Killing the Rising Sun

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Killing the Rising Sun Page 27

by Bill O'Reilly


  2. General Kenji Doihara is the opium-addicted commander who led the invasion of Manchuria and the subsequent subjugation of the Chinese people; General Iwane Matsui is charged with leading the Rape of Nanking; General Akira Muto was responsible for inhumane activities in China, Sumatra, and the Philippines; and Hideki Tojo was the Japanese prime minister responsible for leading Japan into war.

  3. General Seishiro Itakagi was convicted on eight counts of war crimes, including inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. Former prime minister Koki Hirota was in power when Japan invaded China and was sentenced for the attack and subsequent proliferation of the war. General Heitaro Kimura was an assistant to Tojo and also went on to commands throughout Asia; he was charged with allowing the barbaric treatment of Allied POWs to proliferate.

  4. Like the bodies of the six other men executed on December 23, 1948, Tojo’s body was cremated. Despite the best efforts of the Americans, his ashes were split between a Tokyo cemetery and the Yasukuni Shrine, a still-controversial memorial to the glorious Japanese war dead. Displays at the nearby Yushukan military museum espouse a revisionist history claiming that the United States was the racist aggressor in the Greater East Asia War, as the Pacific theater of the Second World War is known in Japan. Shortly before his sentence was carried out, Tojo gave his military ribbons to one of his American jailers.

  POSTSCRIPT

  1. Truman’s feelings about MacArthur’s defiance are stated in a letter written by Truman and owned by Bill O’Reilly, which is reprinted in this book.

  SOURCES

  A great deal of the joy in writing a work of history comes from the detective investigation required to flesh out an episode or a subject and make it rise up off the page. Travel, archival searches, governmental databases, websites, and the works of other authors are just a few of the resources that we rely upon. The authors wish to thank James Zobel at the MacArthur Memorial Foundation in Norfolk, Virginia, for his tireless help in tracking down obscure documents pertaining to the general and his life. Visitors to Norfolk are encouraged to pay this underappreciated museum a visit, for it offers an abundance of information about MacArthur’s life as well as a vast number of his personal effects.

  Head Archivist Dara Baker at the Naval War College was most helpful in tracking down the movements of Admiral Nimitz through the document known as the Nimitz Graybook. David Clark at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, was also very helpful in finding some of the more obscure details of the late president’s life. As with all presidential libraries, the Truman Library’s website offers exhaustive detail about his presidency and lifelong habit of letter writing. The papers of a great number of lesser Truman administration officials can also be found there. Visit www.trumanlibrary.org to have a look.

  The US Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, should be a required stop for anyone with even a passing interest in history, showcasing the United States Navy—and so much more. The exhibits visitors can view include the spur belonging to John Wilkes Booth that caught on patriotic bunting as he leaped from the presidential box after shooting President Abraham Lincoln and the tomb of the legendary John Paul Jones. For this book, we were interested in the displays detailing the navy’s impact on the Pacific war as well as a large number of artifacts, including the pen Admiral Chester Nimitz used to sign the Japanese surrender documents and a sword surrendered by the Japanese delegation to the Allies on the morning of September 2, 1945. Also on display at the Naval Academy Museum are a number of flags that have played prominent roles in American naval history, including the Stars and Stripes flown by Commodore Matthew Perry when he sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 and later displayed on board the USS Missouri on the morning of the Japanese surrender. The USNA museum is also in possession of the other American flag that flew aboard the Missouri, but it is not currently on display. Thank you to archivist Jim Cheevers for his assistance.

  There is a fine Pearl Harbor display and film at the USNA museum, but for the greatest effect, readers are encouraged to visit the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to looking around a detailed museum and watching a vivid film detailing the attack and its aftereffects, visitors can travel by boat to the spot in the harbor where the Arizona still rests. Many of the men who died when she exploded and sank that Sunday morning are still entombed inside the ship. Many of those who survived the attack have requested that upon their deaths, their ashes would be placed within the Arizona so that they might be laid to rest with their former shipmates.

  On display nearby, positioned so that its guns symbolically protect the memorial and the men of the Arizona, is the USS Missouri. The Mighty Mo is a museum ship now, and visitors can come aboard to see the precise spot on which the Japanese surrender documents were signed.

  The authors would also like to thank the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and distinguished World War II writer and researcher Brian Sobel.

  * * *

  What follows are other resources utilized in this writing. This list is by no means exhaustive but will provide the readers with a road map to use in their own historical investigations.

