As the first transport put down its flaps, Arisue watched in horror. The pilot had misread the wind direction and was landing down-wind, in the one pattern calculated to cause disaster. The lead plane bounced five times on the runway before it settled down and churned across the field. Arisue was both furious and relieved.
Since the aircraft were coming in from the wrong angle, Arisue’s carefully laid greeting plans were also upset. Tench and his group came to a stop far across the field from the reception committee. Other transports started touching down immediately after him.
While the motors of the first plane coughed and died, Colonel Charles Tench stood up to face his dubious future. Those behind him were as tense as he was, and no one spoke. As the bright sun streamed into the ship from an opened door, the colonel went out and down to the soil of Japan. He kicked his right heel once into the ground to mark the historic moment, then stared across the field to see what the Japanese had in store for him.
There was no one in sight. Nothing stirred. Tench stood flanked by his interpreter, Major Faubion Bowers, and by Major Charles Hutchison; both men carried carbines. Tench himself wore a .45-caliber pistol in a shoulder holster. He had ordered the rest of his men to stay in the shadow of the plane until the situation was clarified. As the small contingent waited for something to happen, Tench’s nerves frayed just a little more. The silence was appalling.
The interpreter, Bowers, noticed the brown grass growing high on the field. He marveled at the brilliant sunlight that creased everyone’s eyes. As he began to wonder where the Japanese were, he thought, “Just how the hell does one begin an occupation?” Then his heart jumped as he saw a surging, shouting group of Japanese heading hell-bent for the Americans.
Tench immediately imagined that he was the target of an all-out charge by a band of fanatics. His apprehension mounted as they came, some running, others hanging onto slow-moving cars. The convoy careened up to the unwavering figures in khaki. Then it halted, and from the group stepped a short, bemedaled figure who said, “I am Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, in charge of the Atsugi reception committee.”
Towering over the Japanese officer, Tench returned his salute and replied, “I am Colonel C. T. Tench, commanding the advance party for the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.”
Bowers translated smoothly. There was no cordiality, no friendliness, just strict military protocol. The Americans looked especially grim to Arisue, who asked Tench to accompany him across the field to the reception area. While they walked, dozens of pictures were snapped by Japanese news cameramen and the Army Signal Corps photographers who had followed Tench to record the historic moment.
In the tent area, Arisue offered Tench a drink of orange punch. The colonel, thinking immediately of poison, paled at the suggestion, and refused. Arisue noticed his pallor, and wondered what was wrong with him. Then the Japanese general intuitively raised a glass and drained it. After a moment, Tench reconsidered and accepted a second proffered punch. As he gingerly tasted it and coaxed the liquid down his throat, Arisue watched him closely. His face was a study in determination. But the drink was cool and pleasant and Tench finally relaxed. He lit a cigarette and got down to business.
Arisue and he sat side by side in two overstuffed chairs under a tentpole and introduced their staffs. The Japanese general lit a huge cigar and sprawled comfortably. He, too, began to relax from the tension of the first moments.
In the middle of his discussions with the Japanese, Tench was baffled to see a white man in a strange uniform standing at the edge of the crowd. While he tried to figure out who he was, the stranger walked toward him and greeted him effusively: “I am Commander Anatoliy Rodionov, Naval Attaché of the Soviet Union in Japan. Welcome.” Tench was dumbfounded at seeing the Russian, but recovered his poise and returned the greeting. He made a mental note to be wary of the Soviet delegation in the next days.
As the planes continued to land, the colonel sent a dispatch back to Okinawa signifying that operations were proceeding well and the situation appeared normal. Then he and his aides sat down to an elegant meal served on white tablecloths. The Japanese had provided the finest silverware, the choicest foods, and the most polite and efficient waiters. Tench’s first hours at Atsugi passed quickly in a rapidly thawing atmosphere of cooperation and goodwill.
After lunch, Arisue himself mingled with American troops as they unloaded their supplies and prepared to set up camp. He was impressed by both their efficiency and their friendliness. As he passed one sweating sergeant, the soldier said, “Hey, General, how about some beer?” Arisue got some for him right away.
