CHAPTER 18
(JULY–AUGUST 1945)
OFFICE OF THE U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
WASHINGTON, D.C.
22 JUNE 1945
Okinawa, the last battle of World War II, yielded horrific losses of life on all sides. President Truman decided that if they were going to press Japan into submission any time within the next ten years, the United States would have to use the atomic bomb.
Truman and the Joint Chiefs wanted the war to end right away. The idea of another decade of the horror was too much to contemplate. They also felt it was imperative to save American lives, but were also concerned about the loss of Japanese lives. That was the main factor in the decision to drop atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, leading finally to Japan’s full surrender.
The U.S. soldiers and Marines also wished for an end to the war. The beleaguered American troops who survived Okinawa had never experienced such extreme carnage. Admiral Nimitz had noted, “It was the worst fighting of the Pacific war, its sustained intensity surpassing even the brutal combat of Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima.”
But since Okinawa was so vital to Tokyo’s last stand, the Japanese felt compelled to defend the island to the death. They did so with a desperation equal only to the unrelenting resolve of the Americans, who were even more determined to guarantee a victory of their own.
Toward the end of the bloody fighting on Okinawa, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved Operation Olympic—the ultimate invasion of Japan. Military planners scheduled it for 1 November 1945. Under the joint command of General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz, the U.S. forces would launch an assault on Kyushu, the southernmost Japanese Home Island. The Joint Chiefs had approved an invasion force of 650,000 troops, 2,500 ships, and 6,000 planes to attack the southern coast of Kyushu.
The Imperial military intelligence had correctly guessed the sites of American actions before and after Okinawa. They had expected the Americans to land in the Philippines and ordered their troops there to move back into the mountains and jungles. These troops were to hold out in a defensive operation while they prepared the Home Islands for the expected invasion. They were planning to fortify the coastlines and determine strategies for turning back the Americans when they landed on the beaches.
President Truman
By August, the Japanese high command planned to station nearly 250,000 troops on Kyushu, where they planned to counter-attack with 6,000 kamikaze aircraft. These suicidal missions would attempt to destroy a quarter of the Allied invasion force before they landed, while American troops were still aboard their amphibious troop carriers.
Meanwhile, American code-breakers, still unknown to the Japanese, were intercepting messages that indicated Russia and Japan were holding secret talks. Russia, although a U.S. ally in the European theater, had signed a neutrality agreement with Japan before the events of Pearl Harbor.
These behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Soviet Union and Japan took place during the first two weeks of June 1945. At Emperor Hirohito’s behest, Japanese diplomat Koki Hirota met with the Russian ambassador to Japan to discuss a possible new relationship between the two countries. Hirota offered to share all of Asia with the Soviet Union, telling the Russian ambassador, “Japan will be able to increase her naval strength in the future. That, together with the Russian army, would make a force unequaled in the world.”
The idea of a Russia–Japan alliance complicated the American plans for Operation Olympic. Would an agreement between the two nations mean that Russian troops might come to the aid of the Japanese in the event of an Allied invasion?
U.S. SOUTHWEST PACIFIC COMMAND
MANILA, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
29 JULY 1945
MacArthur’s headquarters announced the end of all Japanese resistance in the Philippines, and the liberation of the Philippines was declared on 5 July. By 10 July preparations for Operation Olympic were under way, and 1,000 bombing raids against Japan were planned. Four days later, they began. The first naval bombardment of the Japanese Home Islands also commenced.
Meanwhile the U.S. was secretly considering the use of an incredible new weapon, capable of destroying an entire city. Destroying a city wasn’t a new concept. American B-29s under General Curtis LeMay, who had assumed command of the 20th U.S. Army Air Corps in the Mariana Islands, had leveled cities. After three months of bombing Japanese cities, however, few targets had been destroyed. General LeMay suggested that it would take his air force until October to destroy the fifty most important cities in Japan.
By late July, U.S. bombers had been dropping bombs on Japanese cities for several months, and although 300,000 casualties resulted from these raids, it took many missions and numerous tons of bombs to do it. These bombing raids did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the Japanese.
