In June 1938 the chief of staff of the North China Area Army complained that numerous instances of rape harmed the pacification effort and interfered with overall army operations because the crimes turned local inhabitants against the Japanese. Officially approved and inspected comfort stations not only would maintain military discipline by offering troops an outlet for their pent-up aggression but also prevent the spread of sexual diseases contracted in cheap Chinese brothels. Japanese civilian brothel managers were brought to China to administer army-approved brothels under a licensing agreement, and army doctors regularly inspected prostitutes for sexual diseases as the system became institutionalized in the field armies.40
Violence against women was so widespread in China that senior officers issued tougher regulations as early as 1940 to prevent it, but rape apparently remained so commonplace and tolerated that the army penal code was amended in February 1942 to provide for harsher penalties.41
The Endless War
IGHQ activated the China Expeditionary Army (CEA, which absorbed the Central China Expeditionary Army) on September 23, 1939, and because of the rapidly changing international situation ordered it to bring what the Japanese called the China Incident quickly to an end so that the army might begin preparations for war against another, unnamed, adversary. Field commanders on the China front had chafed at the operational limits imposed by imperial headquarters. Lt. Gen. Okamura Yasuji, the commander of the Eleventh Army, for one, saw no way out of the ground war except through further offensives to destroy the Chinese armies. Now the reins were loosened and they had their chance to win the war.42
Plans were under way for a spring 1940 offensive when Chiang Kai-shek launched a nationwide 70-division offensive in mid-December 1939. Okamura’s hard-pressed divisions were scattered across extended frontages (some were responsible for over 100 miles of front) without defenses-in-depth or a strategic reserve. By mid-January 1940 they had regrouped, then counterattacked, and defeated Chiang’s offensive, but a shaken Eleventh Army notified IGHQ that the enemy was still full of fight.43
Concurrently, around the end of 1939 the war ministry revised its 1937 rearmament plan to field 65 divisions and 200 air squadrons by 1942. The ministry would reduce forces in China in order to increase stockpiles and ammunition reserves for the larger force structure. The general staff balked at withdrawing units from China, and the finance ministry was unwilling to pay for the latest rearmament plan. To gain imperial approval, the war minister ultimately accepted a 5 percent cut in equipment, a one-third reduction in stockpiles, and the program’s extension into 1946.
Prime Minister Abe Nobuyuki, a retired general, introduced the army bill in the Diet in late December 1939, but his four-month tenure was already mired in controversy. Abe was selected to lead the cabinet because he was not pro-German and the emperor liked him. As prime minister he tried to freeze consumer prices, but drought conditions in western Japan and Korea resulted in poor rice harvests that drove up food prices and reduced Japan’s hydroelectric output. The Diet refused to endorse the army expansion legislation and considered a no-confidence vote. Alarmed that a general election might vent antiwar and antimilitary sentiment, army leaders balked at dissolving the Diet, and Abe instead resigned. Shortly afterward the China Expeditionary Army commander, Gen. Itagaki Seishirō, demanded immediate reinforcements for China, which effectively ended the rearmament proposals.44
Map 6
In March 1940 the general staff and war ministry concluded that if Japan could not defeat China militarily during 1940, then the China Expeditionary Army would have to become self-sufficient because the army could no longer afford to support it and simultaneously implement the four-year rearmament plan for the anticipated war against the Soviet Union. Withdrawals from China would begin in 1941, and by 1943 the Japanese would occupy only the Shanghai delta and a triangular area in North China.
On May 1, 1940, the Eleventh Army attacked Yichang to dislodge Chinese armies in north and central Hubei, break open the doorway to Chongqing, and secure an operational air base to stage raids against the Guomindang capital. In accordance with its plan to reduce forces in China, IGHQ limited the offensive to two months’ duration, after which the units would return to their original locations.45 The general staff and war ministry agreed on May 18 that unless a combination of political, military, and covert pressure compelled Chiang to surrender by the end of 1940, the army would scale back such operations and gradually withdraw more than half of its 850,000 troops by the end of 1941.46 The China Expeditionary Army strongly protested the proposed reductions and pressured the imperial general headquarters to retain between 700,000 and 750,000 troops in China.
The new policy’s diplomatic and covert components became the Kiri operation when the government and army temporarily suspended the creation of a pro-Japanese regime in the occupied areas headed by Wang Jingwei and opened secret discussions with Chinese operatives in anticipation of direct cease-fire negotiations between Itagaki, now chief of staff of the CEA, and Chiang Kai-shek in August 1940.47 The stratagem collapsed over Itagaki’s insistence that China recognize Manchukuo, something Chiang could never do.
As for military pressure, Japanese troops captured Yichang on June 12 and four days later withdrew as ordered. During the interval, the German blitzkrieg overran France and the stunning Nazi conquest of Western Europe appeared to usher in a new world order. German victories had isolated European colonies in Asia, where natural resources waited for Japanese picking like “fresh rice cakes off a shelf.” With France defeated and Great Britain on the verge of surrender, Japan had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to isolate Chiang from western aid by severing his supply routes that ran through French Indochina and British-ruled Burma. Improved ties with Germany and Italy could prevent the United States from interfering if the army moved south into those colonies.48 Japan’s military and civilian leaders were also leery that the Germans might seek to control French Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies. Consequently, Japan had to act with celerity in order “not to miss the bus,” which became a popular catchphrase during the summer of 1940 as military, political, and public opinion leaders interpreted the Axis triumph in the West as the opportunity to resolve the war in the East.
