by Jeff Shaara
THE JAPANESE
COLONEL HIROMICHI YAHARA
General Ushijima’s confidant and the primary tactical planner for the Japanese defense of Okinawa escapes the collapse of the Japanese command. Shedding his uniform, he makes every effort to blend in with a group of soldiers attempting to pass themselves off as Okinawan refugees, intending to find a boat that will carry them away from Okinawa. After several days in hiding with groups of terrified Okinawans, the inevitable occurs, and American soldiers discover them hiding in a cave. Yahara, who speaks English, beseeches the Americans to do no harm, and the entire group is captured. Passing through the refugee camps, along with thousands of others, both Japanese and Okinawans, he is recognized by several Japanese soldiers, though his secret is not revealed to his captors for several weeks. Finally he is interrogated by Japanese prisoners working in service to American intelligence, where his identity is finally revealed. He continues to be questioned by various American intelligence officials, all the while seeking the means to escape his captors. But the atomic bomb changes his mind. On August 15, he is shown a transcript of Emperor Hirohito’s official surrender order, and Yahara realizes his war is over. He is repatriated to Japan at the end of 1945, and reaches Tokyo Bay on January 7, 1946, on board the American transport USS Gable. He sees for the first time the utter devastation of the Japanese capital, few details of which had ever been communicated to his command on Okinawa. Still considered a high-ranking officer in the Thirty-second Army, Yahara is assigned to deal with the organizational paperwork that remains in repatriating those few soldiers who have survived. He reports to what remains of Imperial General Headquarters, which of course is completely dominated by the occupation forces of the Americans. Nonetheless, he makes his full report on the outcome of the battle for Okinawa to the highest-ranking general he can find, thus fulfilling his last assignment. By the end of 1946, he completes his wrapping up of the final paperwork for the Thirty-second Army.
Yahara is acutely aware of the disgrace that comes from being a prisoner of war, and never admits to any such status, convincing others, and himself, that the war ended with him still in the service of the emperor, and still trying to find a way to aid his country’s cause. He agonizes frequently about his own survival, suffers frequent bouts of depression and guilt that his beloved commanding general took the more honorable way out.
As Japan organizes a national police force, Yahara is called upon to serve as instructor for new recruits, but his taste for uniforms has soured, and he refuses. Instead he writes his memoir, careful to define his role in such a way that there will be no shame in his capture, an awareness he carries even decades after the war’s conclusion. The memoir is published in 1972, and surprises him by becoming a commercial success. He writes:
A nation should never be sacrificed for the sake of its leaders. Japan’s leaders got us involved in the China incident out of a sense of self-preservation. They started that war to preserve their own power, status and honor. Who would not despair knowing that soldiers were dying in the interests of such leaders?
He dies in 1981, at age seventy-eight.
DR. OKIRO HAMISHITA
Though grief-stricken over the death of his wife, he recovers sufficiently from the injuries received during the blast of the atomic bomb to fulfill his primary duty of caring for patients, and spends several days tending to the horrific injuries of those who survive the blast. But he cannot escape the unknown illness that afflicts so many of the bomb’s immediate survivors, and succumbs to what we now know to be radiation poisoning on August 18, 1945, twelve days after the bomb is dropped. He is sixty-five.
FIELD MARSHAL SHUNROKU HATA
By a freak of fate, Hiroshima’s senior military commander survives the bomb’s blast, while most of his command, including nearly all of his senior officers, are killed by the obliteration of Hiroshima Castle. Despite his fiery rhetoric, he accepts his army’s defeat, an unusual move for a senior military official, and surrenders to American occupation forces in late August 1945. He is tried as a war criminal by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the Asian version of the Nuremberg court. Found guilty, he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Hata makes very little defense of his actions, and later his captors feel he has shown sufficient remorse to atone for his crimes, and is thus granted parole in 1955. He dies seven years later, at age eighty-two.
