Weller's War

by George Weller

  Long trains of open cars filled with soldiers headed for demobilization pass through Tokyo's railyards. Their attitude is dumbly obedient, but they are also full of health and vigor. Squads marching along the streets give the impression of discipline and purpose, contrasting with the disintegration for which they are destined.

  With light rains and the low-lying clouds, fighters and bekos—the Japanese name for B-29s, meaning “B-babies”—swept continually over Tokyo. Their flights were random and appeared more for sightseeing than security. Few Americans like Major Winslow Lewis of New York, with thirty-nine unbelievable months in B-25 bombers, managed to get through to Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel, whose lava-born walls are all intact and only one wing's floors burned out. Among those greeting Americans was Father Bruno Bitter, a German Jesuit who for two years taught summer courses in economics at Loyola and is now the rector of Jochi Catholic University. Only one wing of this university has been burned, and only one building at St. Paul's American Episcopalian University. The former American School, for pupils from kindergarten to high school, was wholly unscathed.

  The B-29 raids of March 10 and May 25 will go down in Japan's history as the worst, the former because an area about four miles square became a frying pan for approximately 100,000 people—more than a third of Tokyo's deaths for the whole war—and the second raid because it was carried out in a wind of typhoon proportions.

  The March raid hit the triangle between Sumida Creek and the Arakawa River. Factories with industrial tenements were the target. The Japanese excuse their failure to provide air-raid shelters here by saying that they lacked the concrete for service shelters against a blast, and wherever they went underneath the river or the harbor, water flooded shelters. B-29s first outlined the district variously called Koto Honjo or Fukagawa with Pathfinder firebombs. The inhabitants were penned in by a circle of fire, and huddled Japanese-fashion in the center. Then main waves of bombers filled in the pattern with a deadly result. Even workers who slipped through the ring of fire found themselves unable to cross the two rivers, for bridges and also barges were burned. Yet most perished from the smoke of suffocation rather than through actual burning.

  The May raid was decisive, because it showed that flames would leap across even firebreaks under windy conditions. It also demonstrated that the little red engines of the Tokyo Fire Department could not hold back the flames except where buildings of heavy stone gave them occasional protective shelter.

  Americans are being asked by the liberal press to be patient about coming to terms with Japan. The English-language daily Nippon Times, successor to the Japan Advertiser, says that although Potsdam conditions were accepted with “unwarranted slowness” and Manila envoys were tardy in going toward MacArthur, Americans should make haste slowly. “The complexities of the political machine even normally cause the Japanese government to move with a slowness which may appear strange to efficient Americans.” The paper pointed out that three elements made certain that Japanese cooperation with Americans would be genuine and not merely a masked docility. The first reason is that the Japanese are “feverishly anxious” to fulfill terms because this is the first hurdle to rehabilitation. “The quickest, surest way to redemption lies in a quick, complete atonement.” The other two guarantees, according to the paper, are that the Japanese are naturally good sportsmen, a sense of injury is harbored by only a few, and many Japanese were already favorable to Allied aims. “It is to be hoped that when American correspondents secure the opportunity to study the new Japan at first hand, they'll see fit to discard their attitude of suspicion.” The Nippon Times has been edited for three-and-a-half years by Kazuo Kawai, a former instructor in history at the University of California.

  The first G.I.s who enter Tokyo after MacArthur receives the surrender will find little worth buying as souvenirs. Across the burned empty lots fronting the Ginza, Tokyo's Michigan Boulevard, the writer picked his way into a shattered department store. Only the bottom-most of about ten stories was open and offered foolish cheap ornaments and outdated maps of the one-time Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. No clothing whatever was on sale.

  The yen, once three to a dollar, is now fifteen to a dollar. Meat is obtainable on the black market for about seven dollars a pound.

  SPYING EYES HAUNT JAP-AMERICAN GIRL

  Tokyo, Japan—September 1, 1945

  “That girl looks American,” said one American newspaperman to another as we stood on an elevated train platform in the Ginza district of downtown Tokyo.

  We were awaiting the train to Yokohama; the girl was going the other way. We crossed the platform and in the next hour found what it was like to be a Nisei (“the other way”)—a young, pretty girl, pronouncedly American in appearance, yet partly of Japanese blood—in wartime Tokyo.

  “Every time the B-29s came over, Mother used to say, ‘Why don't they hurry up and rescue us?’ It seemed so terribly long,” said the girl.

  Her mother is a Cincinnati woman who was married to a Japanese student in the United States, came to Japan with him, and found that it was not a land of cherry blossoms and dolls but police and Spartan living. She separated from her husband and earned a living for herself, two daughters, and her own mother by working in an American oil company.

  Nothing about the girl on the elevated platform was Japanese except a trace in the corners of her eyes and flashing white teeth. Her accent, her frankness, her quick laughter were all American. But almost every other sentence she spoke had the word “police” in it.

  Before the correspondents spoke with her, both she and they were simply members of the crowd without being particular objects of attention. The moment they approached her, a gawking and not particularly friendly crowd in rainy-day clogs and military caps gathered.

