A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  General Tojo strode into office, determined to do his best by the Emperor, but clear in his mind that little would come of the strategy of diplomacy the Emperor still wished him to follow. Soon he was seen to be right. Each month of negotiation further depleted Japan’s stocks of strategic resources. There was no option but to set a deadline for diplomacy. It was decided that, if nothing positive was concluded by the end of November 1941, an attack on America must be faced.

  Once the path of war had been decided and return became impossible, Hirohito, as always, set his mind upon the task in hand. The dreaded thing was upon them, and Hirohito was not one to turn his back upon his responsibility. The lessons of military strategy learned at General Nogi’s knee had never left him. Plans for an attack on Pearl Harbor had previously been submitted to him by the Naval Chief of Staff. On one of these regular meetings with General Sugiyama and Admiral Nagano, Hirohito made his only recorded reference to Pearl Harbor.

  ‘What is the Navy’s target date?’ he asked.

  ‘Eighth December,’ Nagano replied.

  ‘Isn’t that a Monday?’ Hirohito asked.

  Nagano pointed out the time difference made it a Sunday. ‘This day was especially chosen because everyone will be tired after their Saturday holiday.’

  ‘The outcome of the war depends greatly on the outcome of the first stage,’ Nagano continued. ‘And the outcome of the first stage depends on the outcome of the surprise attack. We must hide our war intentions at all costs.’

  Within weeks, on 8th December 1941, Japan successfully attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Euphoria swept Japan. Hirohito’s relief that the gamble had paid off was understandable. He had none of Marquis Kido’s reservations.

  ‘When I heard the good news of the surprise attack, I felt the will of the Gods,’ Hirohito announced jubilantly to Kido.

  As news of victories continued to grow during the first years of the war, Hirohito’s excitement appeared almost excessive, even to Marquis Kido. In 1942, at the time of German victories in North Africa, Hirohito even wished to send a cable of congratulations to Hitler and had to be restrained. The Emperor was easily buoyed up by victory, and just as easily depressed when defeats began to accrue.

  For the first time since the Meiji Restoration and the founding in 1868 of modern Japan, the country now had as its political leader an active military man. Tojo’s fanaticism was not popular and once installed as Prime Minister his megalomania grew. His mind and eye were sharp enough for him to earn the nickname, The Razor. The Japanese people, naïve before international issues, were not so easily taken in by Tojo’s misplaced self-importance on the domestic scene.

  In imitation of Hitler, Tojo now rode around in an open black car surrounded by motorcycles. He developed a taste for appearing in public, especially on horseback, terrifying housewives at the early morning fish market or small children in kindergartens, exhorting them all to work harder. He became known for these forays as the Premier on Horseback. When dealers in the markets dared to complain of the lack of petrol to transport supplies he yelled, ‘Petrol, petrol? Never mind petrol. Get up earlier. Work harder.’

  The masses regarded him with a cold eye. Scandalous stories swirled about the mention of his name, and of the fortunes built by those around him. Tales circulated of a stable of beautiful mistresses and of wild carousing with his officers.

  Burma, Malaya, Thailand, Singapore, Indochina, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies fell one by one to Japan in the first months of the war. All these countries and further conquests were to be brought into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was a prefabricated formula, riddled with slogans, served up to strip bare the countries it touched. Japan hoped to conquer the world, but lacked in itself any world sense.

  Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tojo demanded respect. One by one he sacked ministers and took their portfolios upon himself. He earned a new nickname, Total Tojo. The Kempeitai, feared already for so long, swelled in new monstrousness. Tojo tightened his grip upon industry, forcing new economic laws through Parliament. Company presidents and plant managers were inducted into the army. They worked their businesses under military eyes and a German-style structure of responsibility. Limitations on working hours were abolished, bringing to life the danger of industrial slavery. Children were put to work in factories. Rice rations were cut. Hungry people traipsed to the countryside in search of provisions but police at railway stations confiscated their precious finds upon their return. Long-distance train tickets were curtailed and travel became almost impossible. In the stores stocks of everything vanished. A black market began to thrive.

