Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

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Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Page 78

by Herbert P. Bix


  52. Yoshimi Yoshiaki hen, Jgun ianfu shirysh (tsuki Shoten, 1992), see the chart on p. 170; Kketsu, “Tenn no guntai no tokushitsu: zangyaku ki no rekishiteki haikei,” p. 14.

  53. Hora Tomio, Nankin jihen (Shinjinbutsu raisha, 1972), pp. 84–85; Kasahara Tokushi, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun: Panai g jiken no shins (Aoki Shoten, 1997), p. 283; Suzuki Kenji, Sens to shinbun (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1995), pp. 123–24.

  54. Hora Tomio, Nankin daigyakusatsu: “maboroshi” ka ksaku hihan (Gendaishi Shuppankai, 1975), pp. 22–26.

  55. Yanaihara Tadao, “Seijiteki kaihsha to reiteki kaihsha,” in Kashin, dai sankan, dai ichig(Jan. 1940).

  56. In his postwar deposition to the International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo Tribunal (May 1, 1946), Prince Asaka denied any massacre of Chinese prisoners and claimed never to have received complaints about the conduct of his troops. General Matsui also denied atrocities and went out of his way to protect Prince Asaka by shifting blame for incidents to lower ranking division commanders. Both generals may be counted among the first of the Nanking massacre deniers. For their depositions see Awaya Kentar, Yoshida Yutaka, ed., Kokusai kensatsukyoku (IPS) jinmonchsho, dai 8 kan (Nihon Tosho Centâ, 1993), Case No. 44, esp. pp. 358–66; and Kokusai kensatsukyoku (IPS) jinmonchsho, dai 12 kan, p. 306.

  57. Et Genkur then informed fellow reserve general Mazaki Jinzabur, who wrote in his diary on Jan. 28, 1938: “Military order and discipline have collapsed. Unless they are reestablished, we will be unable to fight a serious war. It is almost unbearable to hear the stories of robbery, rape, and pillaging.” Cited in Kasahara, Nankin jiken, p. 212.

  58. Yoshida Yutaka, “Nankin jihen to kokusai h,” in Yoshida Yutaka, Gendai shigaku to sens sekinin (Aoki Shoten, 1997), p. 120.

  59. Shigemitsu Mamoru, Zoku Shigemitsu Mamoru shuki (Ch Kronsha, 1988), p. 295.

  60. “Records of the U.S. Dept. of State Relating to Political Relations between the U.S. and Japan, 1930–1939,” reel no. 3, file no. 711.94/1184, Grew’s review of developments up to March 18, 1938.

  61. “Hidaka Shinrokur,” in Awaya Kentar, Yoshida Yutaka, eds., Kokusai kensatsukyoku (IPS) jinmon chsho, dai 42 kan (Nihon Tosho Sent, 1993), pp. 79–98. Hallett Abend, the New York Times correspondent in China at the time of the “rape,” wrote in 1943 that an unnamed “high civilian Japanese official who had made a personal investigation of the atrocities” told him that he had had a “private conversation with the Emperor” in which he informed Hirohito of the details. Abend’s informant may have been Hidaka Shinrokur. Abend has him saying:

  I was accorded the very rare honor of a summons to the palace and of more than two hours of private conversation with the Emperor…. When I entered the great hall of audience, he ordered all attendants to retire to the doors, beyond hearing. Then he had a pillow placed for me, and I spent two hours on my knees at his feet, while he bent over and had me whisper into his ear all that I knew about the events following the capture of Nanking. I kept back nothing, and he asked many searching questions.

  Abend’s overdramatization of this audience, with Hirohito bending over while the kneeling informant whispers in his ear, appears false, more Chinese than Japanese. In other respects his account seems credible. In his deposition to the IPS, given on May 1, 1946, Hidaka admitted knowing Abend from his days in Shanghai. At the Tokyo trial, he testified for the defense on behalf of Gen. Matsui Iwane but was not questioned about his earlier deposition implicating the emperor. See Abend, Pacific Charter: Our Destiny in Asia (Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1943), pp. 38–39; Kyokut kokusai gunji saiban sokkiroku, dai rokkan (Yshd Shoten, 1968), dai 210 go, pp. 270–73.