  “I'm sure someone will see me talking with you and report me,” she said. “There are always several police spies around.”

  The girl explained that she had made the trip from her suburban home in order to get a copy of the Nippon Times, Tokyo's English-language newspaper.

  “For two weeks we've been too frightened to go into town and find out what's happening. All we do is work in our garden and hope the Americans come. We've been very short of money since I lost my job at a French bank in April.”

  The two newspapermen first tried to persuade her to come with them to the American-held area, around Yokohama. She said: “I could never go there. The police are worse there even than in Tokyo. I could not get home, and my mother would worry.”

  She had difficulty grasping the idea that it was now the Americans who were in control of Yokohama's police and she would be safe.

  Government officials tried to get her to go to work on Tokyo Radio as a kind of assistant to Tokyo Rose.* (Tokyo Rose is now supposed to be “too ill” to receive newspapermen.) “I went to the studio one day. I saw many American prisoners doing broadcasting. It seemed as though I could too, if they did. We needed money badly. But I decided I could not do it and feel right. So I just let the police think whatever they wanted, and stayed home.”

  The correspondents took her to Yokohama and introduced her to the 8th Army's leader, Lt. General Eichelberger, who started her on the route to working for the Americans. She was not promised a job, but was given hopes of one.

  She wanted to know what was the new dance music in America; her last record was Deep Purple. She had never heard of Oklahoma! Why hadn't she tuned in on Tokyo Rose, who had all the latest records? “Because we were not allowed sets that could hear her. Those broadcasts were just for Americans, not for Japanese.”

  The correspondents then commandeered a Japanese army truck and took her back to the Yokohama elevated station. Her face was beaming, but she had a final question: “You both keep talking about G.I.s. What's a G.I.?”

  “Lady, you're going to find out—and soon.”

  She entered the elevated turnstile alone and was gone, with her head full of worries about the police.

  HIROHITO IS ACE
S WITH JAPS AFTER RESTORING PEACE:

  Increased Popularity Makes Staying on Throne a Sure Bet

  Tokyo, Japan—September 4, 1945

  Emperor Hirohito is here to stay. Any talk of his abdicating or being forced to abdicate can be forgotten. Acceptance of President Truman's terms for the first defeat in Jap history merely has brought the Tenno, as the Emperor is known to his subjects, more respect and affection than ever before. If the Allied intention is to “use” the Emperor and discard him later, they are already beaten. But if their intention—as seems likely—is to retain him permanently, they have succeeded.

  The reason why the imperial tradition and the Emperor himself have emerged on top is because his acceptance of peace terms has caused the whole nation to heave a gasp of relief. For months peace had been their unspoken thought. As the insular empire fell before MacArthur and Nimitz, and the British (with American aid) gained in Burma, and Chinese troops recovered the Ledo Road, the Japanese saw their empire shrink. Then the terrible raids of bekos, B-29s, taught them that the choice was between death and defeat, with defeat inevitable anyway.

  But nobody dared say what was obvious to all: that the Empire's new armor still left Japan naked. The thought police were everywhere. The thought police have two independent bureaus of spies, listeners and informants: the political department of civil police, and the political department of gendarmerie which was under the war department. To eavesdropping agents of these two bureaus—the latter of which has been “abolished” by the present liberal government—it would have been treason for anyone to say that Japan should accept the Potsdam terms. In the eyes of any civilian it would have been worse than treason; it would have been poor form. But meantime unventilated resentment was piling up against the hopeless course of the war. Relatively few had lost sons in battle, yet the home islands were seared with death.

  There was admiration for the army and navy, as well as for courageous individuals, especially kamikaze pilots. But this was combined with impatience at the operation, by military officials, of domestic food and manufacturing controls. The military clique would have been able to maintain civilian loyalty much longer if its interference in internal economics had not made the home front chaotic.

  The Achilles' heel of the military, which gradually deprived them of public support, was the misorganization of civil powers of production that they had so optimistically seized. This dissatisfaction turned to applause for the Emperor. But the Emperor's successful legerdemain, which both saved Japan and gathered the common people's loyalty around himself instead of around the military, naturally cost him much support among officers. The attitude of some was boldly expressed after the surrender when kamikaze pilots dropped pamphlets over Tokyo—this was never mentioned by Tokyo radio and was suppressed by censorship—reading:

  There must be no surrender for the Tenno. We cannot believe that our Tenno can have surrendered to the enemy. No doubt surrender terms have been cooked up by those crafty high officials who surround the Tenno. We of the Navy Air Corps intend to act independently. People, don't believe what is written in the newspapers, and broadcast. Cooperate with us like true Nipponese. These leaflets fluttering from the skies were boldly signed Commander, Navy Air Corps, without any name.

  Threats like these made Japanese envoys to MacArthur at Manila express the fear that their returning plane might be shot down by kamikazes, and throw a veil of secrecy over its schedule. Those staff officers who cooperated with MacArthur were regarded as belonging to the peace clique around the Emperor, hence as traitors to the officer class which desired to go on fighting.

