Okinawa Henkan

The US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands ended on 14 May 1972 when the prefecture was "returned" to Japan the following day. Ryukyuan postage stamps and passports had been in use, and the dollar was the currency until then. Cars continued to drive on the right till 1978.

The return of Okinawa was never a foregone conclusion because the US used the islands as a bargaining chip--first with the Chinese in November of 1943 to keep Chiang Kai-shek from concluding a peace deal with Japan and keep them in the war, then with the Japanese to prevent her from concluding a peace treaty with the USSR. The US warned Japan that if they were to do so, America might keep the Ryukyus under US control forever.

Realpolitik is hard ball.

Before switching to left-hand drive (L) and after the switch in 1978 (R).

Band of Brothers

After watching the HBO series Band of Brothers half a dozen times over the years[1] I finally bought the book by historian Stephen E. Ambrose upon which the series was based. Although it has taken me about six months to get through it—hard to read with a young child in the house—I found Easy Company’s tale even more engrossing in print than it had been on TV. The odd thing about a book like this is that you almost feel sad that the war and the saga come to an end. You want to go on having adventures with the guys. (View the route Easy Company took here.)

Reading Band of Brothers, I was struck by a number of things that are worth mentioning.

One is how so many people volunteered to fight in the war. If I am not mistaken, all of the original members of Easy Company were volunteers. What's more, their story was one of constant shortages. When fighting in Bastogne, for instance, they had little ammunition, no winter clothing, very little food, and yet had to contend with a major counter offensive by the German Army. The shortages were not only endured by soldiers on the front, of course. Back on the home front, all sorts of things from sugar and butter to nylon and gasoline were rationed, limiting what people could buy even if, and this is important, they could afford to buy more, meaning everyone was, to some extent, feeling the effects of the war.

Contrast that with the situation today in the U.S., where in our two most recent wars the general population was never really called on to make sacrifices. Rather than reintroducing conscription which would not have been unimaginable considering America was involved in two wars,[2] members of the National Guard and reservists were instead sent to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Guardsmen who often joined up thinking they’d only have to put in one weekend a month, two weeks a year were now being mobilized for twenty-four months. During the height of the Iraq War, some 28% of troops were Guardsmen or reservists. (In the meantime, their homes were being foreclosed upon. Utterly shameful.) And, instead of, say, raising the tax on gasoline at the pump to help pay for the wars, Bush (What me worry?) pushed through a second round of tax cuts. Almost as unthinkable, the government continued to give a tax break to businesses which bought gas-guzzling SUVs, thanks to a tax loophole so big you could drive a Hummer through it. (And many did.) Were average Americans asked to sacrifice? No, they were told to “get down to Disney World in Florida”. Unbelievable.

The second thing that occurred to me is how little time had passed between the end of the war and my debut on this planet of ours. I was born in the mid 60s, a little over twenty years after the end of the war in Europe. I’ve been living in Japan for longer than that now and it seems like only yesterday when I first arrived. The war, I imagine, must have still been very fresh on the minds of those who had fought it. By the 1960s, many of the veterans would have been in their mid forties, my age at the time of writing this.. (Easy Company was made up of kids when they jumped from planes into Normandy.) They would have witnessed the U.S., which had once been a reluctant entrant into that most destructive and deadly of wars, become an enthusiastic dabbler in other nation’s affairs.[3] I wonder how they felt about that.

Although my father was only fifteen when the war came to an end†, two of my uncles on my mother's side did serve. One of them was only 14 or so when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, but the war would drag on long enough for him to become old enough (17)  to enlist. Imagine that. His brother who was nine years his senior was drafted and joined the US Army Air Forces. 

Born in the 1960s, I grew up watching a hell of a lot of TV dramas and movies about World War II. On the boob tube there was Hogan's Heroes, one of my favorites, Combat, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and so on. Hollywood produced classics, such as The Dirty Dozen, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Kelly's Heroes, The Great Escape, A Bridge Too Far, The Bridge over River Kwai, The Longest Day, Patton, From Here to Eternity. . . And these are just the ones that I can name off the top of my head. I even played with plastic toy soldiers that were modeled after WWII soldiers and a replica machine gun. So, even though I had been born two decades after the war's end, it still felt close, far closer than what was happening in Vietnam, oddly enough.

