60. Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 240–241.
61. Takahashi, Ni ni roku, 2–26, 244–245.
62. Kurono, Horoboshita, 159–160, 167; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 315; Kurokawa, Gunji senryaku, 187, 189. This discussion of national defense policy is adapted from my essay in the forthcoming Stanford University Press volume The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War.
63. Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku, 189; Kurono, Horoboshita, 169.
64. Kurono, Horoboshita, 163–164.
65. Matsushita, Nihon kokubō no higeki, 77; Hata, Tōsuiken, 179; Yoshida, Nihon no guntai, 129; Kido Kōichi kenkyūkai, eds., Kido Kōichi nikki (jō) [The diary of Kido Kōichi] (Tokyo daigaku shuppansha, 1966), 494, entry for May 13, 1936.
66. Stephen E. Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 173–174; Saburō Shiroyama, War Criminal: The Life and Death of Hirota Kōki, translated by John Bester (Kōdansha, 1977), 145; Momose Takashi and Itō Takashi, Jiten Shōwa senzenki no Nihon [Dictionary of Japan’s prewar Shōwa period] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan), 277; Kido nikki, 489; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 316; Kageyama, “Shina jiken,” 42; Kurono, Horoboshita, 161.
67. Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku, 193.
68. Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 321.
69. Sanbō honbu dai ni ka (second section, army general staff), “Kokubō kokusaku teikō” [Principles of national defense and national policy], in Nihon kokusai seiji gakkai, eds., Taiheiyō sensō e no michi [The road to the Pacific war] 8, bekkan shiryō hen [documentary appendix] (Asahi shibunsha, 1963), 224.
70. Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 316–317.
71. Ibid.; Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku, 186; “Teikoku gaikō hōshin” [Imperial foreign policy], August 7, 1936, in Gaimushō [Foreign ministry], ed., Nihon gaikō nenpyō narabi ni shuyō3 bunsho [A chronology of Japanse diplomacy and important documents], Meiji hyakunenshi sōsho, 2 (Hara shobō, 1965), 345–347; Parks Coble, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 334. The Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany was signed that October and approved by the Privy Council on November 25, 1936.
72. Kurono, Horoboshita, 173; Hata Ikuhiko, Rokōkyō jihen no kenkyū [An inquiry into the Marco Polo bridge incident] (Tokyo daigaku shuppansha, 1996), 46; Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War, 44.
73. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji, 201; Shimada Toshihiko, “Designs of North China, 1933–1937,” translated by James B. Crowley, in Morley, China Quagmire, 199–200; Kaigun chūōbu [Naval headquarters], “Kokusaku kōryō” [General principles of national policy], draft April 1936, in Shimada Toshihiko and Inaba Masao, eds., Gendaishi shiryō, 8, Nitchū sensō (1) [The Sino-Japanese war, part 1] (Misuzu shobō, 1964), 354–355; Sanbō honbu, dai 2 ka, “Kokubō kokusaku teikō” [Outline for state policy for national defense], June 30, 1936, Taiheiyō sensō e no michi, bekkan, 224.
74. Kurono, Horoboshita, 175, 185; Kurokawa, Gunji senryaku, 195–197.
75. Bōeichō, Daihon’ei rikugunbu, 402–404; Bōeichō, Kantōgun, 145, 167.
76. Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 153–154, 157; Mark R. Peattie and David Evans, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 334; Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 268–269.
77. Crowley, Japan’s Quest, 311; Fujiwara Akira, Shōwa no rekishi [A history of the Shōwa reign] 3, Nitchū zenmen sensō [Total war between Japan and China] (Shogakkan, 1982), 24–25; Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 271–272.
78. Kurono, Horoboshita, 182–183.
79. Katogawa Kōtarō, Rikugun no hansei (jō) [Reflections on the army] (Bunkyō shuppan, 1996), 19. Three divisions, the 5th, 11th, and 12th, had amphibious assault missions and were equipped with the lighter and more easily transportable mountain artillery.
