by Toland, John
“Koiso’s resignation states that the affairs of the state as well as the Supreme Command need revision,” Tojo began. “What does this mean?” It was as much a challenge as a question.
“Prime Minister Koiso doesn’t give any special explanations,” Kido replied.
“It is not desirable to have many changes of government during the war,” Tojo said belligerently. “The next cabinet must be the last one! Now, there are two schools of thought in this nation: one that we should fight till the end to secure the future of the country; the other to bring peace speedily even at the expense of unconditional surrender. I believe we must first settle this point.”
“The next cabinet must consider a wide variety of subjects,” said Admiral Keisuke Okada, who like Suzuki (his private choice for prime minister) had had such a narrow escape during the 2/26 Incident. “This is the cabinet on whose shoulders will rest the destiny of our nation until the end, and which will marshal the entire strength of the nation. Questions such as peace and war cannot be determined here.”
There was an uneasy pause and two of the civilians—Hiranuma and Hirota—attempted to placate Tojo. Both asserted, tongue in cheek, that the war must be fought to the end. The jushin began debating the requisites of the future prime minister but without naming any one person. At last, after an hour, it was President of the Privy Council Suzuki who suggested that one of the jushin themselves accept the post. “Since the physical strain is so great, I should like to ask Prince Konoye, the youngest in the group, to come forward.”
Konoye declined; he was too compromised by the mistakes and commitments of his three past governments. Hiranuma agreed that Konoye was unacceptable on these grounds, reiterated (for Tojo’s benefit) that the war must be prosecuted vigorously, and then proposed the favorite candidate of Kido and Okada—Admiral Suzuki. The response was enthusiastic.
“I agree,” said Konoye.
“Very good idea,” said Wakatsuki, who had arrived out of breath and apologetic. “We couldn’t make a better choice.”
Suzuki himself objected; he had promised his family he would not accept the post. “I think I told Admiral Okada once that if a military man goes into politics, he would only lead the nation to defeat. This is proved by the fall of Rome, the eclipse of the Kaiser and the fate of the Romanovs. Because of this principle, I cannot accept the honor. Besides, I am hard of hearing.”
Hiranuma begged him to reconsider. “The public trusts your honest and loyal character.”
It was difficult even for Tojo to disapprove of Suzuki—he was a devout Taoist, free of ambition; he came from a solid military background; his brother was a respected general—but he lacked one vital qualification. Tojo began by praising the admiral but challenged his tenet that the military should avoid politics. “The enemy is getting impatient. He will try a bold strategy; he is likely to attempt landing somewhere on Japan proper. Home defense will then become a vital matter. The government and the high command must be fused into one. Therefore the premier must be a soldier on the active list.” He proposed Field Marshal Shunroku Hata.
Kido restrained himself. “What is your opinion, Mr. Hirota?”
“We must have someone from the Army or Navy who can control and lead them.”
“Your opinion, please, Admiral Okada?”
Okada refused to endorse anyone except Suzuki, who had been summarily rejected by Tojo. “I know of no one,” he said, “so I can say nothing.”
Kido acknowledged that the homeland would soon be a battlefield and the new cabinet would need the full confidence of the nation. But there he parted company with Tojo. “Personally,” he said, “I hope that His Excellency Suzuki will rise to the occasion.” He turned directly to Tojo. “We must look at the situation in a wider perspective than yours.”
Tojo glared at Kido. Until now he had curbed his bitterness toward the Privy Seal, whom he blamed for his own downfall. “Be very careful, otherwise I’m afraid the Army will soppo o muku [turn its head away]! If it does, the new cabinet will fall.”
The phrase infuriated rather than intimidated Kido. “It is very serious to have the Army turn its head away from us,” he said. “Do you yourself feel that way?”
“I can’t say that I don’t.”
Kido stood his ground. “The atmosphere at this meeting is really quite antimilitaristic. Perhaps the people will turn their heads away from the Army!”
Tojo’s threatening posture also provoked Okada to action. “At a time as critical as this,” he exclaimed indignantly, “how dare a man who once accepted the imperial command to be premier say that the Army might turn its head away!”
Tojo realized he had gone too far. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I take back what I just said. I meant to say that the Army will find such a choice disagreeable.”
Tojo was isolated. The whole trend of the meeting had turned against him.