The proximity in time of the war hit home again when as a teenager in the mid 1980s I lived in Germany. It was not unusual at the time to find buildings that showed evidence of damage due to the fighting or to see men in their fifties and sixties who were missing limbs. The grandfather of one of the families I lived with in had been a tank driver on the Eastern front and had lost an eye. Some six to eight million Germans would die in the war, that's 8 to 10 percent of the country's 1939 population.[4]There were Germans, believe it or not, who were still bitter at what the Americans had done to them. I recall one old woman giving me an earful as she recounted the “cruelty” of the Americans forcing her to bury the dead at a concentration camp. (No, I am not making this up.) Looking at the map, the closest concentration camp to Göttingen, the city where I lived the longest, was the notorious Buchenwald camp fifty miles to the southeast. At the time, it was located in the DDR, or East Germany.

Despite the hardships, many Americans endured before and during World War II, the so-called “Greatest Generation” lived through some of America’s darkest and brightest days. Sons of the Great Depression they saw a country, which had been down on its luck, muster the strength to stand up to and eventually defeat two of the most awesome military powers the world had known. They would return victors, start families, and enjoy a prosperity that expanded the middle class, making the American Dream readily available to so many people. They would go on to retire in the mid 1980s when Reagan declared that it was morning again in America. They sacrificed much, but gained much in return. I wish the same could be said today.

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[1] The series was released on DVD in Japan in 2002. I am currently rewatching it for the nth time.

[2] I have long been an advocate of conscription without deferments (period) as a way to prevent war. It’s very easy to say you “support the troops” or back this military action or that if you don’t actually have skin in the game, so to speak. If it were your son who was going to be shipped off to a foreign country to fight in a war that is based on questionable grounds, you might be inclined to demand more evidence before jumping on the bandwagon. The sons and daughters of America’s congressmen should also be forced to serve in conflict zones at times of war.

[3] First Indochina War (1950-1954); Korean War (1950-1953); Second Indochina War (1953-1975); Laotian Civil War (1953-1975); 1958 Lebanon Crisis (July 15 – October 25); Bay of Pigs (1961); Cuban Missile Crisis (1961); Cambodian Civil War (1970-1975); Invasion of Dominican Republic (1965-1966). And that’s just before I was born. Sheesh!

Interestingly, there was a lull of about ten years between the end of WWII and America’s intervention in East Asian/SE Asian conflicts. There was another lull of about ten years from the end of hostilities in Vietnam until Reagan’s Grenada and other follies. Is this merely a coincidence or is roughly ten years the amount of time needed for the American public to start forgetting about the most recent war?

†He would, however, join the Navy reserves upon graduation from high school at the age of 17. He drafted and entered the Marines (don't know why) in his second year at Boston College. He would spend the next decade or so in the Marines, including one year in Japan and a stint in Korea during the war there. An injury to his hand the day before being shipped out probably prevented him from having to do any fighting in Korea and may have saved his life. Dumb luck.

My paternal grandfather ran away from home, or so the story goes, and joined the Army at the age of sixteen or so by using someone else's ID. He served in Europe during WWI. I recall seeing a picture of him once standing next to one of those massive cannons that were moved around by rail. Now that I think about it, there were quite a few vets on both sides of my family. None of my brothers, brothers-in-law nor I ever served, but a number of my nephews have. One even graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis a few years back and is currently training to be a fighter pilot. He's one very driven young man. 

[4] 30% of Germany’s troops were killed in the War as opposed to only 2.5% of American troops, which seems awfully low by comparison. I think this points to the large number of Americans, some 16.6 million people who were mobilized for the war effort. If my calculation is correct that comes to 11.8% of the population in 1945, or roughly 20% of the male population.

Tani Park

During a long run in an unfamiliar corner of town one morning, I came upon a broad set of stone steps, flanked on either side by massive stone lanterns.

Thinking it the entrance to a shrine, I climbed up the steps. To my surprise, however, I found a number of monuments dedicated to those who had died in Japan's modern wars and foreign engagements from the overthrow of the shogun and restoration of the Emperor to power, known as Boshin War (戊辰戦争, 1868-69) and Meiji Restoration (明治維新, 1886), to the Russo-Japan War (日露戦争, 1904-05), the Manchurian Incident (満州事変, 1931), and on to the Pacific War (太平洋戦争) which ended 75 years ago this summer.

