The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War)

by Toland, John

  Marshall forwarded this rejoinder to Roosevelt, whose disenchantment with the Generalissimo was evident in the reply he sent Chungking on October 5:

  … THE GROUND SITUATION IN CHINA HAS SO DETERIORATED SINCE MY ORIGINAL PROPOSAL THAT I NOW AM INCLINED TO FEEL THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT ASSUME THE RESPONSIBILITY INVOLVED IN PLACING AN AMERICAN OFFICER IN COMMAND OF YOUR GROUND FORCES THROUGHOUT CHINA.…

  Chiang, in turn, tried to blame Stilwell—and Roosevelt indirectly—for the collapse in eastern China. In another aide-mémoire to Hurley, he charged that the disaster had been occasioned by Stilwell’s insistence on an offensive in northern Burma.

  … As I had feared, the Japanese took advantage of the opportunity thus offered to launch an offensive within China attacking first in Honan and then in Hunan. Owing to the Burma campaign, no adequately trained and equipped reinforcements were available for these war areas … The forces brought to bear by the Japanese in their offensive in east China were six times as great as those confronting General Stilwell in north Burma, and the consequences of defeat were certain to outweigh in China all results of victory in the north Burma campaign. Yet General Stilwell exhibited complete indifference to the outcome in east China; so much so that in the critical days of the east China operations, he consistently refused to release Lend Lease munitions already available in Yunnan for use in the East China fighting.…

  In short, we have taken Myitkyina [Burma] but we have lost almost all east China, and in this General Stilwell cannot be absolved of grave responsibility.…

  He took issue with the President’s derogatory refusal to appoint an American commander of Chinese forces.

  I am wholly confident that if the President replaces General Stilwell with a qualified American officer, we can work together to reverse the present trend and achieve a vital contribution to the final victory.

  Hurley had hoped he would conciliate Stilwell and Chiang, but now he was certain that this was impossible and that Stilwell must leave China. He radioed Roosevelt:

  … MY OPINION IS THAT IF YOU SUSTAIN STILWELL IN THIS CONTROVERSY, YOU WILL LOSE CHIANG KAI-SHEK AND POSSIBLY YOU WILL LOSE CHINA WITH HIM.

  For a week the fate of the China-Burma-India theater hung in the balance as both Stilwell and Hurley bombarded Washington with conflicting advice. Finally, on October 18 (two days before MacArthur landed at Leyte), Roosevelt radioed Chiang that he was recalling Stilwell but would not appoint an American to command the Chinese forces. He did promise to send Major General Albert C. Wedemeyer, to be the Generalissimo’s new Chief of Staff and to command all U. S. forces in China.

  With Stilwell gone, the affable Hurley could devote his full attention to the unique problem of uniting Mao and Chiang. On November 7, against the advice of Chiang, whom he called “Mr. Shek,” he flew to the Communist capital of Yenan, where his idea was already being promoted; every American official and visiting journalist had been assured by Communist spokesmen that what China needed was a coalition government based on democratic principles. The mustachioed Hurley arrived, chest loaded with medals, impressing the onlookers with his flowing mane of white hair and ramrod carriage. In a booming voice he lectured Mao Tse-tung (he pronounced it “moose dung”), Chou En-lai and their aides on five points of possible accord with the Kuomintang. The Communists were startled by his manner, but responded with nods and smiles. That evening at an elaborate banquet he astounded his sedate hosts. After toasts to Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, he stood up and let loose a wild Indian war whoop. John K. Emmerson and other Foreign Service experts tried to explain that it was just a quaint old American custom signifying good wishes to all.

  Whatever the Communists thought, they accepted Hurley’s statement with minor revisions. The five points called for unification of all military forces in China “for the immediate defeat of Japan and the reconstruction of China.” The Chungking government was “to be reorganized into a coalition National Government embracing representatives of all anti-Japanese parties and non-partisan political bodies. A new democratic policy providing for reform in military, political, economic and cultural affairs shall be promulgated and made effective.” The coalition regime would support the principles of Sun Yat-sen and set up a “government of the people, for the people and by the people,” which would “establish justice, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and association, the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, the right of writ of habeas corpus and the right of residence.” There was nothing in the document that any admirer of the Declaration of Independence would not have approved, including two additional phrases, borrowed from President Roosevelt—freedom from fear and freedom from want.