  Huge posters of Tojo’s smiling face, reminiscent of those posters of Hitler in Berlin, the like of which had never before been seen in Japan, began to adorn every spare wall in the country. Such stunts of personal publicity were alien and distasteful to the Japanese nature. Hitlerism was not an ideology that appealed to most Japanese. The adulation Hitler demanded and received, General Tojo could not get.

  Instead, such antics worked against him. He appeared to place himself above the Emperor, to have lost all sense of subordination to the supreme ruler of the nation. It was even said he wished to restore to the nation the office of Shogun. As military ruler he would reign over Japan, and the Emperor would fade to a ghost. Already Hirohito appeared half-hidden behind General Tojo’s shadow.

  Beneath their harsh burden the masses bent stoically, for the sake of the Emperor and the nation. Life became narrower, meaner, fear-ridden. The people of Japan were told nothing of the mounting defeats that had already begun in the first year of the war after the loss of the Japanese fleet at Midway. Only victories were reported. They had little idea how the war was going, trusting in their leaders. But eventually by 1944 it was no longer possible to hide defeat or, after the Battle of Leyte and then Iwo Jima, that the invaders would come. The people had to be prepared.

  Colonel Hashimoto of the Panay bombing, leader now of the youth brigades of the Imperial Rule Association, broadcast frantic messages on the radio. ‘The time has come when, like the soldiers at the front, the people in the rear must also transform themselves into human bombs. The Hundred Million of Japan must all resolve to die for the Emperor.’ Hashimoto demanded suicidal resistance. If the Americans ever landed in Japan they were to find a people prepared to die rather than be conquered.

  By early 1944 Tojo had dispossessed and disaffected too many of his colleagues. Plots to get rid of him abounded, but Tojo always endeavoured to keep one step ahead of this lobby of hate. Hirohito continued to trust and support the General through the dark years of war. As things deteriorated Hirohito declared to his brother Prince Takamatsu, ‘It is said Tojo is no good, but who would be better? If there is no one better is there any alternative but to co-operate with the Tojo Cabinet?’ Clearly he regarded Tojo’s presence as in the nation’s best interests. Yet, as defeats grew and desperation rose, Tojo was forced at last to resign in July 1944.

  A sigh of relief flooded through Japan from Imperial circles to the common man. But Tojo had left too late. Before long Tokyo and every other major Japanese city was ablaze, razed daily by American bombing. The first raids began on Japan a few months after Tojo’s fall. It was these raids and the death of Hitler that appear to have brought Hirohito back to reality.

  Hitler committed suicide at the beginning of May 1945 and Germany surrendered to the Allies. This shock reverberated through Japan, as great as any earthquake. The Americans had taken Okinawa and were perilously near now to the Japanese mainland. The bombing raids upon Japan had pounded every city. In May 1945 the Imperial Palace was damaged in an air-raid. Hirohito was almost jubilant to finally be included in the great war.

  ‘We have been bombed at last,’ he said to Marquis Kido. ‘Now the people will know I am sharing their ordeal with no special protection from the Gods.’ The official reports he received minimised the damage of these raids, which was not in tune with the distressing information he was now receiving fr
om more private sources. He demanded to leave the Palace and to make a tour of inspection for himself.

  What Hirohito saw beyond his Palace appalled him. He left his car in horror to walk through the most devastated areas. He stopped at a shelter for the homeless to speak to people camping in holes. He was told that in the last single raid, 150,000 had been killed. Oppressed, beleaguered, whipped to greater and greater sacrifices, the people of Japan now looked in bewilderment at their sovereign. God incarnate, he who was unknowable, now stepped about amongst the ruins, speaking as a human being to those who were bereft. It brought about a great confusion.

  With this walk about war-torn Tokyo, Hirohito came into contact with a reality usually denied him. Nothing on his maps or tabletop operations, buried deep within the Imperial War Headquarters, prepared him for the starkness of this shock. He saw at last that defeat was truly inevitable. The great mythological dream of Hakko Ichiu, the eight corners of the universe brought together under the roof of Japan, lay in smithereens before him. Hirohito resolved the war must be ended with whatever dignity could still be salvaged.