The U.S. now had the means to destroy an entire city with a single device—the atomic bomb—in a single bombing run. Such a weapon would certainly demonstrate to the Japanese warlords that continuing the war was futile. When MacArthur was briefed on the atomic bomb project, he was surprised. It seemed to him to have suddenly appeared as simply another military option, while it had in fact been decades in the making.
While the Manhattan Project is credited for the creation of the first atomic bombs, the concept was at least twenty years old. The first scientific papers were offered following World War I and throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The idea of an atomic bomb came first to Leo Szilard, a native of Budapest who immigrated to Great Britain, in 1933. His idea was patented and the patent was secretly transferred to the British Navy. The secrecy and patents did not put an end to the study and experiments toward nuclear fission. A number of countries took more than a passing interest in the project.
In fact, in October 1940, Imperial Army Commander Sosaku Suzuki had sent Tokyo a report “on the possibility of Japan developing an atomic bomb” based on uranium deposits in its newly acquired Chinese and Burmese territories. And in April 1941, seven months before Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Army had given its approval for the Japanese development of an atomic bomb.
U.S. war leaders were concerned that both the Germans and the Japanese might be working on atomic weapons of their own. Fortunately for the Allies, the Japanese war leaders had taken a more traditional route, focused on building ships and aircraft and using highly trained, thoroughly committed troops. Their scientists had not actively pursued the idea of making atomic bombs.
In the United States, FDR had approved the top-secret plan for exploring nuclear fission as a basis for an atomic bomb, rather than moving forward with a plan for a nuclear energy reactor. The Manhattan Project was years ahead of any other nation’s quest for the atomic bomb. American scientists worked around the clock for the duration of the war to build the atomic bomb. They would soon see the culmination of all their efforts.
In April, Truman had informed Russian premier Josef Stalin that America was completing work on an atomic bomb; Stalin’s spies in the U.S. had already told him.
On 16 July, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first atomic bomb was successfully tested a few seconds before 0530 at the “Trinity” site in the middle of the desert. Code-named “Gadget,” the detonation yielded over twenty kilotons of explosive energy. In the process, the steel tower holding the “Gadget” was vaporized.
Word was sent to Truman, who was in conference with Churchill and Stalin at Potsdam to discuss the Allied efforts for ending the war. Truman told the other leaders that the United States now had a way to end the war swiftly, once and for all.
The next day, 17 July, the Allied leaders met once more at Potsdam to consider the possibility that Japan might be open to surrender terms.
Ten days later, Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration. It demanded that Japan unconditionally surrender to the Allies, and without going into any details about the atomic bomb, it warned the Japanese that the alternative to a full surrender was “complete and utter destruction.”
Meanwhile, components of “Little Boy”—a working atomic bomb—were carried to Tinian Island in the South Pacific aboard the cruiser USS Indianapolis.
A few days after the bomb components had been safely offloaded, a lone Japanese submarine managed to sink the Indianapolis, resulting in the loss of nearly 900 sailors. The Indianapolis went to the bottom so quickly that a radio distress call wasn’t even sent. Survivors were left adrift for two days, resulting in an even greater loss of life.
That week the tragedy of the Indianapolis was the dominant story in the headlines, along with Truman’s Potsdam Declaration. On 28 July, Tokyo rejected Truman’s call for an unconditional surrender.
Nevertheless, General MacArthur was already thinking about the end of the war. Both the Americans and Japanese knew that it was inevitable. The Japanese refused to accept the idea of surrender. In previous wars, the parties had merely declared an armistice. But Truman’s mandate to the Japanese called for an unconditional surrender.
Churchill, Stalin, and others had tried to talk Truman out of making Japan submit to an unconditional surrender. The Allies’ argument was that the Japanese would likely accept an armistice or conditional surrender, so they could negotiate terms for peace. It was the concept of unconditional surrender that made them choke.
