The World War II Chronicles

by William Craig

  Power’s plane finally left for home, but on the streets of Tokyo there was no place to go. Frenzy mounted as the heat rose. People ran and fell to the ground, the breath pulled from their lungs. Some died standing up in the close-packed, airless shelters. Inside the Meiji-za Theatre, bodies were stacked eight feet high. Those who chose to go outside again fought each other savagely to escape. Many stood waist-deep in streams and pools, to sink beneath the surface as the fire sucked away oxygen. Everywhere people clawed their throats but found no air to breathe. Police and fire officials were trampled by rioting crowds. Fire-fighting equipment—ninety-nine pieces in all—was destroyed in the intense heat.

  The only possible exits were the bridges spanning the Sumida River. Across the river, in the blackness of the wholly untouched portions of the city, victims could see safety. Thousands ran in that direction while screaming and tearing at each other. Men and women were pushed into the river to drown. Faces were smashed in, fingers, arms, legs and genitals battered and torn from bodies. The bridges across the Sumida became a battlefield of panic. Hundreds of bodies lay in mounds, just a short way from freedom.

  From his shelter in the suburb of Arakawa, a young boy named Wakabayashi came out to see the extent of the damage. A B-29 dropped a shower of magnesium canisters, one of which broke open and sprayed him. His hand was badly burned but he was not otherwise hurt. He helped his neighbors put out some of the small fires with “hitataki,” bamboo poles tipped with cotton cloth and soaked in water. But there were too many canisters plunging from the sky. Wakabayashi and the others left the area, which was rapidly becoming an inferno of crackling fire. They went to a river and saw hundreds of people standing up in the water, packed against each other. They were all dead. Wakabayashi stumbled on, away from the silent victims.

  By three o’clock in the morning the last B-29 swept low over the city and scattered its seven tons into the billowing fire. Then the noise of motors trailed off to the south. Of the mission’s 325 bombers, 279 had gotten to the target. Antiaircraft fire, which had weakened as the flames intensified, ceased as the planes disappeared. The crackle of wildfire mingling with cries in the night remained as witness to the efficiency of the intruders, who formed a long, erratic line toward the south and the Marianas.

  In the rear planes, men attempted to drive away the most lingering memory of the mission. Almost all were nauseated because their nostrils were filled with an awful, stomach-wrenching stench that could never be forgotten—the odor of burned human flesh. Some airmen vomited onto the cabin floors and onto their clothes as the foul breezes wafted into the B-29’s. Only then did a sense of the enormity of the disaster reach its perpetrators. As they rode the peaceful skies back to their home bases, they still smelled the remains of charred bodies.

  At six o’clock in the morning of March 10, a Japanese student stood on her roof four miles west of Meetinghouse. She saw a glow in the eastern sky and called her family to see the beautiful sunrise. It was not a sunrise they saw, but the funeral pyre for over 100,000 souls, slaughtered in the most ferocious holocaust ever visited on a civilized community.

  Almost sixteen square miles of Tokyo was now flat, scorched and still smoldering. In certain places, one could stand and see for miles. Nearly two thousand tons of incendiary bombs had been dropped into the most densely populated region in the world. Over 250,000 buildings had crumbled under flames which had reached an intensity of 2,000 degrees.

  Rescue teams that morning were visibly overwhelmed as they were confronted by mountains of their dead countrymen. Despite the gauze masks the living wore, they retched helplessly as they lifted and separated the remains. Many of the victims were charred; almost all had suffocated.

  In the rest of the city, a subdued population went to work. As details of the bombing spread through offices and factories, the people of Tokyo knew that the B-29 had, for the first time, assumed mastery over their lives.

  On Guam, senior officers of the Twenty-first Bomber Command scanned photographs and reports of the raid. Curtis Lemay, who had staked his career on success and whose bold gamble had been proven sound, knew that he had found the necessary tactic to reduce Japan to ashes. He had lost only 14 planes and 140 men in devastating the capital. He immediately ordered additional sorties, and in the next days the B-29’s, loaded with incendiaries, set out for Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and other industrial cities. In April and May, while the Japanese Thirty-second Army was dying on Okinawa, Lemay’s crews killed many thousands of Japanese civilians. At night the skies there were reddened by smoldering factories and homes. During the day, civilians clogged the roads leading to the countryside. They had nothing left but the clothes on their backs. Behind them smoke hid the remains of their families and friends.

