Sumio, Taiheiy sens to Ajia gaik (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1996), pp. 77–78.
91. In his Jan. 5, 1944, talk to young staff officers in Nanking, Prince Mikasa boldly criticized the venality, corruption, and lack of humility of Japanese army officers. He urged that they change their ways and give full support to “the national government so that it can implement…policies for the sake of 400 million Chinese people.” His prepared text, in a question-and-answer form, allowed him to register also the facile, anti-Semitic bigotry of his fellow staff officers, and to call attention to Japanese racism and Anglo-American policies toward East Asia. See Mikasa no miya Nobuhito [Wakasugi sanb], “Shina jihen ni taisuru Nihonjin toshite no naisei [bakuryy],” in This is Yomiuri (Aug. 1994), pp. 63, 65, 67, 69, 71.
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Page 80
