by Toland, John
It was Shigemitsu who had initiated this new phase of the crusade, but Tojo who led it. He announced to the Diet that Burma would be recognized as an independent state before the end of the year. In March a Burmese delegation was invited to Tokyo. It was headed by Dr. Ba Maw, who had escaped from jail just before the British evacuated Burma. The Burmese were greeted warmly. Ba Maw was overwhelmed by the surge of patriotic feeling he found on all sides. Japan was “the very vortex of the whole Asian conflict.” Tojo, General Sugiyama, Admiral Shimada and Shigemitsu all struck him as true products of the “exploding Asian age, dynamic, daring, full of the new Asian consciousness underlying the concept of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.” Tojo, moreover, was showing “astonishing farsightedness” that “positively amounted to political vision” in his determination to give independence to the occupied countries.
3.
In America the Co-prosperity Sphere was almost universally ridiculed as crude propaganda, but the author, Pearl Buck, tried to warn her fellow Americans that the spirit of Pan-Asianism did indeed run deep. She wrote Mrs. Roosevelt, a few days after Pearl Harbor, that there was “in all the Oriental peoples a very deep sense that the white man generally is, or may be, their common enemy, and that in the final analysis it remains always a possibility that the point may come when these peoples, even such present enemies as the Chinese and Japanese, may unite as colored against white. They are not now at that point, but the possibility is always in their minds. It may be best expressed by a remark made lately by a Chinese professor. ‘Although the Japanese are our enemies just now, if it came to the ultimate choice, we would rather be a dependency of Japan than of the United States, because at least the Japanese do not consider us an inferior race.’ The truth is that these peoples of the Orient, even those now allied with us, are secretly watchful of our behavior toward them as peoples of a different race, and if they fear at all that they will not in the long run be treated as our complete equals, they will go with us only so far as their temporary purposes are served, and then turn against us as a white race historically aggressive against them, at least from their point of view, and historically their exploiters.”
She warned that an underground colored solidarity was “growing in the world as these politically awakened Asiatic peoples come to a knowledge of themselves, and unless we are exceedingly wise and careful, the result of this awakening is going to be disastrous to us.… We white people are for the most part ignorant or oblivious to the fact that there may develop out of all this struggle an entirely new alignment of peoples according to race and color, but the Asiatic peoples never forget the possibility, and all that they do will be done with the reservations necessary for that new alignment. I have found to my horror that there is such a reservation even in the minds of many of our colored Americans, who though they are naturally and wishfully loyal to our country, have yet because of the stubbornness of race prejudice here been led to believe, from their own experience and the propaganda of Japanese here also, that there is no hope of fairness from the white man, and that the colored peoples must unite and conquer the white man before there can be any way of getting rid of the yoke of race prejudice.”b Mrs. Buck voiced her concern publicly in an article in the New York Times Magazine, published a week before Midway.
… This Second World War has taken on a new and dangerous aspect most of all because of Japan. Although we may not be willing to know it, it is possible that we are already embarked upon the bitterest and the longest of human wars, the war between the East and the West, and this means the war between the white man and his world and the colored man and his world.…
In India it [the racial problem] is the burning question, whose flames leap higher every hour; in Burma it is a raging fire; in Java, yes, and in the Philippines and in China.
The main barrier between East and West today is that the white man is not willing to give up his superiority and the colored man is no longer willing to endure his inferiority.… The white man is a century behind the colored man. The white man is still thinking in terms of colonies and colonial government. The colored man knows that colonies and colonial-mindedness are anachronisms. The colonial way of life is over, whether the white man knows it or not, and all that remains is to kick off the shell of the chrysalis. The man of Asia today is not a colonial and he has made up his mind he will never be a colonial again.
… In short if the white man does not now save himself by discovering that all men are really born free and equal, he may not be able to save himself at all. For the colored man is going to insist on that human equality and that freedom.…
Unfortunately Mrs. Buck’s prophetic article had little effect on Washington. No efforts were made to counter charges of American color prejudice by Asians. On the contrary, the government was lending weight to these charges by grossly mistreating American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, fear overran the West Coast and demands followed that all Japanese, citizens as well as aliens, be evacuated to the interior.
“I don’t think it’s a sensible thing to do,” General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, told the Provost Marshal General over the phone. “An American citizen, after all, is an American citizen. And while they all may not be loyal, I think we can weed the disloyal out of the loyal and lock them up if necessary.”
Secretary of War Henry Stimson concurred, but agitation all along the West Coast grew with each Japanese victory. In California, District Attorney Earl Warren warned that unless the Japanese-Americans were evacuated promptly there might be a repetition of Pearl Harbor. Governor Charles Sprague of Oregon wired the U. S. Attorney General demanding “more thorough action for protection against possible alien activity, particularly by Japanese residing on coast.” The mayor of Seattle, Earl Millikin, declared that of the city’s estimated 8,000 Japanese, “7,900 probably are above question but the other 100 would burn this town down and let the Japanese planes come in and bring on something that would dwarf Pearl Harbor.”
