The World War II Chronicles

by William Craig

  Though the Field Marshal was far from being a fanatical exponent of expanding Japanese hegemony over vast areas of the Pacific, he knew that he might be indicted by the Allies, if only for one incident in his career. In April 1942 he and others in the military had been shocked at the daring raid on Tokyo by the Doolittle fliers. When eight of them were captured after crashlanding in China, Sugiyama had concurred in a decision that resulted in the execution of three of the imprisoned men. He had even gone to Tojo and demanded that punitive measures be taken against them. Now, three years later, the Americans would probably remember the part he played in that affair. But Sugiyama had no intention of waiting for a summons.

  On the next morning, September 12, 1945, General Sugiyama appeared at his office on Ichigaya Heights. At 10:00 A.M. he called Kobayashi to him.

  “I want you to do me one last favor. Please go to my wife and find out what she plans to do. I have been so worried that she might kill herself and I want to make sure that she has no such intention.”

  Kobayashi promised to go right away and shortly thereafter drove to the Sugiyama home. There he confided the general’s fears to his wife. She laughed gaily and said: “Don’t worry. I can’t commit suicide because I’m an old woman and much too weak to do such a thing. I know General Sugiyama will do it and that is enough.”

  The colonel rushed back to Ichigaya and repeated these words to the general who sat back in his chair and sighed contentedly. She had been his only concern and now his mind was at rest. “Thank you, Kobayashi. Everything is all right now.”

  The colonel went to his office and sat thinking of the two people he loved so deeply. Fifteen minutes later he heard a gunshot and rushed out into the corridor. The door to Sugiyama’s office was open and Kobayashi ran to it.

  After taking off his officer’s tunic, the general had seated himself in a comfortable chair. Then he had pressed a service revolver to his white shirt and fired into his chest. Unlike Hideki Tojo, Sugiyama had found the mark and fallen unconscious.

  Kobayashi was overcome by grief as he stood beside the dying man. Noting that the general was perspiring greatly, he brought out a handkerchief and tenderly wiped his brow. The secretary whispered, “This is Kobayashi. This is Kobayashi.” Sugiyama’s head rolled upward slightly and nodded several times as he tried to recognize the presence of his aide. Then he slumped further into a coma. Other officers came to the room and watched the Field Marshal as he labored for final breaths.

  One of them told Kobayashi that he had just called Mrs. Sugiyama to give her the sad news. She had asked only one question: “Is he really dead?” When the officer said that he was, Mrs. Sugiyama had hung up.

  As this information was given to the saddened Kobayashi, he was suddenly alarmed and sensed that he should go immediately to the Sugiyama home. He drove quickly to the suburbs and hastened into the house. The general’s adopted daughter stood in the reception hall, her face lined with horror. Kobayashi brushed by her and went to the bedroom. As he opened the door he realized that he was too late.

  Mrs. Sugiyama had put down the telephone and gone to her room. There she knelt before a Buddhist temple and prayed. Taking a small ceremonial knife in her hand, she pressed it to the front of her kimono. Then she picked up a cup and drained its contents. She fell forward onto the tiny knife, which pricked her chest and drew a small amount of blood. The dagger did not inflict the mortal wound. The cyanide in the cup did.

  Kobayashi called and called her name but she could not answer. As he looked on helplessly, she died on the floor.

  EPILOGUE

  In Mukden, Manchuria, where the Japanese Army had first defied its Government in 1931 by staging a coup, new armies walked the streets. Russian and Chinese Communist soldiers controlled the city. Merchants flew the flags of the USSR and Mao Tse-tung in their shopwindows. Chinese peasants looted the factories so laboriously built up by Japanese industrialists. Soviet trains pulled up to sidings and were loaded with heavy equipment and machine tools for shipment to Russia.

  American OSS agents strolled casually about, snapping pictures of the virtual brick-by-brick dismemberment of the industry of Manchuria. They sent this evidence of Communist duplicity back to headquarters, which told them to stay where they were as long as possible, until the Russians threw them out. That would happen within days.

  In the Home Islands of Japan, the enemy had come and taken control of the major cities. So far the occupation had been peaceful. Though scattered instances of rape, robbery and murder had occurred, both sides were amazed at the manner in which the two former foes had managed to adjust. Japan was under the control of a conquering army, but the ruling hand was quite restrained. In countless towns and hamlets, the first sight of the invader was frightening but the fear was short-lived. The Americans were businesslike and peaceful.

