At Pearl Harbor, the lives of 3,0009 officers and sailors of the US Navy were lost. If the Tribunal declared that the attack did not constitute an act of war, then a murder case with 3,000 victims would be established. If the Tribunal applied the principle that the issuer of the order and any person carrying out that order were all subject to criminal charges, I would be at the top of the list of perpetrators. And it seemed that my single head would not be enough to pay for the magnitude of the sin. I narrowly survived the war, but I was now feeling that it might be all over for me.
I was often summoned on various matters by the Occupation Forces’ Legal Department to their offices located in the NYK Building in Marunouchi, near the Imperial Palace. Before long, Chief Prosecutor Joseph Keenan flew from the US and landed at Tokyo Airport. At a press interview, he announced that, “Those who will be prosecuted at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) will not include those who attacked Pearl Harbor but will include those who made them attack Pearl Harbor.”
I felt so relieved to learn that I would be exempted. However, the team of prosecutors argued that the Pearl Harbor attack was the result of a joint conspiracy and that the conspirators had deliberately prepared for this attack three to four years in advance. I attended the trial at Ichigaya as a witness for the defense in order to prove how the operation had been conceived and planned at short notice.
News spread that the lead commander of the bombing of Pearl Harbor would attend the trial, and I heard that the court gallery was full of Caucasians. My testimony extended into the afternoon, and I received preferential treatment to the extent that they provided me with the same kind of lunch box that Chief Judge Webb was given.
The key point of my testimony was that the Pearl Harbor attack, contrary to what the prosecutors were insisting, was not an operation that was planned with deliberation over a three-to-four year period before the attack was actually launched. I testified that practice and ordnance preparation were done over a short period of time, at most two months. In evidence, I told the tribunal that because the Navy did not have the 800-kilogram armor-piercing bombs that were required to penetrate the decks of America’s capital ships, jerry-rigged bombs were prepared urgently by shaving the 16-inch shells of the main guns of Nagato-class battleships and adding wings at the rear of the shells. In addition, when we tried to mount the makeshift bombs onto the aircraft, it turned out that the bombs did not fit the release mechanism on the wings. Since this took place immediately before the mission, workmen from the naval shipyard were transferred to the carriers so that they could fix the problem during the voyage to the practice area. Furthermore, it turned out that modifying the torpedoes required additional time, and the carrier Kaga was delayed by one day and barely managed to join the rest of fleet gathered in Hitokappu Bay. As such, I proved the facts in detail. And the issue of the Pearl Harbor attack, which had been expected to be a central issue, disappeared relatively quietly.
I also made them understand the reason behind the delayed declaration of war: that it was caused by procedural mishandling on the Japanese side and that there was no intention to make an undeclared attack. However, Chief Judge Webb muttered that 30 minutes before the attack was not enough.
In the end, as anticipated, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal declared that seven, including Prime Minister Tojo, of the Class A war criminals were guilty and sentenced them to death by hanging.
46
Defense of Admiral
Soemu Toyoda
When the war ended, Admiral Soemu Toyoda was Head of General Staff, but his former position was Chief Commander of the Combined Fleet, and I served under him as Group Aviation Staff Commander.
In the midst of heated battles over Okinawa, kamikaze special attack planes were focused on enemy transport craft in an attempt to stop them landing. During these battles, two US hospital ships in the area were attacked by kamikaze planes and both were sunk. These two hospital ships were returning from the battlefield, full of wounded soldiers. Prosecutors argued that the sinkings and consequent deaths amounted to an act of inhumanity.
They claimed that there could be no mistaking the hospital ships for combat ships because they were clearly marked. As the war had not yet ended, this developed as a war crimes issue based on the violation of laws regulating the practices of war.
The US side recovered the body of one of the kamikaze pilots who supposedly flew into the hospital ship, causing it to explode. They found a memo on his body; it was a copy of the attack order issued by Admiral Toyoda, then Chief Commander of the Combined Fleet.
As I was Chief Aviation Staff Commander of the Combined Fleet, I myself drafted every attack order issued in the name of Commander Toyoda. At that time, the Japanese Navy’s standard procedure for battle duty was to summarize, first of all, the enemy’s situation. In the attack order, it was customary to give the entire picture of the enemy’s status in the battle area based on the reports from our reconnaissance planes.
Therefore, the enemy’s situation was described in the attack order found in the possession of the kamikaze pilot. The memo provided the number of ships in order, starting from aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and, finally, two hospital ships. The US prosecutor insisted that the memo indicated that the entire force listed in the first part of the order was designated as an attack target by Admiral Toyoda, and this was why the attack planes sank the hospital ships. During the trial, the Occupation Forces had placed Toyoda in Sugamo Prison as a Class B war criminal for committing non-extraordinary crimes in violation of international laws regulating the conduct of war, and I was called upon to testify at the Marunouchi trial as a defense witness.
The trial, which they called the Marunouchi War Crimes Tribunal, was opened ostentatiously and involved many courtroom staff. I felt that the content was nonsensical. The prosecution focused on matters that amounted to nothing more than another “barbarians’ festival of heads.”