HIDEKI TOJO
He consolidates his power throughout the war, amassing control of most of the Japanese government, even under the ultimate authority of the emperor, for whom Tojo has little private respect. Officially he is prime minister as well as chief of the Imperial General Staff, positions that give him virtually dictatorial power. But reaping the rewards for success also means accepting responsibility for failure, and when the Americans make their successful drive into the Mariana Islands chain, Tojo admits that his efforts have failed. On July 18, 1944, he resigns his position, and is never again an active force in Japanese politics or the war. Three weeks after the Japanese surrender, he attempts suicide, but fails at that as well. He is arrested by American agents and is tried as a war criminal before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which declares him guilty and sentences him to death. In his defense, he claims that he was merely following the orders given to him by the emperor, a claim no one takes seriously. He is hanged on December 23, 1948, at age sixty-four. Tojo is interred at Japan’s revered Yasukuni Shrine, which creates considerable controversy that continues to this day.
THE AMERICANS
USS INDIANAPOLIS
After delivering the two technicians and the key components of the first atomic bomb, the heavy cruiser leaves Tinian for Leyte, in the Philippines, to rendezvous with the gathering fleet that will participate in the planned invasion of Japan. The mission of the cruiser has been so secret that she is unescorted both to and from Tinian, and thus sails alone through shipping lanes that the Japanese know well. Shortly after midnight on July 30, 1945, the ship is struck by two torpedoes, fired by the Japanese submarine I-58. She rolls over to starboard, and sinks in twelve minutes. Of the 1,196 crewmen, nearly three hundred are killed within those twelve minutes. The remainder go into the water. With few life vests or rafts to cling to, the nine hundred men begin an ordeal that subjects them to hypothermia, death from injuries, and madness. But there is one more ordeal they must suffer, which begins with their first sunrise: the relentless assault from swarms of sharks.
On August 2, midway through their third day in the water, the survivors are spotted by an American Ventura bomber, on a routine anti-submarine patrol. The pilot notifies his base at Peleliu, where a navy PBY Catalina flying boat is dispatched. Against orders, the flying boat lands near the men, trying vainly to rescue as many as can be retrieved from the water, men who are continuously being attacked by sharks. The nearest ship, the destroyer USS Cecil Doyle, diverts to the scene and rescues those who remain alive. Only 317 survive the ordeal. It is the greatest disaster at sea in the navy’s history.
Because of the secrecy of their mission, there is no search made for the ship, since no one at Leyte knows just when to expect the ship to arrive. The captain of the Indianapolis, Charles McVay, is one of the survivors, and in December 1945, in what seems to many to be the navy’s search for a scapegoat, McVay is court-martialed for “hazarding his ship for failure to zig-zag in good visibility.” The conviction erases McVay’s rank. The sentence is commuted by Admiral Chester Nimitz, and McVay is restored to active duty, though the court’s verdict remains in McVay’s record. It is a personal curse McVay will never escape. Strenuous efforts are made to clear his name, including ongoing accounts offered by his surviving crewmen as well as the Japanese captain who sank McVay’s ship. But the navy does not reconsider the court-martial’s findings, and McVay serves out a backwater career and retires in 1949. His personal torment continues, and he commits suicide in 1968.
Controversy swirls around the disaster for years. It is revealed that
there was woeful negligence on the part of naval communications officers, who ignored a distress call made by the Indianapolis moments before she sank, and naval intelligence, which intercepted a communication from the I-58 claiming an American warship sunk, a communication it ignored as well.
In 2000, the U.S. Congress passes a resolution absolving Captain McVay for the loss of his ship.
ADMIRAL CHESTER NIMITZ
To counter what Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal believes to be undue praise lavished on General Douglas MacArthur for success in the Pacific, Forrestal succeeds in having October 5, 1945, named Nimitz Day in Washington, D.C. With much fanfare, Nimitz addresses Congress, meets with President Truman (which MacArthur will not do), and enjoys a parade in his honor. Four days later he enjoys a massive ticker-tape parade in New York City. But Nimitz is never the publicity hound that MacArthur is, and he resists what could become a massive media campaign on his behalf.
