The World War II Chronicles Page 14

  From the cloistered garden of the Imperial Palace the eleven men went to join other cabinet members assembled at Suzuki’s house, to consider an appropriate answer to the American offer of peace. They began another argument immediately. This time it was over the phrasing of the sentence dealing with the preservation of the Emperor’s status. Not one of the men disputed the necessity of that stipulation. The only problem now was in correctly stating it to the Allies.

  Hiranuma, the defender of the royal function for most of his life, was adamant that his sentence be the one chosen. It was put in by Toshikazu Kase, a Foreign Office secretary, who admitted later that he had severe doubts about the phrase “with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.” But he included the phrase, and the full cabinet approved it to go out over the airwaves just that way.

  The message ended with the remark, “The Japanese Government hopes sincerely that this understanding is warranted, and desires keenly that an explicit indication to that effect will be speedily forthcoming.”

  At four o’clock, the cabinet members walked out to their cars and were driven through the pre-dawn quiet of the city streets while civilians slept on in their beds.

  Chief Secretary Sakomizu went to bed in an armchair downstairs in Suzuki’s home. The old admiral went upstairs satisfied with the day’s work, but utterly exhausted by his efforts. General Anami returned home heartsick. Though he knew that the Emperor was right, nevertheless he felt that the Army had been disgraced and he worried that the Emperor’s position was in great danger.

  Marquis Kido, the Emperor’s closest adviser, was in bed by four o’clock, after talking with his Ruler about the meeting in the shelter. When Hirohito had told him what happened there, Kido listened, “filled with emotions and trepidation.” His fears were justified shortly.

  At 7:33 A.M., wireless operators in the Foreign Ministry Building in downtown Tokyo began clicking off the momentous news in code to Switzerland and Sweden, for transmittal to the appropriate parties in Allied capitals. Reaction to the news would come swiftly and it would indicate trouble ahead, both at home and abroad.

  EIGHT

  Reaction in Washington

  Later in the day Tokyo broadcast the news of the pending acceptance directly to the United States. Since Eastern War Time was thirteen hours behind Far Eastern Time, it was during the early hours of August 10 when the Japanese radio report was received. Consequently, the first intimation of a break came to officials as they lay in bed. James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, was awakened by an aide who informed him of the dramatic development. He dressed hurriedly and rushed to his office on Constitution Avenue. There his secretary told him that President Truman wanted him at the White House at 9:00 A.M. for discussions. The Navy Secretary hurried to the meeting.

  Harry Truman greeted Forrestal warmly and showed him to a seat. A group of officials and aides joined him around the table as the President prepared to open the discussion. Three of them, together with Forrestal, formed an inner circle of advisors, a “war” council most directly concerned with operations on the diplomatic and military levels. All but one were holdovers from the preceding administration.

  Forrestal himself had come to Washington in 1940 as Undersecretary of the Navy. He had left the presidency of a New York brokerage firm, Dillon, Reed, to become part of Roosevelt’s new look in the military sphere. When Navy Secretary Frank Knox died in 1944, Forrestal had accepted the top job in the department.

  Forrestal’s rugged face was his trademark. His nose was spread and battered from catching too many punches in college boxing matches at Princeton. An intense man, he drove himself and others around him unmercifully. He worked well with Truman, though the President’s decision-making processes annoyed him. Recently he had crossed swords with Truman over a minor point. Slighted at not being invited to the Potsdam Conference, Forrestal had simply turned up unannounced at the Big Three sessions, thereby resolving the issue to his own satisfaction and Truman’s annoyance.

  The pressures of his office always weighed heavily on him, so much so that in later years, as the first Secretary of Defense, Forrestal broke down under constant criticism by the press and lobbyists, and, in 1949, jumped to his death from a hospital window. But on August 10, 1945, he was ready to savor the victory and share in the planning for peace.

