by Greg Clancy
Micronesia extended the Japanese arm to the equator. It placed the Japanese fingers within easy reach of the Philippines, New Guinea, Borneo, Java and even Australia … The southern limit of the Japanese Mandate was shown to be the equator – and the northern limit of the Australian Mandate was also the equator. Along that line, for some 1,400 miles, Australian and Japanese sovereignty met17.
The mandate from the League of Nations – judged aggressively by the Japanese as being a free transfer of sovereignty – became the first phase of the planning for the islands, the acquisition. The second phase was the economic exploitation process, which would produce an immigration outlet as well as food resources for Japan, with little regard for the native populations already on the islands. This was to be accomplished by the government encouraging migration from the overcrowded Japanese home islands to the Pacific colonies. The third phase was the covert building of military infrastructure – roads, port facilities and airstrips – and finally the complete militarisation of the islands. Japan’s springboard for aggression against the West, gifted to them by Germany’s offensive in World War I and subsequently confirmed by a weak League of Nations, would then be complete.
But was Japan’s future aggression in the Pacific to include occupying continental Australia? Historians have unsuccessfully searched records for definitive documentary evidence to cast light on the question. Without the hard evidence of authorised and written corroboration, the Stanley argument has emerged that Japanese invasion plans for Australia did not exist.
There are, however, commanding instances in this discussion which cannot be ignored. Together, they create an entirely different manifesto from which the invasion debate may be measured – and seriously redefined.
1: Removing the Evidence
Immediately following Japan’s surrender, and before the arrival of American forces, there was a mass destruction of pre-war and wartime documents. Any written evidence attaching to the Emperor and members of the royal family was a priority for disposal. Protecting the major war criminals was a further urgency. The Japanese had witnessed the legal developments in the future prosecution of German war criminals, so very little written evidence of military importance awaited the American arrival. It is possible, perhaps likely, that Japanese plans for Australia were included in the destruction.
2: Japan’s Destiny Re-affirmed – Australia in Plan B
The initial Japanese plan for aggression and occupation following Pearl Harbor probably did not include Australia. But because an array of factors can distort the accuracy of military projections, it is likely that the timing of an invasion of Australia would have been subject to the state of the Japanese army and naval forces following the completion of the initial military objective, which included Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby would serve as the focal point from which the invasion would be planned and military and naval forces dispatched.
Japan’s global military aspirations are often neglected under the weight of post-War politics and the new world of strategic alliances. The fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 established a triumphant mood in Japan of almost hysterical proportions. Courtney Browne, biographer of Japan’s wartime prime minister, Hideki Tojo, wrote in his book, Tojo – The Last Banzai:
It did seem, as Toshikazu Kase (a senior foreign affairs official) observed, that in an incredibly short time since Japan had gone to war, the Swastika of Nazi Germany and the Rising Sun of Japan were destined to meet in the Persian Gulf. And Australia and New Zealand were to accept the inevitable. No reliance, Tojo told them, could be placed on the British or Americans for protection.
As for a Japanese landing in Australia, Browne noted:
‘The Supreme Command was divided between the army and navy,’ Tojo admitted after the war, ‘and they would not work in unison.’ Originally the plan had been to carry out combined operations for landing troops in northern Australia. This was now dropped because of the refusal of the army high command to provide the necessary number of divisions.
Courtney Browne states clearly that Tojo admitted after the war there was a plan to invade Australia, and the only inhibition was the army’s belief that adequate forces for the operation could not be made available at that time.
The formal document encompassing the details was probably destroyed as in 1 above.
Another Tojo quotation from Browne assesses the Japanese invasion during a speech to the Diet (Japanese parliament) on 27 May 1942. Tojo was referring to the Battle of the Coral Sea fought three weeks earlier.
It had, he said, ‘led to the disappearance of the naval forces defending Australia’, which was now ‘the “orphan of the Pacific”, helplessly awaiting Japanese attack’.
Tojo’s speech was undermined by the important fact that the Japanese had lost the Battle of the Coral Sea, not won it, but it confirmed Japan’s intention to invade Australia.
3: The Yamamoto Plan
To accept the argument that Japan did not have an invasion plan for Australia necessitates the insertion of ‘official’ or ‘authorised’ before ‘invasion’. There were probably numerous invasion plans for Australia circulating around the Imperial Headquarters inside the Emperor’s palace in Tokyo, but none received approval from Hirohito, who authorised all major military operations.
One of these proposals deserves mention.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was the fleet commander of the Japanese navy, and his leadership prestige went well beyond his iconic status in Japan. His naval planning for the Pearl Harbor attack, by necessity, was accompanied by subsidiary preparations for Japanese naval operations following the attack.
Yamamoto knew the ‘bigger picture’ campaigns to be commenced following Pearl Harbor. He understood the ‘Grand Plan’ of Japan’s future aggression. He knew Australia was ear-marked for invasion – at some future date. But he also understood, more than most Japanese, the industrial capacity of the United States, and he was conscious of the need to avoid a prolonged conflict with a nation whose military productive capabilities significantly exceeded that of Japan.