This sombre memorial to Japan's militaristic past is not listed on the map, nor are there any signs outside of the premises indicating what awaits the visitor at the top of the stairs.

A monument to those who died in the Second Sino-Japanese War (支那事変, 1937-45).

Far left, Russo-Japanese War; Far right, Second Sino-Japanese War

Monument to those who fell in the Manchurian Incident (満州事変, 1931-32) and Shanghai Incident (上海事変, 1931).

For more on "Tani Park", go here.

The Challenge of Repatriating 6.5 Million people

"In the wake of defeat, approximately 6.5 million Japanese were stranded in Asia, Siberia, and the Pacific Ocean area. Roughly 3.5 million of them were soldiers and sailors. The remainder were civilians, including many women and children--a huge and generally forgotten cadre of middle-and-lower-class individuals who had been sent out to help develop the imperium. Some 2.6 million Japanese were in China at war's end, 1.1 million dispersed through Manchuria." (Dower: 1999, pp.48-49.)

I personally know (or rather knew, as many of them have since died) more than ten Japanese who were living abroad at the war's end. Their stories of repatriation are interesting ones.

My father-in-law was born on a ship that was returning to Japan a month before the surrender. I guess his parents had seen the writing on the wall and chose to get out of Dodge before things really turned really ugly. The Battle of Okinawa had finished only a few weeks earlier (June 22) so the waters between Taiwan and Kagoshima (where they were originally from) must have been crowded with Allied battle ships and aircraft carriers getting ready to mount an attack on the Japanese mainland. How their ship was able to pass safely is a mystery to me.

There were some 300,000 Japanese living on Taiwan, 90% of whom were expelled by April of 1946.

Another woman I know grew up in Taiwan. She was the daughter of a police officer on the island. The father of yet another woman was born in a small town on the southeastern coast of Taiwan. His family had been well-to-do, but lost everything when they left.

The father of a woman I know was a doctor in the Japanese Army in Manchuria. 1.6 to 1.7 million Japanese fell into Soviet hands "and it soon became clear that many were being used to help offest the great manpower losses the Soviet Union had experienced in the war as well as through the Stalinist purges." (Dower: 1999, p.52.) As a doctor, he was pretty much free to go were he liked and may have even had one of more Russian lovers during his time there. He remained in the USSR for I believe 8 years after the war. He was one of the few who did not want to be repatriated.

"From a logistical standpoint, the repatriation process was an impressive accomplishment. Between October 1, 1945 and December 31, 1946, over 5.1 million Japanese returned to their homeland on around two hundred Libert Ships and LSTs loaned by the American military, as well as on the battered remnants of their own once-proud fleet." (Dower: 1999, p.54.)

That answers a question I had about how so many people were able to return to Japan when four-fifths of all Japan’s ships had been destroyed. “The imperial navy had long since been demolished. Apart from a few thousand rickety planes held in reserve for suicide attacks, Japan’s air force—not only its aircraft, but its skilled pilot as well—had virtually cased to exist. Its merchant marine lay at the bottom of the ocean.” (Dower: 1999, p.43)

Tokyo's Chosen Ones

Strategic bombing, the military strategy employed in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale or its economic ability to produce and transport materiel, was used with a vengeance in the Pacific War. Sixty-six major cities in Japan had been bombed, “destroying 40 percent of these urban areas overall and rendering around 30 percent of their populations homeless,” writes John Dower in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Embracing Defeat. “In Tokyo, the largest metropolis, 65 percent of all residences were destroyed . . . The first American contingents to arrive in Japan . . . were invariably impressed, if not shocked, by the mile after mile of urban devastation . . . Russell Brines, the first foreign journalist to enter Tokyo, recorded that ‘everything had been flattened . . . Only thumbs stood up from the flatlands—chimneys of bathhouses, heavy house safes and an occasional stout building with heavy iron shutters.’” (Dower: 1999, pp. 45-46.)

Meiji Gakuin’s Memorial Hall (明治学院記念館) was built in 1890.