  Much of Tokyo was now in ruins. After the first fire raid on March 9, the B-29’s had come back three times. By the end of May, over fifty percent of the capital was destroyed. Several million people had been evacuated. Emperor Hirohito walked through the acres of devastation and tried to encourage survivors by his presence. They bowed reverently before his divinity and, for a moment, dried their tears.

  The average civilian was willing to entrust his deliverance from terror to the abilities of statesmen and militarists. Beyond that he could not worry. His immediate needs were too painful.

  THREE

  The Diplomacy of Defeat

  In the Summer of 1944 when the jushin, the elder statesmen of Japan, succeeded in removing Hideki Tojo as Premier, they did not in any way diminish the power of the militaristic policy he represented. The military faction remained as strong as ever in its power over the conduct of the war. Consequently Tojo’s successor was a compromise candidate, General Kuniaki Koiso. He was the schism incarnate, a Premier who had no illusions about the eventual outcome of the war but was nevertheless convinced that the Americans would be much too harsh in discussing peace terms. The Imperial Army had agreed to his Premiership only because the generals had decided to ignore him when it came to making military strategy. The jushin had agreed to Koiso because they now had their own man, Admiral Yonai, the former Premier and an ardent end-the-war advocate, to stand behind the troubled Koiso and keep watch.

  The new Premier had little chance to be effective. When MacArthur landed at Leyte in October 1944, Koiso broadcast the news that the forthcoming battle would be a “Tennosan,” a decisive battle of the war, wherein Japan would be victorious. Thus out on a shaky limb, he was dumbfounded to learn that the Japanese Army had altered its plan and decided to wage its ultimate battle on Luzon.

  As American forces spread to Luzon in January 1945, then to Iwo Jima in February, Premier Koiso became increasingly convinced that a drastic revision in command structure was necessary, because the Army continued to operate without telling him its plans. Koiso was left out of all strategy decisions. When he asked where the Americans would attack next, unanimous opinion centered on Formosa. When the Americans came instead to Okinawa on April 1, Koiso laughed in frustrated rage, for one day a lunatic had come to his office and told him quite seriously that Okinawa would be the next battlefield. Obviously, Koiso had gotten better advice from a madman than from experts in his own army.

  On April 5, 1945, Koiso again demanded that the military structure be altered so that the Premier could share in the decision-making process. On the same day the generals and admirals refused to consider his proposal. Koiso could then do nothing but resign, which he did within hours.

  An old man, retired Admiral Kantaro Suzuki, was Koiso’s successor. The new Premier’s ascendancy was sudden and surprising, at least to him. On April 5, Suzuki was summoned to a meeting of the jushin. On learning that he was their choice, the old man protested vehemently and tried to dissuade his supporters. The discussions continued over dinner. As the last course was being served, one man, Marquis Koichi Kido, approached the reluctant candidate and said, “Come here just a minute, Suzuki-san.” He then led the old admiral to an adjoining room.

  Kido was the
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and the Emperor’s closest confidant. A moustached, bespectacled aristocrat, Kido served as a buffer between Hirohito and the outside world. In his role as adviser to the Throne he exerted tremendous influence. He had made, and destroyed, many careers.

  When he was alone with Suzuki, Kido explained, “Japan’s situation is so critical that I, as Lord Keeper, must implore you to make a firm decision to save the nation.” The intensity of these remarks struck Suzuki forcibly and he protested no more.

