Japanese forces in China attacked on December 8 and took Kowloon on the 12th. After bombing Hong Kong, Japanese troops landed on December 18. The British surrendered on Christmas Day after suffering about 4,400 casualties. The Japanese lost 2,754 men. Many Japanese atrocities were reported from Hong Kong, and Foreign secretary Anthony Eden protested in the House of Commons. Hirohito’s advisors believed that committing atrocities fortified the Japanese for what they had to do and persuaded them not to surrender lest they suffer similar abuse.
Three Japanese battalions from Indochina invaded British Borneo on December 16, and the British surrendered five weeks later. The Japanese invasion of Dutch Borneo captured Tarakan on January 11, Balikpapa on the 24th, and Bandjarmasin on February 16. The retreating Dutch force finally surrendered on March 8. The Japanese also moved into Ambon and the Celebes to exploit resources and establish bases.
The Japanese forces had taken Guam on December 11 and overcame Wake Island on the 23rd. On January 23, 1942 Japan captured the Australian airbase at Rabaul on New Britain Island in the Bismarck Archipelago. The Japanese also invaded British Burma in mid-January and captured Rangoon on March 8, one day after the military evacuated. The Japanese took Lashio on the Burma Road on April 28 and Mandalay on May 1. They defeated the Burma army near Kalewa on May 13. By the end of 1942 about 10,000 prisoners in Burma had been put to work building a railroad. The Japanese brought in 60,000 POWs in 1943 and then 270,000 indentured Malays, Burmans, Thais, and Javanese to try to finish the 250-mile railroad by August.
An amphibious Japanese force with paratroopers invaded southern Sumatra around Palembang on February 14, 1942, and four days later they captured Bali and Lombok. The next day the Japanese attacked Timor. On February 27 in the battle of the Java Sea the Japanese Navy attacked the American, British, Dutch, and Australian allies who in three days lost ten warships and 2,173 sailors. Japanese troops invaded Java from both ends on February 28 and March 1, and the garrison of 93,000 troops that included about 20,000 Dutch surrendered on March 9. About 5,000 Australians, British, and Americans were also captured. Japan had conquered the Dutch East Indies in less than three months, and only a few oil wells had been sabotaged. Japan’s War Ministry decided to leave only 21 battalions in the south, and the remaining forces returned to the homeland, China, and Manzhouguo. On April 5 the Emperor appointed the former mobster Korematsu Junichi to administer the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In April the fleet commanded by Nagumo attacked the British at Ceylon, sinking several ships including an aircraft carrier.
On April 18, 1942 Col. James Doolittle led a squadron of sixteen B-25s 668 miles from the carrier Hornet, and they dropped incendiary bombs on downtown Tokyo, killing fifty civilians and destroying ninety buildings. Three of the planes bombed factories and oil tanks in Yokohama, and two planes struck Nagoya. Fifteen planes went to China, and one came down in Siberia; twelve of the pilots bailed out with parachutes. Of the eighty men in the raid 64 made it to Chongqing, and five were detained in the Soviet Union. This raid stimulated the Japanese to improve their air defenses and to take over Nationalist air bases in Zhejiang and Jiangxi. Japanese planes and ships sent many radio messages searching for the Hornet, and the Americans figured out their code. Hirohito was so angry that he broke the truce with Jiang and sent 100,000 troops to Zhejiang, where they killed about 250,000 Chinese before withdrawing in August.
The battle in the Coral Sea, which began on May 4 and lasted five days, was the first in history between planes from aircraft carriers. The Japanese sank the carrier Lexington and damaged the carrier Yorktown, but they lost one aircraft carrier and 104 skilled pilots and were not able to fulfill their mission of attacking Port Moresby in New Guinea. Having deciphered the Japanese military code, the Americans were fully prepared for the major battle at Midway Island that began on June 4. After numerous failed raids the Americans finally destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers, one heavy cruiser, 332 planes, and about 3,500 men, including 121 ace pilots. The United States lost one carrier, one destroyer, and 147 planes. Many American pilots had to ditch in the ocean because they did not have enough fuel to return. Midway was a turning point that ended Japanese naval supremacy in the Pacific War. At the same time the Japanese were attacking the American bases at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, but they would not be able to hold them in 1943. In July 1942 General Hyakutake Haruyoshi landed forces near Buna in eastern New Guinea and tried to march over the Owen Stanley Range to Port Moresby; but they suffered disease and hunger and had to turn back in September as they were harried by Australian troops.