  In the city of Nagasaki, three men walked down still-cluttered streets. The lonely trio were Chuck Sweeney, Kermit Beahan and Don Albury from the crew of Bock’s Car. Little more than a month before, they had come to Nagasaki, but at a height of twenty-nine thousand feet. From their plane had come the ugly, bulbous Fat Man which blew down buildings, roasted bodies and invaded bloodstreams. The three airmen had come back with the first American medical team into the stricken area. The night before they had stopped just outside town at a place called Mogi. After a pleasant meal, the fliers had talked awhile, then gone to bed. For the first time in his life, pilot Chuck Sweeney took out his pistol and belt and hung them on the bedpost. He felt uneasy—some Japanese might already have discovered the identity of the three men on the outskirts of Nagasaki.

  The next morning they rode through the wreckage and walked the streets. It was only a little more than a month since the bomb had fallen, and some of the bodies had not yet been removed. Skulls lay on both sides of the road. In holes that had been scooped out as air-raid shelters, skeletons were piled on top of each other. The stench made it hard to breathe. It assailed the nostrils and caused an involuntary sucking in of breath.

  In a cavity off the road, fire engines lay squashed down like bugs. At the medical center on the hill, the main building was still standing, but its interior had been burned out. From it doctors and nurses had run up to safety. In it patients who screamed for rescue from the approaching flames had been ignored.

  The three strangers walked through the blackened rooms and saw bones lying in beds. They had been there for over a month, sightless skulls staring at the ceilings over which the great light had shone weeks before.

  In one of the operating rooms, a patient lay on the operating table where he had been when the bomb burst. The skeleton waited as though hoping to be repaired. Around the room the remains of doctors and nurses sprawled in the positions they assumed at death. The room was a dreadful tableau, suspended in time by that awful brilliance which had touched everyone in Nagasaki.

  They walked through the devastation, through the numbed and sullen survivors who acted differently from the people in Tokyo and other cities. These people were hurt beyond repair, warped forever by an unearthly power. They were indifferent to strangers, withdrawn from each other. Many were still dying from the insidious illness which had crept into their bloodstreams. They lived in lean-tos, thrown up to protect them from the cold nights and the burning sun, thrown up to bring some privacy to bodies stripped of pretensions to normalcy by the bomb. They ignored the men walking through the Urakami Valley in September of 1945.

  The three Americans thought it was just as well.

  Image Gallery

  Kamikaze pilots preparing for take-off—as painted by Japanese war artist. (U.S. Army)

  Kobe, Japan, under air attack by B-29s. (U.S. Air Force)

  The Big Three at Potsdam. (U.S. Army)

  The Little Boy. (inset, Atomic Energy Commission); The Enola Gay home from bombing Hiroshima. (U.S. Air Force)

  The Genie over Nagasaki. (U.S. Air Force)

  The Fat Man. (Atomic Energy Commission)

  Crew 15. Re
ar, from left to right: Kermit Beahan, Jim Van Pelt, Don Albury, Fred Olivi, Chuck Sweeney. Front, left to right: Ed Buckley, John Kuharek, Ray Gallagher, “Pappy” Dehart, Abe Spitzer. (U.S. Air Force)

  Lieutenant Marcus McDilda. His fantastic lie caused consternation in Tokyo. (Courtesy of Marcus McDilda)

  General Korechika Anami. (Courtesy of Mrs. Korechika Anami)

  Lieutenant Colonel Masahiko Takeshita. (Courtesy of Lt. Col. Takeshita)

  Major Kenji Hatanaka (Courtesy of the Hatanaka family)

  Kawabe mission lands at Ie Shima. Green crosses on bomber were painted on orders from MacArthur. (U.S. Army)

  Kawabe and staff transfer to American plane for flight to Manila. (U.S. Army)

  OSS agents jump behind Japanese lines in North China. (U.S. Army)

  General Jonathan Wainwright and fellow prisoners have breakfast with their rescuers in Mukden, Manchuria. Left to right: General George Moore, Major Robert Lamar, Major James Hennessy, Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, Tjarda Van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, and General Wainwright. (U.S. Army)

  General Jonathan Wainwright on his way home after three years in captivity. Major Gus Krause welcomes him to Hsian, China. (U.S. Army)

  Major John Singlaub, Commander of Mission Pigeon, stands in drop zone on northwest coast of Haiman Island, Aug. 27, 1945. (U.S. Army)

  Australian and Dutch survivors rescued by Singlaub team; traps on the ground were used to catch rats for extra food. (U.S. Army)

