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

by Toland, John

* The crane is the symbol for the Emperor or the Throne, in the same manner that the Crown is synonymous with the reigning monarch in England.

  † This was the last report of the seven planes. Curiously, there is no U. S. record of any kamikaze attack on that date.

  ‡ The commander was received by Admirals Ozawa and Yonai. Before seeing Higashikuni, he sat down on a bench to rest and dropped off to sleep. He awakened too late for his appointment and reasoned, “It must have been God’s will that I fell asleep,” and that he had misinterpreted the revelation.

  § Two hours earlier, three blue American fighter planes had hurtled down at Atsugi. One dropped a large tube. Arisue stood paralyzed and watched it tumble down, fearing it had been dropped by radical Americans who wanted to continue the war. The tube landed on the grass without exploding. When it was gingerly brought to Arisue, he noticed a cap at one end. The cap was unscrewed, thus “deactivating” the missile; inside, there was a rolled cloth. It was a fifteen-foot banner:

  WELCOME U. S. ARMY

  U. S. Navy

  A note requested the Navy’s banner be attached to the side of a hangar where MacArthur’s officers would see it on disembarking. Arisue, “afraid to allow anything that might cause ill feeling and trouble,” ordered it hidden.

  ǁ In his Reminiscences, MacArthur states that he was “shocked” to find this out, apparently forgetting the messages he sent Marshall in 1942 about Wainwright, including one which declared he believed his successor had “temporarily become unbalanced.”

  a Mrs. D’Aquino was arrested on a charge of treason. At the grand jury session in September 1948 Lee and Brundige “poured it on the Army captain who taught Rose her broadcasting business”—to them, he was guiltier than she was—and the jury demanded an indictment for the captain as well as Tokyo Rose. Informed that the captain was not under the jurisdiction of the court, the jury refused to charge her. When the prosecution assured the jury that the captain would also be brought to justice, Iva was indicted. She was tried, convicted as a traitor, sentenced to ten years in prison and fined $10,000. The captain was never tried; he was promoted to major.

  b On the same day Generalissimo Stalin made an important radio broadcast to the Russian people. He said they had had a special account to settle with Japan ever since she seized southern Sakhalin and strengthened her grip on the Kuriles in 1904.

  “But the defeat of the Russian troops in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War left bitter memories with our people. It was a dark stain on our country’s honor. Our people waited with confidence for the day when Japan would suffer defeat and the stain could be wiped out. We of the older generation have been waiting for this day for forty years. Now it is here. Today Japan has conceded her defeat and signed the documents of unconditional surrender.…”

  Epilogue

  1.

  Six days after the ceremonies on Missouri, MacArthur came to Tokyo. At noon, on September 8, he strode to the terrace of the U. S. embassy, where an honor guard from the 1st Cavalry Division was attaching a historic flag to the halyards of the flagpole. “General Eichelberger,” he said sonorously, “have our country’s flag unfurled, and in Tokyo’s sun let it wave its full glory as a symbol of hope for the oppressed and as a harbinger of victory for the right.” To the sound of bugles the flag, which had flown over the Capitol Building in Washington on Pearl Harbor day, climbed up the staff.

  If the reality of MacArthur the Conqueror’s arrival, accentuated by the American colors which waved humiliatingly within sight of the Imperial Palace, was fairly incomprehensible to the Japanese people in all its implications, the defeat was intolerable to the military, who were directly responsible for the failure to stop the enemy. Moreover, many of them expected to stand trial, and within three days MacArthur issued orders for the arrest of the first forty alleged war criminals.

  There was one name on the list which was recognized by everyone—Hideki Tojo. Almost immediately Tojo’s modest home in Setagaya was besieged by correspondents and photographers. They crowded before the stone walls which fronted the house. Confined in his office, Tojo sat writing at a large desk. The room was dominated by a full-length portrait of the former premier in full military regalia. On another wall hung a tiger skin sent by an admirer from Malaya.