80. Bōeichō, Kantōgun, 559; Rikujō bakuryō, ed., “Nomonhan jiken no hōheisen” [Artillery battles during the Nomonhan incident] mimeo, 1965, 53–59, Japan Defense Agency (JDA); Wada Kazuo, “Nihon rikugun heiki gyōsei seidōshi no kenkyū” (ge) [Research on the administrative and organizational history of the Japanese army’s weaponry], Bōeichō Bōei kenshūjō senshibu, Kenkyū shiryō, 83 RO-4H, mimeo, 1983, 14.
81. Bōeichō Bōei kenshūjō senshishitsu, Senshi sōsho [Official military history] 86, Shina jihen rikugun sakusen [Army operations during the China incident] 1, Shōwa jūsannen ichigatsu made [To January 1938] (Asagumo shimbunsha, 1982), 96; Katogawa, Teikoku rikugun kikōbutai, 43, 72, 77, 94, 197, and 239; Lt. Col. Kobayashi, IJA, “Tai sensha yōhō (senhō) no hensen sūsei” [Trends and changes in antitank operations (tactical)], mimeo, circa 1940, in Nissō senshi jumbi shiryō [Background historical materials for the history of the Japanese-Soviet fighting], mimeo, n.d., JDA. These concepts are discussed further in Edward Drea, “The Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945): Origins, Evolution, Legacy,” in Jeremy Black, ed., War in the Modern World since 1815 (London: Routledge, 2003), 89–91.
82. Rikugun gakkai, ed., Kindai sensōshi gaisetsu shiryō hen [An outline of modern warfare—documentary appendix] (Rikusen gakkai, 1984), 39.
Chapter 10. The PivotalYears, 1937–1941
1. Hata, Rokōkyō, 9.
2. Bōeichō, Daihon’ei rikugunbu, 412–413; Hata, Rokōkyō, 47; Shimanuki Takeji, “Dai 1 ji sekai daisen igo no kokubō hōshin, shoyō heiryoku, yōhei kōryō no hensen” [Changes to national defense policy, matters of force structure, and operational employment of troops after the First World War] (ge) Gunjishi gaku 9:1 (June 1973), 74; Usui Katsumi, Shinhan Nitchū sensō [The Sino-Japanese war, new, rev. ed. ] (Chūkō shinsho, 2000), 52.
3. James Boyd, “In Pursuit of an Obsession: Japan in Inner Mongolia in the 1930s,” Japanese Studies 22:3 (2002), 296.
4. Cited in Bōeichō, Shina Jiken Rikugun Sakusen, 91; Bōeichō, Daihon’ei rikugunbu, 418–419.
5. Yamada Akira, Daigensui Shōwa tennō [Generalissimo—the Shōwa emperor] (Shin Nihon shuppansha, 1994), 62–63; Miller, Shōwa tennō dokuhakuroku, 35–36.
6. Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 193.
7. Ibid., 194.
8. Ibid.
9. Yamada, Daigensui, 70–72.
10. David Anson Titus, Palace and Politics in Prewar Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 263;Yamada, Daigensui, 70–72.
11. Yoshida Akira and Mori Shigeki, Sensō no Nihonshi [A history of Japan’s wars] 23, Ajia Taiheiyō sensō [The Asia-Pacific war] (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2007), 34–42, 274–275.
12. Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 198–199; Bōeichō, Shina jiken rikugun sakusen, 414–416.
13. Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 200; Itō and Momoe, Jiten Shōwa senzenki, 15–16; Kurono, Daigaku, 235.
14. Miller, Shōwa tennō dokuhakuroku, 37;Yamada, Daigensui, 66; Bōeichō, Shina jihen rikugun saksusen, 283.
15. Hata Ikuhiko, Nankin jiken [The Nanjing incident] (Chūō kōronsha, 1986), 65–66.
16. Ibid., 71.
17. Cited in Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000), 93.
18. Daqing Yang, “Documentary Evidence and Studies of Japanese War Crimes: An Interium Assessment,” in Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records InteragencyWorking Group, Researching Japanese War Crimes: Introductory Essays (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 2006), 30.