“Keeping all this in mind,” Kido summed up, “I will present my views to the Emperor and ask for his decision.” A few minutes later, at eight o’clock, the meeting was adjourned, and the members filed to a nearby room for dinner. Before they were through, Kido asked Suzuki to return with him to the conference room. “If you form a government,” Kido told him, “we would have to ask you to carry out extremely important tasks.” Once more Suzuki demurred; he didn’t think he was fit for the job and he lacked confidence.
Kido persisted. The times were too perilous to decline on the grounds that a military man should not become involved in politics. “It is beyond that, Admiral. We must recommend someone to the Emperor whom he trusts implicitly.”
Suzuki capitulated. “If the Emperor orders me to form a new cabinet, I will do it,” he said. There was no emotion, not a trace of reluctance in his voice. At ten o’clock the seventy-eight-year-old admiral, his back bowed with age, entered the Emperor’s study. His Majesty, who was alone except for Grand Chamberlain Hisanori Fujita, said simply, “I order you to form a cabinet.” He omitted the traditional admonitions and conditions.
“I am very pleased to be so honored by His Majesty’s offer but I beg to decline as I did at the jushin meeting held late this afternoon.” Within an hour he had changed his mind twice. “I am merely His Majesty’s humble naval officer and have had no experience in political affairs. Further, I have no political opinions. My motto has been to abide by the adage of Emperor Meiji to the effect that military men should never interfere in politics. Therefore, begging His Majesty’s pardon, I must refrain from accepting His Majesty’s offer.”
The Emperor smiled understandingly. “I know, Suzuki, what you’re trying to say and appreciate your position, but at this critical moment there is no one but you for this task. That is why I have asked you.”
As he slowly backed away, Suzuki said, “With His Majesty’s permission, I wish to think it over fully,” but the Emperor’s sincerity had already decided him to once more change his mind. As a result of more than seven years’ service as Grand Chamberlain, he had also interpreted correctly the unspoken words of His Majesty: to end the conflict as soon as possible.†
3.
That evening on the Inland Sea, farewell parties enlivened the superbattleship Yamato and nine other ships of the Second Fleet. Its commander, Vice Admiral Seiichi Ito, had been ordered by Admiral Soemu Toyoda, commander of Combined Fleet, to lead these remnants against enemy vessels anchored off Okinawa. Toyoda informed all commanders in Combined Fleet of the suicide sortie:
THE FATE OF OUR EMPIRE TRULY RESTS UPON THIS ONE ACTION. I HAVE CALLED FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF A SURFACE SPECIAL ATTACK UNIT FOR A BREAKTHROUGH OPERATION OF UNRIVALED BRAVERY SO THAT THE POWER OF THE IMPERIAL NAVY MAY BE FELT IN THIS ONE ACTION IN ORDER THAT THE BRILLIANT TRADITION OF THE IMPERIAL NAVY’S SURFACE FORCES MAY BE EXALTED AND OUR GLORY HANDED DOWN TO POSTERITY. EACH UNIT, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT IT IS A SPECIAL ATTACK UNIT, WILL HARDEN ITS RESOLVE TO FIGHT GLORIOUSLY TO THE DEATH TO COMPLETELY DESTROY THE ENEMY FLEET, THEREBY ESTABLISHING FIRMLY AN ETERNAL FOUNDATION FO
R THE EMPIRE.‡
The party Rear Admiral Keizo Komura gave for commanding officers of his Second Destroyer Squadron aboard his flagship, the light cruiser Yahagi, was boisterous. Each ship had taken on just enough fuel for a one-way trip, but knowledge of this and the certainty of their death seemed to free the officers from care. Komura and Captain Tameichi Hara, skipper of Yahagi, left their comrades singing the fraternal “Doki no Sakura” and went on an impromptu tour of the ship. In the sailors’ quarters they found men sleeping peacefully in their hammocks. In an engine room a machinist’s mate sweating diligently over a generator told Hara, “I changed watches with my buddy who likes to drink.” He wanted to be absolutely sure there would be no power failure at Okinawa.
Hara clambered topside, overwhelmed with emotion and alcohol. He felt tremendously happy as he clung to a post for support. “Nippon banzai!” he yelled, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Yahagi banzai! Nippon banzai!”
Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka, Toyoda’s chief of staff, veteran of Pearl Harbor, Midway and the carrier battles off Guadalcanal, had vehemently opposed the suicide sortie of the Second Fleet; Yamato could be used to better advantage in the battle for the mainland. But he was the one selected to fly to the Inland Sea on the morning of April 6 (the fleet would depart that evening for its rendezvous with destiny) to explain personally the significance of the mission. Ito understood; he wanted advice on one matter. “What should I do if we are so badly damaged on the way that we can’t proceed?”