  Websites, Newspapers, and Archives: General Background Information

  News Sources: New York Times, Life magazine, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Washington Post, Spokane Daily Chronicle, Australian, Wall Street Journal, Times of India, Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report, New Yorker, Japan Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Marine Corps Chevron, Fox News, PBS, BBC.

  Websites: Architect of the Capitol (www.aoc.gov); Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives (www.clerk.house.gov); National Archives (www.archives.gov), especially dated February 26, 1945, entitled “Captured Japanese Instructions Regarding the Killing of POW”; Battle of Manila Online (www.battleofmanila.org); Congressional Medal of Honor Society (www.cmohs.org); Supreme Court of the United States (www.supremecourt.gov); FBI Records—The Vault (https://vault.fbi.gov); Office of the Historian (history.state.gov); Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov); USS Indianapolis (www.ussindianapolis.org); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (www.thebulletin.org), especially Ellen Bradbury and Sandra Blakeslee, “The Harrowing Story of the Nagasaki Bombing Mission.”

  Archives: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; United States National Archives; Princeton University Library, The Manhattan Project—US Department of Energy; The George C. Marshall Foundation; US Department of State—Office of the Historian; Library of Congress—Carl Spaatz Papers; Congressional Record, V. 145, Pt. 8, May 24, 1999, to June 8, 1999; Congressional Record, V. 146, Pt. 15, October 6, 2000, to October 12, 2000; National Library of Australia—Trove (archives of the Argus); US Naval War College (especially the Nimitz Gray book); Harry S. Truman Library and Museum; Records of the United States Marine Corps; US Naval Institute Naval History Archive; US Army Center of Military History Combat Chronicles of US Army Divisions in World War II.

  Peleliu

  Adam Makos with Marcus Brotherton, Voices of the Pacific; E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed; John C. McManus, Grunts; John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945; Major Frank O. Hough, USMC, The Assault on Peleliu.

  MacArthur

  Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 13: The Liberation of the Philippines—Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944–1945; Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines (United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific); Gavin Long, MacArthur.

  Truman

  Jon Taylor, Harry Truman’s Independence: The Center of the World; Sean J. Savage, Truman and the Democratic Party; David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944; Jules Witcover, No Way to Pick a President; Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman; Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettman, FDR’s Deadly Secret; Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project; Thomas Fleming, Truman; David McCullough, Truman; Margaret Trum
an, Bess W. Truman; Steve Neal, ed., Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman; J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan.

  Hirohito and Japan

  Arne Markland, Black Ships to Mushroom Clouds: A Story of Japan’s Stormy Century 1853–1945; Francis Pike, Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945; Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan; Michael Kort, The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb; D. M. Giangreco, Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947; Douglas J. MacEachin, The Final Months of the War with Japan; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Hutton Webster, Rest Days: The Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes; Edward J. Drea, In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army; Noriko Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War; Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific; E. Bartlett Kerr, Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific, 1941–1945; David M. Glantz, Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945: “August Storm”; Stephen Harding, Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the Last American Killed in World War II.

  Air Corps

  Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960; Samuel Russ Harris Jr., B-29s Over Japan, 1944–1945: A Group Commander’s Diary; James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara; Edwin P. Hoyt, Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9–August 15, 1945; Graham M. Simons, B-29: Superfortress: Giant Bomber of World War 2 and Korea; Robert O. Harder, The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces: From Hitler’s Fortress Europa to Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War.

  Trinity and Atomic Bombs

  Everett M. Rogers and Nancy R. Bartlit, Silent Voices of World War II; Robert James Maddox, ed., Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism; Gar Alperovitz et al., The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb; Robert Cowley, ed., The Cold War: A Military History; Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb; Michael D. Gordin, Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War; Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima; John Hersey, Hiroshima; Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath; Al Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb; Charles Pellegrino, To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima; Gerard DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945; Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center; Samuel Glasstone, ed., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.

  USS Indianapolis and US Navy

  Richard F. Newcomb, Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy’s Greatest Sea Disaster; Doug Stanton, In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors; Edwyn Gray, Captains of War: They Fought Beneath the Sea; Christopher Chant, The Encyclopedia of Code Names of World War II; Raymond B. Lech, The Tragic Fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Disaster at Sea; Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—the Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea; Kit Bonner and Carolyn Bonner, USS Missouri at War.