19. Hata, Nankin jihen, 93. The issue is controversial. See Daqing Yang, “Atrocities at Nanjing: Searching for Explanations,” in Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon, eds., Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare on Modern China (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001), 78–79.
20. Hata Ikuhiko, Nitchū sensō [The Sino-Japanese war] (Kawade shobō, 1972), 156, 287.
21. Fujiwara, Nitchū zenmen sensō, 226; Ōe, Tennō no guntai, foldout.
22. Yoshida, Nihon no guntai, 207–210; Fujiwara Akira, Chūgoku sensen jūgunki [A record of wartime service on the China front] (Ōtsuki shoten, 2002), 28;YoshidaYutaka, Ajia Taiheiy
ō sensō [The Asia Pacific war] (Iwanami shinsho, 2007), 95–96.
23. Furuya Tetsuo, Nitchū sensō [The Sino-Japanese war] (Iwanami shinsho, 1985), 154.
24. Yamada, Daigensui, 83; John Hunter Boyle, China and Japan at War, 1937–1945:The Politics of Collaboration (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972), 76–77.
25. Yamada, Daigensui, 97.
26. The navy’s construction program that commenced in 1935 is included in the percentage.
27. Hayashi, Taiheiyō sensō, 86–87; Gordon M. Berger, Parties out of Power in Japan, 1931–1941 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 156; Barnhart, Japan and the World, 115.
28. Hata, Nitchū sensō, 288. Between February 20 and May 10 the 5th Division lost about 6,600 men; the 10th Division recorded around 5,000 casualties from March 14 through May 12. The majority of the losses occurred during the Taierzhuang operation. Chinese losses were approximately 20,000 troops. Bōeichō bōei senshishitsu, eds., Senshi sōsho, 89, Shina jihen rijugun sakusen [Army operations during the China incident] 2, Shōwa 14 nen 9 gatsu made [To September 1939] (Asagumo shimbunsha, 1976), 41; Kojima Noboru, Nitchū sensō [The Sino-Japanese war] 4 (Bunshun bunko, 1988), 329.
29. Diana Lary, “Drowned Earth: The Strategic Breaching of the Yellow River Dyke, 1938,” War and History 8:2 (2001), 198–202; Diana Lary, “A Ravaged Place: The Devastation of the Xuzhou Region, 1938,” in Lary and MacKinnon, Scars of War, 112 table 4.3.
30. Hata Ikuhiko, “The Japanese-Soviet Confrontation, 1935–1939,” translated by Alvin D. Coox, in James William Morley, ed., Japan’s Road to the Pacific War, Deterrent Diplomacy: Japan, Germany, and the USSR 1935–1940 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 131; Itō and Momoe, Jiten Shōwa senzenki, 311; Rikusen gakkai, Kindai sensōshi gaisetsu, 62.
31. Yamada, Daigensui, 98; Alvin D. Coox, The Anatomy of a Small War: The Soviet-Japanese Struggle for Changkuofeng/Khasan, 1938 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977), 54, 61–65; Alvin D. Coox, Nomonhan: Japan against Russia, 1939, 1 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 120, 130, 134.
32. For example, Obata’s influential “TaiSō sentōhō yōkō” of May 1933.
33. Furuya, Nitchū sensō, 172; Stephen MacKinnon, “The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938,” Modern Asian Studies 30:4 (1986), 932.
34. Handō Kazutoshi, Nomonhan no natsu [Nomonhan summer] (Bungei shūnjū, 1998), 12.
35. Boyle, China and Japan at War, 215–217.
36. Katogawa, Teikoku rikugun kikōbutai, 211; Handō, Nomonhan, 167.
37. See among other reports, Lt. Col. Konuma Haruo, “Nomonhan jiken yori kansatsu seru tai ‘Sō’ kindaisen no jissō” [The realities of modern warfare against the Soviet Union based on the Nomonhan incident], February 1940; Daihon’ei rikugunbu, Nomonhan jiken kenkyū iinkai dai 1 kenkyū iinkai [Imperial general headquarters, first research subcommittee of the subcommittee to investigate the Nomonhan incident], “Nomonhan jiken kenkyū hōkoku” [Nomonhan incident research report], January 10, 1940; and Col. Terada Masao, “Nomonhan jiken ni kansuru shōken” [Opinions concerning the Nomonhan incident], October 13, 1939, all JDA.
