92. Akashi Yoji, “Taiheiy sens makki ni okeru Nihon gunbu no Yenan seiken to no heiwa mosaku: sono haikei,” in Gunji Shigakkai, ed., Dai niji sekai taisen (3): shsen (Kinseisha, 1995), pp. 177–78. Field commanders fiercely resisted implementation of the policy change.
93. Senshi ssho: Inpaaru sakusen, Biruma no bei (1968), pp. 151–59.
94. Hara Takeshi, Yasuoka Akio, eds., Nihon rikukaigun jiten (Shin Jimbutsu raisha, 1997), pp. 101–2, and comments by Yamada Akira in Fujiwara et al., Tettei kensh: Shwa tenn ‘dokuhakuroku’ (Tokyo: tsuki Shoten, 1991), p. 96. The Allies suffered approximately eighteen thousand casualties in the Imphal campaign.
95. Rekishi Kyikusha Kygikai, ed., Maboroshi dewa nakatta hondo kessen (Kbunken, 1995), pp. 16–17.
96. Ibid., p. 17.
97. American losses on Saipan were 3,426 marines killed and 13,099 wounded. The stubborn Japanese defense gave rise to the belief among strategic planners in Washington that it would “cost approximately one American killed and several wounded to exterminate seven Japanese soldiers.” Many American planners thereafter used this “Saipan ratio” for making “strategic-level casualty projections in the Pacific.” On this point, see D. M. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications,” in Journal of Military History 61, no. 3 (July 1997), p. 535. I am indebted to the author for bringing his important article to my attention.
98. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei kaigunbu, reng kantai (6): dai sandankai sakusen kki (1970), p. 21, citing “Gunreibu dai ichi buch Nakazawa Tasuku shsh gymu nisshi” (unpublished).
99. Ibid.
100. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei kaigunbu, reng kantai (6): dai sandankai sakusen kki, p. 22, citing the unpublished recollections of Comm. Fujimori Yasuo, a staff officer in the operations section of the First Department who had worked on the Saipan recapture plan.
101. Ibid., p. 33.
102. Ibid., p. 37.
103. Nihon Heiki Kgykai, ed., Rikusen heiki sran (Tosho Shuppansha, 1977). pp. 540.
104. TN, dai nanakan, pp. 514–15, 517.
105. Hosokawa Morisada, Jh tenn ni tassezu, j: Hosokawa nikki (Isobe Shobo, 1953), pp. 117–20.
106. For the text see Mainichi Shinbun, Mar. 19, 1995. Tj had this rescript in his possession on the day of his botched suicide attempt, Sept. 11, 1945.
107. Yamada Akira, Kketsu Atsushi, Ososugita seidan: Shwa tenn no sens shid to sens sekinin (Shwa Shuppan, 1991), pp. 132–33; Leon V. Sigal, Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945 (Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 31.
108. Yamada, Kketsu, Ososugita seidan, p. 148.
109. Yoshida Yutaka, Shwa tenn no shsenshi (Iwanami Shinsho, 1992), p. 14.
110. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 1131, entry of July 26, 1944.
111. Maboroshi dewa nakatta hondo kessen, pp. 20–21.
112. Yamada, Kketsu, Ososugita seidan, pp. 167–68.
113. For the full text, see Senda Kak, Tenn to chokugo to Shwashi (Sekibunsha, 1983), p. 373.
114. Nihon rikukaigun jiten, pp. 109–12. American casualties in the Leyte and Philippine Sea battles numbered approximately fifteen thousand.
115. STD, p. 100; Senshi ssho 45: Dai hon’ei kaigunbu, reng kantai (6) (1970), p. 472.
116. For the text of the balloon-bomb orders, see Morimatsu Toshio, ed., “Dai hon’ei rikugunbu” tairikurei, tairikushi sshsei, dai 9 kan, Shwa jkynen (Emutee Shuppan, 1994), pp. 270–71, 513, 532–33.
117. Maboroshi dewa nakatta hondo kessen, pp. 23–24; “Dai hon’ei rikugunbu” tairikurei, tairikushi sshsei, dai 9 kan, Shwa jkynen, pp. 532–33.
118. According to a recent Japanese assessment of damage inflicted by “body-smashing” attacks on all Allied ships during the last phase of the Pacific war, 57 aircraft carriers were sunk, 108 warships and escort carriers were so heavily damaged as to be out of action for the remainder of the war; 84 other naval ships sustained light damage with heavy personnel casualties; and 221 ships were lightly damaged, for a total of 470 ships. See Kamikaze Kank Iinkai, eds., Shashinsh—Kamikaze: riku, kaigun tokubetsu kgekitai, j (KK Besutoseraazu, 1996), p. 19; for a recent American study, see D. M. Giangreco, “The Truth About Kamikazes,” in Naval History (May-June 1997), pp. 25–30.