  The crowd outside continued to grow while newsmen pushed into the garden itself, and by midafternoon the crush had become so overwhelming that Tojo told his wife to get out of the house at once with their maid; the children had already been evacuated to Kyushu. Mrs. Tojo was reluctant to go. “Take care of yourself,” she said, fearing he might commit suicide. “Please, take care of yourself,” she repeated and bowed. His answer was a noncommittal grunt.

  She left by the back door with the maid. They circled around the wall and came up the street toward the driveway. Ahead was a confused mass of cars and people. The crowd blocked any view of her home, so she entered the garden of the house across the street which was on a slight rise. It belonged to a doctor named Suzuki who had earlier marked Tojo’s chest with charcoal to indicate the location of his heart. Over the wall she could see that American soldiers—they were MP’s—had already surrounded her house. An officer shouted, “Tell this yellow bastard we’ve waited long enough. Bring him out!” Suddenly she heard a muffled shot and the soldiers began breaking into the house. Even from across the street she recognized the sound of splintering wood. It was 4:17 P.M.

  Major Paul Kraus and the arresting party, followed by George Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, broke into the office. Tojo, his jacket off, stood wavering beside an easy chair. Blood stained his shirt. In his right hand he still held a .32-caliber Colt, which now confronted the intruders.

  “Don’t shoot!” Kraus called out.

  Tojo gave no indication that he had heard, but the gun clattered to the floor and he collapsed into the chair. He motioned to a Japanese police guard who had followed the Americans into the office and asked for water. He emptied the glass in a few gulps and wanted more.

  In the garden across the road Mrs. Tojo knelt, repeating a Buddhist prayer. She imagined his agony and tried to prepare herself for the moment the Americans would bring out his body. Instead an ambulance appeared and a Japanese doctor rushed into the house.

  At 4:29 Tojo’s lips moved. Two Japanese interpreters, who accompanied the press, began to record his words. “I am very sorry it is taking me so long to die,” he murmured. His face was contorted in pain but those of the Americans staring down at him showed no sympathy. “The Greater East Asian war was justified and righteous,” he said. “I am very sorry for the nation and all the races of the Greater Asiatic powers. I would not like to be judged before a conqueror’s court. I wait for the righteous judgment of history.” His voice grew stronger but his words were not always distinct. “I wished to commit suicide but sometimes that fails.” His bullet had entered almost exactly where Dr. Suzuki had marked his chest, but it had just missed his heart.

  As medics transferred him to a divan, Tojo whispered, “I did not shoot myself in the head, because I wanted the people to recognize my features and know I was dead.” He was taken to the 48th Evacuation Hospital in Yokohama, and in the evening General Eichelberger came to his bedside. Tojo opened his eyes and tried to bow. “I am dying,” he said. “I am sorry to have given General Eichelberger so much trouble.”

  “Do you mean tonight or for the last few years?”

  “Tonight. I want General Eichelberger to have my new saber.”

  Tojo lived to stand trial as a major war criminal;* but the following morning Marshal Sugiyama was more accurate in his aim. He shot himself in the heart at his office. When his wife learned of his death, she followed the example of the wife of General Maresuke Nogi, who had led all troops in the Russo-Japanese War and later killed himself in apology for the death of his men. She knelt before a Buddhist shrine in her room, drank a thimbleful of cyanide and fell on a small dagger.

  Trial at the hands of the victors was anathema to the J
apanese leaders, but it was particularly repugnant to an aristocrat like Prince Konoye with his inordinate sense of pride. He too preferred death to such humiliation. Facetiously he told a friend, “I’m a lazybones and I might find life in prison easy and carefree”—for thirty years he had never even carried a wallet nor squeezed a wet washcloth when he took a bath—“but I could never stand the shame of being called a war criminal.”

  The night before Konoye was to leave for Sugamo Prison his younger son, Michitaka,† searched his father’s bedroom for weapons or poison. Although he found nothing, he was still worried, so before going to bed, he returned to his father’s room. They talked at length about the China Incident, the negotiations with America, and the heavy responsibility Konoye felt toward the Emperor and the people. Michitaka thought his father should record these personal feelings. Konoye wrote for some time with a pencil—there was no writing brush available—then handed the script to his son. “This is not worded properly,” he said, “but it expresses how I feel right now.”