38. See Handō Kazutoshi, Nomonhan, 332–344; Hata, Nihonjin furyo, 67; Alvin D. Coox, Nomonhan: Japan against Russia, 1939, 2 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 928–940.
39. Hata, Nihonjin furyo, 72–73; Gomikawa Jumpei, Nomonhan, 2 (Bunshun būnkō, 1978), 241, 244–245.
40. Ikō, Manshū jihen kara, 163–165.
41. Kisaka Junichirō, Shōwa no rekishi [A history of the Shōwa era] 7, Taiheiyō sensō [The Pacific war] (Shogakkan, 1989), 235.
42. Usui, Nitchū sensō, 106; Inaba Masao and Usui Katsumi, eds., Gendaishi shiryō [Documents of contemporary history] 9, Nitchū sensō 2 [The Sino-Japanese war, part 2] (Misuzu shobō, 1964), xxxiv; Dai jū-ichi gun sanbō [Eleventh Army staff], “Shōwa jūyonnen toki sakusen sakusen keika no gaiyō” [An overview of the 1939 winter season operation and the course of operations], March 5, 1940, Gendaishi shiryō 9: 440.
43. “Shōwa jūyonnen toki sakusen sakusen,” 440.
44. ImaokaTōuomi [?], “Shōwa 14 nen aki kara 15 nen zenhan ni okeru rikugun chūōbu no hataraki” [Working in army central headquarters from the fall of 1939 to the middle of 1940], in Dōdai kurabu kōenshu, ed., Shōwa gunji hiwa (chū) [Secret tales of the Shōwa military] (Dōdai keizai kōndankai, 1997), 140–142.
45. Fujiwara, Nitchū zenmen sensō, 288–289.
46. Ibid., 249; Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 196.
47. Fujiwara, Nitchū zenmen sensō, 249; Boyle, China and Japan at War, 292–293.
48. Fujiwara, Nitchū zenmen sensō, 247 quote; Daihon’ei rikugunbu, “Sekai jōsei no sui-i ni tomonau jikyōku shōri yōryō” [Outline for management of the situation attendant to changing world conditions], July 3, 1940, in Bōeichō Bōeikenshūjō, Senshi sōsho, 20, Daihon’ei rikugunbu, part 2 (Asagumo shimbunsha, 1968), 20: 49–50.
49. Fujiwara, Nitchū zenmen sensō, 250–251.
50. Bōeichō, Bōeikenshūjō, Daihon’ei rikugunbu, part 2, 48; Fujiwara, Nitchū zenmen sensō, 254–255.
51. Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 343; Gomikawa Junpei, Gozen kaigi [The imperial conferences] (Bunshun bunko, 1984), 16–17; Ōe Shinobu, Gozen kaigi [The imperial conferences] (Chūkō shinsho, 1991), 23.
52. Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 344–345; Usui, Nitchū sensō, 114.
53. Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 346–347.
54. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 198.
55. Kurono, Daigaku, 228; Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 199.
56. Hata Ikuhiko, “The Army’s Move into Northern Indochina,” translated by Robert A. Scalapino, in James William Morley, ed., Japan’s Road to the Pacific War: The Fateful Choice: Japan’s Advance into Southeast Asia, 1939–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 193–203.
57. Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 349; Kurono, Dai Nihon teikoku no zonzai senrykau, 218; Hosoya Chihiro, “Britain and the U.S. in Japan’s View of the International System, 1937–41,” in Ian Nish, ed., Anglo-Japanese Alienation, 1919–1952: Papers of the Anglo-Japanese Conference on the History of the Second World War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 66; Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 247 and 999 n276.
58. Hata, “The Army’s Move,” 206–207.
59. Kisaka, Taiheiyō sensō, 181; Karl Friday, “Bushido or Bull? A Medieval Historian’s Perspective,” The History Teacher 27:3 (May 1994), 346–347.
