JAPAN: Last Days

JAPAN Last Days

It was dawn on Friday, but dusk for Dai Nippon. Emperor Hirohito had approved the surrender proposal to the Allies. Five days before, the Japanese radio still talked of 100 years’ resistance, and there seemed little question of Japan’s ability to hold out for months at least. Then in shattering succession came atomic bombing and the Russian declaration of war. The concussion destroyed more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fear and despair gripped the Japanese nation. Over Hiroshima’s “most awesome” destruction, Radio Tokyo moaned: “Diabolic weapon. . . . The corpses are too numerous to be counted. . . . Practically all living things, human and animals, were literally seared to death. . . .”

Tokyo’s influential Asahi worried over the “destruction of our traffic system as well as our electrical, gas and water supplies.” Farmers were officially admonished to increase food production. The Bank of Japan limited reports because of disruption of communications. The Stock Exchange closed down. Japan’s battered will to resist began to stiffen in rigor mortis.

Last-Ditch Stand. But no news of the surrender proposal was announced to the 70 million Japanese people. Instead War Minister General Korechika Anami called for last-ditch resistance:

“I declare to the entire forces: Russia has finally taken up arms against us. Regardless how colored her declaration may be, her ambition to invade and seize Greater East Asia is very clear. . . . What is there to say but that we will give our all to carry through toward the successful consummation of this holy war for the defense of our divine land. I firmly believe that in fighting to the end, even if we may be forced to exist on grass and sleep in the fields, there is life in death.

“This is the spirit of serving the nation with seven lives—that is, Kusunoki, Masashige’s spirit, and the faith of Hojo Tokimune that life springs from nonexistence, indestructibility from destruction.”

Deeper Darkness. Almost nothing could be clearly discerned as the darkness of Japan’s darkest hour grew deeper. But there were rumors of a struggle between War Minister Anami and the diehard war lords, on one side, and an unofficial, pro-peace “Committee of 21.” There were rumors that Crown Prince Akihito, 11, might succeed his father.

Then the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Hochi, in a historic editorial, prepared the minds of the Japanese people for the surrender news: “There is an ebb and a flow in the tides of the affairs of every nation. Statesmen require the greatest courage when they think not of themselves but of the nation. Individuals must have the courage of self-immolation, but it may be said that a nation does not have the right to commit suicide. Therefore there are times when statesmen must have the courage to save the nation at the cost of their own lives. However, in such cases, political and military farsightedness are necessary.”

Another newspaper told the Japanese nation even more explicitly that the war was lost: “The only thing left to be done is to think out how to cope with this stark reality. Now it is high time that all of our nation should face reality squarely. Everyone should have his own firmest declaration. War is a reality. Only with the greatest determination can one cope with the reality of war.”

“General Mobilization.” Meanwhile, practical defense measures continued. The Japanese Government issued a national appeal to Japan’s transport workers to be ready to sacrifice their “very lives” to maintain vital transportation services. Radio Tokyo broadcast that the “general mobilization for production” would continue. In a joint statement the military and civilian authorities emphasized the old order that all Japanese “guilty of disquieting speech and behavior, also those spreading rumors” would be “strictly punished according to the military code.”

It was indeed impossible to escape reality. And reality came not only in the exterminating form of atomic bombs, political isolation and military encirclement. Reality was also taking the form of the often overlooked fact that Japan had been engaged in a constantly accelerating war for eight years.

Even before the bombings, the strain on her productive system, no match for the great western powers, must have been terrific. The strain on her island people must have been more so. All nations at war secretly long for peace, and in Japan, the markers, commemorating the dead in the Shinto shrines had increased ominously in death’s rich wartime harvest.

Behind the Curtain. Via Chungking came an inside-Japan story from an observer who had left Japan last April. His report (as of last spring):

In Tokyo conditions have long been dismal. All movies and theaters (except the ancient Kabuki plays) are closed. Rationing is strict, and there is little for sale. Night workers, miners and Navy personnel are permitted to buy vitamins. A bottle of about 300 pills is sold to authorized people for about 40¢. Health conditions are wretched. All diseases of malnutrition (like beriberi) are rampant. The tuberculosis rate has risen steeply. Malaria is a scourge, probably because of water-filled bomb craters in which mosquitoes breed and because of infected veterans returning from the South Pacific. Typhoid is widespread, probably because of bomb damage to water mains.

Almost no one manages to find enough food to use up his ration points. Beef was sometimes obtainable until the end of last year. Since then people have been eating dog and horse meat. Fish has been almost non-existent since last fall. Chickens and eggs are only for children, expectant mothers and hospital patients. There has been no beer or sake since last February.

Rationed Cabbage Leaves. Everybody raises vegetables, even in window boxes, or in boxes inside houses or in air-raid trenches. Last March the cabbage ration was one cabbage leaf per person every three days.

Children are allowed 370 grams of rice a day. Adults over 19 years of age get 330 grams. Workers get 390 grams; laborers 540 grams; soldiers 830 grams.

The fuel situation is tight. Last winter Tokyo shivered. Each family is allowed eight 60-lb. sacks of coal or charcoal a year. Cooking gas is limited to seven liters a month. For the first part of the month a family can cook. After the 20th of the month people try to eat with friends, buy black-market coal or eat uncooked food. Since 1942, the Government has been trying to lift the Hokkaido coal production through “voluntary” recruiting of white-collar workers. Many clerks have been forced to work as miners.

Plenty of Electricity. But there is no electricity shortage. So many factories have been destroyed or closed that there is a surplus of electric current. Bombings have also provided another surplus: debris, which the Japanese use for kindling.

The Japanese are steeped in propaganda. In intellectual circles there are democratic tendencies. There are liberals who would form a government. Most of them are university professors who have retained their courage and vision. But there is no opposition to the militarists. Even the Communists are unorganized.

Waiting for Hirohito. Whether or not this report was wholly true, much of it certainly was. This was the background against which the Japanese mood, the feeling of the nation toward the war, and (in the absence of organized opposition to the warmakers) their special attitude toward the Emperor, might be viewed.

At week’s end, Yomiuri Hochi, without using the dread word surrender, made their predicament still clearer to the Japanese people:

“What we should do at this critical moment is to wait for the great command from the throne. All wishful thinking must now be completely eliminated, nor is it of any use now to recount bygone events.

“The stark reality is that Japan and the Japanese people now stand at the crossroads of life or death. In this worst national crisis in our history, all the people must strictly guard against the danger of internal split and conflict. . . . Internal confusion is no way of saving the nation from the gravest crisis with which Japan is now confronted.

“Only by bringing about complete unity between the Government, the Army and the people can we find a way to pull through the present national crisis of saving the country and ensuring its future. The superiority of a people is put to the real test when its country is confronted with the gravest crisis . . . though the gravity of the situation is undoubtedly more than words signify. . . .”

The Mainichi added: “There is not a soul who does not grieve with anxiety in his fervent desire to do his part to bring ease of mind to His Majesty by quickly accomplishing whatever is troubling his Emperor.”