  62. Lt. Col. Ch Isamu, serving on the general staff of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force and as chief of the Intelligence Section of the Central China Area Army, is known to have issued orders that controlled the massacres. Fujiwara, Nankin no Nihongun, p. 80.

  63. Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, p. 168, citing Kaigunsh kaigun gunji fukybu, Shina jihen ni okeru teikoku kaigun no kd, p. 37.

  64. Ibid., pp. 161–62, citing Shina jihen rikugun sakusen, pp. 406–416.

  65. The “Imperial Message of His Majesty the Supreme Commander” read: “We are deeply gratified that various units of the Army and Navy in the Central China Area, following up their operations in Shanghai and its environs, have pursued [the enemy] and captured Nanking. Transmit our feelings to your officers and men.” Kasahara, Nankin jiken, p. 164, citing the Nankin senshi shirysh II.

  66. Ibid., p. 213.

  67. Awaya, Yoshida, ed., Kokusai kensatsukyoku (IPS) jinmonchsho, dai 8 kan, p. 356.

  68. The USS Panay, built in Shanghai in 1928 and named after the island of Panay in the American colony of the Philippines, was one of three gun boats of the American Asiatic Fleet’s “Yangtze Patrol.” Its “right” to navigate the river and protect American lives and property derived from the 1860 Treaty of Peking, which ended the second Opium War. For details, see Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, p. 22.

  69. See Washington Post, Dec. 14, 1937; Los Angeles Times, Dec. 15, 1937; New York Times, Dec. 1937; Manchester Guardian, Dec. 14 and 20, 1937; and The Times of London, Dec. 14 and 16, 1937.

  70. Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, p. 302.

  71. The American press in the late 1930s generally “tended to slight events in the Pacific” and seldom gave Asian news stories front-page attention. See James C. Schneider, Should America Go to War? The Debate over Foreign Policy in Chicago, 1939–1941 (University of North Carolina Press, 1989), p. 150.

  72. Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, pp. 304–5.

  73. Chicago Daily News, Dec. 14, 1937; Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, pp. 247, 303.

  74. Los Angeles Times, Dec. 14, 1937.

  75. See Allan Robert Brown, “The Figurehead Role of the Japanese Emperor: Perception and Reality.” Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Univ. Microfilms, 1971), pp. 197–98.

  76. Ishijima Noriyuki, “Chgoku no ksen taisei to taigai kankei,” in Rekishigaku Kenkykai, ed., Kza sekaishi 8, Sens to minsh: dai niji sekai taisen (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1996), pp. 53–54; Youli Sun, China and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1931–1941 (St. Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 92–95.

  77. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 96.

  78. Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, pp. 214–15.

  79. Sun, China and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1931–1941, p. 97.

  80. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 96.

  81. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 81, citing Gendaishi shiry, dai kykan, Nitch sens I, p. 50.

  82. Harada nikki, dai rokkan, p. 204.

  83. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 84, citing Harada nikki, dai rokkan, p. 207. The Tokyo Nichi Nichi shinbun (evening edition), Jan. 12, 1938, carried the banner headlines: HISTORICAL IMPERIAL CONFERENCE HELD, EMPIRE’S UNSHAKEABLE POLICY DECIDED, HOPE TO ERADICATE ANTI-JAPANESE REGIME AND STRIVE TO ESTABLISH PEACE IN THE ORIENT. The Tokyo Asahi shinbun’s announcement described the seating arrangements and the layout of the conference room.

  84. James B. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930–1938 (Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 372.

  85. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 97.

  86. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, pp. 83–84.

  87. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 98.

  88. Eguchi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi 14: futatsu no taisen, p. 263; Kketsu, Nihon kaigun no shsen ksaku, p. 192; Kasahara, Nitch zenmen sens to kaigun, pp. 294–95.

  89. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 98.