  Hurley—now known as “Little Whiskers” to the Communists—flew back to Chungking with Chou En-lai, imagining that his mission was accomplished. How could anybody possibly object to such “innocuous” and noble sentiments? Molotov was right. The Chinese Reds were ersatz Communists; the Russians would never have reconciled such liberal policies with their own authoritarian practices.

  Chungking greeted the document with derision, and its sponsor with a new nickname, “The Second Big Wind.” “The Communists have sold you a bill of goods,” T. V. Soong said to Hurley. “Never will the National Government grant the Communist request.” Soong knew his brother-in-law; Chiang told Hurley that the agreement would lead to Communist domination of the coalition government. Nor could he accept Hurley’s assurance that America would guarantee his position as President and Generalissimo. The coalition would be regarded by the Chinese as total defeat for the Kuomintang.

  Hurley persisted in his belief that the most divergent views could be brought together by good will and persuaded the Chungking leaders to draw up a counterproposal. This stipulated that Communist forces be accepted into the Nationalist Army and that the Communist party be legalized; Mao, however, was to turn over control of his troops to the National Military Council. It subscribed to Sun Yat-sen’s principles and guaranteed the various freedoms and civil liberties, “subject only to the specific needs of security in the effective prosecution of the war against Japan.”

  Hurley passed along this proposal to Yenan, hoping it might be acceptable. It was not. Chou En-lai felt betrayed and replied that the Communists could find no common basis in Chiang’s proposition; the Yenan government would have to be accepted as an equal in a genuine coalition government.

  On October 31 General Wedemeyer arrived to replace the controversial Stilwell. The strategic situation in the Pacific had altered with the crushing American naval victories off Leyte, and with the possibility that Stalin would send sixty divisions against Japan three months after Germany was defeated. But it was still important to keep Chiang’s armies in the field so they could continue to tie up masses of Japanese troops. Wedemeyer radioed Marshall that the military situation was worsening; Kweilin and its airfield would soon be lost, and Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, would undoubtedly be the next target.

  There had been some changes in the Japanese command as well. In September, General Yasuji Okamura took over the China Expeditionary Army, and although his command was vast, he took personal charge of the 6th Area Army, which was in the midst of Operation ICHI. Its aim, however, was by no means as ambitious as Wedemeyer feared; Tokyo had no intention of driving as far west as Chungking. The acquisition of more Chinese territory held no attraction; the eastern China air bases did. Their seizure would prevent long-range bombing raids on the last outposts in the Pacific and the homeland.

  Kweilin and Liuchow fell. Almost alone Chennault put up effective resistance with his B-25’s and fighters. To do so, he did not hesitate to use any means to divert supplies from the B-29 project, which he derided as the last chance of the “bomber radicals” to prove the Douhet theory of unescorted, high-altitude bombing. The results of the B-29 raids seemed to bear out Chennault’s belief that it was “a grandiose and foolish concept.” After the firs
t disappointing attack on Japan, the big bombers hit Kyushu four more times, as well as Manchuria and Palembang on Sumatra. Each raid was as ineffective as the first.

  Replacement of the commander of the China B-29’s by Major General Curtis LeMay—an aggressive, resourceful leader whose Third Bombardment Division had performed brilliantly against Germany—made little difference. He found he had inherited an “utterly impossible situation” in China as well as “the buggiest damn airplane that ever came down the pike.” He set up a new maintenance system, tried to teach the crews to bomb in formation, as the B-17’s had done in Europe. Despite his vigorous efforts, a series of raids on Manchuria, Formosa, Rangoon, Singapore and Kyushu accomplished so little that he himself was forced to admit that his Superfortresses had not yet “made much of a splash in the war.”‡

  3.

  In the Marianas the B-29 program was also experiencing difficulties. Beset by tropical downpours that made Saipan roads impassable, engineers had not yet completed the first 8,500-foot strip at Isley (formerly Aslito) Field when the first B-29, Joltin’ Josie the Pacific Pioneer, piloted by Brigadier General Heywood (“Possum”) Hansell, touched down on October 12, 1944.