At home Prime Minister Tojo invoked emergency laws to control the press, assembly, and association. The police monitored Jews, Christians, and the Soka Gakkai sect of Nichiren Buddhism. The Kempeitai extended their authority beyond the military and had 7,500 men to enforce the war effort. In the April election the Government endorsed a candidate for each seat and won 381 of the 461 with help from secret funds in the Army budget. Voter participation was 83%. During the war the Diet usually approved whatever Tojo proposed.
On August 7 the American marines invaded the Solomon Islands of Tulagi, Florida, and Guadalcanal. Two days later the Japanese gave the US Navy one of its worst defeats ever when they destroyed four cruisers off Savo Island and killed 1,600 Allied sailors. Each side lost 24 combat ships in this naval campaign. On August 18 Col. Ichiki Kiyonao landed half his 2,000 men on Guadalcanal, and they advanced without resistance; but in a night battle with the Americans 777 of them were killed. On September 12 General Kawaguchi Kiyotake led his men against Henderson Field, but for three days his charging men were shot down by machine guns. Four days later Japan’s commander on Guadalcanal, General Hyakutake, was ordered to attack the airfield again with 30,000 men. More than 2,000 Japanese soldiers were killed charging less than 200 entrenched marines. His Second Division landed, but by November they were losing two hundred men a day to starvation. Tojo wanted to withdraw, but Hirohito would not agree. So the War Ministry withheld supplies.
On December 31 the Imperial Conference decided to transfer the men from Guadalcanal to Bougainville. After losing 25,000 men, the 13,000 survivors were not evacuated until the first week in February 1943. The Americans had about 1,500 killed and 4,800 wounded. The battle for Guadalcanal lasted six months, and in that time the Japanese lost 893 planes and 2,362 aviators. In the first year of the war US submarines sank 139 cargo vessels, 59 of them in October and November with five times the tonnage that had been sunk in the Pacific War before that. Before the end of 1942 Lockheed was producing P-38 Lightnings that were bigger, heavier, and faster fighter planes than the Japanese Zero.
Japan's Losing War 1943-45
In 1943 Japan lost 6,203 planes and 4,824 airmen. American submarines were destroying Japan’s cargo ships faster than they could be replaced. Japan was not getting enough supplies and food, and other parts of the empire fared even worse. In February the Seal Keeper Kido began meeting secretly with former prime minister Konoe to review the planning of a peace faction. In April the Emperor recalled Ambassador Shigemitsu Mamoru from Nanjing to be Foreign minister. He negotiated with Chongqing in May and tried to assure Jiang (Kai-shek) that Hirohito could control the military. Prime Minister Tojo approved of the peace offensive and suggested offering independence and withdrawing from occupied territories. Jiang rejected peace proposals offered through Madame Sun Yatsen in September. On the 22nd Hirohito met personally with Wang Jingwei, but Wang could not persuade Jiang to accept the Japanese terms. The fascist Nakano Seigo, who had been secretary-general of the IRAA 1940-41 but had quit to form the Tohokai political group, tried to organize a conspiracy in the fall to assassinate Tojo, Kido, and others; but the plot was discovered, and he committed suicide on October 25 after being released from prison.
In Tokyo on November 5 Tojo presided over the Greater East Asia Conference that was attended by Wang from eastern China, Zhang Zhonghui of Manzhouguo, President Jose Laurel of the Philippines, Thai prince Wan Waithyakon, Ba Maw of Burma, and Subhas Chandra Bose of the Indian National Army. Tojo promised them self-determination in 1944. Kido learned in December that negotiations between Wang and Jiang had been terminated.
Japan sent a convoy of sixteen ships from Rabaul in New Britain toward eastern New Guinea, but American planes attacked them on March 3 and sank all eight transport ships and four destroyers. Between April 7 and 11 Admiral Yamamoto ordered air raids on the American airfields and warships in the Solomon Islands, but his pilots claimed more damage than they caused. Yamamoto took a plane to visit them and died on April 18 when it was shot down over Bougainville Island.