Nor was rising anti-Japanese feeling by any means confined to the Pacific Coast. In a national poll 41 percent believed that “the Japanese people will always want to go to war to make themselves as powerful as possible”; 21 percent considered the Germans militaristic by nature. It was understandable, therefore, that a consummate politician like Roosevelt would heed these voices—it was an election year—and against the advice of J. Edgar Hoover, he ordered the War Department to implement a mass Nisei evacuation. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of the act. At first the intention was to settle the Japanese-Americans in the interior, but residents of the areas selected protested so vehemently that it was considered advisable to place the “prisoners” in government camps.
A similar plan to relocate German and Italian aliens aroused such protest that the government canceled it, explaining that it would affect the nation’s economic structure and lower morale among citizens of those nationalities. But there was no one to speak for the Nisei, who were citizens but usually referred to as “aliens”—their skin was a different color. Almost 110,000 loyal Americans, whose sole crime was their ancestry, were uprooted from their homes, which they were forced to sell for a pittance. They were interned behind barbed wire in “relocation centers” along the coast which were little better than concentration camps; many were even deprived of their life savings.c
Elmer Davis, Director of the Office of War Information, protested officially to the President:
… Japanese propaganda to the Philippines, Burma, and elsewhere insists that this is a racial war. We can combat this effectively with counter propaganda only if our deeds permit us to tell the truth. Moreover, as citizens ourselves who believe deeply in the things for which we fight, we cannot help but be disturbed by the insistent public misunderstanding of the Nisei; competent authorities, including Naval Intelligence people, say that fully 85 percent of the Nisei are loyal to this country and that it is possible to distinguish the sheep from t
he goats.
But Davis’ warning was no more heeded than Pearl Buck’s. Washington remained blind to the effect the Nisei evacuation might have on the peoples of Asia. Nor was much thought given to their postwar problems. Asia was solely a battlefield, the importance of which continued to grow in the minds of the Joint Chiefs of Staff even in the face of persistent British resistance. On May 8, 1943, Churchill cabled Stalin:
I AM IN MID-ATLANTIC ON MY WAY TO WASHINGTON TO SETTLE FURTHER EXPLOITATION IN EUROPE AFTER SICILY, AND FURTHER TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM OF THE INDIAN OCEAN AND THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST JAPAN THERE.
He was bound for another conference, this one with the Americans alone, which he had personally christened “Trident.” Three days later his ship arrived off Staten Island. The following afternoon at two-thirty he met at the White House with Roosevelt and military leaders of both countries. He said the British had come to Trident “adhering to the Casablanca decisions.” The African campaign was about over and the invasion of Sicily was imminent. What should come next? In his opinion, the first objective should be the defeat of Italy. This “would cause a chill of loneliness over the German people, and might be the beginning of their dawn.” It would, moreover, dramatically change the situation in the Balkans and permit the shift of many British battleships and carriers to the Bay of Bengal or the Pacific.
The time had also come, he said, to “study the long-term plan for the defeat of Japan.” Assuming Germany would be defeated in 1944, the British pledged to “concentrate on the great campaign against Japan in 1945.” In any case, the best solution to the war in the Far East was to bring Russia in.
Roosevelt replied that a million tons of Japanese shipping had been sent to the bottom, and if this continued the enemy’s field of operations would be seriously restricted. But for America to keep up this devastating naval offensive, it would be necessary to set up air bases in China; and that country, he warned, might collapse unless more aid was sent at once.
For nine days the conferees worked hard to come to a working agreement. The two military staffs held as many as four meetings a day; on the principal war issues six plenaries alone, attended by Churchill and Roosevelt, took place.
But Brooke, with his low threshold of patience, became more and more irritated at the deliberate Admiral King and his incessant “desire to find every loophole he possibly can to divert strength to the Pacific.” Their quarrel broke out into the open on May 21 at a Combined Chiefs meeting when King insisted that “unremitting pressure” on Japan not only be maintained but extended. He wanted an air offensive from China bases within the year, as well as operations in Burma, seizure of the Marshall and Gilbert islands, New Guinea and the Solomons-Bismarck archipelago.
The British were outraged. They also refused to set a firm date for the invasion of Europe across the English Channel. The American argument prevailed, however, and at the final meeting both Roosevelt and Churchill gave approval to a channel invasion on May 1, 1944, and to “unremitting pressure” against Japan, with a face-saving proviso that the Combined Chiefs should review operations “before action is taken.”
But disagreement over theater priorities was a difficult one to lay to rest. In less than three months Roosevelt and Churchill met again in Quebec at the Hotel Frontenac. Once more the Americans pressed for a major offensive in Burma and once more Churchill tried to side-step the issue by proposing, instead, a supplementary assault on Sumatra. Roosevelt would not be diverted. Such an attack would lead away from Japan. They should concentrate all resources on the Burma Road, which was the shortest route to Tokyo.
The debate unresolved, the Combined Chiefs retired to their own conference room, still ruffled with one another. Those waiting outside in the corridor were startled by pistol shots from inside.
“My God, now they’ve started shooting!” someone cried out.
It was merely a dramatic experiment. Lord Mountbatten, an avid supporter of using a new kind of ice, Pykrete, to create floating airfields, had fired his pistol into a block of ordinary ice, shattering it, and then at a block of Pykrete. The bullet caromed off, nicking King’s trousers.