During this burst of optimism, on June 15 the emperor learned that the navy wanted Yichang as a forward operating base to stage air attacks on Chongqing. He asked Prince Kan’in, the army chief of staff, what the army was doing at Yichang. Interpreting the imperial question as an instruction, China Expeditionary Army commander Gen. Nishio Toshizō ordered the Eleventh Army to retake Yichang (which it had just abandoned) and turn it into a major air base to conduct intensified strategic bombing of Chinese cities to break Guomindang resistance. Yichang would become a springboard to move into southern China and restore the freedom of maneuver that field commanders demanded. The army simultaneously pressured France and Britain to close the military supply roads leading into China from French Indochina and Burma, respectively. The two overland routes merged at Kunming, then beyond the operational radius of the Twenty-second Army, which was headquartered in Nanning, about 360 miles to the east. Nanning, though, was 90 miles inland and difficult to resupply and defend, making it unsuitable as a staging for a major offensive campaign against Kunming. Army leaders consequently gave added importance to moving against Indochina.49
Succumbing to incessant Japanese diplomatic and military pressure, in late June the French allowed a forty-man Japanese team to inspect cargo destined for China for military contraband. The next month the British, under German aerial bombardment and threatened by invasion, closed the Burma route. The general staff next ordered the team in Indochina to secure garrison and air base rights for Japanese troops, actions closely tied to the army’s latest strategic reappraisal caused by developments in Europe.
On June 25, 1940, the general staff and war ministry hastily drafted plans to attack western colonies in Asia. A surprise, fast-moving attack against Singapore, supported by
aircraft flying from bases in French Indochina and Thailand, would open the campaign, and an invasion of the Netherlands East Indies would follow. Insofar as possible, efforts would be made to avoid war with the United States. This became the basis for the army’s July 3 decision to move south against the western colonies in Asia, regardless of what happened in China. The navy agreed but insisted on simultaneous preparations for war with the United States. When Prime Minister Yonai Mitsumasa, a retired admiral, rejected such a radical policy shift, army leaders brought down his cabinet.50
Konoe had resigned from the Privy Council on June 18 with a call for a strong national unity cabinet to deal with the rapidly changing national and international situation. He would, of course, lead that new cabinet. A few weeks later, Prince Kan’in suggested to War Minister Lt. Gen. Hata Shunroku that he resign in favor of a stronger national unity cabinet. Hata submitted his resignation, and when the army refused to nominate a replacement, Yonai had to dissolve his cabinet. Konoe then formed his second cabinet, and his charismatic personality seemed to offer hope for a new national unity political movement to deal with the “unprecedented national and international situation.”51
Hirohito enjoined Konoe to defend the constitution, calm the financial sector, and cooperate with the United States and Great Britain. Konoe, however, had a different agenda, and Hirohito suspected that his new prime minister was thinking about moving south to dissipate popular dissatisfaction over the lack of success in China.52 That October Japan’s political parties spontaneously dissolved as part of Konoe’s plan for an imperial rule assistance association to unify the nation under his direction.
Konoe selected Lt. Gen. Tōjō Hideki as his war minister, Admiral Yoshida Zengo as navy minister, and Matsuoka Yōsuke as foreign minister. Meeting on July 19 at Konoe’s residence, the four agreed that stability in East Asia required Japan to add military and economic teeth to the Axis pact, secure Soviet neutrality, and prepare militarily to move south. A clash with the United States was to be avoided, as long as the Americans did not interfere with Japan’s plans for a new order in East Asia. Eight days later an imperial headquarters liaison conference, the first in more than two years, adopted a policy that neither resolved the China Incident nor avoided the risk of war with the United States. In other words, the army’s thinking had shifted from (1) the necessity of ending the China war quickly so it could advance south to (2) advancing south as a means to end the China fighting.53
Internally the army was at odds regarding an overall strategy. The general staff would take advantage of the anticipated imminent German invasion of Britain to seize Singapore, occupy Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies, and prepare for war with the USSR or the United States, the latter being isolated and weakened by Britain’s anticipated surrender. The war ministry assigned priority to ending the China Incident but was divided about the means to accomplish that goal. The navy preferred to expand peacefully into the southern area but also wanted to finalize military preparations for war.54
Foreign Minister Matsuoka announced in September 1940 that the new order had been expanded into a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere to include French Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies. Secure access to the region’s raw materials was central to the new policy, but simply acquiring resources was meaningless unless the navy could protect merchant ships carrying oil and minerals back to Japan for processing. During recently concluded tabletop war games, Japan had occupied the Netherlands East Indies but could not keep the sea-lanes open. The navy minister ignored these results, and the services, without alternatives, continued planning for a southern advance.55
The war ministry and general staff were split about the value of an armed invasion of French Indochina, but the foreign ministry pressured the French to permit Japanese troops to be stationed in Indochina to seal Chinese borders from outside sources of resupply. Military muscle was added to diplomatic demands when the 5th Division massed along the northern Indochina border at the end of August. A Japanese commander unilaterally led his battalion across the border on September 6, and, although he soon withdrew, the French promptly canceled further negotiations.