  Several hours later, Suzuki was summoned to the Emperor to form a cabinet. Before he officially consented he felt obligated to remind the Emperor of his weaknesses, which included lack of political skill and advanced age. The Emperor retorted, “Your unfamiliarity with politics is of no concern, nor does it matter that you are hard of hearing.” Hirohito wanted Suzuki to assume the office because he felt comfortable with him in charge of the nation’s destiny. Once he had said of the old admiral, “To Suzuki I could pour my heart out.” Now the Emperor was placing the country in the old admiral’s hands. Though he did not specifically tell Suzuki that he wanted him to bring about surrender, Suzuki sensed what was on Hirohito’s mind.

  Suzuki became Premier while the fierce and bloody battle for Okinawa was raging 350 miles to the southwest. The Americans there had no idea that the Emperor of the Japanese people had just entrusted the nation to a man he hoped would strive for peace. For his part, Suzuki was not aware, as he took office, of the dimensions of the military disaster that confronted his country.

  Ironically, not many days were to pass before the United States, too, would find itself with an untried leader. On April 12, President Franklin D. Roosevelt—who had been in office twelve years—died in Warm Springs, Georgia, and left a dazed Vice-President to conclude a global war and win a lasting peace.

  Almost from the moment of his swearing in, President Harry S. Truman underwent intensive briefing sessions as his advisers prepared him for the awesome decisions that lay ahead.

  On V-E day, May 8, 1945, Truman had been Chief Executive for only twenty-six days. Just the night before, he and his family had finally moved into the White House and slept there for the first time. In his office on the morning of May 8, he announced the capitulation of Germany to a hushed Washington Press Corps. “General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly all over Europe.… We can repay the debt which we owe to our God, to our dead, and to our children, only by work,” he said. “If I could give you a single watchword for the coming months, that word is work, work, and more work. We must work to finish the war. Our victory is only half-over.”

  Truman was not exaggerating the issue. Indeed, the military and diplomatic problems which faced the United States were considerable. Truman had very quickly come to realize that relations between the United States and her wartime ally, Russia, were deteriorating. Nevertheless, he knew that his military advisers still hoped for Soviet involvement in the struggle against Japan. To that end, the late President Roosevelt had agreed at Yalta to give Premier Stalin territorial rights in the Far East. Yet the two top American diplomats in Moscow, Ambassador Averell Harriman and George F. Kennan, were urging a harder line toward the Russians. Dismayed by contradictory attitudes emanating from the Kremlin, the diplomats were fearful that the price of Soviet participation in the Pacific war was too high.

  As for the Pacific war itself, there was no doubt in the President’s mind of the outcome. Yet the cost in American lives was rising at an alarming rate. American casualties were growing tragically as enemy defensive tactics became more desperate. As Commander-in-Chief of all United States Forces, Mr. Truman found himself paying in dear coin for United States victories in the Pacific. Small wonder Truman’s jubilance was modulated as he announced the end of the war in Europe.

  While the new American President grappled with the problems of impending victory in the Pacific, and while the new Japanese Premier endeavored to construct some workable alternatives to absolute defeat, diplomatic and intelligence personnel of both nations were engaged in desperate, yet hopeful, schemes for ending the conflict quickly.

  Toward the close of the war in Europe, when allied troops began to threaten Berlin, some members of the Japanese embassy staff had crossed the border into Switzerland and became attached to the Japanese legation in Berne. Among them was an obscure naval officer, Commander Yoshiro Fujimura. In Berne, the tall, soft-spoken Fujimura renewed an old friendship with an intensely pro-Japanese German national named Dr. Friedrich Hack.

  Hack had many intimate friends in Japan. As early as 1910 he had been a businessman in the Far East where he had become friendly with some young officers in the Japanese Fleet. He cultivated those friendships over the years. Hack needed such connections in 1938 when he got into serious trouble in his own country, Nazi Germany.

  As a long-time ally of Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hack had been allowed into Hitler’s inner circle. Unfortunately for him, he objected to various policies enunciated by the German Government and found himself persona non grata. Ribbentrop decided that Hack would have to be silenced. A false charge of sodomy was brought against him and he was sentenced to a concentration camp, presumably forever. Ribbentrop reckoned without the influence of the Japanese Navy. Hearing of Hack’s plight, naval officers went to the Japanese ambassador to Germany and demanded that he be released. The Nazis, not wishing to upset the delicate harmony between Japan and Germany, freed Hack, who was then spirited to Tokyo for safekeeping.