Having known of the extensive damage to Tokyo, it always perplexed me that certain buildings like those pictured here managed to remain, ostensibly unscathed by the bombings. Check out a satellite view of Tōkyō on GoogleMap and you’ll find many of these houses hidden like Fabergé Easter eggs in the urban sprawl of the metropolis.

As I was re-reading Dower’s masterpiece on Japan in the wake of WWII, I learned that it was no coincidence that these mansions were spared:

“Even amid such extensive vistas of destruction, however, the conquerors found strange evidence of the selectiveness of their bombing policies. Vast areas of poor people’s residences, small shops, and factories in the capital were gutted, for instance, but a good number of the homes of the wealthy in fashionable neighborhoods survived to house the occupation’s officer corps. Tokyo’s financial district, largely undamaged would soon become “little America,” home to MacArhur’s General Headquarters (GHC). Undamaged also was the building that housed much of the imperial military bureaucracy at war’s end. With a nice sense of irony, the victors subsequently appropriated this for their war crimes trials of top leaders.” (Dower: 1999, pp. 46-47.)

The former residence of Iwasaki Hisaya, an industrialist from the Meiji to Show periods (i.e. Mitsubishi Corporation), was constructed in 1896. It is located in Ikenohatai. (旧岩崎邸庭園)

Former residence of the Maeda family, built in 1929-30. Maeda was the 16th head of the Kaga Domain (present-day Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures). The Maeda rose to prominence as daimyō under the Tokugawa Shogunate and were second only to the Tokugawa Clan in regards to land value.

I have more photos of these buildings and houses which I will upload later.

Amami: What's Behind a Name

My mind has been on Okinawa a lot since returning from there a few weeks ago. If time permits, I'll try to write down some of my thoughts about the trip in the coming days and post some photos, as well.

The other day, I was talking to a doctor. Although he was born near Kagoshima city and has been living in Fukuoka prefecture ever since graduating from medical school, his family originally hailed from Amami Ôshima. He told me that unlike most Japanese whose family names are written with two or three (and occasionally four) Chinese characters (e.g. 田中 - Tanaka, 清水 - Shimizu, 西後 - Saigo, 坂本 - Sakamoto, 長谷川 - Hasegawa, 長曽我部 - Chôsokabe etc.), the family names of the people of Amami Ôshima are often written with a single character (e.g. 堺 - Sakae, 中 - Atari, 元 - Hajime).

This calls for a brief history lesson.

In the late sixteenth century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (warrior and unifier of Japan 1537-1598) asked the Ryūkyū Kingdom for help in his ill-faited attempt to conquer Korea. Hideyoshi intended to take his ambitions on to China in the event that he succeeded in Korea, but as the Ryūkyū Kingdom was a tributary state of the Ming Dynasty, Hideyoshi’s request was turned down.

Having refused demands for aid on a number of occasions, the Ryūkyū Kingdom drew the ire of the newly established Tokugawa shogunate  (1603–1867) and Shimazu clan of southern Kyūshū, and in 1609 the Satsuma feudal domain (present-day Kagoshima prefecture) was given permission to invade the kingdom. While the the Ryûkyû Kingdom was able to regain some autonomy a few years later, Amami Ôshima and other islands north of present-day Okinawa were incorporated into the Satsuma domain. (Incidentally, the islands had been independent before being conquered by the Ryūkyū Kingdom in 1571.) These islands remain part of Kagoshima prefecture to this day although the inhabitants are ethnically, culturally, and linguistically—you name it—closer to Okinawa.

A side note is worth mentioning here: "The islands, by virtue of climmate, were ideal for cane cultivation, and sugar was in high demand in Osaka. To increase revenue, the domain began to reverse its agricultural policy, discouraging the cultivation of rice in favor of sugarcane. In 1746 the domain began collecting all taxes in sugar. In 1777 it established a state monopoly on sugar, making private sales punishable by death. This emphasis on sugarcane led to the most brutal aspect of the island economy: widespread slavery and indentured servitude . . . Cane cultivation was labor-intensive, dangerous, and exhausting, and the most productive farmers were plantation owners who could mobilize scores of unfree workers. By the 1800s the island elite, the district chiefs and local officials, were all slaveholders. By the mid-1800s nearly a third of the populace were yanchu, the island term for chattel slave." (From Ravina, Mark. The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori. Hoboken: Wiley, 2004, p.83.)