119. Yoshihashi Kaiz, “Jij bukan toshite mita shsen no toshi no kiroku” in Gunji shigaku 2 (Aug. 1965), pp. 96–97; Katsuno Shun, Shwa tenn no sens, p. 200; Ury, “Kokusaku eiga, Nihon nysu shshi,” p. 522.
120. Yoshihashi, “Jij bukan toshite mita shsen no toshi no kiroku,” p. 97.
121. Domon, Tatakau tenn, p. 192.
122. Nihon rikukaigun jiten, p. 112; Craig M. Cameron, American Samurai: Myth, Imagination, and the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division, 1941–1951 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 251–54, addresses the American symbolism of the flag-raising. Cameron (pp. 252–53) notes that there were actually two flag raisings, the famous second one designed to “replace the smaller initial flag with a larger, more visible one. The men who fought their way to the top of the volcano and whose actions were preserved in a photographic record…were quickly lost in obscurity that Marine Corps publicists actively fostered so as not to confuse the desired symbolism of the second raising.”
123. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei rikugunbu (10) Shwa nijnen hachigatsu made (1975), p. 113.
124. Fujiwara Akira et al., Okinawasen to tennsei (Ripp Shob, 1987), p. 28, citing ta Yoshihiro, Okinawa sakusen no tsui (Sagami Shob, 1984), pp. 401–2;
125. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei rikugunbu (10) Shwa nijnen hachigatsu made (1975), p. 113.
126. Domon, Tatakau tenn, p. 192.
127. Ibid., p. 193.
128. Ibid.
129. Senshi ssho: Daihon’ei rikugunbu (10) Shwa nijnen hachigatsu made, p. 128.
130. Ibid., pp. 211–12. On May 9 Hirohito shocked the Army Operations Section by refusing General Umezu’s request to place the Seventeenth Area Army in Korea under the command of the Kwantung Army. Such a move, he believed, would destroy the distinction between Manchuria, a foreign country, and Korea, “the national territory.” Ibid., pp. 224–25.
CHAPTER 13
DELAYED SURRENDER
1. Dick Wilson, When Tigers Fight: The Story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945 (Viking Press, 1982), pp. 234–45.
2. Yoshida Yutaka, Nihonjin no senskan (Iwanami Shoten, 1995), p. 102, chart 13, citing kurasho Shwa Zaisei-shi Henshshitsu, ed., Shwa zaisei-shi 4 (Ty Keizai Shinbunsha, 1955).
3. Ibid., p. 102, chart 12, citing e Shinobu, ed., Shina jihen Dai T’A senskan din gaishi (Fuji Shuppan, 1988).
4. Reduced to 250 warships of all types by the end of December 1944, the navy had only 53.8 percent of the tonnage with which it had started the war in December 1941. Yamada Akira, Gunbi kakuch no kindaishi: Nihongun no kakuch to hkai (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1997), p. 205.
5. Rekishi Kyikusha Kygikai, ed., Maboroshi dewa nakatta hondo kessen (Kbunken, 1995), pp. 19–20; Yamada, Gunbi kakuch no kindaishi, p. 210.
6. Katsuno Shun, Shwa tenn no sens (Tosho Shuppansha, 1990), pp. 205–6.
7. Yabe Teiji, a Tokyo Imperial University scholar and ideologue who served as Konoe’s political adviser, observed after the war that Konoe’s private audience with the emperor in February was the first he had been allowed to have in nearly three years. Yabe also noted: “Until around the time of the fall of Saipan, Kido had absolute faith in Tj, and what anyone told Kido was immediately passed on to Tj.” See Yabe Teiji, “Kshitsu no chi nagareru Konoe Fumimaro,” in Bungei shunj, tokushg: tenn hakusho (Oct. 1956), p. 190.
8. The words are those of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan’s Struggle to End the War (Washington, D.C., July 1946), p. 2.
9. TN, dai rokkan (Ch Kronsha, 1997), pp. 466–67.
10. Sometime in January or early February 1945, Konoe drafted an analysis of the situation facing Japan and used it as his reference in writing the “memorial.” In this unsigned handwritten document, Konoe ex
plicitly rejected the view of the Soviet Union held by Hirohito and the high command; he also identified the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Treaty as an instrument designed to “worsen the conflict between Japan and the United States and Britain.” For Konoe’s text see Shji Junichir, “Konoe Fumimaro shuki ‘Soren no T’A ni taisuru ito,’” in Gunji shigaku 34, no. 2 (Sept. 1998), pp. 45–48. For Finance Ministry bureaucrat Ueda Shunkichi’s input see Ueda Shunkichi, “Shwa demokurashii no zasetsu” and “Gunbu, kakushin kanryn Nihon kysanka keikakuan,” in Jiy (Oct. and Nov. 1960).