Always an energetic advocate for naval power, he rejects the notion offered by some that the atomic bomb will make the navy obsolete.
He fights calls in Congress that the army and navy become joined into a single department, contradicting the belief of some that the United States will never again be called upon to engage in the kind of massive military action they experienced in World War II. His advocacy of a strong navy lands him the position of chief of naval operations, succeeding Admiral Ernest King. The appointment comes on November 20, 1945, the same day that Dwight Eisenhower is named to replace General George Marshall as army chief of staff.
In 1946 Nimitz begins to support the concept of nuclear-powered submarines, and throws his support behind Captain Hyman Rickover, the chief advocate for the development of the new technology.
Continuing his strong advocacy of a powerful navy, Nimitz writes numerous articles and makes dozens of public speeches about the value of that arm of the service. Such advocacy makes him enormously popular among naval personnel, popularity that continues to this day. Despite his penchant for writing, what he calls his “hobby,” Nimitz never pens his own memoir, believing it would put him in the awkward position of crediting some commanders at the expense of others. He cites as an example the self-serving memoir written by Admiral “Bull” Halsey, which does much to alienate other senior commanders who shared in Halsey’s actions in the Pacific. But Nimitz’s love of writing does inspire him to contribute viewpoints to a general history of the U.S. Navy. The book, Sea Power—A Naval History, becomes a much-sought-after text, in use especially at the United States Naval Academy, though Nimitz will not accept any royalties for his part in the book’s creation.
In December 1947, his term as chief of naval operations ends, and he retires. He and his wife, Catherine, relocate to San Francisco. His wife insists they keep a diary, which begins the day after his retirement. His first entry reads, “I feel as if a great burden has just been lifted from my shoulders … how can we fail to have a full and happy life?” But there is little relaxation in his retirement. He is asked to serve as an intermediary in the hotbed dispute between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir. He involves himself with other consulting duties with the United Nations, but becomes frustrated with the squabbling of diplomats, and in mid-1952 resigns the post. Though he is retired yet again, he accepts a position as regent for the University of California.
In 1963 the admiral falls and shatters his kneecap, a debilitating injury that keeps him from his beloved walks. The injury aggravates, revealing that Nimitz also suffers from an arthritic condition in his spine. The condition worsens, causing him increasing pain, and in November 1965 he undergoes a risky form of surgery to relieve his suffering. The operation is a success, but in recovery he contracts pneumonia. On Sunday, February 20, 1966, he dies from the deteriorating complications, just shy of his eighty-first birthday. At the moment of his death, he is alone with his beloved wife.
His funeral is attended by thousands of onlookers and admirers, who line the streets all along the route of the procession to the Golden Gate National Cemetery, at San Bruno, California. The admiral’s body is transported through the cemetery by a horse-drawn caisson, escorted by a dozen navy enlisted men. Once the caisson reaches the grave site, there is a nineteen-gun salute and a flyover by seventy naval jet aircraft.
Soon after his death, Catherine, his wife of fifty-two years, writes to a friend, “I’m not feeling sad. To me, he has just gone to sea, and as I have done so many times in the past, some day I will follow him …”
She does so in 1979.
In Nimitz’s birthplace of Fredericksburg, Texas, the National Museum of the Pacific War is an unequaled site for memorializing and understanding naval history.
His good friend Harry Truman writes, “I came to regard Admiral Nimitz from the outset as a man apart and above all his contemporaries—as a strategist, a leader and as a person. I ranked him with General George Marshall as military geniuses as well as statesmen.”