The Allies began to attack the Aleutian Islands on May 11. Almost all of the 2,500 Japanese soldiers on Attu fought to the death before the garrison was destroyed on May 29. However, 5,600 Japanese evacuated Kiska before 35,000 Allies arrived in August. In early June the Americans landed on New Georgia in the Solomons, and 10,000 Japanese held out for nearly three months. General MacArthur directed the attack on eastern New Guinea in June. The Allies adopted the strategy of moving on without defeating all the Japanese who were left without supplies.
Bougainville was the last major Solomon Island that Japan held, and the Americans attacked it on November 1. The Japanese Navy withdrew from the Solomons before the end of the year, but the fighting on Bougainville continued in March 1944 when the Japanese lost 5,469 men and the Americans had 263 killed. General Robert Eichelberger led Americans and Australians advancing along the New Guinea coast and took Buna on January 2, 1944. Americans suffered 11,300 casualties while about 50,000 Japanese troops in western New Guinea and about 55,000 in eastern New Guinea were bypassed and left isolated without supplies. Of the 140,000 Japanese on New Guinea only 13,000 survived to surrender at the end of the war.
Admiral Chester Nimitz commanded the attacks on the Gilbert Islands in November 1943. A thousand Americans died in the four-day battle for Betio on Tarawa while all the 4,800 Japanese marines were being killed. Bypassing fortified atolls, Nimitz landed 41,000 US troops on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands on February 1, 1944. In three days they killed 7,780 Japanese while losing 372 men. In capturing Eniwetok 195 of the 8,000 Americans died; 2,677 Japanese were killed, and only 64 allowed themselves to be captured. The heavily fortified Truk in the Carolines was bombed by American planes on February 18, and 50,000 Japanese soldiers there were isolated from supplies. MacArthur captured Admiralty Island in March and made Seeadler Harbor a naval base for repairing ships. In April his men attacked Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea, and less than a thousand survived of the 11,000 Japanese; they also lost 300 planes and two destroyers.
After a year of preparation, in March 1944 the Japanese launched an offensive with 155,000 men against Imphal in Assam, hoping to invade British India with Indian recruits Subhas Chandra Bose got from the prison camps. They lacked supplies and were bogged down by monsoons; by June the Allies had retaken Kohima. The Japanese forces finally began to withdraw in July; 30,000 died, and 42,000 were sick or wounded. Allied losses were 17,000 British and Indians.
In April a Japanese offensive in China opened up the Beijing-Hankou railway in the south, and the northern and central fronts joined in May. That summer the Japanese armies took over Changsha and the American air base at Hengyang in Hunan. By November they had taken over four more US air bases, but the B-29 base at Chengdu in Sichuan continued to be used by the long-range bombers. US General Joseph Stilwell commanded a counteroffensive in northern Burma to capture Myitkyina while a Chinese army from Yunnan took Bhamo. Now the Allies could use the Burma Road to move supplies into China.
Admiral Kogo Mineichi tried to keep the Allies out of the Philippine Sea, but in March he was also killed in a plane crash. Admiral Toyoda Soema organized the First Mobile Fleet with nine aircraft carriers, five battleships, 450 carrier planes, and 1,000 planes from bases on islands. On May 27 Americans assaulted the tiny island of Biak north of western New Guinea where they killed 10,000 Japanese and lost 460 men. The Japanese were determined to regain this airfield that dominated the Strait of Malacca and the Makassar Channel, and they lost many valuable pilots trying to do so.
In June the US Fifth Fleet approached the Marianas with 535 combat ships and transports carrying 127,571 men. Admiral Toyoda moved his warships from Biak to the Marianas. Allied planes bombed the Marianas for three days. After naval bombardments of Saipan, the marines began landing on June 15. Japan had 31,629 men defending Saipan, but they were not well armed. On June 19 Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo commanded four air attacks by the First Mobile Fleet. On that day US planes bombed the Japanese airfield on Guam. American submarines sank Ozawa’s flagship and an aircraft carrier. The Japanese fleet fled north, but the Allied task force led by Admiral Raymond Spruance in two days sank three aircraft carriers and damaged four others. Japan lost 476 airplanes and 445 pilots while the United States lost 130 planes and 76 aviators. Admiral Nagumo committed seppuku, and by July 9 the Japanese garrison on Saipan had lost 23,811 men. About 10,000 Japanese civilians were also killed while 10,258 civilians and 921 Japanese soldiers were captured. The Americans lost 3,426 of their 67,451 troops on Saipan.