11. For translation and analysis of the Konoe memorial see John W. Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1874–1954 (Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 260–64.
12. Kketsu Atsushi, “Potsdamu sengen’ to hachigatsu jgonichi—judaku chien no haikei niwa nani ga atta no ka,” in Rekishi chiri kyiku 536 (Aug. 1995), pp. 13–14, citing Harada Kumao’s version of the emperor-Konoe exchange from “Harada danshaku naiwa oboe, March 21, 1945,” in “Takagi Skichi shiry.”
13. Fujita Hisanori, Jijch no kais (Ch Kronsha, 1987), pp. 66–67; Yamada Akira, Kketsu Atsushi, Ososugita seidan: Shwa tenn no sens shid to sens sekinin (Shwa Shuppan, 1991), p. 180, citing the 1978 Ch Kronsha version of Hosokawa nikki.
14. Domon, Tatakau tenn, p. 192.
15. Haisen no kiroku: sanbhonbu shoz, Meiji hyakunen-shi ssho, dai 38 kan (Hara Shob, 1967), pp. 230–31.
16. “Renritsu kyryoku naikaku, Koiso, Yonai,” January to February 1945, notebook 6, folder 1B–74, in the Shigemitsu papers held at the Kensei Kinenkan in Tokyo; also see Takeda Tomoki, “Shigemitsu Mamoru no senji gaik ninshiki to seiji senryaku: kyuch, tenn to no kakawari ni oite,” in Nenp kindai Nihon kenky 20: kych kshitsu to seiji (Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1998), p. 197. Shigemitsu’s handwritten notations, scrawled right after the audience, make clear that the thought of the two men also went back to the kaiser and the collapse of the German Empire.
17. Kinbara Samon, Takemae Eiji, eds., Shwa-shi—zhoban (Yhikaku Sensho, 1989), p. 218; Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations (W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 236.
18. Yoshihashi Kaiz, “Jij bukan toshite mita shsen no toshi no kiroku,” in Gunji shigaku 2 (Aug. 1965), pp. 97–98.
19. Cited in Kunegi Toshihiro, “Shidehara Kijr—‘heiwa gaik’ no honne to tatemae” in Yoshida Yutaka, Ara Kei et al., Haisen zengo: Shwa tenn to gonin no shidsha (Aoki Shoten, 1995), p. 96.
20. The letter was addressed to daira Komatsuchi, Shidehara’s friend from university days. Cited in ibid., p. 97.
21. Prince Konoe Fumimaro, Mar. 30, 1945, cited in Hosokawa nikki (Ch Kronsha, 1978), pp. 373–74.
22. In his “Monologue” Hirohito claimed that General Koiso “lacked common sense” for trying to negotiate peace through a person who was acting behind the back of the Nanking government. The incident revealed Hirohito’s rigid adherence to rules of procedure as well as confusion over how to conduct negotiations with China. See STD, pp. 106–7; Shi Yuanhua, “Nitch sens kki ni okeru Nihon to Ch Mei seifu no ‘bwa’ ksaku,” translated by It Nobuyuki in Gunji Shigakkai, ed., Nitch sens no shos (Kinseisha, 1997), pp. 294–95; Sait Haruko, “Nihon no tai-So shsen gaik,” in Shiron (Tokyo Joshi Daigaku) 41 (Mar. 1988), p. 54.
23. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 1208–9; e Shinobu, Gozen kaigi: Shwa tenn jugokai no seidan (Ch Kronsha 1991), p. 235. June 8 was also the day on which Hirohito told his chief aide-de-camp that he would not leave Tokyo, thereby setting at naught army plans to build a rock fortress for him in Matsushiro, Nagano prefecture.
24. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 1210; Hata Ikuhiko, Hirohito tenn itsutsu no ketsu-dan (Kdansha, 1984), p. 46, citing the diary of army aide-de-camp Ogata Kenichi.
25. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, pp. 1212–13.
26. Yamada, Kketsu, Ososugita seidan, pp. 204–6.
27. John Ray Skates, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb (University of South Carolina Press, 1994), p. 102. An English translation of the Ketsu-G plan can be found in Reports of General MacArthur: Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, vol. 2, part 2 (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1966), pp. 601–7.
28. Matsuura Sz, Tenn to masu komi (Aoki Shoten, 1975), pp. 3–14.
29. Heiwa Hakubutsukan o tsukurukai, ed., Kami no sens, dentan: bryaku senden bira wa kataru (Japan Peace Museum, Emiiru K. K., 1990), p. 125.
30. “Report on Psychological Warfare Against Japan, Southwest Pacific Area, 1944–1945,” Mar. 15, 1946, p. 13. Bonner F. Fellers Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, Calif.