In the late afternoon, Tench found time to shave and shower from a bucket. As he sat down to dinner, an aide told him the Russian delegation waited to see him. It was obvious to him that the Soviets were determined to be a part of the American surrender ceremonies. He was correct. The group carried a letter from Jacob Malik, Ambassador to Japan. It asked that the Russians receive passes to the ceremonies when MacArthur arrived. It also requested that the arrival time be announced so that the Soviets could make their plans accordingly. Malik signed it “Faithfully yours.”
Tench sent the message off to Manila where it received predictable treatment. The headquarters of the Supreme Commander ignored it. MacArthur wanted nothing to do with the Russians.
In the darkness of the twenty-eighth, Colonel Tench sprawled on a Japanese bed that was far too short for his six-foot frame. He had trouble unwinding from the exhausting strain of the day, and could not forget that he and his men were alone in the midst of an armed enemy who might revert at any moment to a hostile attitude. Beyond the airfield lived men filled with bitterness and capable of the most violent reactions.
Inside the compound, Japanese searchlights probed the darkness for any sign of danger. Finally Tench slept.
When he saw the dawn, he felt the simple relief of having survived the night. His apprehensions were still with him, but he knew it was important to show them to no one—neither to his own troops nor to the Japanese. He went outside to attend to the business of the day.
The Japanese labor battalions had begun improving the runways and taxi areas. Four thousand young men swarmed over the field, filling in potholes, tamping down dirt, smoothing the soil with an ancient roller. The primitive aspects of this confused assault on the Atsugi landscape struck Tench as both ridiculous and pathetic. One American bulldozer could have done the job better and more quickly.
After seeing General Arisue, Tench noticed that another Japanese officer lingered, hoping to talk with him. It was Lieutenant General Kamada, educated in the United States and once, in 1932, attached to the American First Division as an observer.
Kamada quickly found that he and Tench had mutual friends from the past. The Japanese attempted to ingratiate himself but Tench deliberately remained aloof. At last Kamada offered, “What I’d really like to do is go back to America and—how do you call it?” He swung his arms as though delivering a bowling ball.
Tench asked, “Bowl?”
“Ah, yes, yes,” Kamada replied. Tench walked away.
The American Navy landed at Atsugi that day too. Commander Harold Stassen came in by plane and told Tench that the Third Fleet under Bull Halsey was “right behind” the advance party. Someone standing close to Tench muttered, “Yeah, fifty miles behind us.” Stassen seemed not to hear the remark and passed on.
Late in the day, excitement developed. Authorities in Tokyo reported that an American prisoner at Shinagawa Hospital was suffering from appendicitis and needed an operation quickly. The Americans wanted him taken to one of their ships riding at anchor in Sagami Bay. Tench discussed the case with Arisue, and decided to get a Japanese surgeon’s report before taking action.
Still another crisis erupted right on the base. Junior American officers had commandeered the official Japanese cars brought to the field for use the following day, when the main American forces would arrive. The cars were to be driven in the MacArthu
r procession to Yokahama. Arisue went to Tench and explained that they represented the only transportation available for the occasion. Tench issued orders to find the cars. Arisue and the other Japanese were profoundly impressed with this mild but decisive man who moved quickly to solve a delicate problem.
At midnight, the Japanese again came to Tench, but this time they were furious. The sick prisoner in Tokyo had been spirited away by Commander Harold Stassen, who spent that day removing serious medical cases from the prison camps. To Arisue and his aides, the highly irregular tactics employed by the Naval party were outrageous. Protocol had been ignored. Yet efficient evacuation of the seriously ill had been achieved, and Tench was both pleased and amused by the American maneuver. He spent a half hour mollifying the Japanese anger. Then he went to bed.
At 7:00 A.M. the first elements of the Eleventh Airborne Division landed. The paratroopers jumped out and stood under the wings of the planes. They were fully armed, ready for any trouble. But only Japanese interpreters, committee members and other officials were in evidence.