Next the Allies attacked nearby Tinian, using tanks of gasoline and napalm for the first time. Guam was invaded on July 21 with 55,000 US troops fighting 20,000 Japanese, of whom half were killed in three weeks and 8,500 in the next year. Only 1,250 Japanese surrendered, and the Americans lost 1,435 men. On July 24 Tinian was invaded by 15,614 US Marines, who killed 5,000 Japanese soldiers in a week while losing 389 men and taking 252 prisoners. The Tinian airstrip was taken over and used for long-range bombers.
Emperor Hirohito had persuaded Premier Tojo not to quit, but after losing some political struggles he resigned on July 18. General Koiso Kuniaki, who had been governing Korea, became prime minister with Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa as his deputy and Navy minister. Koiso tried to reach out to the Soviet Union, but on November 7 Stalin condemned Japan as an aggressor. Koiso also hoped to negotiate with Miao Bin in Nanjing, but Foreign minister Shigemitsu warned that he was not reliable, and Kido persuaded the Emperor.
In September and October the Allies attacked the Palau Islands and took over the Japanese bases at Peleliu and Angaur. On October 12 a US task force of 1,068 planes supported by B-29s from China attacked the Japanese air force in Taiwan, destroying more than 500 planes. They also bombed the Japanese airfields on Mindanao and in the East Indies. The US armada moving toward the Philippines with 840 ships had 1,600 planes on 47 aircraft carriers, and as many bombers and long-range fighters came from China, Tinian, Morotai, and Peleliu.
General MacArthur landed 60,000 troops on the Philippine island of Leyte on October 20, and 140,000 more would follow. That summer 80% of the Japanese ships going to the Philippines had been sunk. On October 23 began the biggest naval battle in history. American submarines sank two heavy cruisers including the flagship of Admiral Kurita Takeo, who escaped to the Yamato battleship. The gigantic Musashi battleship was sunk the next day. Admiral Ozawa managed to lure Admiral William Halsey’s Third Fleet to the north, but Ozawa lost three aircraft carriers, a destroyer, and 280 planes in one day. Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet ambushed Nishimura Shoji’s task force in the Surigao Strait. In addition to four battleships and four carriers, in the six-day battle the Japanese lost thirteen cruisers, eight destroyers, and six submarines. Of the 55,000 Japanese soldiers fighting for Leyte about 49,000 were killed. The first two kamikaze attacks were made against US ships. After the Leyte defeat the Japanese released thousands of balloon bombs that were intended for North America. By March 1945 they had released about 9,300, but only a few came down in the United States and did very little damage.
In 1944 Japan produced about 18,000 planes even though their plan was for 40,000. By the end of the war the United States would have 40,893 planes and sixty aircraft carriers.
The campaign for the Philippines was the climactic battle of the Pacific War. US forces landed on Mindoro Island on December 15, and by January 1945 about 174,000 troops had landed on Luzon. General Yamashita tried to make a stand north of Manila with 275,000 troops while Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi ordered 21,000 soldiers to fight to the death for the city. General MacArthur did not use aerial bombing in order to prevent civilian deaths in Manila, but heavy artillery was used. After two months of fighting and the death of nearly 100,000 civilians, the Americans took Manila on February 24, 1945. Yamashita’s men ran out of supplies and tried to live off the land and moved into the mountains. The fighting continued until Japan surrendered in September. Japan lost 9,000 planes and much of its Navy. The number of Japanese killed in the Philippines was 336,352, and 12,573 were captured. The Americans had 13,973 killed and 48,541 wounded.
US Marines attacked Iwo Jima on February 19 and declared it secure on March 16. They had 6,821 killed and 19,189 wounded; the Japanese garrison of 21,000 had 20,703 killed as only 216 surrendered.