The U.S. State Department and the president had sent MacArthur a list of reforms they wanted to achieve; their consensus was that the only way to achieve these goals was to mandate them through unconditional surrender terms. MacArthur had added his own ideas. While he had his own problems with Truman, this wasn’t one of them. He agreed that the reforms had to be made, and without an unconditional surrender, the Japanese could find allies who might help them negotiate their way out of the Americans’ terms.
The reforms presented in the Potsdam Declaration dealt primarily with destroying Japanese weapons, giving feudal farmers an opportunity to own land, ending the clan monopolies on industry, giving women equal rights, and replacing the imperial form of government with a democracy. To Truman and MacArthur, these were non-negotiable.
U.S. 20TH ARMY AIR CORPS
TINIAN ISLAND AIR BASE
5 AUGUST 1945
After Tokyo’s rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, Truman must have assumed that the Japanese government was in a total state of denial. They apparently believed the war was still winnable.
As Japan seemed prepared to commit national suicide rather than surrender or negotiate seriously with the Americans, Truman decided to follow the only course of action offering him the opportunity to end the war quickly and save the most lives.
Truman consulted with Secretary of War Henry Stimson and the Joint Chiefs’ General George Marshall the day before the first atomic bomb fell on Japan. Later that day, General LeMay received the word from Washington confirming the mission for 6 August.
Colonel Paul Tibbets was the pilot for the new B-29 Superfortress that would carry the bomb, which he named “Enola Gay” in honor of his mother. Colonel Tibbets told his B-29 crewmen, “You will be delivering a bomb that can destroy an entire city.” He didn’t know any more about the inner workings of the device than they did, but told his men simply, “It’s something new called ‘atomic’.”
“Little Boy” was loaded on the Enola Gay that evening. At midnight on 6 August, the crew got its final briefing. The twelve-man flight crew consisted of Colonel Tibbets, commanding officer and pilot; Captain Robert Lewis, copilot; Major Thomas Ferebee, bombardier; Captain Ted Van Kirk, navigator; Lieutenant Jacob Beser, radar countermeasure officer; Navy Captain William “Deke” Parsons, a Manhattan Project scientist; Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duzenbury, flight engineer; Sergeant Robert Shumard, assistant engineer; Sergeant Joe Stiborik, radar operator; Staff Sergeant George Caron, tail gunner; Lieutenant Morris Jeppson, bomb electronics test officer; and Private First Class Richard Nelson, radio operator.
The Enola Gay started its takeoff checklist and took off at precisely 0245 on 6 August. The flying time to mainland Japan would be about six hours. At about two hours from the target site, Captain Parsons supervised the arming of “Little Boy.” The Enola Gay, still flying at just over 31,000 feet, approached Hiroshima at about ten minutes before nine. The morning was clear and the skies were empty of enemy fighters or anti-aircraft flak. By now the navigator, engineer, and pilots could see the target, Aioi Bridge. At seventeen seconds past 0915 (0815 Hiroshima time) the bomb was released.
It took exactly forty-five seconds for “Little Boy” to fall six miles to the explosion altitude of 1,850 feet, closer than 650 feet to the landmark bridge. It exploded above the city with an effective yield of fifteen kilotons. In an instant, a brilliant, awful, blinding light filled the cockpit of the Enola Gay. Reflex action caused the crew to turn and look back at the light. But it faded as quickly as it came, and after it an angry, dark, and fiery form roiled across the landscape, rising skyward in a slowly forming mushroom cloud of debris, smoke, and fire that obscured Hiroshima.
For what seemed to be a long while, no one spoke. Then, they all began shouting at once: “Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!” Copilot Lewis said that there was a strange taste in his mouth. “It tastes like lead,” he observed.
“It’s the taste of atomic fission,” Deke Parsons explained.
As the Enola Gay headed back toward Tinian Island, Paul Tibbets wrote a few notes in his logbook. His entry concluded with the words, “My God, what have we done.”
