MAKING PEACE Part Two

 

I was not surprised the "Potsdam Statement",  issued in 26 July, 1945,  purported to speak for China and the British Empire, but was in language and spirit it was pure American - part boastful display and part political speak.   It began with a blunt warning from the agrreived party, “The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry…of the whole German people…” 

The haughtily confidence of the Potsdam Statement continued: “The following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.... 

"There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest. Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed …Japanese territory…shall be occupied…Japanese sovereignty shall be limited….as we determine…(and) stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals…We call…(for the) unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces,…". 

President Franklyn D. Roosevelt had announced the policy of Unconditional Surrender at the 

Casablanca Conference in January of 1942.  The phrase, however, had been invented 80 years earlier, in February of 1862,  at Fort Donaldson, Tennessee, when U.S. Brigadier General Ulysses Grant (above) had told Confederate General Simon Buckner that Federal forces would consider  "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." 

But the reality was that Buckner had immediately rejected those terms, and Grant immediately modified them.  Despite this President Roosevelt issued the same demand in World War Two of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. And because by early May of 1945, even though Roosevelt was dead and the inexperienced Harry Truman was now President,  America continued to demand those same cold terms for Japanese surrender.  But then Truman, like  most Americans knew precious little about modern Japan.

An entire generation of Japanese children were indoctrinated in the belief that the nation and the  Chrysanthemum Throne had been synonymous for 2,600 years. In fact the Imperial Cult and modern Japan, had really only started after the Mejii Constitution in 1889. Under this document, fashioned after the English monarchy, the Emperor was the head of state, and the religious leader . His subjects fought and died  “for the Emperor” even while they took orders from mortal men who ran the government and industry. But buried in that 1889 constitution was a clause which required consultation with the Army and Navy before any individual could be named Prime Minister. 

Despite this, under the Emperor Taisho, who took the throne on 30 July, 1912, Japan was a fledging constitutional democracy. Unfortunately as an infant he had contracted cerebral meningitis, causing a swelling of his brain which over time produced altered consciousness.  By the time of his death in 1926, most of his duties had been taken over by the 26 year old Prince Regent, Hirohito (above).  He had been raised without much contact with his parents, in a military environment.  He was not expected to publicly offer his opinion.  And even if he did, the business and war lords had little aversion to “working around” inconvenient imperial wishes. 

Without a free press Hirohito only knew what his staff and advisors told him. He rarely knew what the military did not want him to know. And with time, that required consultation with military commanders concerning choices for Prime Minister became a veto on any candidate who showed any independence thinking. 

On 30 November, 1930, Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi (above, center) leader of the liberal "Constitutional Democratic Party" was stabbed by a member of the right wing Patriot Society (the Aikokusha). Osachi died of his wounds a year later.

On 15 May, 1932, 11 young Naval officers of The "Blood Brotherhood" (the Ketsumeidan), invaded the home of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi.  Although he was more conservative than his predecessor,  Tsuyshi's crime, in their eyes, was his opposition to the army's unauthorized 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and his refusal in 1932 to officially recognize the resultant puppet state of Manchukuo.  

He tried to reason with young men, but was told "Dialog is useless", just before, in unison,  they shot him to death. They then threw hand grenades into the homes of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and the head of a moderate political party. They also attacked the headquarters of the Mitsubishi Bank, and several electrical substations around Tokyo. 

They had also planned to murder visiting international silent screen icon Charley Chaplin in hopes of starting a war with America. Cooler heads prevailed, and after a controversial trial, all 11 young officers were executed. 

Then, on the evening of 22 February, 1935 a hastily formed "Righteous Army" set out to murder those  who questioned their opinions. The attack on the home of Prime Minister Keisuke Okada resulted in the murder of 4 policemen and the killing of Okada's brother-in-law, Colonel Denzo Matsuo. This time the prime minster escaped.

That same night. more young officers marched their soldiers to the home of the Minister of War, Kawashima, where they handed him a list of demands, including no punishment for themselves, a new commander for the army in Manchukuo, and the removal of other officers who offended the Righteous Army.  Kawashima pleaded he needed to speak the Emperor before signing anything. He was allowed to escape to the palace.

Yet another group of soldiers had driven to the home of Takahashi Kirekuyo, the Finance Minister,  They found him asleep in his bed and shot him to death (above). Another group broke into the home of Keeper of the Privy Seal, Saito Makoto, and executed him, wounding his wife as well. 

This revolution finally fell apart when members of the Righteous Army arrived at the Imperial Palace (above). Hirohito refused to see them and, with support from his surviving minsters, ordered them to return to their barracks, which they promptly did.  

That same night, 200 additional soldiers burst into the home of Kantaro Suzuki, the Grand Chamberlain, where they shot him twice. Thanks to his wife's quick thinking, he survived. Home Minister Fumio Gotō survived because he wasn't home when the killers came to call.  However 

Jotaro Watanabe, the Inspector General of Military Education, was not so lucky. He had time to grab a gun to defend himself, but, in front of his 9 year old daughter,  the soldiers him down with a machine gun, and finished him off with a sword.

This time the Emperor was scared and angry enough to demand action. And it was now, with full support from the Navy, who had 100 ships anchored in Tokyo Bay, and reluctant support from a few generals, that a counter revolution took courage.  Still it took almost 48 hours for martial law to be declared, after which the junior officers either committed suicide or were arrested, Fifteen were executed. Clearly all these rebellions by young officers were inspired by infighting between the upper ranks of the Army and Navy, but those tried and executed were exclusively junior officers.