As was the case for ordinary people in Japan proper, the people of Amami did not have family names until the islands came under the control of the Ryûkyû Kingdom. Family names may have been used in order to keep track of who was entering and leaving the kingdom. During the time that the islands were under the control of the Satsuma han (feudal domain), the residents were classified as farmers under the four occupations social class structure and not permitted to have names. The surnames that survive today were assigned after the fall of the feudal system and Meiji restoration in the late 1860s.

Now there was an exception to certain residents of Amami who had made great contributions to the Satsuma rule. These people, however, were given family names that consisted of one character. One purpose in doing so was to draw a distinction between people from Satsuma and those from the islands. Another reason was that as a tributary of China, the Ryūkyū Kingdom had used Chinese surnames (known as karana, 唐名. lit. “Chinese name”), and assigning such surnames was a way of acknowledging the historical connection to Ryūkyū. (Don’t quote me on this as I’m merely summarizing what others have written in Japanese.)

At the beginning of the Meiji era (1875), all Japanese citizens were required to have family names and the people of Amami tended to choose one-character names that they were familiar with. For a list of these names visit here.

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People from outside of Kyūshū often comment that food, especially the soy sauce, is sweeter here than elsewhere. That sweetness is a vestige of those sugar cane plantations.

Summer of Loathing

I don’t know of any other country where the destruction of war is as intricately woven into the fabric of the season as it is here in Japan. Throughout the estival months, documentaries and specials are broadcast on television and memorial services are held across the nation, reminding us of one needlessly tragic event in Japan's history after another.

The Battle of Okinawa began on April first and ended 82 bloody days later on the 21st of June. It was the largest, slowest, and bloodiest sea-land-air battle in American military history, claiming upwards of 250,000 lives (both military and civilian). My great uncle, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., commanded the 10th Army, the main component of the expeditionary forces landing on Okinawa. On June 18th, just a few days before the end of hostilities on the island, he was struck down by enemy fire, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. military officer killed in World War II.[1] General Mitsuru Ushijima, Buckner's Japanese counterpart in the battle, committed ritual suicide on June 22nd by first disemboweling himself with a tantô (short sword) and having a subordinate behead him.

Last photo of Buckner (right) just before he was killed.

One of the more remarkable, and for many Westerners incomprehensible, features of the Battle of Okinawa were the kamikaze suicide attacks by Japanese pilots against Allied ships. Although they had been used in earlier military campaigns, the peak in kamikaze attacks came on the 6th of April, when nearly 1500 pilots took off from bases in Kyûshû never to return.

USS Bunker Hill after being hit twice by kamikaze.

Many Americans, I think, would be surprised to learn that most of the young men piloting these planes were among Japan's best and brightest, college graduates from the nation's top universities. One of these doomed kamikaze pilots was the older brother of an octogenarian student of mine who would himself go on to become a professor of genetics at Kyûshû University, studying at Yale and Princeton in the 50s and 60s. He can still be brought to tears when recalling the senseless death of his brother who, he says, had showed so much promise.

   The ill-fated kamikaze attack coincides, incidentally, with the start of the swimming season at many beaches in Okinawa.

   Months before the Battle of Okinawa had begun, the U.S. Air Force under the command of Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay had been executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan.[2]The most famous of these is the March 9-10th raid on Tôkyô when over three hundred low-flying B-29 Super Fortress bombers dropped cluster bombs armed with napalm on the city. The deadliest air raid of the war, it would destroy 16 square miles or a quarter of the city and kill more than 100,000 people.[3]

   More raids were ordered: Nagoya (March 11/12th and again on the 14th and 16th), Ôsaka (March 13th) Kôbe (March 16/17th). LeMay intended to knock out every major industrial city in Japan in the next ten days, but ran out of bombs. Think about that.

   In Errol Morris’s provocative documentary Fog of War, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara brings the numbing stats of the raids home:

“Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command.”