Americans began invading Okinawa on April 1 with a force that would total 548,000 soldiers before the battle was won in the middle of June. On April 6 Japan launched a desperate counter-attack with 341 bombers and 355 suicide planes. About 200 kamikaze pilots reached Okinawa, and 135 were shot down. Those hitting targets sank two destroyers and four other ships and damaged eighteen others. The next day the colossal Yamato was sunk, going down with about 2,500 men. About 5,000 US sailors were killed by kamikaze attacks that sank 34 ships and damaged 368 others in the Okinawa campaign. Only four destroyers returned to Japan as its Navy was devastated. On June 21 General Ushijima Mitsuru and his chief of staff committed suicide. In the battle of Okinawa 62,500 Japanese combatants were killed along with about 150,000 Okinawan civilians; 7,455 Japanese soldiers surrendered. The Americans had 12,513 killed or missing and 38,916 wounded. The United States lost 79 ships and 763 planes. Japan also lost 3,130 planes and had few left.
General Curtis LeMay, who had planned the strategic bombing of Hamburg, took over the bombing operations in the Marianas in January and became concerned that the high explosives that had devastated German industries were not as effective in Japan, where two-thirds of industry was dispersed in homes and small factories. On the night of February 24 the US Air Force launched 174 B-29s in the first incendiary air raid on Tokyo that devastated about one square mile. Then LeMay ordered the pilots to fly at low altitudes of less than 8,000 feet with fewer guns in order to carry more bombs. On the night of March 9 the 279 B-29s doing this dropped 1,700 tons of bombs that contained a mixture of oil, phosphorus, and napalm, killing about 90,000 people and burning sixteen square miles, a quarter of Tokyo. The next night LeMay sent 313 bombers with napalm to attack Nagoya, Japan’s third largest city. That week 45 square miles of industrial areas were burned. In April B-29 raids bombed the Nakajima aircraft factory twice, the Koizuma aircraft factory, arsenals, and urban areas. After Germany surrendered on May 8, the United States shifted more forces to the Pacific War. On May 23 a raid by 520 B-29s bombed the industrial area south of the Imperial Palace, and two days later Tokyo was hit again by 564 B-29s. Yokohama was attacked by 450 bombers on May 29.
The United States had about eighty times the industrial resources of Japan, which had to import many raw materials. As the war progressed, the American advantage became overwhelming. In the first year Japanese shipping lost 1,250,000 tons, in the second year 2,560,000 tons, and in the third year 3,484,000 tons. In 1941 Japan had 4,468,000 metric tons of scrap iron and steel, but by 1944 this had dwindled down to 449,000. Japan’s store of oil was 48,893,000 tons in 1941, but in early 1945 only 4,946,000 remained. Coal, bauxite, and other metals also diminished. In four years Japan produced 58,822 planes by the end of 1944 while the United States manufactured 261,826 aircraft. Japan began the war in 1941 with 2,400,000 men in the armed forces. This was increased to 3,980,000 by February 1944 and to 5,360,000 by the end of the year. At the end of the war Japan had 7,190,000 in the armed forces. Women, students, and Koreans were mobilized to work in factories, and farms were left to women, children, and old men. In 1944 rice imports were 30% of normal and in 1945 only 11%. Bad weather caused a 27% drop in domestic production of rice in 1945. The average daily consumption of calories in Japan had dropped from 3,400 before the war to 1,600.
Japan's Defeat and Surrender
On April 5, 1945 Molotov informed the Japanese ambassador in Moscow that the Soviet Union would not renew the neutrality pact. That day Hirohito replaced Premier Koiso with the 78-year-old Admiral Suzuki Kantaro. His war policy emphasized the suicidal tactics of the kamikaze pilots, human torpedoes, crash boats, and ground charges. About 10,000 planes were converted from training and other uses to be packed with explosives for suicide missions. The IRAA national organization was dissolved in June and was replaced by the People’s Heroic Fighting Corps, which lasted only two months. On June 8 Kido gave the Emperor a plan to ask the Soviet Union to mediate a peace agreement, and the next day the Diet passed the Wartime Emergency Measures Law and other bills to mobilize Japan to defend the homeland. B-29s dropped millions of leaflets written in Japanese calling on the people to appeal to the Emperor for peace. On June 22 Hirohito directed the Supreme War Leadership Council to begin negotiating an end to the war, and the Army leaders reluctantly agreed. The Soviet ambassador Jacob Malik broke off talks with the former prime minister Hirota in early July.