U.S. 20TH ARMY AIR CORPS
TINIAN ISLAND AIR BASE
10 AUGUST 1945
There was no official Japanese response following the bombing of Hiroshima. The U.S. had earlier begun printing and dropping millions of leaflets on Japanese cities, warning its citizens of the destruction to follow if their leaders did not surrender unconditionally. The day after the first blast, leaflets warned of more atomic bomb attacks.
The U.S. had originally planned to wait for some time before using another atomic bomb, but a forecast of bad weather pushed up the schedule. The confirmation came to the Tinian air base, where the second atomic bomb—nicknamed “Fat Man”—was kept. The mission would be for 9 August; the target was the Kokura Arsenal.
As the Americans prepared to give “Fat Man” a ride into history, the Japanese and Russians were still frantically negotiating. Until 8 August, the strategy was to somehow convince the Americans to accept negotiated terms rather than an unconditional surrender. That would buy more time for the Russians and Japanese to work things out once the Americans and Japanese stopped the war.
Japanese foreign minister Togo was still hopeful that Ambassador Hirota was making some headway with the Soviets when the Russians abruptly cancelled the talks. The Soviets later informed Tokyo that Russia was declaring war on the Japanese, effective the next day.
Togo and Hirohito were not told the rationale for the Russians’ sudden about-face. Perhaps the awesome power and effectiveness of the atomic bomb made Stalin reconsider plans to side with Japan. The equation had suddenly shifted. Even if Japan could rebuild its navy, and even if the USSR could muster an unprecedented army, both parties now had to consider the new tactical advantage of the United States. The Americans had a bomb that made conventional warfare obsolete. It changed everything.
As Russia declared war on Japan, it immediately invaded Manchuria, which by now was just a shell of Japanese military occupation.
Meanwhile, throughout 7 and 8 August, the Americans continued to warn the Japanese of imminent destruction with leaflets and through radio broadcasts from Saipan. A second atomic bomb was coming.
Another aircrew, commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, had the responsibility to ferry “Fat Man” to its intended target over the Kokura Arsenal. This time, the B-29 was named after the man who was originally supposed to fly the plane, Colonel Frederick Bock, who at the last minute didn’t make the flight. The crew nicknamed the B-29 “Bock’s Car.” Sweeney was the commanding officer and pilot for the mission. Others on the flight crew included Captain C. D. Albury, copilot; Second Lieutenant Fred Olivi, third pilot; Navy Commander Fred Ashworth, weapons officer; Master Sergeant John Kuharek, flight engineer; and Sergeant Ray Gallagher, assistant flight engineer.
At 2200 hours on 8 August, “Fat Man” was loaded into Bock’s Car for the mission. The last briefing took place just after midnight, and at 0345 on 9 August, the pilots were rolling down the runway to lift off and head for Japan.
Shortly after takeoff, Major Sweeney discovered that the 600-gallon reserve fuel tank switch was not working. After some failed attempts to fix it, they knew that they now had 600 fewer gallons of fuel for the mission. This would seriously limit their range and time over their target. Sweeney even thought that they might have to make an emergency landing at a recently captured Okinawa airfield.
The flight seemed plagued by Murphy’s Law. In addition to the malfunctioning reserve fuel tank, their fighter escorts were late at the rendezvous point. The flight engineer also reported a number of shorts in the B-29’s electrical system. When the plane approached Kokura and the arsenal that was to be their target, the entire area was obscured by thick clouds and smog. The crew was unable to locate the necessary landmarks for targeting.
Atomic-bomb cloud.
Sweeney knew that they couldn’t wait for the clouds to clear. The navigator and flight engineer did the math: With their remaining fuel minus the 600 gallons in the reserve tank, and the time lost waiting for their escorts and looking for an opening in the clouds, they had fuel and time only for a single run on a secondary target. They picked Nagasaki, knowing that it would be risky for them to change course, find Nagasaki, drop the bomb, and then turn and make it to Okinawa for an emergency landing.
