World Battlefronts: East is East

Hirohito, the Son of Heaven himself, last week presented several tanks to his troops in northern Japan to use in case the U.S. attempted to land there. Said the tankers’ commanding officer: “If the enemy approaches, we will destroy him on the beach and ease the mind of his Imperial Majesty.”

Possibly he meant every word of it. Every good Japanese was working hard to ease the Imperial mind. Said Radio Tokyo, always ready to help: “One thing is now clear; America has lost the war.”

This claim, by Japanese standards, was not so absurd as it appeared to the more practical U.S. mind. U.S. observers in the Pacific learned long ago that Japanese generals and admirals habitually deceive their own superiors at home. When Radio Tokyo claimed that the U.S. had lost the war, the desk admirals in Tokyo might well have believed that their admirals afloat in Philippine waters had actually sunk 17 transports, eight destroyers, eleven carriers, eleven cruisers, etc., as they had publicly claimed.

“All the Japanese have to do in future operations,” said Tokyo solemnly, “is to project their indomitable spirit at the enemy and they will suffer internal fear that will defeat them before they get into the fight.” Steeped in “thought control,” the wartime Japanese apparently never question such spiritual balderdash.

Only the tank commander, who had to teach his men not how to die but how to use tanks, seemed to hedge a bit. Said he: “Training before the enemy landing is more important than sacrifice after the enemy landing.”