  33

  A Fiery End

  November 1944

  When the all-clear had gone, Tilik told the maid to make Rash Bihari some tea. The old man refused any longer to move from his bed and seek shelter during air-raids.

  ‘What good are these dugouts? I’d rather die in my bed. If my time has come, it has come. It will be here anyway soon enough. Have Michiko and the children left Tokyo yet?’

  A gas fire hissed in the room. The November cold filled Tilik with thoughts of approaching winter. It was one thing to crouch in a dugout in summer, another when snow was falling. From the window he looked out at the city. It was pitted and charred by daily incendiary bombing. The gaping spaces where houses had stood multiplied each day. The town was a giant on its knees. It could not be said to have fallen, and yet it no longer stood. The dreaded raids had at last begun. Tokyo, for all its swagger, was a village of sticks and straw. From time immemorial, it had known about fire. It had few stone buildings with which to face bombs; fire was what was dreaded.

  ‘Michiko has gone to an aunt in the countryside with her parents. These raids will accelerate. As they grow worse everyone will leave,’ Tilik replied. He and Rash Bihari were awaiting the arrival of Subash Chandra Bose, who was on a visit to Tokyo.

  ‘The family will be safe out of the city. They will also get food.’ Rash Bihari began to cough. The maid hurried in and settled the old man with his tea.

  Tilik looked about the small room. It was more than ten years since he had come first to this house. He remembered again that long-ago train journey from Kobe to Rash Bihari, and the fear that had gripped him. A sense of waiting filled him now. He had learned events could not be forced. Destiny runs stubbornly to its own course, like a diverted river returns to its bed. In the road outside was the sound of an approaching vehicle.

  ‘Is that a car I hear?’ asked Rash Bihari in a petulant voice. ‘Why is Subash here again in Japan?’ The blue film of age covered his eyes, his flesh hung loose upon him. A faint offensive odour rose from his body. Diabetes and tuberculosis devoured him in tandem. He was alone but for the maid. Tilik visited him each day, and even slept in the house if it seemed necessary.

  ‘Water,’ he whispered and Tilik brought the glass to his lips, propping the old man up. Rash Bihari sipped and leaned back exhausted. ‘There is not long left for me, thank God. There comes a time, you know, when you have seen too much, when it is no wrench to die.’ He frowned suddenly at the thought of Subash Chandra Bose, before continuing.

  ‘Tell him to go away. He listens to nothing I say. But for me he would not even be here in Asia. It was I who persuaded him to look to Japan instead of Germany for support. He has become too big for his military boots. The Japanese, you know, are not happy at this title, “Netaji”, with which he has crowned himself. The Japanese equate it, mistakenly of course, with “Führer”. To them the title smacks of arrogance. He has never understood the Japanese code of manners. I hear no one of importance has seen him on this visit.’ Rash Bihari’s voice trembled with emotion.

  The last few years of constant journeying between Tokyo, Malaya and Singapore had exhausted Rash Bihari Bose. He was no longer the man who, once war was declared in the Pacific, had accepted leadership of the Indian Independence League in south-east Asia at the demand of expatriate Indians. Offices had been set up by the Japanese military in their newly conquered territories, to unite and make use of exiled Indians.

  When his health failed Rash Bihari persuaded the Japanese to bring Subash Chandra Bose from exile in an uninterested Germany, to take over the South-East Asian leadership of the Indian Independence League from him. Since that time Subash’s militancy had brought about great changes. The peaceful Indian Independence League had been overshadowed by the militant Indian National Army of which Subhash Chandra Bose was commander in chief.

  In March 1943 a bid had been made by 120,000 Japanese troops and a contingent of the Indian National Army to cross into India over the Burma border, at Imphal. It ended in disaster. More than 65,000 men were killed. Countless others died of disease retreating through the monsoon-wracked jungles of Burma. The ludicrous inadequacy of equipment and preparations only revealed Japan’s desperation in the war. Neither Rash Bihari nor Tilik wished to recall the things that weighed now so heavily between them.