  “The thrill that went through all was almost electric in effect” as the great plane rolled to a halt, one witness reported. According to Brief, the magazine for AAF personnel in the Pacific: “The war just about stopped dead in its tracks the day Joltin’ Josie arrived … The first of the B-29s had been inspected by every big gear and ogled from afar by every small fry for 5,000 miles. She was a sensation.”

  A few days later Brigadier General Emmett (“Rosie”) O’Donnell—a B-17 veteran of the first frustrating days of war in the Philippines—arrived to open the 73rd Bombardment Wing headquarters and set up intensive unit training. After half a dozen missions over Truk and Iwo Jima, the tiny volcanic island almost halfway to Tokyo, O’Donnell’s fliers were ready to strike at the Japanese capital.

  The plan was an open secret, and on the morning of November 17 hundreds of vehicles converged on Isley Field. Twenty-four war correspondents and an array of still photographers and newsreel cameramen were on hand. As “Rosie” O’Donnell climbed into his B-29, dozens of flash bulbs exploded. But rain that persisted for days forced postponements until the morning of November 24.

  At six-fifteen the first plane, Dauntless Dotty, with O’Donnell at the controls, rumbled and roared down the long runway. The wheels of the silver plane hugged the black top to its end—and onto the short coral extension. At the last moment Dauntless Dotty heaved up, just skimming the sea, and made a slow turn toward Tokyo. There were 110 B-29’s behind her. En route, seventeen were forced back. An undercast almost obscured the target—the Nakajima airplane-engine plant at Musashino ten miles northwest of the Imperial Palace—and as the unescorted planes, swept by a 120-knot tailwind, roared over at about 445 miles an hour, they unloaded their bombs at altitudes of from 27,000 to 32,000 feet. Only forty-eight bombs, including three duds, hit the plant complex, causing slight damage; the rest blasted dock and crowded urban areas. More than a hundred assorted fighters came up to intercept the Superfortresses; one bomber was knocked down, and that by a damaged Zero whose pilot deliberately rammed into its tail.

  Three days later the 73rd Wing returned. This time the engine plant was completely hidden by clouds, and the sixty-two B-29’s had to go after secondary targets. Unsuccessful as these first two strikes were, they chilled Imperial Headquarters as well as the public. Important factories would not always be protected by a cloud cover, and there seemed to be no effective defense against the B-29. Already the foundations of Japan’s basic industry had been undermined by persistent American submarine and air attacks on shipping. There was little crude oil for the refineries; no coke or ore for the steel mills; and the munitions plants were short of steel and aluminum. The economy could not endure continued B-29 attacks. They would somehow have to be contained.

  Until such time, emergency measures would have to be taken to protect a ship which had become a source of pride and a symbol of hope to the entire nation. Combined Fleet ordered Shinano, sister ship of the superbattleships Yamato and Musashi, to flee Tokyo Bay for the relative safety of the Inland Sea. She had been converted into the world’s largest carrier, and many navy-yard workmen were still aboard the recently launched 68,000-ton ship. Driven by 200,000-h.p. turbines, she hurriedly got underway in the late afternoon on November 28, and steamed south with her untrained crew, escorted by three destroyers.

  An armored flight deck, an island, and hangar and storage spaces had been grafted onto the basic structure. Shinano was a seagoing armadillo, encircled at the water line by an eight-inch main belt of armor; great armored bulges below the water line reduced the effectiveness of any torpedo hit. Deadly fumes could not be drawn through the ventilating system, as they had on Taiho. Fire hazard had been further reduced by the elimination of wooden structures, the use of a special fire-resistant paint and the installation of a revolutionary foam extinguisher system. To fend off air attacks there were sixteen 5-inch high-angle guns, as well as one hundred and forty 24-mm. antiaircraft machine guns and a dozen multiple-rocket launchers.

  Theoretically, Shinano was the most impregnable carrier ever launched, but there were naval engineers who privately regarded her as an ill-conceived and too hastily constructed monstrosity which was neither battleship nor carrier.

