A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (64 page)

One tenacious defensive measure taken later that year was the systematic use of suicide
kamikaze
pilots.
⁹⁴
Formally known as the
Shinp
Tokubetsu K
gekitai
, or ‘Divine Wind’ Special Attack Force, the pilots were named after the ‘divine wind’ (
kamikaze
or
shinp
) that had protected Japan from the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century. Though regular aircraft were sometimes used, the ‘suicide planes’ were usually just bombs fitted with wings and crude steering mechanisms. They were unable to deviate from their intended target, and anyway had no fuel for a return trip. They were known by the Allies as ‘
baka
bombs’ (‘idiot bombs’), and their pilots were often teenagers with just a few weeks’ training.

The
kamikaze
were first used on 25 October 1944, in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. MacArthur was carrying out his promise to return and landed at Leyte on the 20th of that month. The ensuing Battle of Leyte Gulf on 23–26 October was the biggest naval engagement in world history. It resulted in the effective destruction of the Japanese navy.
Although Japanese troops remained in various parts of the islands till the end of the war – and in some cases beyond – their control was slowly but surely eroded. Corregidor was retaken by February 1945 and Manila by mid-March.

The retaking of Manila was a particular tragedy for the native residents. The 20,000 trapped Japanese troops, who were almost all to fight to the death, went berserk as the Americans pressed their attack. Though it is a relatively little-known atrocity, scenes of rape and pillage and murder not unlike Nanking occurred. An estimated 100,000 citizens were killed in the month prior to the recapture of the city.
⁹⁵
Japanese civilians in the Philippines also suffered at the hands of Japanese troops in those final months of the war. In May 1945, retreating Japanese soldiers murdered some 20 children of Japanese civilians accompanying their unit, so the children’s crying would not give the unit’s position away.
⁹⁶

May 1945 also saw the retaking of Rangoon by the British, following the recapture of Mandalay in March. Anti-Japanese resolve among the Allies was further heightened at this point by the discovery of the full horror of the brutal forced labour conditions of the notorious Burma Railway. This was a project carried out by the Japanese between October 1942 and November 1943 with the intent of securing supplies from Thailand. It had caused the deaths of some 60,000 workers, including local labourers and around 15,000 British and Australian PoWs.

In the early months of 1945 the Americans increased their bombing raids on Japan using their long-range B-29s, mostly on low-level night sorties. These raids were greatly facilitated by the capture of Iwojima (I
jima) in the Bonin (Ogasawara) island group early in March, which provided a convenient base midway between Saipan and Japan. The Japanese really had no answer to these raids. Out of a total of 31,387 sorties between June 1944 and the end of the war in August 1945, only 74 B-29s were lost – a loss rate of less than 0.25 per cent.
⁹⁷
The single biggest raid was on T
ky
on 10 March, resulting in almost 100,000 deaths. Most of the major cities in Japan, with the exception of allegedly spared ‘cultural sites’ such as Ky
to and Nara,
⁹⁸
typically suffered some 40–50 per cent damage to their facilities. It is estimated that at least 13 million Japanese were homeless by the end of May.
⁹⁹

On 1 April the invasion of Okinawa began. This was part of Japan itself. Four days later Prime Minister Koiso resigned, to be replaced by the aged Admiral Suzuki Kantar
(1867–1948). The following month, on 8 May, Germany was defeated, and the Allies were free to concentrate on Japan. Things looked very ominous for the Japanese.

Okinawa was lost on 21 June, after almost three months of fierce fighting, in which 110,000 Japanese troops and an estimated 150,000 civilians died. On the American side, about 13,000 were killed and a further 40,000 injured. These were the highest American casualty figures in the entire war, and suggested the Japanese defence was indeed going to be tenacious. The battle for Okinawa also involved the desperate use of some 2,000
kamikaze
pilots, and large numbers of panicked mass suicides by civilians who had been taught to believe the American invaders were inhuman monsters. They preferred to throw themselves from the clifftops rather than face life under such a foe.
¹⁰⁰

Defeat was now imminent. However, though Suzuki himself was not particularly committed to a continuation of war, the prevailing mood of the military (especially the army) was to fight to the last. To surrender, it was felt, would be to dishonour those who had given their lives in battle.
¹⁰¹
There was by now a strong fatalism to it all.

On 17 July President Truman – Roosevelt having died in April – met with Stalin and Churchill at Potsdam, Germany, for a two-week discussion of the war situation. Chiang Kai-shek participated by telephone. That month the United States successfully tested an atomic bomb, and Truman waited for the results of the test before deciding on a statement to issue to Japan. This was the Potsdam Declaration, issued on 26 July.
¹⁰²
Stalin’s name did not appear at this stage since the Soviet Union was yet to declare war against Japan, but the Soviets formally endorsed the Declaration later. The Declaration called for Japan to surrender unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter destruction’. It also spoke of an occupation, the purging of military leaders, the establishment of a new democratic political order, and the recognition of Japanese sovereignty but only within the territorial borders established at the beginning of the Meiji period. It made no specific mention of the emperor.

Japan did not accept the Declaration.
¹⁰³
The Allies were keen to avoid the heavy losses that would surely follow if they pressed on with an attack on the Japanese mainland, known in the plans as Operation Olympic. They were very probably also keen to bring hostilities to a speedy conclusion to minimise gains by the Soviets, who were on the verge of entering the war.
¹⁰⁴
They may even have wanted to impress the Soviets with their new atomic technology, or simply just wanted to test it out on a real target.
¹⁰⁵
It is also remotely possible they overestimated Japan’s development of its own atomic weapons, and wanted to ensure a first strike.
¹⁰⁶
In any event, the decision was made to use the new atomic bomb on Japan.