Yamamoto’s strategy for an invasion of Australia emerged in February 1942 following the initial successes of the Japanese army’s southern push, well ahead of schedule. To invade Australia now, the Japanese would benefit by controlling the entire western Pacific rim. This would present the Americans with the loss of critical bases and staging areas. With Australia occupied, the Japanese would instal a southern defensive perimeter with air bases from the East Indies, through New Guinea to the Solomon Islands. The tactical disadvantage to United States forces could therefore be enormous, and Australia’s contribution in the war against Japan would cease to exist. The reasoning behind advocating a Japanese occupation of Australia made military common sense.
Yamamoto passed his plan on to General Tomoyuki Yamashita (the ‘Tiger of Malaya’) whose army had defeated the British in Malaya and Singapore. Yamashita believed the plan was feasible.
The historian David Bergamini, in his book, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, describes the essence of the strategy:
Despite the vastness of Australian distances, he (Yamashita) felt that it would be feasible to land a division almost immediately at Darwin and thrust hard and fast down the north-south railroad and road links toward Adelaide and Melbourne on the south coast. Later, he proposed, a second division could be put ashore on the east coast to leapfrog its way from port to port down toward Sydney.
Ultimately, the Yamamoto plan was quietly rejected by Hirohito. Bergamini states the reasons for this rejection:
… a Japanese force would have to depend entirely on supplies from the rear. The Japanese merchant fleet was already taxed to the utmost without taking on new assignments. Also, if the United States became alarmed and poured Flying Fortresses into Sydney, it would be difficult to maintain air superiority. On the Australian badlands Japanese columns would be fearfully vulnerable to long-range, high-level air attack.
And the Japanese Commander-in-Chief arbitrates:
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On reviewing the arguments of both sides, Hirohito decided that the invasion of Australia could be postponed until after the conquest of Burma. In terms of global strategy and of dividing the world with Hitler, an advance toward India and the Middle East took precedence over the capture of Australasian land’s end.
Hirohito may have ordered the postponement of the Australian invasion, but that was all – just a limited postponement. The Japanese campaign to occupy New Guinea and the islands in the immediate region was expected to serve two important purposes – to defeat the American naval forces in the South West Pacific, i.e. to finish what was commenced at Pearl Harbor, and to be positioned to invade Australia when circumstances allowed.
While the Yamamoto invasion plan was rejected, it was nevertheless highly significant in the question of Japan’s intentions for Australia. Yamamoto was the Japanese navy’s head of operations, and undoubtedly knew the broad plan for the Pacific conquests. He had to know this in order to contribute to the navy’s essential role in Japan’s war aims. Had Australia not figured in this strategy, it is highly unlikely he would have considered the operation, and even less likely that he would have interfered with the army’s plans by involving General Yamashita who, after capturing Singapore, was elevated to super-hero status in Japan.
In April 1943, while undertaking a tour of inspection near Bougainville, Yamamoto was killed in an American aerial ambush.
Offering more than a hint as to the Japanese political intentions for Australia were speeches by Prime Minister Tojo to the Diet in January and February 1942. As Japanese troops stormed down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore, Tojo announced that should Australia resist, it will be ‘crushed’. This did not represent a ‘plan’, but the meaning was clear.
Four months later, Yamamoto raised the Australian strategy again in plans to be implemented immediately following a Japanese victory in what would later be known as The Battle of Midway – one of the great decisive battles in World War II. For the Japanese, this historic naval encounter was to be a launching pad of major proportions. The American author, Edwin P
Hoyt, in his book Japan’s War – The Great Pacific Conflict, has quoted from the Japanese historian Agawa Hiroyuki’s biography of Yamamoto, The Reluctant Admiral:
The Midway plan encompassed only the occupation of Midway and the Aleutian Islands. But Admiral Yamamoto’s plans were far more grandiose. Midway would be taken in June. Afterwards the battleships of the Combined Fleet would return to Japan, but the cruisers and carriers and destroyers would go to Truk18, to prepare for the July capture of New Caledonia and the Fiji Islands. Admiral Nagumo’s carrier striking force, no longer inhibited by the sunk American fleet, would strike Sydney, Melbourne and other south-east coast Australian cities. Then the naval forces would reassemble at Truk and prepare for the invasion of Johnston Island and the Hawaiian Islands in August.
It is evident that the Japanese invasion of Australia was subject only to timing and resource availability. It may well have been that a formally approved plan did not exist, but had Guadalcanal and New Guinea fallen, and the Battle of the Coral Sea been lost, Yamamoto’s proposals would have been surveyed by Hirohito and his advisors in a very different manner.
Matsuoka’s Faux Pas
Not all the Japanese gusto for invading Australia was reserved for the period during the military successes following Pearl Harbor. Hints at Japan’s greater ambitions had been expressed in various ways since the war with China began in 1937.
On 25 February 1941, in the midst of Major Hashida’s spy trip around Australia, the Japanese Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, stated in an address to the Diet:
While it is difficult to conduct political affairs according to advocated ideals, I believe that the white race must cede Oceania to the Asiatics.