  A hundred miles south of Tokyo the American submarine Archerfish was looking for a target. Her primary mission was to rescue crews of B-29’s forced to ditch in the area, but the day’s air strike had been scrubbed and Archerfish was free to leave her assigned station. The most likely hunting ground, decided Skipper Joseph F. Enright, was off Tokyo Bay. At 8:48 P.M., radar detected a target to the north. Through binoculars Enright made out in the moonlight a long, low shape nine miles away. It looked like a tanker. Archerfish headed toward the target to make a surface attack from the starboard beam. As they drew closer, Enright identified it as a carrier with three escorts, he decided to try to get ahead of the flattop, submerge and attack. He ordered course reversed and maximum speed from the four big 16-cylinder engines.

  Shinano was making 18 knots, the same as Archerfish, but zigzagging reduced her speed enough for the stalker to move up slowly. At midnight, however, Shinano picked up speed and the submarine gradually fell behind. Three hours later the carrier abruptly swung around directly toward Archerfish. Enright waited for a few minutes to make sure it was in fact a base-course change. He ordered the bridge cleared and the diving alarm sounded. Archerfish slipped beneath the waves.

  “Up periscope,” Enright ordered. He grasped the handles and stared ahead. “I see him,” he finally said. He asked the distance to the track.

  “Five-five-oh yards” was the almost instantaneous answer from the executive, “Bobo” Bobczynski.

  “Left full rudder. Left to course zero-nine-zero.” Enright asked Plot how much time.

  “He’ll be here in two minutes.”

  Enright spun the periscope to scan the area. “Down ’scope!” he called. “Escort passing overhead!” The periscope lowered just in time to avoid a destroyer churning above them. Enright raised the periscope again on the bearing generated by the fire-control computer. It was perfect—right on the mark. At 3:17 A.M. Enright said “Fire!” The range was 1,400 yards, just forward of the carrier’s beam. At eight-second intervals six torpedoes headed toward the target, running “hot, straight, and normal.”

  Enright watched the first two “fish” hit, then swung the periscope around to check destroyers. They were converging on Archerfish. “Take her down,” he said.

  Lookouts on Shinano stared helplessly as these two torpedoes, and two more, ripped into the big carrier. Captain Toshio Abe was not alarmed. Four hits were nothing; Musashi, basically of the same design, had taken nineteen torpedoes and many bombs before going down. He ordered the ship continued on course at 18 knots.

  Musashi had indeed taken far more dama
ge, but her veteran crew was responsible for her extended survival. Abe’s inexperienced damage-control teams, hampered by the rough seas, could not stop the flow of water. Some of the compartments, moreover, lacked watertight doors. Abe could have grounded the ship or made it into port, but he held course and speed throughout the night. By dawn it was apparent even to those with blind faith in Shinano that she was mortally wounded. Abe reduced speed but it was too late. At 10:18 A.M., November 29, with the huge carrier listing sharply, Abe gave the order to abandon ship. Half an hour later, without having fired a gun or launched a plane, Shinano sank with a deafening rumble, taking with her Abe and five hundred shipmates.

  The following week Japan’s constant natural nemesis, the earthquake, struck the Nagoya area on Honshu Island. Its massive tremors left a long section of the rail bed in ruin, crippled a number of munitions plants and obliterated a factory in Toyohashi producing precision instruments. At the same time destruction from the air increased in effectiveness. In December, B-29’s from Saipan bombed the Mitsubishi Aircraft Engine Works at Nagoya three times with such accuracy that the Japanese were forced to start moving equipment to underground sites.

  4.

  On January 9, 1945—the same day Superfortresses returned to Tokyo for the sixth time, and for the sixth time were ineffectual—General Krueger’s Sixth Army invaded Luzon. They landed at Lingayen Gulf on the same beaches that Homma had stormed little more than three years earlier. They were expected, but there was almost no opposition and it was obvious by nightfall that General Yamashita had no intention of seriously contesting the landing. There was some concern on the part of American intelligence and operations officers that they were being drawn into a trap, but January 10 also proved to be an easy day and by dusk advance units had pushed eight miles inland. Within a week XIV Corps on the right had advanced thirty miles, losing thirty men. On the left, I Corps was making almost as good progress at the cost of 220 American casualties.