When Bock’s Car approached Nagasaki, the crew saw that clouds obscured the city. However, as they approached, a break in the clouds appeared. It was almost eleven o’clock in the morning. The break in the clouds held, and the bomb bay doors were opened and “Fat Man” was dropped over Nagasaki. The Americans made a sixty-degree turn and headed south.
Forty-five seconds after leaving the bomb bay, “Fat Man” exploded 2,000 feet above the city with a force of twenty-one kilotons of energy. The bomb detonated near the outer edge of Nagasaki, taking out the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works. At the instant of the explosion, there was a glare brighter than the sun. Seconds later, Bock’s Car was shaken with terrible turbulence caused by the intense shock waves of the explosion.
Fire and smoke enveloped the city and over 70,000 people—one-fourth of the population—were killed instantly. An equal number were injured in the blast and thousands of others would suffer radiation sicknesses over the next fifty years. The size and fury of the fiery blast widened out across the city and then began to rise above it. Lieutenant Olivi saw the column of flames and smoke rising and feared that it might envelop the plane, even at 30,000 feet.
The crew managed to escape the mushroom cloud of fury and set a direct course to Okinawa. There they refueled and took off for their home base on Tinian, returning there about three in the afternoon, nearly twelve hours after the mission had begun.
IMPERIAL PALACE
TOKYO, JAPAN
10 AUGUST 1945
On 10 August, the Japanese government and military leaders met again to discuss their strategy and response to the surrender terms. The bylaws of the Japanese cabinet said that they had to have a unanimous decision on such matters, and members were at an impasse, with six favoring surrender, three willing to continue the war, and five neutral votes. Then the word came about the destruction of Nagasaki by another atomic bomb.
The cabinet moved to the Imperial Palace to present the matter to the emperor and seek his counsel. Hirohito listened to all of the arguments and offered his conclusion that the time had come for the Japanese people to “bear the unbearable.”
There were peace and war factions within the cabinet. As their country continued to lose battle after battle, leading politicians tried to inspire the people into supporting the country’s lost cause and national pride of not being defeated. To even discuss surrender, let alone consider accepting it, was difficult. The “war faction” believed that Japan could still win one final battle to prevent the invasion of their homeland.
These militarists had created their own “super weapon”—not quite an atomic bomb, yet still a powerful weapon: the kamikaze. At first, aircraft were used as manned bombs. Later, various kinds of ships and submarines were sent on suicidal attacks. Next, the leaders tried to convince the Japanese people to consider the kamikaze of last resort—resisting the invasion themselves with spears, rocks, and whatever else they could find to kill Americans. They were told that if they didn’t kill an enemy soldier before they were killed, they would die in shame.
The “peace faction” simply reminded the militarists that even if the citizen kamikazes repulsed an invasion, the Americans and Allies would simply launch a second invasion when the kamikazes were all dead, and then they would succeed. Those who sought a peaceful end to the war reminded the others what might happen if the U.S. decided not to invade but instead used more of the terrible bombs. They pointed out to the war faction what a tremendous waste of lives such actions would spawn. They urged their comrades that despite surrender, the country could at last have peace and save countless lives in the process.
Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Suzuki were in favor of accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, even though they believed it would be a national humiliation to do so. Yet the idea that the emperor would support the idea of surrender was unimaginable to most of the Japanese military leaders.
The war faction stuck to their position. The three military leaders of the cabinet were adamant. One urged the cabinet to implement the kamikaze plan and commit twenty million Japanese lives in an effort to achieve victory. To offer to sacrifice one-fifth of Japan’s population to such a lost cause must have sounded ridiculous and insane.
It was obvious: The time to surrender had now come, even though many in the military still wanted to fight to the end. In a sobering break with Japanese tradition, Hirohito intervened and told the cabinet that he could no longer bear to see his people suffer in war. Following another leaflet bombing of Tokyo with papers outlining surrender terms, Hirohito decided to issue an Imperial Edict accepting the unconditional surrender.
Prime Minister Suzuki quietly warned the emperor that if the militarists thought there was any hesitation or weakness in the Japanese government, he might be assassinated and replaced in a takeover coup.