  A grim Colonel Charles Tench takes command of Atsugi Airbase from General Seizo Arisue. Interpreter, Major Faubion Bowers, is at Tench’s left. (U.S. Army)

  Tench and Bowers walk resolutely across the field quite aware that they may be murdered. (U.S. Army)

  Top-hatted Mamoru Shigemitsu, followed by General Umezu, stands on deck of U.S.S. Missouri. (U.S. Army)

  General Umezu surrenders the Imperial Japanese Army to the enemy. (U.S. Army)

  General Tomoyuki Yamashita surrounded by his accusers in Manila. He was later hanged for war crimes. (U.S. Army)

  General Hideki Tojo near death after attempted suicide. An American doctor saved him for the gallows. (U.S. Army)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  During the past two years, many people have contributed their knowledge to this book. They have also shown much hospitality and kindness to a stranger. My sincere gratitude is extended to the following:

  IN THE UNITED STATES: Charles D. Albury, John Auxier, Kenneth Bainbridge, William Barney, Kermit Beahan, Jacob Beser, Faubion Bowers, John Bradley, Arnold Breakey, General Clovis Byers, John Cantlon, Patricia Carey, Ralph Curry, L. J. Deal, Allen Dulles, David Dunne, Myron Faryna, Raymond Gallagher, Leonard Godfrey, General Leslie Groves, James Healey, James Hennessy, Roger Hilsman, Colonel Joseph Jackson, James Kellis, Mr. and Mrs. Gustave Krause, Robert Lamar, William Laurence, Harold Leith, George MacPherson, John Madison, Sidney Mashbir, Marcus McDilda, General Frederick Munson, General George Olmstead, General William R. Peers, Mrs. Earl Ricks, Alexander Sachs, Robert Serber, Colonel John Singlaub, Edward Starz, Stanley Steinke, General Charles Sweeney, Charles Tench, General Paul Tibbets, General Albert Wedemeyer, General Charles Willoughby.

  IN EUROPE: Vice Admiral Frederick Ashworth, Commander, United States Sixth Fleet.

  IN JAPAN: Genichi Akatani, Mrs. Korechika Anami, Okikatsu Arao, General Seizo Arisue, Yoshiro Fujimura, Hiroshi Fuwa, Saburo Hayashi, Zenshiro Hoshina, Masao Inaba, Tadao Inoue, Masao Ishii, Masataka Iwata, Naomichi Jin, Shinaji Kobayashi, Toru Kumamoto, Masao Matsuda, Yoshio Manaka, Katsuhei Nakamura, Setsuzo Nishiura, Toshikazu Ohmae, Atsushi Oi, Hisatsune Sakomizu, Ichiji Sugita, Masahiko Takeshita, Rikihei Takuma, Morio Tateno, Mrs. Hideki Tojo, Sadatoshi Tomioka, Makoto Tsukamoto, Kantaro Uemura, Mrs. Mitsuru Ushijima, Professor Kei Wakaizumi, H. Yoshioka.

  Of great help were the following archives and archivists: IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C., area: Federal Records Center, Alexandria, Va.—Wilbur Nigh, Thomas Hohmann, Joseph Avery, Robert Krauskopf, Lois Aldridge; Office of the Chief of Military History—Mr. Charles Romanus and Miss Hannah Zeidlik; The National Archives—Mr. Charles Taylor; U.S. Navy Historical Records Division—Mr. Dean Allard and Miss Florence Mayhew; Department of the Navy, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery—Mr. Quinton Sanger.

  ALSO: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense—Major Robert Webb, Major B. J. Smith; U.S. Marine Corps Library, Henderson Hall; Library of Congress, Japanese Research Room; Japanese Embassy.

  IN THE NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, NEW ENGLAND AREA: U. S. Signal Corps Museum, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; New York City Public Library, Main Branch; Columbia University Law Library and East Asian Library; Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library, New Haven, Conn.; Harvard University, Widener Library, Cambridge, Mass.; Norwalk and Westport, Conn., public libraries.

  ALSO: Military Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Mo.—Mr. Herman Gross and Mrs. S. Levy, in particular; Department of the Air Force, Headquarters, Fifth Air Force—Colonel Milton Frank and William Vizzard.

  IN JAPAN: In Tokyo—The staffs of the Diet Library, Foreign Office and Japanese Defense Agency, who were so helpful to my research associates and myself during the past months. In Hiroshima—the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, which supplied case histories of survivors of the Little Boy and Fat Man.