The Japanese themselves were terrified. A number of the officers who greeted the American soldiers carried revolvers containing only one bullet. Thinking that they might be attacked by the “bloodthirsty” soldiers, they were prepared to kill themselves.
In one of the first planes, the commanding officer of the division, General Joe Swing, arrived to take over from Tench. An aggressive soldier, Swing landed prepared for a fight. His battle jacket was festooned with grenades, and he was willing to use them at the first sign of trouble.
Colonel Tench happily consigned the airfield to him. Pleased that his own forty-eight-hour reign over the Japanese people had ended without incident, he went looking for a bottle of cold beer. His actions had been carefully watched by the Japanese people in the first hours of the occupation and Charles Tench had passed all tests.
Shortly after General Swing assumed charge of the field, he went up to a bushy-browed American colonel and said plaintively, “Fred, there’s a lousy Jap running around loose here and he keeps asking for you. He’s wearing a big knife and is loaded with medals.” The Japanese, unknown to Swing, was Arisue and the colonel was Fred Munson, an intelligence officer on MacArthur’s staff. He and Arisue had first met in 1935 in the city of Himeji, Japan, where Munson, a second lieutenant, had been attached to a Japanese division. Arisue, a major at the time, had briefly befriended the young American. They met again in China in 1938 when Arisue was investigating the death of a Japanese soldier within American Embassy grounds in Peking. Then the war came.
When Arisue greeted his friend Munson-san at Atsugi in the summer of 1945, it was almost like old times, but not quite. Arisue was now the suppliant serving the master. As the two men talked, the victors were pouring into Japan by the thousands.
The C-54’s were landing every two minutes. An enormous fleet of aircraft was moving in with split-second precision in an awesome exhibition of coordination and strength. Hour after hour the huge four-engined transports circled and landed, circled and landed. The noise of the engines was deafening.
General Douglas MacArthur was due at two o’clock. He left Okinawa in the morning, surrounded by his aides, Sutherland, Willoughby, Whitney and others. He was in a jovial mood. Though some of his men feared for his safety during the first hours of occupation, the general seemed without worry. He walked up and down in the plane, pausing now and then to stab the air with his pipe as he spoke to his officers.
As the silver C-54, Bataan, descended over the fields and paddies of Japan, the fifty-foot-high bronze Buddha at Kamakura reared up underneath. Then the amazing hub of activity at Atsugi came into view. General Willoughby looked at the runway, which reminded him of a crazy quilt, broken by thousands of black cracks. It had seen more service this day than all during the war. And yet it held the huge weight of the C-54’s without trouble.
At 2:19 P.M. MacArthur landed in Japan. At the door of the plane he stood gazing at the scene before him. His corncob pipe extending at a jaunty angle reflected his serene confidence.
At the foot of the ramp, General Bob Eichelberger welcomed him to Atsugi. MacArthur said simply, “Bob, this is the payoff.” Three years before he had sent Eichelberger across the Owen Stanley Mountains in New Guinea to hold and defeat the Japanese advancing on Port Moresby. At the time, his instructions had been chilling and direct: “Win or don’t come back.” Thirty-six months later the two men were standing side by side on the runway eighteen miles southwest of Tokyo.
MacArthur moved toward the caravan of cars lined up to escort him into Yokohama. En route he reviewed soldiers of the Eleventh Airborne Division. At one point, he paused to talk to some enlisted men. When the general was announced, one of them reached for his gun to present arms. By mistake he grabbed a bamboo pole. As MacArthur walked by, he stopped and said quietly, “Son, I think you’re in the wrong army.” The sergeant blanched and murmured, “Yes, sir.” Chuckling, MacArthur moved on.
The procession got underway. It was a ridiculous yet quaintly charming sight. The Japanese had gathered a motley collection of private cars and trucks, most of which burned charcoal for fuel. These were led by a bright red fire engine, old and decrepit, whose siren wailed and screamed as the parade moved out of the base.