   On the 19th of June, the city of Fukuoka, too, was bombed,[4] some 200 tons of incendiary bombs being dropped on the city.[5] The neighboring towns of Tôsu, Kurume, Moji, Shimonoseki, and so on were also attacked. The fact that these relatively minor cities were also bombed to kingdom come makes me wonder if any town was spared LeMay's wrath. If he had had his way, the whole country would have been left in ruins. "We don't pause," LeMay would write later, "to shed any tears for uncounted hordes of Japanese who lie charred in that acrid-smelling rubble. The smell of Pearl Harbor fires is too persistent in our nostrils."

   The bombing of Fukuoka lasted for an hour and 42 minutes, destroying 3.77 square kilometers of the city and 33% of the buildings. 902 people were killed, another 586 seriously wounded, a small number when compared to the wholescale carnage inflicted upon Japan’s larger cities.

Reconnaissance photo of Fukuoka

Bombing of Fukuoka

Downtown Fukuoka (Tenjin) after the bombing.

Damage assessment.

   I have found some conflicting accounts online--the numbers don’t quite add up--but apparently on the day after the air raid, eight airmen out of the twelve to twenty Allied POWs being held in Fukuoka at a detention center where the courthouse is located today were taken to the neighboring Fukuoka Municipal Girls' High School[6], where they were hacked with swords and beheaded. They were the lucky ones. Another eight had been trucked a few days earlier to the Kyûshû Imperial University Medical Department (today’s Kyûshû University) where they were used in a total of four vivisection experiments on May 17 (2 men), May 22 (2 men), May 25 (1 man) and June 2 (3 men).[7]There was another incident on Aburayama that involved more torture and beheading of POWs.

   On July 16th, the first nuclear explosion was tested in America, proving that a nuclear bomb would work. Ten days later on July 26th, the US, Britain, and China issued the Potsdam Declaration which concluded with a “call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”

   That prompt and utter destruction came on August 6th when Hiroshima became the first city to have an atomic bomb dropped on it. Three days later, Nagasaki was also nuked. Both days are solemn ones of remembrance for the victims of the bombings, which claimed 150,000 to 246,000 lives.

   Putting aside questions of the morality of dropping one, let alone two, atomic bombs on Japan after having already laid waste to most of the country with incendiaries, I have a problem with the bombings in that they allowed the Japanese to shift the focus of the discussion from one of remorse (look at the suffering we caused) to one of self-pity (look at how we suffered).

At noon on August 15th Emperor Hirohito read the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War effectively bringing the war to end. (What took you so long, Hiro?)[8] The date of Japan’s "surrender" happens to coincide with the final day of the Bon Festival of the Dead as it is observed in most of the country. This somber festival tends to signal the psychological end of summer in Japan, as I have written elsewhere. 

   I've always thought that making the 15th a national holiday--let's call it Heiwa no Hi (Peace Day)--would be an appropriate way to commemorate the end of the war. Most Japanese already have the day off anyways to attend to family business during the Bon holiday.

   So there you have it: the Japanese summer begins in Okinawa at pretty much the same time that the battle for the island commenced and comes to and end with the surrender of Japan.

   With all these gloomy milestones, it almost make me want to head back to the States this summer.

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 [1] A monument to General Buckner can be found at the place where he died atop a craggy knoll in Itoman City.

[2] American Experience produced an excellent documentary called “Victory in the Pacific” that can be viewed online at www.pbs.org

[3] Many dispute the number of casualties, arguing that the population density of the city at the time would have ensured even higher casualty figures.

[4] You can read the Air Objective folder here. Regarding targets in Fukuoka, it says, “The most important industries lie south of Kyushu University—a landmark on the Bay. The most southerly target is Nippon Rubber Co. TARGET 1265 producing footwear and a few tires. Large buildings in thie area which are not considered targets include the Tofu Flour Co., Dai Nippon Beer Co., and Kanegafuchi Spinning Mill. Fukuoka Harbor TARGET 1255 has been enlarged by a filled extension which is capable of taking on ocean-going ships. This made land is now covered with warehouses and has railroad connections with the Kyushu RR network. The new extension is the only known wharf on the Fukuoka side of the bay capable of taking deep-draft vessels . . .Southeast of the wharf is the old town of Hakata containing many small industries. The only large plant is Watanabe Iron Works, Plant No.1 TARGET 1238 which produces ordnance and heavy machinery for the Navy . . . North of the Najima River are the Najima Steam Power Plant TARGET 664 and the Najima Seaplane Base TARGET 1237. The power plant is connected with the same grid as the large Omuta steam plants and must be considered as a potential source of power for both the Omuta Region and the Nagasaki-Sasebo Region, as well as the Fukuoka industries. The seaplane base has declined in importance with the development of the Fukuoka Air Station TARGET 663 across the bay.”