As the Japanese leaders debated, Emperor Hirohito secretly recorded a radio broadcast accepting the terms of the surrender and announcing it to the Japanese people. When one of the opposition generals got word of the secret recording (to be broadcast on 14 August), he attempted a coup. His men assassinated the commander of the palace guards, put Emperor Hirohito under virtual house arrest, and sent troops to search all of the palace and government offices for the recording. The guards turned over nearly every room and office in the palace and government office building but couldn’t find the recording.
The attempted coup unraveled by morning, however, and the general who started the coup shot himself and the Japanese war minister committed ritual suicide. The cabinet then voted unanimously to accept the terms of the surrender.
The recording of the emperor’s address to the Japanese people was broadcast at noon, announcing acceptance of the unconditional surrender and the end of the war. This was followed by a news release from a Japanese news agency confirming that the unconditional surrender had been accepted.
That message was released at mid-afternoon Tokyo time, but it was just 0149 in Washington when American leaders were awakened to receive the news that Japan had accepted the terms and provisions of the Potsdam Declaration.
The American government responded with a release announcing V-J Day and that General Douglas MacArthur had been appointed by President Truman and the Joint Chiefs to be the supreme commander for the Allied powers for the occupation of Japan. This was followed by exuberant celebrations across the world, with automobile horns, church bells, factory whistles, and every other kind of noisemaking marking the occasion in every American and Allied city.
On 16 August, Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright, who had been taken prisoner at the surrender of Corregidor and held in Manchuria as a POW for the duration of the war, was released. Two weeks later, the British returned to occupy Hong Kong, and American troops aboard Navy ships were anchored in Tokyo Bay to begin the occupation of Japan.
ABOARD USS MISSOURI
TOKYO BAY, JAPAN
2 SEPTEMBER 1945
On the morning of 2 September 1945, Japan formally surrendered. The thirty-minute ceremony took place on board the battleship USS Missouri, at the time the flagship of Admiral Halsey. The Missouri was anchored with other U.S. and Allied ships in Tokyo Bay, and over a thousand carrier-based American planes flew overhead. The Stars and Stripes fluttering on the Missouri was the same flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.
The deck was crowded with dignitaries, sailors, officers, and correspondents from around the world. Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, accompanied by General Yoshijiro Umezu, represented the Japanese. They had been chosen by the Japanese Supreme War Council and Emperor Hirohito to sign the documents on behalf of the nation. With great flourish and dignity, Shigemitsu and Umezu each signed the surrender documents—one set in Japanese and another in English. Then General Wainwright signed the documents along with Lt. General Sir Arthur Percival. Also signing were Admiral Nimitz and other Allied forces delegates.
The far-reaching surrender document was clear and to the point:
We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth in the Declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China, and Great Britain on 26 July 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.
We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under the Japanese control wherever situated.
We hereby command all Japanese forces wherever situated and the Japanese people to cease hostilities forthwith, to preserve and save from damage all ships, aircraft, and military and civil property and to comply with all requirements which may be imposed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by agencies of the Japanese Government at his direction.
We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Headquarters to issue at once orders to the Commanders of all Japanese forces and all forces under Japanese control wherever situated to surrender unconditionally themselves and all forces under their control.
We hereby command all civil, military and naval officials to obey and enforce all proclamations, and orders and directives deemed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to be proper to effectuate this surrender and issued by him or under his authority and we direct all such officials to remain at their posts and to continue to perform their noncombatant duties unless specifically relieved by him or under his authority.
We hereby undertake for the Emperor, the Japanese Government and their successors to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith, and to issue whatever orders and take whatever actions may be required by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by any other designated representative of the Allied Powers for the purpose of giving effect to that Declaration.
We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters at once to liberate all Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees now under Japanese control and to provide for their protection, care, maintenance and immediate transportation to places as directed.
The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.