  90. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 85.

  91. Rikusen Gakkai Senshi Bukai, ed., Kindai sensshi gaisetsu: shirysh (Rikusen Gakkai, Kudansha, 1984), n.p. These casualty figures, compiled by Demobilization Bureau No. 1 in Dec. 1945, may be the best currently available.

  92. Senshi ssho, Chgoku hmen rikugun kk sakusen (1974), pp. 163–64, 223–24; see also pp. 150 and 180–201
.

  93. Eguchi, “Chgoku sensen no Nihongun,” p. 60.

  94. Harada nikki, dai nanakan, p. 51, entry of July 28, l938. Harada also drew attention, several weeks later, to Kido’s growing criticism of Privy Seal Yuasa Kurahei. On Sept. 16, Harada wrote that he had seen Kido on the eleventh and heard him say that “the privy seal goes by the law on everything. Whenever something happens, he says deal with the matter in accordance with the law. He urges the chief of the Metropolitan Police to apply the law. He doesn’t understand the times…. [Yuasa] can’t get along with the prime minister. The right wing, for instance, is more advanced.” Harada nikki, dai nanakan, p. 108.

  95. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, I, shinryaku (Ryokuf Shuppan, 1989), p. 84.

  96. Hsi-Sheng Ch’i, “The Military Dimension, 1942–1945,” in James C. Hsiung and Steven I. Levine, China’s Bitter Victory: The War with Japan 1937–1945 (M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992), p. 179.

  97. Inoue Kiyoshi, Tenn no sens sekinin (Iwanami Shoten, 1991), p. 121.

  98. Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Kusa no ne fuashizumu: Nihon minsh no sens taiken (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991), p. 27. Tacked on to the three principles was a statement that Japan would not insist on territory or reparations, would respect China’s sovereignty, abolish extraterritoriality, and give positive consideration to returning its concessions in China.

  99. Okabe Makio, “Ajia-Taiheiy sens,” in Nakamura Masanori, et al., eds, Sengo Nihon, senry to sengo kaikaku, dai ikkan, Sekaishi no naka no 1945 (Iwanami Shoten, 1995), p. 35.

  100. Harada nikki, dai nanakan, pp. 249, 258. Hiranuma’s designated foreign minister, Arita Hachir, also made opposition to a tripartite pact a condition for his entering the cabinet. On Hiranuma’s dissolution of the Kokuhonsha, see Christopher A. Szpilman, “The Politics of Cultural Conservatism: The National Foundation Society in the Struggle Against Foreign Ideas in Prewar Japan, 1918–1936,” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1993.

  101. Watanabe Toshihiko, “Nanaj ichi butai to Nagata Tetsuzan,” in Ch Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyjo, ed., Nitch sens: Nihon, Chgoku, Amerika (Ch Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1993), pp. 275–76, 296, citing (among other sources) Alvin D. Coox, Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939, vol. 2, p. 919; Tsuneishi Keiichi, Kieta saikin butai, and Eda Kenji et al., eds., Shgen jintai jikken. Watanabe notes (p. 302, n. 68) that biological warfare weapons were transported to Nomonhan and that Japanese war crimes defendants at the Khaborovsk Soviet military tribunal (Dec. 1950) testified to having used them.

  102. Kojima, Tenn, dai yonkan, p. 9; Eguchi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi 14, futatsu no taisen, p. 274. A higher casualty figure of 19, 714 killed is given in Watanabe Toshihiko, “Nanasan ichi butai to Nagata Tetsuzan,” in Ch Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyjo, ed., Nitch sens: Nihon, Chgoku, Amerika (Ch Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1993), p. 296.

  103. By 1943 Hattori had risen to become chief of the Operations Section of the Army General Staff. In his postwar comment on the Nomonhan incident, Hirohito takes credit for the imperial command that led to the fighting:

  Because the Soviet-Manchukuo border in the Nomonhan area is not clearly demarcated, both sides made false accusations of illegal encroachment. Since an imperial command had been issued to Yamada Otsuz [this is an error; Hirohito means Gen. UedaKenkichi], the Kwantung Army commander, to strictly defend the Manchukuo border, there was a reason why the Kwantung Army engaged the invading Soviet troops in battle…. Later…the orders were changed so that they did not have to rigorously defend the border in undefined or remote areas.