The outcome from all this bloodshed (some 60 political assassinations over the decade) was the terror it inspired in civilian politicians, which destabilized every government.  Over the 5 years Japan had 5 Prime Ministers, each time shifting slightly further to the right, until, at last, on 18 October, 1941, General Hideki Tojo (above) the ultra nationalist, who favored war with, first, China, and then with the United States and Great Britian, was was appointed PM.  And that is how Japan found herself in this terrible position in mid-1944. 

Nine days after the loss of the Mariana Islands, Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo (above), the architect of the turn south and the war with America, resigned, along with his entire cabinet. This was unambiguous proof that by the end of June 1944, every Japanese senior leader knew that the Japan had lost the war.  Still most the violent generals refused to acknowledge this.

General Tojo was replaced as Prime Minister by retired general Kuniaki Koiso (above). He was not respected and most of his own advisors thought he would last a few weeks at most. In fact he held on for almost a year. His plan was to first defeat the Americans under General Douglas McArthur in the Philippines, and then sue for peace.  However, with the loss of Manila, in early March, 1945, it was obvious that plan had also failed.

That same month, on the night of 9-10 March,, 1945, some 279 B-29 bombers unloaded 1,665 tons of napalm on Tokyo, completely burning out 16 square miles of the city center and killing 100,000 human beings and leaving one million civilians homeless.  It was the single most deadly air raid in human history, surpassing even the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  The B-29's would follow raid up with similar raids on 15 other large Japanese cities, killing some 330,000 civilians in total.

Under this pressure, Japan's options were limited. Although they claimed to be fighting for "Asia for the Asians", the cruel Japanese occupation forces had crushed every independent movement in the European colonies in Asia. With such limited choses in seeking a conduit for negotiations with the Americans, Prime Minister Koiso tried to send Prince Fumimaro Konoe (above)  who had worked to avoid the war, and had sought to overthrow Tojo,  on a peace mission to Switzerland and Sweden. 

But those neutral powers, about the only ones outside of South America,  were not interested in getting involved. And one week after the U.S. Invasion of Okinawa on April Fools Day, 1945, Koiso finally resigned.

The new Prime Minister was retired Admiral Baron Suzuki (above). He wanted to end the war as quickly as possible. His greatest problem was, it was still very dangerous in Japan to disagree with the Imperial Army.

Japanese military leaders now held onto the dream that if they could kill enough Americans, as they had done on Iwo Jima,  they would win a more favorable peace from the Americans. 

In crushing the 20,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima (above), during  February of 1945, the United States suffered 8,621 dead and 19,189 wounded - a ratio of just 2 to 1 dead.

But on the threshold of the Japanese home islands. on Okinawa, which was defended by 110,000 Japanese soldiers, America suffered 12,513 dead and 38,513 wounded Marine, Army and Navy personnel - a 9 to 1 kill advantage for the Americans. 

However Kamakazi attacks off Okinawa cost the U.S. Navy 15 destroyers, and 13 Amphibious support ships. No fleet carriers were sunk but 5 were severely damaged (including the U.S.S. Bunker Hill which was forced to return all the way to shipyards in Bremerton, Washington for repair) as well as one light carrier damaged. This was the greatest damaged ever inflicted on the U.S. Navy.  

Those casualties were a shock to the American public, but not nearly as severe as the Japanese warlords had convinced themselves they would be.  Neither the American government nor the American population gave any sign of bending on their demands for unconditional surrender. 

To the Japanese war lords  Truman's terms of "Unconditional Surrender" meant the destruction of Japanese social structure. In particular it brought into question the continued power of the military and industrialists.  And the radicals in both of these power structures were willing to see the entire nation fight to the death rather than surrender their hold on power.

But the Japanese, reading the Potsdam statement, also noted two things; first, the Russians had not signed it.  Imperial Russia had been humiliated by the Japanese in 1905, when Japan captured Korea, and later expanded into Manchuria.  However the U.S.S.R. had returned the favor in the 1939 engagement along the Khalkhin - Go river, in which a 20,000 man invading Japanese army was effectively wiped out.  Two years after that engagement the two nations had signed a neutrality agreement and turned their attentions elsewhere, Russia to preparing for a German invasion and Japan looking for oil, iron ore and rice to the south. 

The other point in the Potsdam Statement which the Japanese warlords took notice of was it made no direct mention of the Emperor. Japanese warlords already knew America was racist, thanks to the November 1922 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which found a Japanese born business man who had lived in America for 20 years could not become a naturalized citizen. Then the 1924 Immigration Act not  only excluded people of Chinese descent but added anyone of Japanese descent.  It seemed obvious to the Japanese leadership that when the Potsdam Declaration referred to removing “...those who have deceived and misled” refered directly to the Emperor. Seeing this the War Lords, who had already sacrifice millions of Japanese lives to save their own reputations, began to talk about the "honor" of 100 million suicides.

And that was when a former Prime Minister, former ambassador to the United States and Sweden, and a man currently beyond the reach of the hot heads within the Imperial Army, current ambassador to the Soviet Union, Naotake Sato (above), stepped up to add a voice of sanity in an attempt to save his nation. 

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