[5] A detailed “War Journal” of the 9th Bombardment Group can be found here.

[6] Today, it is the location of Akasaka Elementary School, just three blocks from my home.

[7] Toshio Tôno, the founder of the OB/GYN where my first son happened to be born, was present during these vivisection experiments and wrote an eyewitness account of it called Ômei: Kyûdai Seitai Kaibô Jiken no Shinsô. Tôno, Toshio, Disgrace: The Truth of the Kyûshû University Vivisection Incident, Tôkyô: Bungei Shunshû, 1979.

   One day when I went with my wife to Dr. Tôno's hospital, I found the book in the waiting room, there among the Japanese equivalent of Good Housekeeping and Parenting. What's this about, I wondered and started to read it. I couldn't put the book down. Dr. Tôno has devoted much of his life helping the families of the victims understand what happened and, hopefully, find closure. He was a good man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

   Other books on this and related topics can be found here. A list of atrocities committed and punishments meted out by the occupying forces can be found here.

[8] About 2.7 million Japanese (servicemen and civilians) were dead by the end of the war, 3-4% of the country’s population of 74 million. One quarter of the country’s wealth had been destroyed, including four fifths of its ships, one-third of all industrial machine tools, and a quarter of its rolling stock and motor vehicles. Living standards fell to 65% of prewar levels. Sixty-six major cities had been heavily bombed, and 30% of the population of those cities were now homeless. Dower, John W., Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999, pp. 37 – 46. 

The full transcript of the gyokuon hôsô (Imperial broadcast announcing the end of the war):

TO OUR GOOD AND LOYAL SUBJECTS:

   After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in Our Empire today, We have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.

   We have ordered Our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that Our Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.

   To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-being of Our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by Our Imperial Ancestors and which lies close to Our heart.

   Indeed, We declared war on America and Britain out of Our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self- preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from Our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.

   But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone – the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State, and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people – the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. (Understatement of the century.)

   Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

   Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.

   We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to Our Allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire towards the emancipation of East Asia.

   The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met with untimely death and all their bereaved families, pains Our heart night and day.

   The welfare of the wounded and the war-sufferers, and of those who have lost their homes and livelihood, are the objects of Our profound solicitude.

   The hardships and sufferings to which Our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great. We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all of you, Our subjects. However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is unsufferable.

   Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the Imperial State, We are always with you, Our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity.

   Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strike which may create confusion, lead you astray and cause you to lose the confidence of the world.

   Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith in the imperishability of its sacred land, and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibility, and of the long road before it.

   Unite your total strength, to be devoted to construction for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude, foster nobility of spirit, and work with resolution – so that you may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State and keep pace with the progress of the world.

This is the full broadcast with the text translated into modern Japanese.

Child Soldiers

There was an awful report on the BBC a few years back about child soldiers fighting in Syria's civil war. Unimaginable the horror these young boys are experiencing. Then again . . .

It occurred to me that my own grandfather was sent to the front in WWI at the tender age of 16. The story I heard is that he ran away from home, and, using the birth certificate of someone who had a similar name, but was a bit older, enlisted in the Army. I recall seeing a photo of him smiling before a massive artillery piece. Better to be the one firing one of those cannons and making minced meat of the enemy, I guess, than vice versa.

His son, my father, joined the Navy at the age of 17, just a few years after the end of WWII. I asked my mother what would possess someone to do that. “People were very patriotic in those days,” she replied. He would later re-enlist in the Marines and get sent off to Japan and Korea. (Obviously, I wouldn't be around today if he had been one of the more than thirty-three thousand Americans who died there.) He was in Japan during the Occupation for about 13 months, I believe, something he rather enjoyed. His time in Korea wasn’t as much fun, as I can imagine.

One of the themes of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 is that WWII was fought by boys despite the image portrayed in Hollywood movies. The oft-forgot subtitle of that novel was The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death.

Seems, the more things change, the more they stay the same.