  ‘If Tojo were still in power he would have seen Subash Chandra Bose, I suppose,’ Tilik replied. ‘But the present Imperial High Command is in no mood to discuss his military schemes. For Japan the war is lost. Yet still Subash comes here. The Japanese military are losing patience with him and his constant pressing for more arms. They have nothing left with which to defend their own country.’

  ‘He has destroyed my life’s work.’ Rash Bihari spoke with resignation. ‘In my mind, you know, although I might sometimes have dreamed extravagantly, I had no illusions. I saw no literal army in our Independence League, only a source of moral and inspirational support to our people at home and abroad. Independence in my view can only be achieved from within the country.’

  ‘To Subash our expatriate communities exist only to fuel his ego and the Indian National Army with money and men,’ Tilik replied. ‘That is his way.’ Rash Bihari shook his head.

  There was the sudden slamming of car doors in the road outside. From the window Tilik watched Subash Chandra Bose bend to the small door in the roofed gate. For years, to Tilik, Subash had been a God-like image. The first time the man had stepped onto Japanese soil, Tilik had felt weak with excitement. There was a certain homeliness about Rash Bihari but Subash, with his trappings of uniform, salutes and fiery speeches, seemed a leader in every form. Now, he knew Subash as an obsessed and unpredictable man. Nothing had been as expected.

  Soon Subash Chandra Bose entered the room. His broad face, upright back and balding head, the smart cut of his uniform, all projected energy. His high boots caught the light. He strode forward to take Rash Bihari’s hands.

  ‘I return to Rangoon tomorrow. Three weeks have passed so quickly here.’ His wide smile flashed about. ‘I could not go without seeing you.’

  ‘And what is the position there, in Rangoon?’ Rash Bihari asked, still petulant.

  ‘Mountbatten’s South East Asia Command is preparing to recover Burma, of course. The Indian National Army will fight with the Japanese to block them. We must concentrate now on new recruitment to the INA.’ There was no sign of defeat in Subash’s voice.

  ‘There is no longer an Indian National Army. It was destroyed at Imphal. Any recruitment of Indians now is only to fight as mercenaries for the Japanese. That is not what patriotic Indians want. This is not what I wished to live to see.’ Rash Bihari shut his eyes and leaned back upon the pillow.

  Subash Chandra Bose drew himself up in his polished boots and took no notice of these remarks. ‘Japan will be the ultimate victor. And the INA will be expanded. Another attack will be laun
ched into India to drive the British away. Already Japan has handed over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to our Provisional Government of Free India. We have a state of our own at last.’

  ‘It was a token gesture. Japan has no intention of giving up control of such strategic islands. Do not speak to me as if I am a fool,’ Rash Bihari snapped.

  Subash pursed his lips and turned to look out of the window. ‘Tokens count, as do symbols. We have set foot on lndian soil. Brief as it was, this is symbolic beyond all imagination. I think we should not forget this. I do not look upon the event as a failure, but as the greatest triumph. It was the first step on the road to victory.’

  ‘You are an optimist of a rare order,’ Rash Bihari sighed. ‘I expect this will be the last time we meet.’ He turned his face to the wall.

  Soon Subash was gone with a slamming of car doors and a revving of engines. Tilik listened with Rash Bihari until silence filled the road again. At last Tilik stirred and glanced at his watch.

  ‘Go now or you will be late for the radio broadcast,’ Rash Bihari insisted. He gripped Tilik’s hand, and his voice trembled sadly. ‘Each night I wonder if I will be here in the morning. Japan has no time now for our dreams.’

  Eventually Tilik left the house and made his way to the studios of NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Some time ago NHK had opened a short-wave station for the Indian Independence League, for daily broadcasts to India. From here, until his health failed, Rash Bihari had addressed his homeland and in turn each of India’s leaders.

  The damp odour of autumn mixed with a sulphurous smell from the bombs. Where they could, trams still ran. Tilik groped his way along in the darkness. There were no longer street lamps, government orders for scrap metal had taken every post. Stone columns had been uprooted with their iron grilles, bridge parapets with their handrails. Nothing seemed left in place. And yet this ironware lay in a tangled, rusting mass at street corners for want of transportation to take it away. Tokyo resembled a builders’ yard.