Kusaka could not help him. “You’ll have to decide that for yourself.” They drank a last cup of sake.
“I see,” said Ito. “Please do not be uneasy about me. My mind is calm. I have no regrets and am leaving willingly.” He asked Kusaka to address his senior officers. Kusaka told them it was Combined Fleet’s last chance as well as the nation’s. They must break through the American naval force off Okinawa and ground their ships on the island. Yamato’s big guns—their range was 25 miles—could devastate the enemy positions.
There were private doubts but no one voiced them. The captain of Yamato, however—Rear Admiral Kosaku Ariga—was eager. With a perpetual grin, he slapped his stomach every time Kusaka made a point. Captain Hara wrote his family that he was going on a surface attack mission:
… It is a great responsibility as well as a great honor to be skipper of a ship in this sortie to Okinawa. Know that I am happy and proud of this opportunity. Be proud of me. Farewell.
Extra supplies were off-loaded from the ships. The sick as well as the midshipmen were compelled to disembark against their will. The sun shone through the mist as the fleet weighed anchor at 3 P.M. Hara’s cruiser, Yahagi, got under way first, followed by four destroyers, and finally Yamato with four more destroyers.
As the ten-ship column slowly proceeded south through the Inland Sea, the first of ten mass air raids was launched against ships clustered off Okinawa. For almost four hours, 341 bombers dropped their explosives in conventional style while 355 kamikaze plummeted down on the Americans. By dark three destroyers, an LST and two ammunition ships had been sunk, and ten other ships heavily damaged.
On Yamato, Admiral Ito was elated by reports that thirty enemy ships had been seen going down, while another twenty were afire. Overhead Kusaka followed the column in a floatplane as far as his fuel would allow, then waved an arm in farewell as the little plane banked away. That evening Yahagi’s thousand-man crew assembled on her deck to hear Captain Hara read a final message from Admiral Toyoda exhorting them to fight to the end—the fate of the nation rested “on this operation.” As the shouts of “Banzai!” subsided, Hara added practical strictures of his own, which scandalized most of the crew: “Our mission appears suicidal, and it is. But I wish to emphasize that suicide is not the objective. The objective is victory. You are not sheep whipped to a sacrificial altar.… Once this ship is crippled or sunk, do not hesitate to save yourselves for the next fight. There will be other battles. You are not to commit suicide. You are to beat the enemy!”
This time there were no banzai. A perturbed lieutenant broke the silence: he had been taught at the Academy to die with his ship. Hara understood his concern. “In feudal times,” he said, “lives were wasted cheaply, but we are in the twentieth century. The code of bushido says that a warrior lives in such a way that he is always prepared to die.” But this didn’t mean that their lives should be forfeited meaninglessly. “We are to win this war and not think of dying.” He called on them to turn the tide of battle. There was a spontaneous cheer for the Emperor and Yahagi.
At 8 P.M. the Second Fleet cautiously picked its way through the mines of Bungo Strait and sortied into the Pacific. Ito ordered a course at 20 knots down the coast of Kyushu. (His column had already been sighted by two American submarines.) At dawn the ten ships entered the open sea below the island. They shifted into a ring formation with Yamato in the center, and began zigzagging south toward Okinawa at 24 knots. The last escort planes turned back, and as the coast of Kyushu dropped out of sight, the fleet was alone.
Rain from low leaden clouds swept the Japanese ships at 8 A.M. An hour later one of the destroyers, Asashimo, dropped out of the ring, signaling that she was having engine trouble but would try to make repairs. Before long she too was out of sight. Slowly the overcast broke and at 11:30 a seaplane appeared about ten miles to the east. It was American. Then came a warning from an island lookout station ahead that 250 enemy planes were winging south.
Admiral Spruance, still in command of Fifth Fleet, had told Marc Mitscher, Task Force 58, to let the enemy ships continue south, leaving them to the guns of surface units, but Mitscher wanted this opportunity to demonstrate once and for all that his airmen could sink the most formidable ship afloat; naval airmen claimed that they had sunk Musashi in the Philippines, but submarines could possibly have done it. The unexpected appearance of Yamato, her sister ship, “provided a clean-cut chance to prove, if proof was needed, aircraft superiority.”