On July 26 US President Harry Truman and Winston Churchill in concurrence with Jiang issued the Potsdam Declaration warning that the Japanese armed forces would be completely destroyed and the Japanese homeland devastated if Japan did not surrender unconditionally all its armed forces. Conditions included removing from authority those who had misled the people into attempting world conquest. The Declaration went on. Until this is accomplished and Japan’s war-making capacity is destroyed, the Allies will occupy Japanese territory. Japan must fulfill the Cairo Declaration by returning Manchuria, Taiwan, the Pescadores and other territory to the Republic of China and by allowing Korea to be free and independent. “Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.” Japan’s military forces must be completely disarmed. The Allies promised “stern justice” to all war criminals and democracy for Japan, which must establish freedom of speech, religion, thought, and human rights. Peaceful industries will be permitted to enable payment of reparations, and eventually trade relations will be allowed. Once the objectives are attained and after Japan has a responsible government, the occupying forces will withdraw. The concluding sentence warned, “The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”3
On July 28 at a press conference Premier Suzuki said that Japan would ignore the Potsdam offer and press forward with the war. On the first two days of August 766 B-29s bombed Nagaoka. By then sixty Japanese cities had been devastated by 6,960 B-29 sorties dropping 41,592 tons of bombs. Half of Tokyo, Kobe, and Yokohama had been destroyed along with 40% of Osaka and Nagoya and 90% of Aomori.
The Allies had refrained from bombing Hiroshima; but on August 4 they dropped 720,000 leaflets warning that this city and others would be obliterated if Japan did not surrender at once. On August 6 at 8:15 a.m. while many were cooking their breakfasts, the first atomic bomb used in war was dropped on Hiroshima with the explosive power of 12,500 tons of TNT. According to the US Government this was the first time that a uranium bomb had ever been exploded, the only official test on July 16 having been a plutonium bomb. The blinding light and searing heat burned tens of thousands, immediately killing about 70,000 people out of a population of 255,000. The effects of the burns, disease, and radiation would cause about 20,000 to 50,000 more to die by the end of the year. Estimates of the total number who died as a result of the bomb have been estimated at 200,000. The industrial city of Hiroshima had 80% of its buildings destroyed by one bomb.
On August 8 more leaflets were dropped, and radio warnings were given. On that day the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and their army of a half million men invaded Manchuria in four places with 500 planes, 3,700 tanks, and 26,000 artillery guns. Before much of the Guandong Army could mobilize, the war was over. The Russians and the Chinese seeking revenge killed 83,737 Japanese soldiers and took 594,000 prisoners.
Weather considerations caused the bombing of Nagasaki to be moved up two days to August 9. A plutonium bomb was dropped at 11:01 a.m. and exploded with the power of 21,000 tons of TNT, killing about 35,000 immediately and eventually about 74,000 of the 200,000 people in the city. The bomb exploded in the air midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Factory. Hills between the industrial area targeted and the civilian population prevented as many human casualties as at Hiroshima despite its greater power. Nagai Takashi had been studying radiation, and his wife was killed. He wrote Leaving These Children and The Bells of Nagasaki before dying of radiation sickness in 1951. Like many in Nagasaki, he was a Christian, and he considered these two atomic bombings a warning by God to wake up humanity.
The Japanese cabinet was concerned about the sovereignty of the Emperor, but Hirohito accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration with the proviso that the sovereign ruler’s prerogatives were not prejudiced. US Secretary of State James Byrnes replied that the Emperor and the Japanese government would be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and that ultimately the government would be “established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.” Minister of War Anami Korechika and Privy Council President Hiranuma persuaded Premier Suzuki that this violated Japan’s national polity (kokutai); but Foreign minister Togo and Kido convinced Suzuki to accept their interpretation of the US offer. Hirohito said he would not allow his people to suffer any more, and they agreed to the Allied terms on August 14. That day 828 B-29s bombed Tokyo again without losing a plane, and Truman’s announcement of the surrender was made before they returned to their bases.