Mountbatten was unsuccessful in his advocacy of Pykrete, but his military capabilities were recognized and he was given the Southeast Asia Command—which included Burma.
4.
That country, which was now the responsibility of Mountbatten, was about to be granted independence by Japan. A constitution was hastily composed, incorporating both democratic and totalitarian theories. It proclaimed that Burma would be a fully independent and sovereign nation, all of whose powers were derived from the people, while asserting that she would be “ruled over by the Naingandaw Adipadi, or Head of State, who shall have sovereign status and power.” The official slogan of the new nation was also inspired by Hitler: “One Blood, One Voice, One Leader.”
Early in July Dr. Ba Maw, the obvious choice for Adipadi, met Tojo in Singapore. The Prime Minister had news he thought would please Ba Maw: the Japanese were turning over to the new nation most of the Shan States—located on Burma’s eastern border. Two sections, however, would go to Thailand.
Ba Maw’s feelings were mixed. “Neither the Burmese nor the Shans will be completely happy about the dismemberment of the Shan territory and its people.” Tojo was apologetic, but Japan had promised the two sections to Thailand as a price for becoming an ally.
“But we have come in with you too,” said Ba Maw, “and we also have our claims.”
Tojo tried to shrug it off and jokingly promised to “pay off Burma some other way.” Ba Maw turned aggressive and spoke accusingly of the arrogant and often arbitrary behavior of the Japanese soldiers in Burma.
Tojo was in Singapore for another reason: to confer with Subhas Chandra Bose, the leader of the militant disobedience campaign in India who, unlike Gandhi and Nehru, believed that force alone could lead to India’s freedom. A large man—he towered over Tojo and Ba Maw—Bose was a passionate revolutionary with a charismatic personality and a gift for oratory. He had come to Singapore to recruit the thousands of Indian troops who had surrendered in the Malay campaign. They had already endorsed his crusade—the battle of freedom from Great Britain—and had accepted him as leader of the Indian Independence League in East Asia.
At a mass meeting he addressed the recruits with zeal: “When France declared war on Germany in 1939 and the campaign began, there was but one cry which rose from the lips of the German soldiers—‘To Paris, to Paris!’ When the brave soldiers of Nippon set out on their march in December 1941, there was but one cry which rose from their lips—‘To Singapore, to Singapore!’ Comrades, let your battle cry be To Delhi, to Delhi!’ ”
Tojo’s promise of independence for Burma materialized on August 1. At ten o’clock General Masakazu Kawabe ordered withdrawal of the Japanese military administration. It was a bright morning with occasional spits of rain, and Rangoon was in a holiday mood. One hour and twenty minutes later, at Government House, Burma was declared to be an independent and sovereign country with Dr. Ba Maw as Head of State, and that afternoon he read a proclamation in Burmese declaring war against the United States and Great Britain. He cautioned his people, however, that there was more to freedom than cheering and celebration. “Many have wept to see this day of liberation which they had almost despaired of seeing within their lifetime,” he said. “But we know that there are not only dreams, there are also realities.… Now that independence has come to us out of this war, we must defend it in this war.… Burma is definitely in the front line in the present war.… It is clear we must adopt a front-line policy.”
On October 14 the Philippines proclaimed their independence and a week later the Provisional Government of Free India was established, with Chandra Bose as Head of State. The West failed to see the significance of these events. The new governments were puppets of Japan, but through them millions of Asians glimpsed freedom from the white man for the first time. Their enthusiasm reached a culmination when China, Thailand, Manchukuo
, the Philippines and Burma sent representatives to Tokyo for the Greater East Asia Conference early in November.d Chandra Bose attended as an observer.
“We were getting together,” Ba Maw wrote, “not so much as separate peoples but as members of a single historical family containing all these peoples.” José Laurel, President of the Philippines, who had secretly been charged by Quezon to pretend co-operation with the Japanese, now found Pan-Asianism irresistible. “One billion Orientals, one billion people of Greater East Asia,” he proclaimed with eyes glistening, at the formal reception on the eve of the initial meeting, “how could they have been dominated, a great portion of them particularly by England and America?”
The austere setting of the conference room in the Diet Building belied the fervor of the conferees on November 5. Tables, covered with blue wool cloth, were laid out in the shape of a squarish horseshoe, flanked by three dwarf trees. As chairman, Tojo sat at the head of the horseshoe with his delegation. On his right were Burma, Manchukuo and China, and on the left Thailand, the Philippines and India.
“It is an incontrovertible fact,” said Tojo in his concise manner, “that the nations of Greater East Asia are bound in every respect by ties of an inseparable relationship. I firmly believe that such being the case, it is their common mission to secure the stability of Greater East Asia and to construct a new order of common prosperity and well-being.”
Wang Ching-wei, head of the Nanking government—the first of the puppets—declared: “In the war of Greater East Asia we want victory, in the construction of Greater East Asia we want common prosperity. All the nations of East Asia should love their own countries, love their neighbors and love East Asia. Our motto for China is resurgence of China and defense of East Asia.”