In the context of Japan’s sphere of immediate interest, ‘Oceania’ clearly meant Australia and New Zealand. The following day the Japanese Consul in Sydney was asked for a clarification of Matsuoka’s statement. He replied there had been a ‘mistranslation’. There was, however, very little to mistranslate from. It was clear that Australia, one way or another, was scheduled to enter Japan’s empire.
4: The Race War
In a warped parallel to Hitler’s code of racial ‘superiority’, the doctrines of the day in Japan alleged the Japanese people possessed a racial, cultural and spiritual supremacy over anyone else, including the Germans. This was fundamental to the principles contained in the national ideology. The racial pre-eminence factor was accepted in Japan without question or debate, with the exception of those educated with transnational experiences. In fighting the Americans, this ‘advantage’ would be translated into a unified Japanese fighting force of far greater quality than could be mustered by the fragmented mixed-race opposition.
5: Mapping the Invasion
All military invasions require maps, and the Japanese possessed what was needed for the invasion of Australia prior to the commencement of hostilities at Pearl Harbor. An example is a detailed 1938 military map of Darwin referred to by Robert Clancy (author’s brother) in his book Maps that Shaped Australia:
The Japanese had amassed extensive information on Australia which included Australian military maps overprinted in Japanese. The Darwin map was obtained covertly and reprinted with Japanese characters. It contained important artillery correction data relevant to the protection of the port.
Included in the Japanese collection of Australian maps was a series of aerial photographs detailing the port of Newcastle, obtained in April 1939.
Japan’s New Continental Colony – Australia
Accompanying Japan’s military conquests was the seemingly innocent but convenient political propaganda of ‘Asia for the Asians’. What was left unsaid by the Japanese invaders was just which Asians would benefit from the policy and who would be subjugated. Also left unsaid was the future of Western influences in Asia, which were earmarked for extinction. To allow Australia and New Zealand to exist undisturbed at the base of the new Japanese empire was inconceivable. Allowing these two countries to remain independent would be contrary to the spirit of the principles the leaders of Japan deemed to comprise the national destiny.
Whether it was to be sooner or later, Australians and New Zealanders would have suffered the same fate as others under Japanese control.
Following the successful military occupation of Australia, the population would be subjected to some form of Japanese administration – initially by the military. Kennosuke Sato was a man who knew a great deal about Australia and was expected, by sources familiar with his role in Japanese militarism during the 1930s, to be appointed the civilian administrator of the southern continental flank of the new Japanese empire.
Sato had received a western education in the United States, England and Germany. He was a feature writer for a Japanese newspaper, and also wrote several books on contemporary Japan and the West. He travelled to Australia in 1935 and remained for five months collecting facts and figures for an ‘information book’. He also cultivated associations with several politicians and business leaders while adding his influence to organisations positioned to offer moral support for past and future Japanese aggression.
Sato’s wartime activities were linked to the brutal interrogation of captured Australian army and air force officers as he unsuccessfully actioned his task of grooming individuals for serving in the management of the proposed Japanese occupation and administration following Australia’s capitulation.
The following extract is from an article titled ‘The Jap who Expected to Govern Australia’ in the 2 January 1946 edition of the Melbourne Herald.
Why is Ken Sato, who was to have been Japanese administrator of Australia, at large and not under arrest as a war criminal? That is what Australian officers who suffered at his instigation now chiefly want to know about him.
Sato told Denis Warner, in a despatch to the Herald yesterday from Osaka, that Australia’s surrender was expected to follow t
he projected landing in Queensland, the capture of Brisbane and Sydney, and the thrust towards Melbourne.
This was, according to Sato, the Japanese project for early 1942. It was deferred when the invasion fleet was halted at Rabaul while the Japanese secured their new lines of communication …
This is another version of the same theme in the invasion debate. According to Sato, Australia was scheduled for Japanese occupation, but precisely how and when only depended on suitable military circumstances.
Peter Stanley’s statement that ‘no plan’ existed, taken to a literal extreme, is probably correct – but it is very misleading. His mistake has been to omit the reality that had the conditions suited the Japanese, there would have been an invasion. Only the uncertainties of military risk and priorities in other areas of conflict interfered with the opportunity for a finalised and emperor-approved ‘plan’.
It is undeniable that invading Australia was an issue raised several times by people senior enough to have proposals considered at the highest level. These proposals were rejected on the basis of doubts as to immediate success. They were not rejected for any other reason.
Renovating History – The Cost of Compliance
How did the ‘no plan’ historians get it wrong? The answer is in the immediate post-war period when the wartime emperor was sanitised by both the occupying Americans and the Japanese – for totally different reasons, but with the same outcome.
The decision not to place Emperor Hirohito on trial for war crimes had its origins in both the need to ‘leave something’ for Japan’s long-suffering and downtrodden population, and the changed international order following World War II. The American fear of a popular uprising should Hirohito be treated as a criminal also weighed heavily on the decision. So the Emperor was now transformed into a man who stoically endured the indignities of having military thugs coerce him into signing documents approving Japan’s military ventures and the suppression of the Southeast Asian people. This is a convenient standpoint that is far from the truth, but dovetails in well for the historical faint-hearted.