  Michitaka sensed that this might be their last moments together. “For a long time I’ve only given you trouble and failed to be filial to you. I apologize.”

  Konoye rebuffed the overture. “What does ‘to be filial’ mean?” he asked and turned away. They sat in silence. Finally Michitaka said, “It is quite late now. Please go to sleep.” He hesitated. “You will leave tomorrow?”

  Konoye did not reply, but Michitaka continued to gaze at him entreatingly. Konoye returned the look as if saying, his son thought, “Why do you still ask me such a question? I was under the impression that you understood everything.” Michitake had never before seen such a “strange, distasteful” expression on his father’s face, and for the first time he perceived his intention to die.

  “If you need anything during the night, please call me,” Michitaka said. “I’ll be in the next room.”

  Just before dawn Michitaka managed to fall asleep but was soon awakened by his mother’s excited voice. He tried to get up but was momentarily paralyzed. He remained seated, eyes closed, body trembling. At last he rose and entered his father’s bedroom. Konoye was stretched out, looking calm and serene, as if sleeping. There was no sign of anguish on his patrician face. He was dead. A brownish bottle, empty, lay beside his pillow.

  • • •

  Americans considered Japan’s titular leader, the Emperor, along with Tojo, to be the one most responsible for the war. Now he was even being reviled by some of the liberated Japanese press, who branded him a lecher as well as a warmonger. There were demonstrations outside MacArthur’s headquarters advocating his removal. The Supreme Commander ignored these and similar demands from the Russians and segments of the American and Australian press. To bring the Emperor to trial would provoke guerrilla warfare throughout the nation and perpetuate a military government.

  MacArthur was more than determined to treat the Emperor with respect—against the advice of his own staff, who wanted him summoned peremptorily to Allied headquarters as a show of power. “To do so,” the general said, “would be to outrage the feelings of the Japanese people and make a martyr of the Emperor in their eyes. No, I shall wait and in time the Emperor will voluntarily come to see me. In this case, the patience of the East rather than the haste of the West will best serve our purpose.”

  The soundness of MacArthur’s intuition was borne out. Two weeks after Tojo’s attempted suicide, the Emperor himself requested an interview. Wearing cutaway, striped trousers, button shoes and top hat, he drove up to the American embassy with Grand Chamberlain Fujita. He stepped out of his ancient limousine and was greeted by a salute from General Fellers. As Fellers’ hand came down, the Emperor seized it. A young Japanese interpreter explained that His Majesty was pleased to see the general.

  “I am honored to meet you,” Fellers replied. “Come in and meet General MacArthur.” The Emperor nervously allowed himself to be escorted into the embassy by Fellers and up the spacious staircase to MacArthur’s office on the second floor.

  To put His Majesty at ease MacArthur mentioned that he had been presented to his father, Emperor Taisho, after the Russo-Japanese War, then thoughtfully dismissed everyone except his interpreter. They sat down before an open fire, unaware that the general’s wife and young son, Arthur, were peering out at them from behind the red curtains. The general extended an American cigarette, which His Majesty took with thanks, his hands trembling while MacArthur lit it.

  Kido’s last advice to the Emperor before he left for the embassy had been not to assume any responsibility for the war, but now he did just that. “I come to you, General MacArthur, to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent as the one to bear sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of this war.”

  MacArthur was moved, as he later described the scene, “to the marrow of my bones. He was an Emperor by inherent birth, but in that instant I knew I faced the First Gentleman of Japan in his own right.”

  2.

  World War II was over, but it had left in its wake more problems than it had solved. Asia, in the throes of an extensive revolt, was discarding the shackles of Western domination. Warfare would be transformed from a global conflict into fragmented nationalist struggles of liberation.