  ALSO, SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING:

  Congressman Don Irwin, 4th District, Connecticut, who repeatedly snipped reams of red tape; his assistant, Ronay Arlt, who never refused to help with my research problems; Robert Travers and Richard Goldhurst, who lent encouragement at crucial moments; David Jones, Pan American Airways, who opened many doors in Tokyo; his assistant, Mrs. T. Saito, whose phone calls saved me hours of frustration; Edwin Kiester, who introduced me to David Jones; Robert Trumbull, Emerson Chapin and Junnosuke Ofusa, New York Times, Tokyo, who were most courteous and kind to me; Messrs. Fujita and Yokokawa of the Mainichi Newspapers for unfailing hospitality.

  To Michael Magzis, who acted as counselor and critic; to Margaret Cameron, who suggested many helpful changes; to Mrs. Kiyoko Ishii, whose extraordinary enthusiasm and devotion to research problems contributed so much to the final manuscript. Besides those attributes, her warm personality has endeared her to the entire Craig family, which, incidentally, deserves a medal for courage in the face of the enemy, the author.

  Lastly, may I thank the people of The Dial Press; especially E. L. Doctorow, Editor-in-Chief, and Richard Baron, President; their original faith in me made possible THE FALL OF JAPAN.

  Notes and Sources

  Certain books and documents proved extremely helpful as reference material for nearly every chapter. To avoid needless repetition, I will mention these works only once; this is not to minimize their value to me.

  Diplomatic History

  Robert J. C. Butow’s Japan’s Decision to Surrender; Herbert Feis’ Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference, and Japan Subdued: The Atomic Bomb and the End of the War in the Pacific; Len Giovanitti and Fred Freed’s The Decision to Drop the Bomb; The Japanese Foreign Office publication Shusen Shiroku; Shigenori Togo’s The Cause of Japan; Koichi Kido’s Nikki.

  Military Affairs

  Samuel Eliot Morison’s History of Naval Operations in World War II, especially Vols. XIII and XIV; Walter Karig’s Battle Report, Vol. V; Masanori Ito’s Gumbatsu Koboshi (3 vols.), and Teikoku Kaigun No Saigo; Wesley Craven and James Cate’s The Army Air Forces in World War II: Vol. V, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki; Takushiro Hattori’s Daitoa Senso Zenshi (4 vols.); Saburo Hayashi’s Kogun.

  Documents, Records

  U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: Interrogations (2 vols.). Japanese Research Division, U.S. Army Far East, Military History Section: Interrogation of Japanese Officials (2 vols.); Statements of Japanese Officials on World War II (4 vols.); Translation of Japanese Documents (7 vols.). International Military Tribunal for the Far East: selected interrogations and statements of witnesses and defendants.

  In the following notes on individual chapters, the term Stat
ements by almost always refers to those made to the Japanese Research Division, U.S. Army Far East, by Japanese officers and statesmen.

  CHAPTER ONE: The Tactics of Despair

  On Admiral Onishi and the Founding of the Kamikazes

  From interviews with naval officers Zenshiro Hoshina, Rikihei Inoguchi (Takuma), Toshikazu Ohmae, Atsushi Oi.

  From logs of U.S. ships St. Lo, Kitkun Bay, Santee.

  Also: Inoguchi and Nakajima’s Divine Wind; Yoshio Kodama’s I Was Defeated.

  On Okinawa

  From interviews with Naomichi Jin, the widow of General Ushijima, Rikihei Inoguchi, Okikatsu Arao.

  From U.S. Army interrogations of Japanese officers Jin, Yahara, Shimada (32nd Army), and Setsuzo Nishiura.

  Also: After action reports and histories of U.S. 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, and 7th, 77th and 96th Army divisions; daily reports of U.S. 10th Army and XXIV Corps.

  From logs of U.S. ships Bush, Colhoun.

  From books: Okinawa: The Last Battle, a most informative official U.S. history; Japanese works P. W. Doctor, Senkan Tomato No Saigo and Okinawa Senshi, which reflect the precipitate decline of Japanese power and morale both on land and sea.

  Also: Japanese Army Monographs Number 53 and Number 83, on Okinawa campaign.

  On Suzuki Cabinet Formation

  From interview with Hisatsune Sakomizu.

  From statements of Koiso, Suzuki, Hiranuma, Kido, Sakomizu, Togo, Saonji.

  CHAPTER TWO: Meetinghouse

  On Raid

  From interviews with 35 Japanese civilians who lived in Tokyo and witnessed the raid on March 9 and later ones.