Mitscher sent off planes from Task Groups 58.1 and 58.2, then turned to his chief of staff. “Inform Admiral Spruance that I propose to attack the Yamato sortie group at 1200 unless otherwise directed.” The message to Spruance read: “Will you take them or shall I?” Spruance scribbled on his message blank: “You take them.”
On Yahagi’s bridge, shortly after noon, Admiral Komura saw the approaching planes first. “Here they come!” he exclaimed to Captain Hara. Rapidly the ships opened formation as crews scrambled to battle stations. The fleet was abruptly blanketed by a rain squall, but only for ten minutes. A lookout on Yahagi called out, “Planes on port bow!”
Hara turned. Planes, more than forty of them, were diving out of a low thick cloud. Yamato’s 150 antiaircraft and machine guns hesitated momentarily, then the sky erupted with black puffs, crisscrossed by tracers. But the Americans burst through this wall of flak. Two bombs crashed near Yamato’s mainmast. A torpedo ripped into the battleship’s port side.
The 8,500-ton Yahagi heeled sharply in the rain to avoid the resolute assault, but at 12:45 P.M. she staggered from a bomb. Almost immediately a momentous shudder ran through the ship; a torpedo had plunged into her port side just below the waterline. The cruiser coasted to a stop, helpless and dead in the water, as a second group of attackers dropped out of the clouds. A bomb detonated on the forecastle, another in the stern; a torpedo rammed into the starboard bow. Yahagi vibrated violently, as if, thought Hara, she were made of paper.
The planes climbing away through patches of clear sky seemed almost cocky, and in the abrupt, unearthly quiet, Hara surveyed his wrecked cruiser in dismay. Admiral Komura wanted to transfer to one of the destroyers and continue on to Okinawa. The destroyer Isokaze was signaled to come alongside to take on survivors, but as she slowly closed, the hapless destroyer was caught by a second wave of planes bursting through a cloud. Yahagi, too, was raked by machine-gun bullets. Komura refused to escape in a cutter. He would die on Yahagi rather than on some nameless little boat.
; A few miles away the twisted decks of Yamato were jammed with butchered bodies, a tangle of intestines, limbs, torsos. Blood coursed down the scuppers. The sides of the battleship had buckled and she had slowed to 18 knots. But Admiral Ariga kept her on course to Okinawa. At 1:35 P.M. a third wave—it looked like 150 planes—swept in, concentrating on the damaged port side. Yamato heeled and swerved, but two more torpedoes—the fifth and sixth—drove into the left side while seven or more bombs exploded on the center deck. Machine-gun bullets swept the ship “like rain,” annihilating half of the antiaircraft gun crews. Steering was damaged and the list increased to 15 degrees.
At 1:50 the officer supervising water control phoned the bridge: “We have reached maximum water level. To prevent further listing we must flood the starboard engine rooms.” This meant cutting speed to 9 knots, but the commander of air defense had been pleading for half an hour to correct the listing so he could fire his guns. The executive officer, Captain Jiro Nomura, hesitated but a moment. “Flood the engine rooms,” he said.
Slowly the battleship began to level. Then another torpedo hit the port and the listing resumed. At 2 P.M. Yamato took her eighth torpedo, this one on the starboard side. An urgent call came from the emergency steering room: “Too much water here. We can no longer steer—” The steering commander’s voice was cut off.
“Bring the ship north!” Admiral Ariga shouted. Traditionally a dead man was faced north; Ariga wanted to do the same for the dying Yamato. But the men in the emergency steering room had drowned at their posts, and the ship began circling slowly to port, out of control, just as the fourth wave appeared. The temporary hospital on the bow was obliterated. Three more torpedoes knifed into the hulk. Listing increased to 18 degrees; speed slowed to 7 knots.
The cruiser Yahagi was rapidly settling, her decks already awash. She had absorbed thirteen bombs and seven torpedoes. Everywhere he looked Captain Hara saw destroyers either sinking or in flames. Two seemed unharmed and they were darting protectively around Yamato. Admiral Komura felt water creeping up his legs. He glanced at his watch—it was 2:05. Just then he was sucked under. He knew it was the end of his life but he remained conscious, engulfed in swirling water, for what seemed an eternity before he shot to the surface. As he paddled through the oily water he saw a black-faced man. It was Hara. At the crest of a wave Hara got a glimpse of Yamato six-odd miles away. Planes swarmed around her like gnats. But she was moving, a beautiful sight!