Tokyo formally ordered troops into Indochina on September 22, regardless of French protests. Too weak to resist militarily, the French allowed Japanese troops to enter their colony, and a peaceful resolution of the crisis seemed near. Machinations among hawks on the general staff, regimental commanders in the 5th Division, and Maj. Gen. Tominaga Kyōji, chief of the operations department of the general staff, intentionally delayed notification of the diplomatic settlement to the 5th Division headquarters. A fabricated order, allegedly transmitted from the Twenty-second Army headquarters, instead directed the 5th Division to invade French Indochina at midnight on September 23. Fighting broke out near Lang Son, site of a French fort that the Japanese soon captured. After a hastily arranged cease-fire, negotiations continued into October before the French finally allowed Japan to station troops in northern French Indochina.56
Reacting to these aggressive moves, on September 28 the United States embargoed scrap iron and steel shipments to Japan and underwrote a $25 million loan to China. The British reopened the Burma Road in mid-October because the immediate threat of German invasion had eased and previous concessions to Japan seemed only to encourage extremists in Tokyo. Discarding its previous policy of appeasement, the British government also announced a loan of £10 million to China.57
Field commanders’ insubordination, staff officers’ intrigues, and the Indochina fiasco infuriated War Minister Tōjō, who resorted to wholesale personnel transfers to reassert army discipline. Unit commanders and line officers held responsible for the border incident were seconded to the reserves while their superiors on the general staff, like Tominaga, who had goaded them into action, were transferred to minor commands or sent as instructors to army schools.58
In an effort to reassert discipline, enhance soldiers’ spiritual power, and improve morale, especially for units stationed in China, on January 8, 1941, Tōjō promulgated the “Code of Battlefield Conduct” (Senjinkun). Prominent academics had vetted the draft for political correctness, and the well-known author Shimazaki Tōson and the poet Satō Sōnosuke had filled it with rhetorical flourishes, including what became the notorious injunction to avoid the shame of being taken captive. Flowery passages invoked a romanticized notion of samurai values and imperial benevolence to restore discipline. Troops were expected to respect their enemies and civilians, protect enemy property, and demonstrate imperial benevolence by tempering justice with mercy for captives. In fact, such derivative samurai values were modern myths, having about as much application and appreciation to the Japanese foot soldier as the European code of chivalry might exert on his European or American counterpart.59
Foreign Alliances
During the Indochina crisis, Konoe tried to strengthen Japan’s ties with Germany and Italy, a pillar of his diplomacy grounded in his belief that an Axis military alliance would keep the United States from interfering in Asia. Navy Minister Yoshida opposed the pact and under extreme pressure from hawks within the navy resigned in early September, claiming illness. At the September 12 four ministers’ conference, which included the new navy minister, Adm. Oikawa Koshirō, the alliance was approved provided it contained no automatic war entry clause. One week later at the third imperial conference, the emperor endorsed the liaison committee’s policy, accepting the possibility of a Japanese-American war but hoping it would not come to pass.60
A ten-year military and economic Axis alliance was signed on September 27 in Berlin. The three signatories—Japan, Germany, and Italy—promised mutual assistance if any of them became involved in a war with a power not then a belligerent (a provision aimed at the United States). The pact placed Japan squarely in the Axis camp, and within days Prince Kan’in resigned as army chief of staff. The following April, Prince Fushimi followed suit and resigned as the navy’s chief of staff. Their resignations were designed to disassociate
the court from the military services and shield the imperial house from any formal responsibility for decisions on war or peace.61
Behind the flurry of military and diplomatic activity was China, which continued to drain Japan’s military and economic resources. In a dramatic shift from guerrilla to conventional warfare, in August 1940 Chinese Communist forces in North China launched the Hundred Regiments Offensive. The well-coordinated, broad series of attacks initially surprised the Japanese and their puppet troops, but by mid-September the Japanese had regained their traction and slugged it out with Communist units in set-piece battles where superior firepower and equipment drove the guerrillas into retreat. By November, Japanese units were in murderous pursuit,62 but the scale and intensity of the Communist offensive forced the army to rethink its counterinsurgency doctrine.
Between late 1938 and the summer of 1940 the army had conducted pacification and counterguerrilla sweeps in North China, eventually to prop up Wang Jingwei’s pro-Japanese regime, established on March 30, 1940, in Nanjing. It used the model of fighting irregulars in Manchuria, where in 1933 it had organized the indigenous Manchurian Army, about 70,000 personnel led by 3,000 or 4,000 Japanese military advisers, many of whom were volunteer reserve officers. Another 70,000-man strong Japanese-trained Manchurian police force, about 10 percent of whom were Japanese or Koreans, backstopped the army and provided local security. These indigenous organizations freed regular Japanese units to train for conventional warfare.63
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