The Marunouchi Tribunal was like the other tribunals, conducted to fulfill the emotional need for revenge for Americans who were infuriated by the news of the sunken hospital ships. I felt very sorry for old Admiral Toyoda, who was interned at Sugamo Prison and facing the heavy stress of trial all alone.
I took the witness stand in indignation. The memo in question was drafted by me. The status report gave the entire picture of the enemy force’s deployment as reported by our reconnaissance planes. The two hospital ships were not clearly identified as non-targets, but nevertheless, the order gave a caution: it meant to say that while two hospital ships were under way, care should be taken not to attack those ships by mistake.
Then, the prosecutor began his interrogation. “Why then did the special attack planes sink the hospital ships?”
“It was an error. The special attack planes had received an order to attack the transport crafts, but they misidentified them as transport crafts before recognizing them as hospital ships. Our planes then hit them. Talking about errors in battle, a US submarine also sank a Japanese hospital ship in the sea around the southern islands. It happened at night, but the Japanese hospital ship’s markings were brightly illuminated.”
Then, the prosecutor changed the subject and began interrogating me more aggressively. “All right, but did the Japanese Navy provide education on international laws of war to crews of the planes?”
“Sufficient education was provided. Therefore, throughout the Pacific War, there was not a single pilot in the Japanese Navy who dared knowingly attack a hospital ship.”
Again, the prosecutor pushed. “Do you have any example that can be verified?”
In response, I quoted an example from the Pearl Harbor attack. “I was General Commander of the Pearl Harbor attack. I led 360 planes of our air attack squadrons at the beginning of the war. My duty was to annihilate the US Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. After a battle that lasted approximately three hours, we achieved our objective. On that day, we spotted a white hospital ship with a
green cross to the north of Ford Island, but there was not a single plane that attacked the ship, knowing that it was a hospital ship. That hospital ship should not have received even a single stray bullet. After the war, I came to learn that the name of the hospital ship was the USS Solace. You can determine for yourself if you check the damage report. Doesn’t this example constitute proof?”
The prosecutor, with a smile on his lips, then said, “So it was you who opened fire during the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Then, you were the first war criminal to have triggered the Pacific War.”
The Chief Judge, raising his right hand and laughing, made a remark addressed to me, “Witness need not respond to the interrogation of the prosecutor made just now.”
Then, an associate judge began to speak. “I happened to be in an official residence at Wheeler Base that day, and when I was about to leave the house after the air-raid began, one of the Japanese attack planes flew so low that it almost touched the roof. At that moment, I saw the pilot’s face very clearly, and he looked very much like you as I see you now. Wasn’t it you who I saw?”
The people in the packed gallery burst into laughter. That day, the gallery was full of Caucasian ladies who had heard the news that the lead commander of the Pearl Harbor attack would take the witness stand. In light of the atmosphere in the courtroom, I had an intuition that Admiral Toyoda would probably escape conviction.
Before long, the Marunouchi Tribunal was concluded, and the verdict handed down was not-guilty. I was relieved that Admiral Toyoda was found innocent, but not all Class B and Class C war crime defendants fared so well.
PART SIX
CONVERSION
In Idaho Doing Missionary Work—July, 1959
47
Margaret Covell
Just when I was feeling increasing repugnance and hatred for the War Crimes Tribunals because of their unilateral imposition of “victor’s justice,” my thoughts turned to finding ways to pay them back. At the same time, former prisoners of war were being repatriated from the US. The first to return were approximately 200 sick and wounded soldiers. They arrived at Uraga Bay in two transport crafts and were housed in temporary facilities.
I wanted to know how these people were treated in the US, so I went to Uraga. I greeted all of the former prisoners of war. “Everyone, I appreciate your long hardship.”
But those returnees seemed to be very ashamed that they had been prisoners of war. The Military Code, “Do not bear the insult of being captured alive,” still lived in their minds. However, most of them had been captured and could not escape because of serious injuries sustained on the battlefield.
I asked the group, “How did they treat you in the camps over there?”
“Well, our treatment in the US prisoner of war camps was relatively generous. However, mentally, we suffered more from the strain on our nerves knowing that we had become prisoners of war.”
I tried to console them. “That point is quite understandable. Did they do anything malicious to you, to add to the strain?”
“There were many really bad guys there, and we suffered a lot.”
Here it comes, I thought, gripping my pencil firmly, ready to record my research. They said that treatment in the US was relatively generous, but, as prisoners of war, they were not house guests. Obviously, as far as inhumane treatment was concerned, there could not have been much difference from the crimes which the tribunals were dealing with, even if the methods were different.
“What was the hardest thing for you?”
“We were compelled to provide information. At first, when we became prisoners, we remained silent, and we did not say anything against our home country. However, until we spat it out, they reduced our bread rations every day until we could not stand the hunger. Then, when we occasionally gave some good information, they gave us steak, for instance. They seldom hit or beat us, but it was still nerve-wracking torture.”