  STD, pp. 44–45, Eguchi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi 14, futatsu no taisen, pp. 273–74.

  104. Fujiwara Akira, Awaya Kentar et al., Tettei kensh: Shwa tenn ‘dokuhakuroku’ (tsuki Shoten, 1991), p. 49.

  105. See Donald Cameron Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (William Heinemann Ltd., 1989), pp. 349–60.

  106. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, I: shinryaku (Ryukuf Shuppan, 1984), pp. 98–99.

  107. Harada nikki, dai nanakan, pp. 334, 335–36; Inoue, Tenn no sens sekinin, pp. 127–29.

  108. On U.S., British, and Japanese “monetary warfare” in China between 1935 and 1941, see Jonathan Kirshner, Currency and Coercion: The Political Economy of International Monetary Power (Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 51–61.

  109. Quoted in Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, I: shinryaku, p. 89, citing “jij bukanch nikki,” in Bungei shunj rinji zkan (May 1971).

  110. Geoffrey Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo-German Relations and the Road to War, 1933–1941 (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1995), pp. 92–93.

  111. HSN, p. 231.

  112. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 742–743, entry of Aug. 28, 1939.

  113. HSN, pp. 218, 231.

  114. For the circumstances surrounding Yonai’s appointment, see Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 766; Harada nikki, dai hakkan, pp. 166, 176; Iwabuchi Tatsuo, Jshinron (Takayama Shoin, 1941), pp. 190–91; STD, p. 49.

  115. Hosaka Masayasu, “Shwa rikugun no kb, dai 6 kai Shwa tenn to Tj Hideki,” in Gekkan Asahi 3, no. 2 (Feb. 1991), p. 161.

  116. Iwai Tadakuma, “Tennsei no gojnen,” in Ritsumeikan Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyjo, ed., Sengo gojnen o d miru ka, ge, nij isseiki e no tenb no tame ni (Jinbun Shoin, 1998), p. 247.

  117. Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Threat from the East, 1933–41, pp. 92–94. Since mid–1937 China had benefited from having signed a secret nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, which was delighted to have Japanese power embroiled in China. Soviet aid took the form of military advisers, pilots, planes, equipment and munitions shipped overland from Siberia and Central Asia, and by sea to Haiphong, then to Rangoon for movement over the Burma Road. Though substantial, it could never compensate for Chiang’s repeated defeats on the battlefield.

  CHAPTER 10

  STALEMATE AND ESCALATION

  1. Senshi ssho: Shina jihen rikugun sakusen (1): Shwa jsannen ichigatsu made (1975), p. 239; Awaya and Fujiwara, “Kaisetsu,” in Ki Gakujin, Nihongun no kagakusen: Chgoku senj ni okeru dokugasu sakusen (tsuki Shoten, 1996), p. 374; Fujiwara Akira, “Nitch sens ni okeru horyo gyakusatsu,” in Kikan senss sekinin kenky 9 (Autumn 1995), p. 22.

  2. Awaya Kentar, “Ima, miketsu no sens sekinin to wa—shazai, hosh yky to saikin, dokugasusen mondai o chshin ni,” in Sekai 558 (Sept. 1991).

  3. Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Matsuno Seiya, “Dokugasusen kankei shiry II, Kaisetsu,” in Jgonen sens gokuhi shirysh, hokan 2, Dokugasusen kankei shiry II (Funi Shuppankan, 1997), p. 27.

  4. Gendai shishiry(9), Nitch sens (2). Elucidated by Usui Katsumi (Misuzu Shob, 1964), pp. 211–212; Tanaka Nobumasa, Dokyumento Shwa tenn 2, Kaisen (Ryokuf Shuppan, 1985), p. 96. Prior to the establishment of the Imperial Headquarters, the emperor’s direct orders to his commanders in chief in the field were called rinsanmei.