60. Nobutaka Ike, Japan’s Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967), 13.
61. Miller, Shōwa tennō dokuhakuroku, 70.
62. Lyman P. Van Slyke, “The Battle of the Hundred Regiments: Problems of Coordination and Control during the Sino-Japanese War,” Modern Asian Studies 30:4 (October 1996), 979–1005.
63. Yoshida, Ajia Taiheiyō sensō, 114; Ikō, Manshū jihen kara, 169–171.
64. Ikō, Manshū jihen kara, 171–178.
65. Mainichi shimbunsha, eds., Ichiokunin no Shōwashi [One hundred millions’ Shōwa history] 6, Nitchū sensō [The Sino-Japanese war] 4 (December 1979), 81; Fujiwara Akira, Taiheiyō sensōron [A theory of the Pacific war] (Aoki shoten, 1982), 124–125.
66. Kisaka, Taiheiyō sensō, 55.
67. Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor, 222.
68. Thomas R. H. Havens, Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and World War Two (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 15; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 182.
69. Gomikawa, Gozen, 32; Kitaoka, Seitō kara gunbu e, 355–356.
70. Follow-up messages from Japanese diplomats in Berlin and Vienna in late April, early May, and June suggested an attack might occur in June. There were also contradictory messages from the Japanese ambassador in Moscow. Shimada, Kantōgun, 153–154; U.S. Department of Defense, The “Magic” Background of Pearl Harbor (Feb. 14, 1941–May 12, 1941) (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 48–50; Ms
g. Berlin to Tokyo, No. 366, April 16, 1941; No. 370, April 24, 1941; No. 377, May 6, 1941; and msg. Vienna to Tokyo, No. 378, May 9, 1941, A-189-96; Hosoya Chihiro, “The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact,” translated by Peter A. Berton, in Morley, Japan’s Road to the Pacific War: The Fateful Choice: Japan’s Advance into Southeast Asia, 1939–41 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 91; Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor, 223.
71. Kurono, Dai Nihon teikoku no sonzai senryku, 220; Daihon’ei rikugunbu, sensō shidō han [Imperial general headquarters, army division, war guidance section] eds., Kimitsu sensō nisshi [Confidential war diary] (Kinseisha, 1998 reprint), 111–121; Shimada, Kantōgun, 155; Coox, Nomonhan, 1035.
72. Hosoya, “Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact,” 96, 102; Coox, Nomonhan, 1035, 1037, 1042–1043. Twelve divisions would come from the Kwantung Army, two from the Korea Army, and two from the homeland reserve.
73. See Ike, Japan’s Decision for War, 61–62; Bōeichō Bōeikenshūjō, Senshi sōsho, 73, Kantō-3 gun (2) [The Kwantung army, part 2] (Asagumo shinbunsha, 1974), 20–23; Shimada, Kantōgun, 156, 158; Coox, Nomonhan, 1037; but see Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 210.
74. “Rokugatsu jūroku nichi dai sanjūichikai renraku kōndaikai” [The June 16 (1941) 31st liaison roundtable], in Sanbō honbu, ed., Sugiyama memo (jō) [General Sugiyama Hajime’s memoranda, part 1] Meiji hyakunenshi sōsho [The Meiji centennial series] 16, (Hara shobō, 1967), 224; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 185; Hosoya, “Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact,” 103–104; Coox, Nomonhan, 1040, Kurono, Nihon no horoboshita, 209.
75. Coox, Nomonhan, 1041–1042; Shimada, Kantōgun,163–164; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 187; Hosoya, “Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact,” 104.
76. Kimitsu sensō nisshi, 136, 138, July 22 and 30 entries, respectively.
77. Weinberg, World at Arms, 252; Usui, Nitchū sensō, 123; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 187.
78. Shimada, Kantōgun, 167; Sugiyama memo, 284; see Yamada Akira, Shōwa tennō no gunji shisō to senryaku [The Shōwa emperor’s military thought and strategy] (Kōkura shobō, 2002), 150.
79. Ike, Japan’s Decision, 112–113; Coox, Nomonhan, 1048–1059; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 188; Shimada, Kantōgun, 175.
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