“Did anyone else have a similar experience?”
As I eagerly asked for their stories, there was one person who spoke up.
“What do you think about my experience? There were ten of us who were interned in a camp in the mountains. It was in the middle of nowhere, in the State of Montana, in a place called Missoula. One of us died from disease. The camp ordered us to bury him ourselves, so the remaining nine of us went to the hill in the back. We carried shovels to dig a pit for our comrade who died in misery in a foreign country. Then a cruel sergeant came to watch us and told us to dig ten pits since we were digging anyway. Thus forced, we had no choice but to dig our own graves. We looked at each other. ‘Is the second one or third one yours or mine?’ They forced us to do such cruel things while our nerves were already shattered. Three other pits were filled before long. Beating or hitting was not the only cruelty.”
I was shocked and groaned that the United States, proud to be an advanced civilized nation, should have done such things that belonged to a savage and uncivilized ancient age. Then, another person in the group said, “In the US, they didn’t want prisoners of war to stay long in one camp, so we constantly changed camps. Before moving us to the next camp, they forced us to stand naked for almost 30 minutes to disinfect us. We wore loincloths as underwear, but they also took that away, leaving us completely naked. Like Adam, after eating the forbidden fruit, we hid our private place with both hands. We didn’t really care since there were only males at the camp, but vulgar kids came around to stare and make fun of us, saying, ‘They’re all the same.’ It was degrading and savage behavior, and it made us wonder if we were really in a civilized age.”
Thinking about this cruelty, I almost turned my face away. Writing down each story in my notebook, I had every intention to use this material as a way to pay them back. From the start, the International Military Tribunal declared that they were judging the Japanese side and not the allied nations, so I knew that they would not take it up as counter-evidence. However, I thought it would make an impression on their thinking.
There were roughly 20 prisoners with artificial arms and legs, grouped together in the corner. One of them approached me.
“Captain Fuchida, I want you to hear our story as well. Our group here was at a camp in Utah, and because of what happened, we all came back, letting bygones be bygones. We cleansed our minds of the resentment and hatred the others have been telling us about.”
“Really? What is your story?”
I listened carefully to what he had to say. According to him, these people were all severely injured. They had lost an arm or a leg, and they were interned in a hospital for prisoners of war in a hot-spring town in the Rocky Mountains in Utah. There, they received treatment, and even artificial arms or legs were provided for them.
It was about a half-year before the end of the war when a young American woman appeared at the camp. She was around 20 years old, and she started to care for the injured Japanese prisoners of war with all her energy.
She told us, “Everyone, if you should have any inconvenience or if you are in need of anything, please let me know. I will try to make sure that you are comfortable.”
At first, the Japanese prisoners thought there might be some hidden intention to seek publicity or something even more sinister. They could not understand why a Yankee girl would suddenly appear and offer to help them. However, there was nothing feigned about what she did. She came in the morning and left in the evening; she provided nursing care to the injured prisoners who were missing an arm or a leg, to the extent that even most family members would not extend. As soon as she noticed anything that the prisoners were lacking, the next morning she brought it to them. As this continued for two, then three weeks, the prisoners were moved by her. When there is such unexpected kindness, it is human nature to ask why.
“Lady, why do you treat us so kindly?”
The woman hesitated at first, but they kept pressing her for an answer. She finally said, “Because my parents were killed by the Japanese Army.”
When I heard
this, I was astounded. I leaned forward and said, “Tell me more details about your story.”
The woman’s name was Margaret Covell, and her parents were Baptist missionaries who had been sent to Japan. During their time there, they lived in Kobe and Yokohama. In Yokohama, her father was chaplain of the missionary school, Kanto Gakuin. He was a pacifist, an anti-war advocate, as was often the case with Christians. Back in those days, he must have been on the government’s black-list as an undesirable person who promoted antimilitarism.
As relations between the US and Japan became critical, the couple moved to Manila after they were advised to leave Japan. Before long, war broke out between the two countries, and Manila was occupied by the Japanese Army. The couple hid in the mountains around Luzon to avoid trouble. During the first three years of occupation by the Japanese Army, nothing happened to the Covell couple as the Army remained generous after their battle triumphs.
However, MacArthur, who had escaped to Australia, was planning his long way back to the Philippines by way of New Guinea. And to lay the groundwork for his return, he fostered guerrilla activity throughout all the Philippine islands. The US army officers who avoided capture when Bataan fell were the guerrillas’ leaders. They mixed in with the natives, hid in the jungles, inflamed resistance among the Filipinos, recruited increasing numbers of guerrillas and established espionage activities. MacArthur’s Headquarters in Australia published a magazine with the title, I Shall Return, to encourage these guerrillas. They put photographs of MacArthur on the front cover, and the content was filled with many photos showing the defeat of the Japanese Army in the Gilbert and Solomon Islands.
In response, the Japanese Army became active and relentless in hunting down the guerrillas. They even used counterespionage. However, guerrillas in North Luzon were the most tenacious and refused to give up, even when cornered in the jungle.
For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor Page 24