  Admiral William D. Leahy, a veteran of fifty-two years of naval service, functioned as the President’s personal chief of staff. In his late seventies, the crusty old salt, nicknamed “Sandpaper,” tended toward blunt assertions and a cynical outlook. He was one of the few who had categorized the atomic project as “a silly brainstorm” that would never work. He also deplored its use as a weapon of war.

  Leahy’s career mirrored the emergence of the United States Navy to a preeminent position in the world. At one time he served on the frigate Constellation. Later he served during the Boxer Rebellion and fought in World War I. In 1945, he helped guide the vast armada that ruled the oceans of the earth. A widower, the admiral was left with only two loves, tobacco and hard work. He smoked sixty cigarettes a day while exerting every ounce of energy toward helping the Chief Executive over the rough spots of the Presidency.

  Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, was the last of the old guard. He had served the Government for many years. As Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover in 1931, he watched the growing challenge to world peace in Manchuria. His warnings to the League of Nations went virtually unheeded as European nations grappled with their own problems at home.

  Stimson bridged the years between the old America of the nineteenth century and the awesome international giant of the mid-twentieth century. A patrician by birth, he grew up surrounded by the trappings of inherited wealth, then amassed another fortune as a Wall Street lawyer. He lived well. Fox hunting and deck tennis were his hobbies. He was a highly moral gentleman, an aristocrat dedicated to serving his nation. Though aloof and unbending, he tried nobly to project warmth to his aides and others. This mild, courtly man found himself responsible for a gigantic war machine which destroyed nations. It was he who decided that since “war is death,” the atomic bomb was a legitimate weapon to use on human beings.

  The only Truman appointee in the room was the Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, from South Carolina. But for an ironic twist of fate, he might have been sitting in Truman’s chair that day. Positive that he would be Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944, Byrnes was stunned when Harry Truman was nominated at the convention. When Roosevelt died, Truman called Byrnes out of retirement to head the State Department. The nattily dressed Secretary worked well with the new President and had, in fact, just returned with him from Potsdam where they had faced the intransigent Russians for the first time.

  United in their suspicions as to Soviet intentions, the two statesmen had returned to Washington on the seventh of August to face the swift onset of peace in the Far East. Three days later, in the cabinet room, they were confronted with a new dilemma. It was found in the wording of the Japanese message, specifically in the phrase injected by Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma:

  The Japanese Government is ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint declaration which was issued at Potsdam on July 26, 1945, by the heads of the Governments of the United States, Great Britain and China, and later subscribed to by the Soviet Government with an understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.

  The Japanese had brought into the open the problem of the Emperor’s future. Truman asked Stimson what he would do about the “conditional acceptance” aspect of the message. The Secretary reiterated his plea for retention of the Emperor. “Even if the question hadn’t been raised by the Japanese,” he said, “we would have to continue the Emperor ourselves under our command and supervision in order to get into surrender the many scattered armies of the Japanese.… Something like this
use of the Emperor must be made in order to save us from a score of bloody Iwo Jimas and Okinawas all over China and the New Netherlands.” Admiral Leahy supported this view. Forrestal also concurred. At this time he was more concerned about Russia’s designs in the Far East. If keeping the Emperor would end the war quickly, he was in favor of it.

  The council adjourned swiftly to await official notice from Japan. Byrnes and Stimson went to an anteroom to discuss the wording of a reply. There the Secretary of War mentioned an urgent request from General Marshall, who wanted Allied prisoners released as soon as possible and moved to some accessible area of Japan from which they could be flown out for medical treatment.

  Stimson left the White House before 10:00 A.M. to go back to the War Department. Outside the building, large crowds had formed on Pennsylvania Avenue as rumors of peace swept through the streets. Washington—the entire United States—was ready to explode at the first official declaration of an end to the war.

  James Byrnes returned to the White House shortly after noon with the official message from the Swiss Embassy. President Truman promptly called a full cabinet meeting for two o’clock. Here he outlined the text of the answer formulated by Byrnes and others and discussed methods of notifying the Allies of its contents in order to obtain their approval prior to dispatch of the reply by telegram to Japan.