  Even there, the harassed refugee was in danger. Orders were given to the German legation in Japan to kill Hack at an appropriate time. The Japanese Navy, aware of the situation, once more protected its friend and sent Hack to Switzerland as an authorized agent purchasing strategic materials for the Empire. When Germany became embroiled in the war, the Nazis forgot about Hack, and he settled down to work for his adopted homeland.

  Happy in Switzerland, Hack enjoyed doing whatever he could for his benefactors back in Japan. Belligerent actions on the part of the Japanese military between 1939 and 1941 alarmed him, and he wrote to his Navy friends in Tokyo urging caution in dealing with Far Eastern problems. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, he was disconsolate. Because he knew something of the strength of America, the victories of the Imperial Navy did not impress him. Just before Christmas he wrote a letter conveying his despondency to one of his friends in the Japanese embassy in Berlin—Commander Fujimura. In it he said that his beloved Japan had made a fatal blunder in attacking the United States.

  Fujimura found the letter in his office when he returned from a pre-Christmas party given for the embassy staff. Free-flowing wine had added to the intoxicating effect of recent Japanese successes. Heady from the liquor, Fujimura was in a mellow mood as he opened the letter. His pleasure evaporated as he read it. What was the matter with Hack? Fujimura could not understand the dark pessimism from Berne. Hack was warning that Japan must get out of the struggle as soon as possible, that it must arrange a negotiated peace before American industrial power crushed the nation.

  Fujimura put down the paper and stared out into the darkness of wintry Berlin. A sobering fear gripped him as he brooded on Hack’s Christmas message. Could he be right? Was Japan doomed to ultimate defeat? Fujimura sat for hours behind his desk and slowly realized the logic of Hack’s letter. America’s industrial might was too much for Japan to challenge. A swiftly negotiated peace was the only sensible alternative.

  As Hack’s prophecy came true, the two men corresponded frequently. Midway, Guadalcanal, Saipan, Leyte; the names changed but the results were the same. Japan was being beaten to its knees. In Berlin, Fujimura was helpless to do anything but watch. In Berne, Hack read the newspapers and chafed at his inability to help his adopted homeland.

  Fujimura stayed in the German capital as the Nazi war machine foundered. He endured frequent bombings and realized that the end was near in Europe fo
r Japan’s ally. He also became increasingly appalled at the brutality of the Hitler regime, the attempted extinction of the Jews, and he struck out at it in the only way he could. As a privileged member of a friendly embassy, he had access to black market food supplies. By plying Gestapo officials with choice cuts of steak and expensive coffees, he gained the confidence and loyalty of men who could help him in clandestine activities. Operating under his diplomatic cover, he managed to save seven Jews from the ultimate horror of the gas chamber by smuggling them out of the country.

  As the end came for Germany in 1945, Fujimura himself crossed the border into Switzerland, determined to find a way to save his own nation. He quickly contacted his old friend Hack and the two began to plot Japan’s exit from the war. Their obvious strategy was contact with America, and the means lay right in Berne. On quiet Herren Street, the Office of Strategic Services maintained an active center for clandestine activities in Europe.

  This huge espionage organization had direct access to President Roosevelt, who was captivated by its leader, an imaginative ex-lawyer named General “Wild Bill” Donovan. Roosevelt allowed Donovan a free hand in mounting secret operations. OSS men and women infiltrated the entire European continent. Their successes were many, their failures sometimes spectacular. Their common bond was the challenge of the unusual assignments they undertook. One such venture had resulted in the surrender of the German Army in northern Italy. When the commanding Nazi general, Wolff, wanted to deliver his army to the Allies in order to save further bloodshed, the OSS arranged contacts with American and British military men, who worked out the details. Wolff was nearly caught by the Gestapo as he negotiated, but he survived because of helpful assistance from the American spies, who smoothed the complicated and treacherous path to peace.