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Maps by Gene Thorp

  Everett Collection

  Everett Collection

  Associated Press

  Pictures from History

  Pictures from History

  Pictures from History

  Everett Collection

  Everett Collection

  © Atlas Archive/The Image Works

  Bernard Hoffman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

  Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

  AFP/Getty Images

  Schultz Reinhard/Prisma/Superstock

  Everett Collection

  Everett Collection

  From the collection of Bill O’Reilly

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Aioi Bridge

  Akatsuki Corps

  Akira, Hosaka

  Albert T. Harris, USS

  Albury, Donald

  Allison, Sam

  Alvarez, Luis

  Anami, Korechika

  Arcadia Conference

  Arizona, USS

  Army, US

  battle for Manila

  Leyte invasion

  Okinawa

  Peleliu

  in Philippines

  in postwar Japan

  Army Air Forces, US

  Dresden bombings

  firebombing of Japan

  Hiroshima attack

  Nagasaki attack

  planned invasion of Japan

  preparations for atomic bomb launch

  Arnold, Henry H. “Hap”

  Ashworth, Frederick

  Associated Press

  atomic bomb

  aftermath of

  American reaction to

  casualties

  criticism of

  explosion of Fat Man

  explosion of Little Boy

  Germany and

  Hiroshima attack

  Japanese reaction to

  Manhattan Project

  morality of

  Nagasaki attack

  order for deployment

  radiation poisoning

  Roosevelt policy

  Soviet Union and

  survivors

  transport and preparations for launch

  Trinity test

  Truman policy

  see also Fat Man; Little Boy

  Atsugi Airfield

  Augusta, USS

  Australia

  Awaya, Senkichi

  Bacall, Lauren

  Baldwin, Hanson

  Bard, Ralph A.

  Barnes, Philip M.

  base camp (Alamogordo, NM)

  Basilone, John

  Bataan Death March

  Bataan Peninsula

  Battleship Row

  Bausell, Lewis

  Beahan, Kermit

  Berlin

  Bismarck Sea, USS

  Bockscar

  Nagasaki attack

  Bogart, Humphrey

  Bohlen, Charles

  Borneo

  Bowden, William

  Bradlee, Ben

  Bricker, John W.

  Brines, Russell

  British Malaya

  B-29 bombers

  Bockscar

  crews

  Enola Gay

  firebombing of Japan

  Hiroshima attack

  Nagasaki attack

  preparations for atomic bomb launch

  Buckley, Edward K.

  Bulge, Battle of the

  Burgin, R. V.

  Burke, Francis T.

  Burma

  Burma-Siam Railway

  Bush, George H. W.

  Bush, George W.

  Bush, Vannevar

  Bushido

  Byrnes, James F.

  California, USS

  Caroline Islands

  Carter, Jimmy

  Cavert, Samuel McCrea

  Cecil J. Doyle, USS

  Chiang Kai-shek

  China

  civil war

  Soviet invasion of Manchuria

  war with Japan

  Churchill, Winston

  Potsdam Conference

  Yalta Conference

  civil rights

  Civil War, American

  codebooks, Japanese

  comfort women

  communism


  Conant, James B.

  Congress, US

  Corregidor

  Cousins, Norman

  Czechoslovakia

  daimyo

  Dai Nippon

  D-Day invasion

  DeBernardi, Louie

  Dehart, Albert “Pappy”

  Depression

  Dewey, Thomas

  Doihara, Kenji

  Doolittle, Jimmy

  Doolittle Raid

  Doss, Desmond

  Dresden bombings

  Dumbo

  Early, Steve

  Eastern Europe

  Eatherly, Claude

  81st Infantry Division

  Einstein, Albert

  Eisenhower, Dwight

  views on atomic bomb

  Enola Gay

  Hiroshima attack

  ENORMOZ

  Enterprise, USS

  European war

  Battle of the Bulge

  D-Day invasion

  Dresden bombings

  end of

  German invasion of Poland

  Executive Order 9066

  Faillace, Gaetano

  Farrell, Thomas F.

  Fat Man

  arming of

  casualties

  explosion of

  Nagasaki attack

  preparations for launch

  survivors

  FBI

  Ferebee, Thomas W.

  Fields, Alonzo

  Fifth Fleet

  Fifth Marine Division

  fire balloons

  firebombing of Japan

  First Marine Division

  509th Composite Group

  flamethrowers

  Flynn, Joseph

  Formosa

  Forrestal, James

  France

  D-Day invasion

  World War II

  Frankfurter, Felix

  Fuchs, Klaus

  fukkaku strategy

  Full House

  Geibi Bank

  Geneva Conventions

  Germany

  atomic bomb and

  “Blitz” of London

  Dresden bombings

  invasion of Poland

  Nazi

  Nuremberg trials

  postwar

  submarines

  surrender of

  war crimes

  World War II

  Gornto, Cecil

  Gorry, Charlie

  Graham, Frank H.

 

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