  5. Yoshimi, Matsuno, “Dokugasusen kankei shiry II, Kaisetsu,” pp. 25, 29. Because eventual retaliation was feared, great care was also taken to prevent the use of gas against Westerners in China, though not against Chinese noncombatants.

  6. Ibid., p. 28.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Awaya and Fujiwara, “Kaisetsu,” p. 376. On May 14, 1938, the League of Nations adopted a resolution condemning the Japanese use of poison gas.

  9. Ibid., p. 377.

  10. Yoshimi, Matsuno, “Dokugasusen kankei shiry II, Kaisetsu,” p. 28.

  11. Ibid., p. 29.

  12. Ibid. For a discussion of the emperor and biological warfare, see Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Ik Toshiya, Nana san ichi butai to tenn, rikugun ch (Iwanami Bukkuretto No. 389, 1995), pp. 8–9.

  13. Yoshimi, Ik, Nana san ichi butai to tenn, rikugun chu, pp. 8–9; Stephen Endicott, Edward Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea (Indiana University Press, 1998).

  14. Maeda Tetsuo, Senryaku bakugeki no shis: Gerunika, Jkei, Hiroshima e no kiseki (Asahi Shinbunsha, 1988), pp. 156, 157, 167, 420.

  15. The warning of what could happen di
d little to check the growth of Japanese purchases of American products. By 1940 the United States still accounted for 36 percent of Japan’s total imports. Oil constituted 75 percent of that total. Seventy percent of Japan’s iron, 35 percent of its cotton, 32 percent of its machinery, and 90 percent of its copper all came from the United States. e Shinobu, Tosuiken (Nihon Hyoronsha, 1990), p. 195.

  16. Eguchi, “Chugoku sensen no Nihongun,” p. 61, citing the document drafted by Tanaka Rykichi.

  17. Himeta Mitsuyoshi, “Nihongun ni yoru ‘sank seisaku, sank sakusen’ o megutte,” in Ch Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyjo, ed., Nitch sens: Nihon, Chgoku, Amerika (Ch Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1993), p. 120.

  18. Fujiwara Akira, “‘Sank sakusen’ to kita Shina hmengun (1),” in Kikan sens sekinin kenky 20 (Summer 1998), p. 23.

  19. Eguchi, “Chgoku sensen no Nihongun,” p. 61.

  20. Fujiwara, “‘Sank sakusen’ to kita Shina hmengun (1),” p. 27.

  21. Ibid., p. 28.

  22. Ibid., p. 73, citing Himeta Mitsuyoshi, “Sank sakusen towa nan dattaka—Chgokujin no mita Nihon no sens” (Iwanami Bukkuretto, 1996), p. 43.

  23. Moriyama Atsushi, Nichi-Bei kaisen no seiji katei, p. 53.

  24. For the full text, see Yamada Akira, ed., Gaik shiry: kindai Nihon no bch to shinryaku (Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1997), pp. 317–18.

  25. Takagi’s views were laid out in his report of July 27, 1940, entitled “The Recent Situation of the Empire and the Position of the Navy” [Teikoku no kinj to kaigun no tachiba]. See Kketsu, Nihon kaigun no shsen ksaku, pp. 51–54.

  26. Ibid., pp. 51–52.

  27. Harada nikki, dai hakkan, p. 32. Kido nikki, ge, p. 788.

  28. Harada nikki, dai nanakan, p. 339.

  29. Ibid., p. 108.

  30. Tanaka, Dokyumento Shwa tenn, I, shinryaku, pp. 109–12.

  31. HSN, p. 258; Yasuda Hiroshi, Tenn no seijishi, p. 268.

  32. Kido Kichi niki, ge, p. 794.

  33. HSN, p. 268.

  34. Senshi ssho: Rikukaigun nenpy: fu heigo, ygo no kaisetsu (1980), p. 336; Gerald Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy: Wang Ching-wei and the China War, 1937–1941 (Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 58, 238–41.

 

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