Signed at TOKYO BAY, JAPAN at 0904 I on the SECOND day of SEPTEMBER, 1945:
MAMORU SHIGEMITSU
YOSHIJIRO UMEZU
By Command and in behalf of the Emperor
By Command and in behalf of the Nation of Japan and the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters
Colonel Frank Sackton was in the 33rd Infantry Division, part of the army accepting the surrender of the Japanese troops on Luzon. He expected to be transferred back to the States following many long months of combat. Instead, he was told to report to Tokyo along with his commanding officer. The two of them would be on the staff of General Douglas MacArthur.
COLONEL FRANK SACKTON, US ARMY
Office of the Supreme Commander
of the Allied Powers
Tokyo, Japan
22 September 1945
We were going to Japan, not to attack it but to occupy it. I got in there in early September 1945. The first occupation duty was disarming the troops. But they were following the emperor’s direction pretty carefully, laying down their arms so there was no hostility.
I was transferred to Tokyo because my division commander had become chief of staff to General MacArthur and he took me with him. That turned out to be a good career move for me, because I became a staff secretary to General MacArthur, a key spot in the occupation.
The Allies established MacArthur’s authority as being absolute—as sort of a dictator. The Joint Chiefs sent a short message to General MacArthur saying, “Your authority is absolute, so do not entertain any questions about the scope of your authority.” Still, he preferred working through the Japanese bureaucracy, although there was never any doubt about his authority.
There was an international tribunal in Washington that gave broad guidance to the general. It favored the democratization of Japan and bringing it into the fold of the Western nations as a friendly country. In Japan, there was the Allied Council, an international group that advised the general. The general never paid any attention to the Allied Council. On that body was a lieutenant general of the Soviet Union who was always against everything. As a matter of fact he even tried to introduce Communism to the country. So things were left pretty much up to the general, and he operated without their guidance, developing his own program.
For example, the question came up about reparations. The Soviet Union said, “We defeated this country, now they must give us reparations.” But the Joint Chiefs dealing with the Allied Council said, “No, we’re not going to do that.” So even with this amalgamation of the international commands, General MacArthur’s authority was supreme.
And by and large, when I look at the thing from a global point of view, the whole thing ran extremely well. The people were happy, the bureaucracy was happy, and the emperor was happy. That became the “bottom line” for the occupation.
When the war was over, the Allies developed a list of criminals, people to be tried in a court tribunal in Tokyo. At the top of the list was the emperor, considered responsible for what Japan did or failed to do during the war.
MacArthur thought about it. He had no problem with the generals and admirals on the list. But he did have a problem with the emperor being on it, because he understood the Japanese customs and mores. The emperor was the spiritual leader of the people, and MacArthur was sensitive to that.
The staff told MacArthur that the problem of the emperor for the occupation was a question in the minds of the Japanese people: Who is the authority here? They told MacArthur, “You should abolish the office of emperor and make it clear to the people that you’re in charge.”
Well, the general demurred and said, “Leave it alone for a while.”
The general was right. In late September, MacArthur indicated that he wanted a visit with the emperor to take place in his home. And the general said, “Have the emperor select an interpreter, and he’ll be the only one present besides me.”
The general’s staff researched all about the emperor, his likes and his dislikes. We found that he was a marine biologist and had written things about sea life. We got his published articles and translated them for the general. He wanted to know all about this person before he met him. When we found that the emperor liked cigarettes, the general said, “Get me a cigarette case with some cigarettes.” Now, the general didn’t smoke but he wanted to accommodate the emperor.
When the emperor came in, things were a little stiff. (General MacArthur later told us what had occurred.) After the cordial hellos, General MacArthur offered the emperor a cigarette, and he took it. The general lit a cigarette for the emperor and one for himself. After that, the emperor spoke first. He said, “General, I want you to know, that I, as emperor, am responsible for everything that occurred in the war. And you must do what you feel you must do.”
This impressed General MacArthur, because surely the emperor knew that he was on the war criminal list, and maybe the general expected a plea for mercy. But the emperor accepted complete responsibility.