  When the kamikazes asserted they would act independently of the Emperor, they made as serious a blunder in gauging public opinion as the ground officers did in being caught with the squalling baby of misfired production. Kamikazes had been portrayed in movies before taking off for flights whence none ever returned; they were lionized. Like other military officers, they got to thinking they were statesmen. But when they asserted their freedom from the Emperor's will, they overreached. Their impudence went sour, and people sneered at their placing themselves above the throne. Their last ace—selfless devotion to the Emperor—had been trumped by an insolence so great it disgusted Tokyo's straphangers.

  Behind this duel, which the Emperor has won with American help, lies an explanation of why Royal Premier General Prince Higashikuni is encouraging free speech and an uncensored press. Japan's royal circles have not gone suddenly insane over democracy. But everything the long-muzzled newspapers say about the military is a nail in its coffin, and a spangle on the Emperor's white horse.

  LOWER-GRADE JAPS POLITE, HIGHER-UPS COOL

  IN KANOYA

  With American Forces Occupying Kanoya, Kyushu, Japan—September 5, 1945

  Encountering no resistance other than giant mosquitoes, the three-day-old American occupation of southern Kyushu is dickering with Japanese officials and firmly digging itself in. This Chicago Daily News correspondent was the only newspaperman to arrive with them.

  Kyushu is mountainous, fir-covered country of rich green valleys and few farms, sharply in contrast to Tokyo's thick industrial suburbs. At sunset last night, the first landing ships grated on the coarse beaches of Kagoshima Bay, about one mile north of the fishing hamlet of Takasu. Takasu is a picturesque village whose shores are littered with the corpses of shot-down Japanese aircraft, and lies three miles inland over rolling country from Kanoya airstrip and town. Unloading began during the night, and by today the first six-wheel trucks of heavy wireless equipment began to rumble through the streets of deserted coastal villages. Big troop-carrying aircraft from Okinawa circled noisily at the edges of the valley, waiting their turn to descend on the single runway of Kanoya's two which remains usable.

  Kanoya is one of the kamikaze (suicide pilot) fields for the raids which cost our shipping dearly around Okinawa. On these concrete airstrips talks of the Divine Wind were held with pilots—none of whom ever returned, and whose commander pledged to follow them to eternity. Now these strips are in the hands of unsuicidally-minded Americans.

  It is a tribute to the selectivity of the intense bombing southern Japan has suffered that hardly a village has even a window broken. American fliers seem to have avoided civilian targets completely. This forbearance is in contrast with the long steel-cobwebbed ruins of hangars of which Kanoya has literally miles. Hardly ten square feet of roofing can be found intact. As a sympathy-getter, Japanese in Tokyo are making the most of the fact that American bombs hit not only factories but the tenements around them. But Kyushu's people speak with little dread of the bombings though they confess that the fighter raids, particularly by P-51s harassing truck traffic along the roads, bothered them greatly.

  Barbed wires have been removed from the beaches where the Americans are landing, but closely interwoven fortifications, particularly along cliff edges, demonstrate how costly storming them would have been. The strongest points are also rich in fakes: wooden anti-aircraft guns complete with revolving gunners' seats, and phony tanks intended to draw American fire.

  In dealing with Americans the lower-class Japanese sailors and soldiers are willing workmen, but their superiors vary in their degree of cooperation. When embarrassing or disadvantageous questions are put by Americans, the reply is sometimes “That man is not here,” or “We do not know,” though the contrary is proven true. The official tone, however, is cool but helpful.

  Each evening Colonel Norman Sillen, the air force officer commanding this operation, confers with the Japanese civil military committee. The baldish Japanese major general sits across a table in the small hotel with the colonel beside him doing all the talking. The Japs also have two foreign office men sent from Tokyo to see that the Americans remain within the conditions of the Manila conference. Behind these Japanese are two tables of interpreters who are also all Japanese. Sillen handles these negotiations alone and seems somewhat outnumbered.

  The Japanese are pedantically insistent that agreeme
nts be written down and hunt carefully for hidden traps or catches. For example, when one agreement said that negotiations would on go with “Japanese officials,” the Japanese said that “governmental officials” must be so described or otherwise the Americans would be empowered to deal separately with any Japanese of their own choosing.

  Characteristic of Japanese insistence on the letter of the law was their sending back to a camp somewhere in the north an American prisoner of war who managed to reach Kyushu. They insisted that no Americans had the right to give themselves up until freed. The landed Americans were ignorant that their comrade had reached Kanoya before the Japs bundled him north again.

  MORE CHINESE PRISON CAMPS DISCOVERED

  (This dispatch was censored and never published.)

  Omuta, Kyushu, Japan—September 13, 1945

  Acting on a hint from Chungking radio that many Chinese POW camps remain undeclared by the Japanese and undiscovered by Allied authorities, American officers who only recently ceased being prisoners themselves nearby have today discovered two such secret camps.