Killing the Rising Sun

by Bill O'Reilly

  The tall ensign from Brooklyn who recently graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, in Massachusetts, came aboard the Oneida ten months ago. As with the other sailors, he goes through the daily routines of life on board the ship: four-hour watch, regular meals in the officers’ mess, and the utter off-duty boredom that defines life at sea. Soon, the Oneida will take part in the joyous exodus known as Operation Magic Carpet. Hundreds of US ships—even massive aircraft carriers—are clearing their decks for the thousands of soldiers, sailors, and marines who need a lift home. After enduring a brutal period of war, these men and women deserve nothing but the best, and the ensign knows it.

  Back in Brooklyn, after months of uncertainty and countless prayers, the ensign’s father and mother are waiting to see him walk through their front door. But that will not happen soon. There is still work to do in Japan.

  He has been ordered ashore to help rebuild the defeated nation. On November 26, he will begin a six-month tour of duty at the Naval Communications Facility in Yokosuka, working for Radio Tokyo. It is the ideal job for a young man blessed with an easy wit and a way with words.

  Whether or not he will be released from the navy after that or be forced to serve another year or two is unknown.

  * * *

  It is 10:00 a.m. on September 27, 1945, as a nervous and preoccupied Emperor Hirohito steps out of his maroon 1930 Rolls-Royce at the entrance of the American embassy in Tokyo.3 The emperor’s war, like those of Tojo and the young ensign from Brooklyn, is not over. Hirohito is depressed, and his hands tremble. He suffers from severe jaundice that has deepened the sallow pallor of his skin. Last night he lay awake worrying he will have to stand next to Tojo in the prisoner’s dock, listening to the sonorous tones of an American prosecutor listing his many war crimes.

  Taking a deep breath, Hirohito momentarily calms his fears. Perhaps he won’t hang, after all. His only hope is a direct appeal to General Douglas MacArthur, which is why the emperor has traveled to the American embassy this morning. Courage is everything right now, even if it is false.

  The emperor could have saved himself days of worry by greeting MacArthur a week ago. Hirohito’s Imperial Palace is just across the street from MacArthur’s brand-new office headquarters in Tokyo’s Dai-Ichi Seimei Building.4 When he moved in, MacArthur gave the Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Company three days to vacate the imposing structure, then chose for himself a simple sixth-floor office that actually looks down onto the Imperial Palace.

  While Hirohito can see MacArthur’s office just by looking out the window, and MacArthur can just as easily see him, the emperor has waited for MacArthur to make the first move. But the general is cunning. Paying a call upon the emperor would have been seen as subservient. Better to have it the other way around.

  MacArthur is a message sender—and this message says the emperor has no clothes.

  MacArthur has designated that the meeting should take place at the American embassy, allowing the people of Tokyo plenty of opportunity to see the emperor’s unmistakable Rolls making the shameful drive to MacArthur’s residence. The emperor’s journey from the Sakurada Gate of the Imperial Palace southward through the decimated streets of Tokyo has taken less than ten minutes. His imperial sedan has been followed by three black Mercedes loaded with members of the royal court, but the emperor pays little attention to them now.

  Clad in a black waistcoat, top hat, and polished dress shoes, Hirohito steps through the American embassy’s front door. He is unused to commoners touching his personal possessions and immediately recoils as two army officers salute him and then step forward to take his hat.

  “You are very, very welcome, sir!” says a grinning MacArthur, striding into the room to break the ice. He wears his normal daily khaki uniform rather than formal wear, and has not even affixed his combat ribbons to the simple creased shirt. The general thrusts out his hand to greet the emperor, but Hirohito bows low at the same time, leaving MacArthur’s open hand hovering awkwardly above the emperor’s head. Hirohito continues to bow, finally extending his hand upward to clasp MacArthur’s.

  After a moment’s hesitation, MacArthur invites Hirohito and his interpreter into a private room. The two men speak for forty minutes, during which the emperor apologizes for the war—an admission MacArthur actually downplays during their conversation.

  This is the first of eleven meetings that will take place between MacArthur and Hirohito over the next several years, but it is the most important. For in this simple midmorning conversation, MacArthur makes it clear that he sees the emperor as vital to forging an alliance that will successfully rebuild Japan. Even though the emperor’s admission of culpability makes him a Class A war criminal, MacArthur will do everything in his considerable power to make sure Hirohito never sees the inside of a jail cell—or feels the coarse braid of a hangman’s noose around his throat.

  * * *

  At meeting’s end, MacArthur’s personal photographer is shown into the room. It was Captain Gaetano Faillace who snapped the iconic image of the general wading ashore in the Philippines six months ago, and now he snaps another photo for the ages. Faillace actually takes three pictures of MacArthur and Hirohito standing side by side in front of a desk. In the first two, MacArthur’s eyes are closed and Hirohito appears to be yawning. But the third image, the one that will forever remind the Japanese people that their emperor no longer rules Japan, is the keeper.

  The six-foot MacArthur towers over Hirohito, looking dominant and unimpressed by the small man to his left. The emperor stands at stiff attention; MacArthur looks casual, hands on his hips and elbows sticking out from his sides like a random American tourist who has somehow stumbled into the emperor’s inner sanctum.