General MacArthur was so impressed with his attitude that later he grappled with the problem of what to do with the emperor. The American, British, Soviet, and Australian press all assumed that the emperor would be tried as a war criminal. But MacArthur reasoned that the emperor could be very helpful in the reconstruction of Japan. So he announced to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the emperor’s name should come off the criminal list.
This created a furor among the Allies. Oddly enough, Winston Churchill was one who said, “The general should make the decision, and not the press or the attitudes of the people.” The emperor’s name was taken off the list.
Now, the general had also made a decision on the model to be used in the occupation. He considered two models. One resembled the model used when the Allies took over Germany. But General MacArthur didn’t like that model. He said, “Military people are not governors, mayors, police chiefs, or judges in a court of law. We’ll only use the military government teams to ensure that our orders are carried out in the field. But we will operate through the existing mechanism of government. We’ll purge the bureaucrats, and get people in there that we can train and trust, and work through them.” That second model, of a civilian government, was the one we used in Japan. In that model, the emperor proved very helpful.
The people of Japan were pleased about the way the general had handled his visit with Hirohito. He’d shown kindness and courtesy and did not insult the emperor. He allowed him to save face. The general established a relationship between himself and the emperor. They’d meet every six months and he would ask for and get advice from the emperor. And on one occasion, it really paid off.
During the development of a new constitution, the general couldn’t get anywhere with the Japanese cabinet. He was blocked by a committee of scholars and government people, who were supposed to work out a constitution. They didn’t come up with anything acceptable.
The general staff consensus was that the Japanese were dragging their feet. They simply didn’t want to change their way of life, which the constitution change would do. I said, “I don’t think it’s that. I think the Japanese just don’t understand a constitution based on the principles of democracy. Maybe we’ll have to impose a constitution on them.”
The general accepted that and said, “Okay, let’s write a constitution based on the principles of the American Constitution.” And that’s what he did. He had some sharp lawyers to help him and they developed a constitution that General MacArthur liked. He tooled it personally for a week or so. Then he gave it to the Japanese cabinet and said, “I would like your concurrence with this. But if you don’t concur, I’ll probably do it anyway.”
They knew that he had the authority to do it. He wanted not to simply impose it on them—he wanted them to bring it to the people in a referendum. He wanted the people to vote on it. Well, the cabinet didn’t know what to do. So they sent it to the emperor.
In a few days the emperor came back and said, “I like it. This is the way Japan should go.” With that, the cabinet then put it before the people in a referendum, and it was overwhelmingly approved. General MacArthur had written it, but it turned out to be the Japanese people’s constitution because they and their emperor had approved it. There was a shift of power, very clearly, from the emperor to MacArthur.
I think that MacArthur had a sense that this was his show. But he had never done anything like this before. He had been a great military hero. And now he was thrown into this job. He built it from the ground up. And he had a sense that it was going to work. And he did make it work.
Following the Pacific war, despite thousands of documented atrocities, only twenty-eight Japanese war criminals stood trial, compared to six times as many German war criminals. And to the surprise of Allies and others in the American chain of command, MacArthur had taken Emperor Hirohito’s name off that list. Geoffey Perret, author of Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur, explained part of the difference. “You cannot run a prison without the cooperation of the prisoners. You cannot run an occupied country without the participation of the people who live there. MacArthur did not go after and seek prosecution of more Japanese war criminals, because he did not believe it was possible to provide anything resembling a truly fair trial for Japanese war criminals.”
Perret said that MacArthur was critical of the Nuremberg trials. “I think it’s important to remember this whole business of trying people for war crimes is absolutely new in international law. There wasn’t much in a way of precedent. And the concept of these crimes against humanity is open to interpretation.
“The prosecution of war crimes in both the Far East and in Europe was to some degree simply punitive or exemplary justice where people are being punished as much to set an example as for anything else. Well, if you’re going to use people as examples in that way, how many do we have to execute ?”
Perret believes that this is why MacArthur went after just a few of the full possible list of people who could be charged with war crimes. “These were people he really wanted to see executed,” he says. “Beyond that, he didn’t see much point to it. He did not see this as really a service to history.”