A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (63 page)

And of course, there were always the sadists, who positively revelled in the opportunity of war to maim, kill, torture, and prove their manliness. All the warring nations had their sadists, and Japan was certainly no exception. On occasion it even seems to have encouraged such behaviour as a means of hardening its troops.
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Ironically, the very intensity of Japanese fighting and the very ease of their early victories worked against them. Their easy victories gave them a false sense of invincibility, and displaced earlier thoughts of a quick blow and then a move for peace. Their brutality roused the fighting spirit of the Allies, and also made it unlikely the Allies would accept any offer of cessation of hostilities on terms favourable to Japan.

Japanese invincibility was dented as early as 18 April 1942, in the Doolittle Raid. This was a bombing strike on T
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by 16 American B-25s launched from carriers well off the Japanese coast, led by Colonel James Doolittle. This time it was Japan’s turn to be caught by surprise. The B-25s struck before anyone in Japan realised what was happening, and to the concern and embarrassment of the Japanese not one of the planes was hit by anti-aircraft fire. All flew on to land in China, where eight of the pilots were captured by Japanese forces. Three were executed as terrorists, leading Germany to protest to its ally Japan that these executions set an undesirable precedent.
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Others suffered vivisection as human guinea pigs in the course of Japanese experiments in chemical and biological warfare.
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A more serious blow to Japanese morale came less than a month later, with the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7–8 May 1942. This thwarted Japanese plans to invade Port Moresby in New Guinea. Japan also lost one of its carriers and suffered serious damage to another. America actually suffered greater damage, but the battle marked the first time the Japanese had been stopped in the Pacific.

A very major blow – in fact a decisive turning-point in the war – came the following month, in the Battle of Midway of 4–6 June. Japan had been planning to occupy the island of Midway, some 1,500 km west of Hawaii, as a strategic base. However, its plans were discovered by Allied intelligence.
Unlike Pearl Harbor, this time the intelligence was put to effective use. The Japanese fleet, again under Nagumo, lost four of its carriers. It also lost over 2,000 crewmen, and a heavy cruiser.

From that point on, despite a number of victories and advances on the Asian mainland, Japan’s fortunes declined, starting in the Pacific. Plans to occupy New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa were abandoned, as was any idea of occupying Australia and New Zealand. Their troops were forced out of New Guinea and Guadalcanal by early 1943. Guadalcanal cost them 25,000 men. The Americans lost just 1,500.

During 1943 Japanese resources were stretched. They had to replace their direct control over a number of Asian countries with more indirect control. Occupied nations such as Burma and the Philippines were granted nominal independence. Japan attempted to keep unity within its Asian interests, and primacy for itself, by focusing on its claimed role as liberator from western imperialism. This resulted in the Great East Asia Declaration, made on 6 November 1943 in T
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by the puppet rulers of Manchuria, China, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, and ‘Free India’. The declaration attacked western imperialism and reaffirmed Asian cooperation.
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Many of the people of these nations may initially have welcomed the Japanese as liberators. However, in reality they were by this stage extremely disillusioned by Japanese harshness. Japanese occupation often left the local civilians deprived of food and other resources and forced to work as labourers, sometimes being transported to Japan itself.

Japanese people themselves were also subject to restrictions on resources and to harsh labour mobilisation laws. All unmarried women under 25 years of age were mobilised for agricultural or industrial labour from September 1943.
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The scarcity of food in Japan also became severe that year, and by the end of it rations were supplying only 1,405 calories per day, barely half the standard intake.
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During 1944 Japan made renewed efforts, largely born of desperation. At home there was a marked increase in the production of war machinery. More than 28,000 aircraft were produced that year as opposed to a mere 5,000 in 1941.
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But this was still nowhere near the production of the United States or many of the other Allies. In the period 1941–44 Japan produced 58,822 aircraft, whereas in the same period Britain produced 96,400 and the United States 261,826.
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However technically advanced Japanese planes might be, there were simply not enough of them.

Overseas, there were a number of Japanese successes in China during the year. However, it proved impossible to neutralise the American air
base in Szechwan, which meant America could continue to use it to bomb targets in Japan with its long-range B-29s. America did so with increasing frequency, and met with little resistance. An especially serious blow to Japan was the loss of Saipan in the Marianas in July, after very heavy fighting. This too was now available for use as a bombing base against T
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. Defence of the homeland thus now became an urgent priority.

The loss of Saipan was a devastating blow for T
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himself, since he had reassured his colleagues just a few months earlier that it was impregnable. He was replaced both as prime minister – General Koiso Kuniaki (1880–1950) taking over – and as chief of army staff. Faith in T
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and the Japanese war effort as a whole was seriously affected. Many senior military figures, who were also mindful of Germany’s declining fortunes, returned to the prewar realisation that a Japanese victory was out of the question. Not a few felt it would be wise to try for peace on the best terms they could obtain. These would certainly be less favourable than had been hoped for in 1941 but would at least bring an end to hostilities. There was a misguided belief that the Soviet Union might act on Japan’s behalf in this matter. In reality, a year earlier in 1943 the Soviets had pledged to join the Allies against Japan once Germany was defeated. Neverthless, with thoughts of possible Soviet help in mind, the Koiso cabinet decided to fight on. There was also some hope that a compromise could be reached if the Japanese defence of their homeland was tenacious enough to wear down the advancing Allies, who might agree to peace terms rather than lose personnel.