  Just to make sure the message is received loud and clear, MacArthur orders that the photos be released to the newspapers, so that all of Japan can see the towering gaijin who now rules their nation.

  Predictably, the people of Japan are horrified.

  Three months later, on January 1, 1946, at MacArthur’s urging, Emperor Hirohito repudiates his divine status, admitting to the people of Japan that he is not a god.

  Thus, the divine nature of the Japanese ruler is revealed as a fraud—but that admission comes far too late for millions of the dead scattered across Asia.

  * * *

  It is May 3, 1946. Formal war crimes indictments are being read at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in a Tokyo courtroom; these “Tokyo Trials” will see a team of jurists hearing evidence against the accused war criminals. With the exception of Judge Radhabinod Pal of India, who considers the proceedings “formalized vengeance sought with arrogance by the Allied Powers upon a defeated Japan,” the verdicts against the accused will be authoritative. Seven men will be sentenced to death for Class A war crimes, sixteen others will be imprisoned for life, and two others will be imprisoned for shorter periods of time.5

  General Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito, photographed together in MacArthur’s office

  Hideki Tojo is among those hearing the indictments. Thanks to the actions of Lieutenant John Wilpers, a doctor was quickly located after the former prime minister shot himself. However, this physician refused to treat Tojo, so the quick-thinking Wilpers was forced to find yet another doctor to save Tojo. After recovering in the hospital, Tojo has been living in solitary confinement in Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison, under round-the-clock armed guard.

  Now, as Tojo sits in the docket, a deranged Japanese civilian defendant hoping to plead insanity steps forward and slaps him twice on the back of the head. The prime minister finds this funny and smiles openly, despite the ominous nature of the proceedings.

  There is another bizarre bit of humor that will shortly come into play—of which Tojo will be completely unaware. The war criminal wears false teeth, and during his time in prison he will come to require a new set of dentures. The United States will be only too happy to oblige. But unbeknownst to Tojo, the words “Remember Pearl Harbor” will be drilled in
to the false teeth in Morse code, ensuring that the Second World War will never really be over for Hideki Tojo—especially not late at night, when he lies alone in solitary confinement at Sugamo Prison, running his tongue along his new dentures, wondering about the curious bumps and divots studding the otherwise smooth porcelain surfaces.

  29

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  WINTER 1948

  DAYTIME

  The Second World War has been over for almost three years as Colonel Paul Tibbets steps into the Oval Office; the veteran pilot is among four men the president has spontaneously invited for a short visit. Tibbets, along with General Carl Spaatz, General Jimmy Doolittle, and Colonel Dave Shillen, made the short drive from the Pentagon together, whereupon they were ushered into the president’s office without delay. They have no idea why they have been summoned.

  Tibbets, the Enola Gay pilot, has been busy since World War II ended. He flew home from the Pacific to minor adulation but quickly withdrew from the public, preferring instead to focus on his failing marriage and the continuation of his aviation career.

  Back in September 1945, with the war newly ended and American troops flooding into Japan, Tibbets was among the first pilots to fly into Tokyo with the occupation forces. Almost immediately upon being billeted at the Dai-Ichi building next to the Imperial Palace in downtown Tokyo, where Douglas MacArthur would also locate his headquarters, Tibbets received orders to transport a Japanese physicist to Hiroshima so that the man could study the A-bomb’s aftermath. This would be the only time in his life that Tibbets would get a chance to visit the scene of Enola Gay’s destruction.

  But fate intervened. The runway near Hiroshima was unsuitable for landing a large aircraft, so instead, Tibbets delivered Professor Masao Tsuzuki to Nagasaki and then spent three days there with a small group of crew he had flown with on Enola Gay. Tibbets and his fellow aviators were touched by the friendliness of the Japanese people, struggling to reconcile that new behavior with the “frenzied mobs that had been known to attack and kill downed American fliers.”

  Colonel Tibbets, bombardier Major Tom Ferebee, and navigator Captain Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk slept along the waterfront, in an idyllic hotel with bamboo walls and a thatched roof. Tibbets could not help but note that the location was also the aiming point for the Nagasaki bomb. The quaint inn would not exist were it not for the heavy clouds that caused Bockscar to drop its payload miles off target.

  The American officers are awed by Fat Man’s destruction. “Block after block had been flattened, as if by a tornado.

  “Strangely, however, I saw no signs of death. There were no bodies anywhere,” Tibbets later wrote. “The brief visit left me with considerable respect for the people who had been our enemies such a short time before.”

  * * *

  President Truman is not at his desk when Tibbets, Spaatz, Doolittle, and Shillen enter the Oval Office. The question of whether or not it was ethical to drop the atomic bombs still hangs over this hallowed room, as it will for decades to come. Strangely, just three chairs await the four air force officers. One man must remain standing.

  The most powerful officer in the group is Spaatz, who has recently been selected the first chief of staff of the United States Air Force. In July 1945, it was Spaatz who requested a handwritten order authorizing the dropping of the atomic bomb. Protocol demands that the chair farthest to the right belongs to him.