  Only the Russians were expected to cause trouble. Truman did not want them interfering in the government of the fallen nation. Wary after the joint rule instituted in Berlin and Vienna, the President wanted no part of Soviet “cooperation” in Japan. He specifically wanted MacArthur as the sole commander responsible to Allied controls.

  By four o’clock in the afternoon notes had been sent to London, Chungking and Moscow. Work on the final draft of the answer to Japan continued into the night.

  Britain and China agreed promptly to the terms. Predictably, Russia balked. When Ambassador Averell Harriman presented Truman’s message to Molotov in Moscow, the Russian stalled, then later recalled Harriman and told him that the Soviets would agree to the settlement with the condition that they participate in the Allied High Command. Harriman had been briefed by Truman at Potsdam on just such an eventuality, and despite Molotov’s insistence, he refused to transmit such a proposal to Washington. Minutes after he got back to his office at the American Embassy, he received a call from the Kremlin and was told there had been a misunderstanding: the Russians merely wished to be consulted on the choice of a Supreme Commander; they had not meant to imply that agreement on the choice was required. The USSR’s bluff had been called.

  By the end of the hectic day of August 10, the last draft of the Byrnes statement replying to the Japanese was being readied for transmission.

  In China, worried American officers worked over a secret plan. In July, General George Marshall had sent a cablegram from Washington expressing concern about Allied prisoners behind Japanese lines. To General Albert Wedemeyer and his aides in Chungking, Marshall entrusted the job of saving the prisoners in case of a sudden surrender.

  This assignment was staggering. The prison camps were thousands of miles to the north and northeast. Chinese divisions could not possibly reach them. Tanks could not batter their way through the lines to effect lightning rescues. Some other way had to be found.

  At dinner one night, Wedemeyer solicited opinions from staff members. Several ideas were broached, then rejected. Colonel Arthur Dobson, from Lincoln, Nebraska, finally suggested the possibility of sending in teams of parachutists who would confront the Japanese and demand access to the captives. He reasoned that the element of surprise might stun the enemy into inaction and prevent bloodshed.

  Dobson’s idea was well received. At Kunming, the OSS had a base for clandestine activities. From it, some form of task force could be scraped together. Wedemeyer’s assistant, General George Olmstead, was given command of the special project. As the atomic bombs fell on Japan, he and his staff rushed to implement the “mercy missions.”

  The China theater was an extraordinarily difficult arena of war. It had been that way since before Pearl Harbor, when the Flying Tigers under General Claire Chennault helped the Nationalist armies defy the Japanese invader. It had continued that way during the dark days of 1942 and 1943 when the Burma Road, lifeline to China from India, had been sealed off.

  Conditions had improved after the Japanese were driven out of North Burma in 1944, and road traffic into China was resumed. Increased air transport over the Himalayas helped even more. Still, the Chinese command posed a continual problem to high officials in Washington.

  The country was beset by factional strife. Though united against a common foe, the Japanese, both the Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communists, led by Mao Tse Tung, fought each other repeatedly. The Chiang government held the reins of power but the Reds lurked in the background. From their headquarters in the caves of Yenan in northwest China, Mao’s lieutenants broadcast about the excesses of the Nationalists and promised a “people’s government” after the Japanese had been thrown off the mainland. The charges hurt Chiang because they were based on fact.

  In a nation that had not had a strong central government for centuries, the ruling class was riddled with corruption and greed. A bribe could win an official’s favor. A bribe could wean a general away from his loyalty to Chiang. The Japanese themselves employed such tactics to disrupt, confuse and subvert their foes. The Communists did the same.

  When General Vinegar Joe Stilwell went to Chungking in 1944 to help Chiang organize the Chinese armies, he was disgusted with the situation. Contemptuous of the Chinese leader, whom he referred to as “The Peanut,” Stilwell told Washington that Chiang intended “to go on milking the United States for money and munitions.” Because he thought that the Communists would eventually win the allegiance of the peasants, he felt that America was supporting the wrong side. Stilwell did not last very long in China. He was recalled from what he termed “as merry a nest of gangsters” as one could find.