31. Reproduced and cited in Higashino Shin, Shwa tenn futatsu no “dokuhakuroku” (NHK Shuppan, 1998), p. 79.
32. Awaya Kentar, Kawashima Takamine, “Gyokuon hs wa teki no bryaku da,” in This Is Yomiuri (Nov. 1994), p. 47. The Chian jh material, published in seven volumes by Nihon Tosho Sent in Tokyo in late 1994, is an invaluable source for understanding Japanese opinion at the time of the ending of the war.
33. Twice in the late thirteenth century, the “winds of the gods” decimated invading Mongol armadas off the shores of Kyushu. By taking the name kamikaze, the pilots who attacked Allied ships evoked one of the most powerful memories in Japanese history.
34. Yui Daizabur, “Beikoku no sengo sekai ks to Ajia” in Senry kaikaku no kokusai hikaku: Nihon, Ajia, Yroppa, Yui Daizabur et al., eds. (Sanseid, 1994), pp. 12–13.
35. Awaya Kentar, “Nihon haisen wa jkentsuki kfuku ka” in Nihon kindaishi no kyoz to jitsuz 4: kfuku-‘Shwa’ no shen, edited by Fujiwara Akira et al. (tsuki Shoten, 1989), pp. 14–20.
36. The key State Department document clarifying the unconditional surrender principle for Japan is PWC–284a of Nov. 13, 1944. For the text see FRUS, Diplomatic Papers 1944, Vol. V: The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, The Far East (USGPO, 1965), pp. 1275–85; for essential background see Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins: An Intimate History, vol. 2, January 1942-July 1945 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1949), pp. 690, 693–94.
37. William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York, 1990), p. 1139. Italian partisans summarily executed Mussolini on April 28, and the war in Italy ended on May 2. Hitler committed suicide on April 30. Germany’s total surrender was realized by the unconditional surrender of its armed forces. After having arrested all the members of Grand Admiral Dönitz’s new Nazi government on May 23, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France signed the Berlin Declaration on June 5, 1945, making the nature of Germany’s surrender crystal clear. See Arai Shinichi, “Kykasho kentei to mujken kfuku rons,” in Rekishigaku kenky 531 (Aug. 1984), p. 15.
38. Within a few hours of Truman’s statement, naval Capt. Ellis M. Zacharias began a series of weekly broadcasts to Japan reiterating Truman’s message but without mentioning the emperor. See Allan M. Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942–1945 (Yale University Press, 1978), p. 145.
39. The “queen bee” analogy comes from Grew’s speech to a U.S. Senate committee hearing on December 12, 1944. See Nakamura Masanori, The Japanese Monarchy: Ambassador Joseph Grew and the Making of the ‘Symbol Emperor System,’ 1931–1991 (M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992), p. 66.
40. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904–1945, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1952), p. 1435. Grew endorsed the Truman administration’s decision to retain the emperor for postwar purposes, but even he never imagined that Hirohito would be able to absolve himself of war guilt and not step down.
41. Ibid., pp. 1425–26.
42. Nakamura, The Japanese Monarchy, pp. 70–77.
43. The declaration was largely the work of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and his aides, but Secretary of State James Byrnes polished it, eliminated the clarification of the emperor’s status, and influenced the timing of its release.
44. The direct repatriation home of Japanese military forces was a major difference between Japan’s unconditional surrender and Germany’s. The official American policy
at the time of the declaration was that unconditional surrender applied “to Japan” and “thus cover[ed] not only the armed forces, but also the emperor, the government and the people. All are to acquiesce in any acts which the allies consider appropriate in carrying out their policy.” See the undated State Department memorandum, “Comparison of the Proclamation of July 26, 1945, with the Policy of the Department of State,” prepared on July 30, in FRUS, Diplomatic Papers: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference) 1945, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1960), p. 1285.
45. The deleted lines included the following: “(1) We…agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war…. (4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.”
46. Minomatsu J, ed., Takagi Skichi copy, Kaigun taish Yonai Mitsumasa oboegaki (Kojinsha, 1978), pp. 143–44, as cited in Tanaka Nobumasa, p. 434. Churchill did indeed lose the British general election of July 5, 1945. A Labour Party cabinet headed by Clement Attlee replaced Churchill’s Conservative-dominated coalition government on the twenty-seventh.
47. Truman notes in his memoirs, “On July 28 Radio Tokyo announced that the Japanese government would continue to fight. There was no formal reply to the joint ultimatum of the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. There was no alternative now. The bomb was scheduled to be dropped after August 3 unless Japan surrendered before that day.” Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, vol. 1, Year of Decisions (Garden City, N.Y.: 1955), p. 421.
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