General Courtney Whitney, MacArthur’s confidant, carefully scanned both sides of the road watching for possible snipers in the fields and homes dotting the route. MacArthur just sat back and enjoyed the view.
From the airport into Yokohama, fifteen miles away, thirty thousand Japanese soldiers stood at attention on both sides of the road. They did not look at the caravan, but instead kept their backs to the procession. Their posture signified deference to the new ruler of Japan, and at the same time enabled them to watch for trouble in the fields. They were like statues, mute and impressive in their rigidity. Civilians were almost totally absent. Once in a while, a face would appear at a window, then disappear.
It was a very hot day and the men riding were thirsty and sweaty. From time to time one of the old cars broke down. The fire engine backfired and snorted, stopped and started.
When the ludicrous procession reached Yokohama, the Americans could see the awesome results of the fire bombings. On May 29, B-29’s had come and virtually wiped out the huge city in one day. Block after block was flat, just a jumble of masonry. A few refugees still lived in the remains.
At the front entrance of the New Grand Hotel, Yozo Nomura, an elderly Japanese dressed in a morning coat, waited nervously for the Supreme Commander. When MacArthur arrived, he bowed and welcomed him. The general asked, “How long have you been the manager of this hotel?”
Nomura hastened to correct him: “I am not a manager, I am the owner. Welcome. I wish to offer my respects to you. During your stay, we’ll do our very best to service you and I hope you’ll like the room I’m going to show you.”
As the flustered Japanese spoke, he was thinking that his greeting to such a man was absurd. Nevertheless, he went through the motions of treating MacArthur like a guest instead of a conqueror. He showed him to Room 315 and the connecting rooms. The suite was the best available in the hotel though hardly sumptuous by American standards.
After Nomura departed, MacArthur tried to take a nap, isolating himself from the chaos in the lobby below. There, “brass” from the various services jockeyed for rooms. In all, 159 general officers from all Allied armies and navies found quarters in the hotel. Japanese waiters and waitresses were besieged by calls for food and drink. The waiters coolly supplied service but the waitresses were terrified by the influx of soldiers, and scurried about like flustered butterflies.
On a floor above, Colonel Fred Munson took off his shirt in a comfortable room and poured himself a Scotch. As he sat talking with Colonel Paul Craig, someone knocked. Standing in the doorway was a Japanese colonel in full uniform. Munson was startled and delighted to see Ichiji Sugita, another friend, a close one, from prewar days. The men embraced and asked for
each other’s family. The Japanese officer, a handsome, soft-spoken gentleman, had come to Atsugi as a representative of the Japanese Government, and would serve as a member of the liaison committee, working with the American forces to effect an orderly transfer of power around Tokyo. He had been brought from Korea for that purpose because of the contacts he had established within the American Army before the war. At one time, he too had lived with an American division and had taken orders from American officers.
During the war, Sugita had served as an aide to General Yamashita when that formidable soldier succeeded in outwitting British defenders at Singapore. It was Sugita who led the first Japanese soldiers down the streets of the city. Later he drew up plans for the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal. As he watched the piecemeal destruction of the Imperial Army during the next two years, Sugita, an astute soldier, repeatedly warned his superiors that the United States had somehow managed to break the Japanese codes, that every move was being monitored by American cryptoanalysts. They laughed at him and took no steps to correct the fatal flaw.
Now he stood in a hotel room in Yokohama and spoke to an American officer who had been like a brother to him for years. Since their last meeting his world had been destroyed.
Realizing what Sugita’s feelings must be, the American colonel treated him with great compassion. Their friendship was above any temporary inequality in position. Sugita relaxed and had a drink.
As the New Grand Hotel echoed to the onslaught of hundreds of milling Allied military men, other Americans embarked on a forbidden trip into Tokyo. Strict orders had been issued that Tokyo was off limits except to those with passes, but foreign correspondents ignored the edict and rode trains or jeeps into the desolate city.
The World War II Chronicles Page 30