Major Hatanaka Kenji was trying to organize a coup; but Anami did not think it would work and committed seppuku that night. Hatanaka and other officers could not persuade General Mori Takeshi of the Imperial Guard and killed him. They forged an order in his name and tried to destroy the recording made by the Emperor and took over the Radio Broadcasting House, but Hatanaka was thwarted in his attempt to speak on the radio. He and Col. Shiizaki Jiro killed themselves with a pistol. General Tanaka Shizuichi, the commander of Tokyo Defenses, fulfilled his duty and then committed seppuku.
On August 15 the Japanese people heard the voice of their Emperor for the first time on radio as they learned that the empire had accepted the Joint Declaration and that the war was over. Hirohito explained that a new bomb meant that continuing to fight would cause the complete collapse and obliteration of the nation and even “the total extinction of human civilization.”
Prime minister Suzuki resigned that day and was replaced by Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko on August 17. Several high-ranking officers and more than 500 military personnel committed suicide after the surrender was announced. The surrender order was read to the chiefs of staff in Manchuria on August 18, and the Guandong Army was dissolved by September 17. Higashikuni appointed Konoe vice prime minister and newspaper publisher Ogata Taketora cabinet secretary. They both acted to legitimize the Emperor’s actions and to prepare for the arrival of the Americans and British. Higashikuni also spoke on radio on August 17 to assure the people that his government would act “in accordance with the imperial will.” He encouraged constructive discussions and freedom to form healthy associations.
The Americans and British Commonwealth troops were considered well disciplined during the war and had committed few rapes, but this changed during the occupation. In the first twelve days of the occupation Japanese women reported 1,336 cases of rape by US soldiers in the Kanagawa prefecture that includes Yokohama and Yokosuka. US records indicate that only 247 US soldiers were prosecuted for rape in the last half of 1945, and that included Europe as well as Asia. Concerned about rape, violence, and miscegenation, Konoe suggested organizing prostitutes for the Allied soldiers, and on August 21 Higashikuni approved the Home Ministry setting up the Recreation and Amusement Associations with Government funding. Women were urged to volunteer for the good of the nation, and 1,360 women had enlisted in Tokyo by August 27. By the end of the year 20,000 women were working for the RAA, which reached a peak of 70,000 women before it was disbanded on March 27, 1946 because of spreading venereal disease. Many RAA women “comforted” between 15 and 60 GIs each day.
On August 17 the Japanese government sent out an urgent memo ordering that all confidential documents and incriminating evidence be burned immediately. During the two weeks before the Occupation forces arrived, massive theft of government supplies also occurred, and a black market quickly developed. The Ministry of Munitions was changed back to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Ishiwara Kanji, who led the millenarian East Asia League (To’A renmei), blamed the defeat on people’s morals and urged repentance. He advised disarmament, ending restrictions on speech and ideas, and following American ways. The Buddhist Tanabe Hajime had similar views and in 1945 wrote Philosophy as the Way of Repentance, which was published in April 1946 as the Tokyo tribunal was beginning.
On September 2 Foreign minister Shigemitsu and General Umezu Yoshijiro formally signed the surrender document with General MacArthur on the battleship Missouri. MacArthur expressed hope for a better future and warned that humanity needs to “devise some greater and more equitable system” than the “utter destructiveness of war” in order to avert Armageddon. He suggested that a “spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character” that could match the advances in science, art, and literature will enable the spirit to save the flesh. He intended to demobilize the Japanese armed forces to neutralize the war potential so that Japan could return its talents into constructive channels.
During the Pacific War the Japanese armed forces had about 1,565,000 men killed and at the end categorized 4,470,000 men as wounded or ill. Japan also had 480,000 troops killed in the China War 1937-41. About 393,000 Japanese civilians were killed in air raids, and about 500,000 civilians died in war zones. An estimated nineteen million Chinese also died in China during that long war. Of the 132,134 Allied troops from Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand that the Japanese held as prisoners, 35,756 died before the others were released. The United States military lost 100,997 dead and had 190,546 wounded in the Pacific War.