PRIVATE CLAYTON ADAMS
With the expiration of his thirty-day leave, Private Adams leaves New Mexico for San Diego, and is transported once again to Guam. On October 11, 1945, his unit is transferred to Tsingtao, China, where they begin the tedious duty of repatriating Japanese soldiers from the Chinese campaigns back to their home country. In February 1946 the downsizing of the Sixth Marine Division begins, and by April 1946 the Sixth is redesignated the Third Marine Brigade. On April 3, Clay leaves China, and eventually boards a transport ship that will return him to the United States for good.
From San Diego he once again embarks on the journey by train to Albuquerque, and is met this time by a one-woman welcoming committee. He and Loraine Lancaster marry four months later.
Like his brother before him, Clay has no interest in following his father’s dismal career in the copper mines of western New Mexico, and where Jesse goes to California, Clay obeys his young wife’s ambitions to travel eastward. The couple settles in Lexington, Kentucky, where they raise three daughters.
Clay graduates from the University of Kentucky and surprises Loraine by choosing the study of military science and history. After graduation in 1950, his combat experience lands him a position with the university as an instructor of ROTC cadets. Though he rarely speaks of his service experience on Okinawa, Clay is an outspoken advocate for education in the ranks of the military. By the mid-1960s the Vietnam War has made that philosophy increasingly unpopular. He speaks out frequently in support of the nation’s efforts in Vietnam, and never fully grasps the nation’s change of mood toward the military and its leadership. In 1970, a fire, presumed to be arson, destroys the facility that houses the school’s air force ROTC. Disgusted, Clay leaves Kentucky for a position as an instructor of history at the Virginia Military Institute. His love of history deepens, and Clay begins extensive work on a biography of several of VMI’s most illustrious alumni, and has a particular affection for Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, but the effects of heart disease begin to drain him of strength, and the work is never completed.
In 1984 he retires and settles into the farm country of the Shenandoah Valley. He dies of heart disease in 2007, at age eighty-two. Loraine lives today in their family home near the New Market Battlefield, outside Harrisonburg, Virginia.
SERGEANT HAROLD MORTENSEN
The Sixth Division’s downsizing does not affect the squad leader, who pushes hard to continue his career in the Corps. Mortensen is promoted to first sergeant in August 1946 and remains in service through the Korean War. When the brigade is revitalized as the reactivated Third Marine Division, Mortensen applies for and receives a commission as second lieutenant, and is awarded the bronze star for action in Korea. By the war’s end he has been promoted to the rank of major. He retires in June 1955 and settles in Vienna, Virginia. That year Mortensen marries Constance Fowler, a secretary at the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C., and she encourages him to seek a position there. Always an advocate for the care of ailing veterans, he agrees, and continues his work o
n behalf of veterans until his retirement in 1977. He moves to Venice, Florida, and dies in 2008, at age ninety-one.
GENERAL CURTIS LEMAY
The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is generally credited as accounting for the most cataclysmic loss of Japanese life, but LeMay’s aggressive bombing campaigns produce losses to the Japanese citizenry that far exceed those two blasts. LeMay’s bomb ’em and burn ’em philosophy reduces more of Japan to ash than both atomic bombs combined, and LeMay is somewhat justified in claiming that it is his airplanes that win the war, responsible for the destruction of sixty-five Japanese cities, causing more than a million Japanese casualties, and devastating more than ten million Japanese residences.
After the war LeMay is selected to head the United States Air Force command in Europe, and in 1948 is instrumental in the Berlin Airlift, which parachutes much-needed food and supplies into the German capital, breaking a blockade imposed on the city by the Soviets. Later that year LeMay becomes the first commander of the new Strategic Air Command, and works tirelessly to expand the role of the Air Force as a key component of America’s military arsenal. He is promoted to full (four-star) general in 1951, the youngest to achieve that rank since Ulysses S. Grant. He heads SAC until 1957 and is widely regarded as the engineer of America’s line-in-the-sand approach to the threat of Soviet missile attacks, thus ensuring that the Cold War remains cold.