  Ironically, one of Japan’s most cherished war aims was being achieved. Asia was at last freeing itself from the white man. Great Britain had already lost Burma and was being pried loose from India. In the Dutch East Indies, Achmed Sukarno and Mohammed Hatti, who had supported the Japanese during the conflict, were mounting an irresistible independence movement.

  In China the war had settled the contest for supremacy between the Communists and the Western-dominated Kuomintang. With the extensive destruction of property and loss of capital, Nationalist industry was at a standstill. Prices were more than two thousand times the level of 1937; on the foreign exchange the Chinese currency had dropped more than 70 percent in value within a month of Japan’s surrender. Inflation had practically wiped out China’s middle class and left intellectuals disillusioned. Beset by such difficulties, the Nationalists could not answer the needs of the people, and unlike the Communists, they were not willing to divide the land. For better or for worse—and it could not be much worse for the common man—China’s only hope was Mao.

  Land reform was also the keystone of the new government of Indochina. During the war the Viet Minh (Independence League), led by Ho Chi Minh, a Communist, fought the French and Japanese with the sympathy and support of Great Britain and the United States, to emerge as the dominant nationalist movement in the country. Peace brought the abdication of the playboy emperor, Bao Dai, and the Viet Minh proclaimed a new nation, the Republic of Vietnam, with a Declaration of Independence borrowed from America. But the United States, which had pledged independence for Indochina during the war, had already changed her policy. On August 24, 1945, President Truman informed General de Gaulle that he favored the return of Indochina to France. In the republic’s first election, in January 1946, the Viet Minh won a majority in the new assembly, but French troops in the country, with the help of reinforcements from France shipped in American transports, seized Saigon, and Bao Dai was eventually restored as ruler. Puppet monarchies were also established in Cambodia and Laos, and all these governments were recognized by the United States.

  American support of French colonialism indicated that her leaders intended to follow Britain’s antiquated East of Suez policy—self-determination for nations of Europe but not for Asia—convinced that Asians did not know what was best for themselves and world security. America still had not learned that she had spent her blood and treasure to help win two disparate wars: one against Fascism in Europe, and the other against Asian aspirations. And the course of world history was irrevocably determined for the next two, three, perhaps four decades.

  Several months after the war an aged woodman, his face deeply creased by the years, stopped in front of the D
ai Ichi Building, MacArthur’s new headquarters. Strapped to his back was a towering bundle of kindling. First he bowed low to MacArthur’s standard, then he turned and bowed just as low to the Imperial Palace on the other side of the plaza. American bystanders watched with perplexed amusement as if he were a living paradox of the inscrutable Orient. But the Japanese who saw him understood. He was acknowledging without reservations the temporal power of today’s shogun while revering what was eternal across the avenue.

  * Near the end of the tedious proceedings, which took place at the Army Headquarters building on Ichigaya Heights, Tojo and Yoshio Kodama watched two American planes from the exercise yard of Sugamo Prison. “Kodama,” the general said, “this trial will be meaningful only if there is no more war. As you see above, they are practicing to go against the Russians. By the time the trial ends there will be uneasy relations between the Soviets and the United States. If there is another war, a war crimes trial like this is really meaningless.”

  On November 12, 1948, Tojo was sentenced to death. In prison he had become a changed man. Religion now dominated his life and he was nicknamed Tera-kozo (“the Buddhist priestling”). A few hours before his execution he told Dr. Shinsho Hanayama, a Buddhist priest and one of the prison chaplains, that he had much to be thankful for: his body would soon become part of the soil of Japan; his death would be not only an apology to the Japanese but a move toward peace and the rebuilding of Japan. He said it was time that he died, since he had few teeth left, his eyes were failing and his memory was poor. And it was better to die than spend the rest of his days in prison, the victim of worldly passions. Finally, it was joyful to die in the knowledge that he would be reborn in Amida’s paradise. He had even developed a sense of humor. With a grin he held up a Cannon washcloth and said, “Kannon-sama [the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy] has finally appeared.”