  General Albert Wedemeyer came from Washington to heal the rupture. He managed to soothe Chiang and induce him to cooperate more fully in training a total of thirty-nine Chinese divisions for combat against the Japanese. By the summer of 1945, Wedemeyer had reversed a prevailing defeatist sentiment among Chinese generals and had embarked on the first phase of Operation Carbonado, a drive to the sea near Canton.

  The Japanese now ruled a shrinking continental empire. Though capable of offering stern resistance to their enemies, they could not control the land mass of China. One and a half million troops in the field failed to stop constant harassment by guerrillas, Nationalist and Communist, who blew up bridges, seized towns, and terrorized individual units on patrol. The Japanese had won the big cities but not the countryside. Battle lines were fluid and porous, stretching over thousands of miles.

  In this incredibly complex situation, American advisers, numbering nearly seventy thousand, strove to wage effective warfare. The latest message from the War Department concerning prisoners of war was therefore particularly unsettling. It seemed to ask the impossible.

  Elsewhere, it was necessary to continue the business of war. General Leslie Groves called on General Marshall to discuss the next shipment of nuclear material to the battle zone. Finding him involved in conferences, Groves returned to his office and arbitrarily ordered a hold on delivery of plutonium and other vital bomb parts until further notice. Later in the day Marshall agreed with Groves’ action. A third bomb could be prepared for drop at any time if the Japanese did not surrender.

  In Washington, a special alert had gone out from the Navy Department to all clerical personnel in the area. Full reports of a naval disaster in the western Pacific had just reached headquarters. On the moonlit night of July 30, tragedy had overtaken the cruiser Indianapolis. As it steamed toward Leyte after delivering part of the core of the Hiroshima bomb to scientists at Tinian, it moved past the periscope of the I-58, a large Japanese submarine homebound for the Inland Sea. Its
captain, Hashimoto, quickly fired torpedoes into the side of the cruiser, which sank in moments. Hundreds of Americans spilled into the darkness and began floating on the tranquil ocean. The I-58 moved out of the area and proceeded toward Japan. On the surface of the Pacific, survivors waited for dawn and rescue.

  Rescue did not come. Owing to an incredible lapse, authorities at Leyte did not take action when the Indianapolis failed to make an appearance. For days the sun beat mercilessly on the helpless sailors bobbing on the sea. They weakened gradually and lost hope as the countless hours went by without a friendly ship coming over the horizon. Men gave up. Some swam away toward imagined oases. Others simply fell asleep and sank from sight.

  On the fourth day, a plane wandered over the pitiful remnants of the Indianapolis crew. By the time ships lifted survivors out of the water, over eight hundred officers and men had died. At least half could have been saved if prompt action had been taken.

  On the tenth of August, mounting casualty lists from the Indianapolis poured into Washington. Telegrams were composed and dispatched across the nation as the Navy fought to notify the next of kin before peace was declared.

  But plenty of time remained. On the other side of the international dateline, Tokyo seethed with unrest. The forces of opposition to surrender had rallied swiftly. Sakomizu, the Cabinet Secretary, was the first to feel the wrath of the angered military. Asleep in an armchair at Premier Suzuki’s residence, he was rudely awakened at seven o’clock by four young officers from the War Ministry, who had just heard about the message sent to Switzerland. They cornered the Secretary and demanded to know why the council had done such a thing. Sakomizu was outraged but knew that he must proceed cautiously. He decided that his best defense was a good offense, and shouted at them to get out. They refused. Then he walked into an adjoining room and sat down. The officers followed, but before they could continue the verbal abuse, Sakomizu ordered them to take off their ceremonial swords and leave them outside the house. At this point, the soldiers became flustered and walked out.