  Doolittle, whose flying career is perhaps the most legendary, led the 1942 bombing of Tokyo that became known as simply “the Doolittle Raid.” As the second-highest-ranking of the group, the general will be seated to Spaatz’s left, in the middle chair.

  Colonel Shillen and Tibbets are of equal rank. It remains unclear which of them will sit and which will stand.

  White House butler Alonzo Fields quickly takes charge.

  “General Spaatz,” Fields says, gesturing to a chair, “will you please be facing the desk?”

  As expected, Spaatz takes the seat farthest to the right.

  Tibbets remains standing. After almost fifteen years in the military, he knows better than to ask questions.

  Following strict orders from the president, the White House butler shocks Tibbets by guiding him around to the opposite side of the presidential desk and gesturing to a chair facing the other three, right next to where Truman will sit.

  A surprised Paul Tibbets takes a seat.

  The men are served coffee as they await the president’s arrival. Ten minutes later, Harry Truman walks in wearing a huge smile. The officers immediately rise.

  “Sit down,” Truman orders jovially, making everyone feel at ease.

  Since taking office four years ago, the president has transformed himself from a piano-playing vice president into one of the world’s great statesmen.

  Which is not to say that the transition from war to peacetime has been easy. The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that began in the waning days of World War II continues to escalate, as Russia relentlessly seeks to expand Communist influence around the world. The sense of power Truman felt in Potsdam back in 1945 when he informed Joseph Stalin that America possessed a superweapon has long since dimmed, and intelligence reports estimate it is only a matter of time before the Soviet Union develops an atomic bomb of its own.1

  In addition to the troubles with Russia, Truman’s outspoken personality has alienated some voters here in America. Many point to the slowing economy as a sign that he is a poor leader. With his job approval ratings sometimes dropping below 40 percent, there is a widespread belief that Harry Truman will not run for reelection—and that he would lose in a landslide should he choose to.

  There have, however, been some victories for Truman. His unilateral selection of Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander of the Allied powers in 1945 is popular. MacArthur has successfully transformed a former enemy into a burgeoning ally, rebuilding Japan from rubble and preventing it from embracing communism like so many of its Asian neighbors.

  Privately, Truman now believes the appointment was a mistake. He no longer trusts the general’s decision making, believing MacArthur’s ego has turned Japan into his own personal fiefdom. But for now, Truman keeps his opinion to himself.

  Still smiling, Truman begins the brief meeting by looking at the row of air force officers assembled across the desk.

  “General Spaatz, I want to congratulate you on being the first chief of the air force,” says the president.

  “Thank you, sir,” Spaatz replies. “It is a great honor, and I appreciate it.”

  Turning his gaze to Doolittle, Truman congratulates him on the legendary 1942 raid over Tokyo, which shocked the Japanese because heavy American bombers were launched from aircraft carriers—a feat once considered impossible. “That was a magnificent thing you pulled, flying off that carrier,” Truman marvels.

  “All in a day’s work, Mr. President,” replies the ever-confident Doolittle.

  To Shillen, Truman shows that he is keeping abreast of postwar aviation technology. “Colonel Shillen, I want to congratulate you on having the foresight to recognize the potential in aerial refueling. We’re gonna need it bad someday.”

  “Thank you very much, sir.”

  Finally, Harry Truman turns to face Colonel Paul Tibbets. The president says nothing at first, letting their shared moment form a connection.

  For ten long seconds, the president does not speak.

  “What do you think?” Truman finally asks.

  “Mr. President,” Tibbets replies, knowing full well what Harry Truman is talking about, “I think I did what I was told.”

  Truman slaps his hand down on the desk, rattling the legendary “The Buck Stops Here” placard placed there after the war.

  “You’re damn right you did. And I’m the guy who sent you.”

  * * *

  More than eight months later, and twenty minutes before midnight in Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison, Buddhist priest and prison chapl
ain Shinso Hanayama, the spiritual adviser to the seven Class A Japanese war criminals who will hang by the neck until dead tonight, shares a last moment with each man in the prison’s Buddhist chapel. The date is December 22, 1948.

  Two American chaplains will witness the executions, but Hanayama will not be allowed inside the death chamber. So as each man leaves the Buddhist ceremony, the priest says good-bye to mass murderers like General Hideki Tojo and former prime minister Koki Hirota.

  A party of nine witnesses will be on hand to watch the war’s final chapter unfold. A total of twenty executioners, guards, jailers, and legal officials will view the hangings. The loved ones of the condemned men have not been invited. Each of the observers in the chamber is under strict instructions not to display unseemly conduct or take photographs.

  The execution order states that the hangings will take place as soon after midnight on December 23 as possible. The Sugamo Prison execution chamber is so small that there is only room for four nooses, so the war criminals must be hanged in two separate shifts. As the clock ticks toward twelve, each criminal is clothed in the uniform of an American army garbageman, devoid of any military insignia.

  The men’s legs are shackled, and waist belts are wrapped around their torsos. Each prisoner will be accompanied to the gallows by two American guards. The first group of four men is comprised of Generals Kenji Doihara, Iwane Matsui, Akira Muto, and Hideki Tojo.2