American Occupation of Japan in 1945
President Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), and he arrived on August 30, setting up his temporary headquarters in Yokohama. After presiding over the surrender ceremony on September 2 he ordered that all of Japan was to be under military law. Foreign minister Shigemitsu in an interview with MacArthur and his Chief of Staff Richard Sutherland the next day suggested that this would likely cause chaos unless the Japanese Government had responsibility to carry out Occupation policy. MacArthur, who was given the same advice by the US Government, adopted the recommendation. The Far Eastern Commission met in Washington with eleven members from the Allied nations; but if they did not agree, the United States Government had the power to act on its own. The Allied Council in Tokyo had four representatives from the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union, but they did not meet until December 27 and were only advisory. The Soviet representative often criticized SCAP. The American costs of the occupation were paid for by the Japanese government and were almost a third of its budget.
The two main goals of SCAP were demilitarization and democratization. Japan’s military equipment and installations were destroyed, and the remaining navy vessels were divided among the four main Allies. The US military demobilized 3,700,000 Japanese troops in Japan as SCAP directed Japanese commanders to disarm their own soldiers. By the end of 1947 mostly American ships had transported most of the 3,300,000 Japanese troops and 3,200,000 Japanese civilians from the territories they no longer occupied back to Japan. In central China epidemics of smallpox, typhus, and cholera broke out in the spring of 1946 and delayed repatriation. About one million Japanese were returned from the Soviet Union by the end of 1949, but about 300,000 were missing. Records made available after the collapse of the Soviet Union indicate that about 500,000 Japanese war captives died in their forced labor camps. Jiang encouraged the Chinese to treat their former enemies as friends because he wanted them as allies in his civil war against the Communists. Most of the 1,350,000 Koreans were repatriated, but some preferred to go to or stay in Japan rather than return to their divided nation. Returning veterans were often despised, and many resented the harsh treatment they had received from their officers during the war. They were on their own because the Government was forbidden to pay them any pensions.
The physical situation of Japan at the end of the war was wretched. They had lost 80% of their shipping, 30% of their industrial capacity, and 30% of their thermal power. Japan’s industrial production was at 10% of its prewar level. The Japanese empire was defeated, and the nation returned to its four main islands. The United States was administering Okinawa. The Soviet Union wanted to occupy Hokkaido, but MacArthur vetoed that. Thus unlike Germany and Korea, Japan was not divided. Rice was 32% below prewar production, and fishing was down 40%. Official food rations provided each person with only 1,050 calories per day. People had to acquire food from the black market to survive. One Tokyo judge died of malnutrition because he would not break the law. MacArthur immediately set up a food distribution network and cabled Washington to send 3,500,000 tons of food. When confronted with bureaucratic delays, he cabled back, “Give me bread or give me bullets.”5 The cost of living rose about ten percent a month for two years, and by the end of 1949 the consumer price index had multiplied to 240 times the pre-war level. Millions of people in Japan had their homes destroyed by the bombing, and many lived in shanty towns or were homeless. In February 1948 the number of orphaned and homeless children was 123,510.
The Higashikuni cabinet had begun demobilizing the Army and Navy before the Americans arrived. At a press conference on September 4 he urged national repentance and praised the Emperor for ending the suffering of the war. Higashikuni admitted that the main reason for Japan’s defeat was that its enemies had much more war power; but this made many people feel that their leaders had foolishly led them into a war against the United States and Britain.
On September 6 President Truman’s advice to use existing government structures arrived. SCAP abolished the Imperial Headquarters on September 13. MacArthur moved into the General Headquarters (GHQ) in central Tokyo opposite the Imperial Palace on September 17. GHQ had about 35,000 civilian administrators in Government, Civil Information and Education, and Economic and Scientific sections. The next day MacArthur began receiving the secret instructions from the Truman administration for the reform of Japan. The Americans decided to use the Emperor’s sway over his people for their purposes, and Operation Blacklist was the plan for blaming the militarists rather than the Emperor. On September 25 Hirohito granted interviews to Frank Kluckholm of the New York Times and Hugh Baillie, president of United Press, in which he emphasized his support for democracy and pacifism while he avoided questions about Pearl Harbor, which he blamed on Tojo.
