An Inoffensive Rearmament (6 page)

A people's traditions, hopes, and aspirations are deeply rooted in a nation. No adversity can block them out. Nor will they be forgotten or forsaken. And so the Japanese people will always remember that before their unconditional surrender their country was one of two major powers that had never lost a war; the other was America. Nor can we ever expect the Japanese people to accept for their country the role of a neutral Switzerland in Asia, as the victorious Allies had directed. The Korean War accordingly, by “the grace of heaven,” stirred anew a deep-seated yearning in the hearts of the Japanese. They saw America committed to a war on the Asian continent. They knew America would need Japan. Out of that need they hoped would come a new day: a treaty of peace, respectability, and national dignity. By the miracle of Korea, an emasculated Japan was about to regain its manhood. History since is replete with the marvelous achievements—political, economic, and social—of a revitalized democratic Japan.

For myself, I have chosen to touch upon only a small segment of that illustrious history: the story of the rearmament of Japan, a story of covert, surreptitious, illegal rearmament, forced by the accident of war and fashioned by the expediencies of a deteriorating military situation in Korea. And so I return to that war.

A short time after our radio carried the news of the Korean invasion, I met my old friend Bunzō Akama, governor of Ōsaka Prefecture, who was visiting Tōkyō.
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Our conversation immediately turned to the war.

“It looks bad, Mr. Governor,” I said.

“Really, Colonel?” answered the governor. “War is bad, but the Japanese are not too unhappy. America will need Japan and we will be your friend. The war will be over soon.”

Many thought so, but reality belied our wishful thinking. As the communist invaders pushed relentlessly down the peninsula of Korea, it became increasingly evident that neither the supreme commander's “
ukase
,” nor our air or naval forces, which performed quite effectively, could stop the aggressor.
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The North Korean forces swept the disorganized South Korean units and our small American advisory group from the fields. The situation became so chaotic that only the strong will of SCAP prevented our ambassador and the American flag from fleeing Korea. If we were to halt the aggression, American ground troops would have to be sent to Korea.

After the hectic week of uncertainties, General MacArthur launched his tragic double offensive. The 24th Infantry Division, one of the American units on occupation duty in Japan, was alerted for battle. Almost immediately, to show our resolve to the world, a battalion of the 24th was rudely jerked from its comfortable Japanese barracks and catapulted into the war. Rapidly in succession, one battalion of the 24th after another was dumped piecemeal into the meat grinder of Korea, each battalion understrength, undertrained, and underequipped. The officers and men did their best with what they had. The courageous commander of the 24th Division, Major General William F. Dean, personally led his troops on the field of battle until he was captured in the struggle.
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But neither courage, patriotism, nor outbursts of loud national propaganda are adequate substitutes in war for military power, for men teamed and trained with weapons and equipment.

We were now committed on the Asian continent, fighting in a whirlwind that would suck into its vortex the cream of our youth and billions of dollars in natural treasure. This sacrifice was to be made in a remote area of the world, an area that our Joint Chiefs of Staff in a secret memorandum of September 1947 had said was of “little strategic interest.”

Some months before the North Korean attack, Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson, supported by our Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew a line of demarcation in the Far East between communism and the Western world. In effect, we said, “Communism this far and no farther.” That line extended from Alaska to the Philippines and included on our side the Aleutian Islands, Japan, and Okinawa.
Taiwan and Korea were not within the “Acheson Line.” Accordingly, in South Korea we maintained only a small military advisory and assistance group.

In Japan we had four understrength divisions. The 7th Infantry Division was stationed in the northern part of Honshū, the largest of the four Japanese islands, and on Hokkaidō, the sparsely populated northernmost island, near the Soviet Kuriles and Sakhalin. The 1st Cavalry Division was located in the Kantō Plain, with some of its units in the city of Tōkyō, where it assumed the character of palace guards for SCAP. The 25th Infantry Division was comfortably resting in the Kansai Plain with its headquarters in Ōsaka, at the time Japan's second largest city. The 24th Infantry Division, which was the first to become engaged, was scattered over the southernmost island of Kyūshū, lying directly south of Korea. These forces were deployed in Japan to defend the country. They were not intended to fight on the Asian mainland.

With the commitment of the 24th to Korea, the 25th Division was side-slipped south to defend Kyūshū. But it did not remain there long. By July 18, the 25th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division joined the 24th in the war, and Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker rushed his Eighth Army Headquarters from Yokohama to Korea. Thus, three weeks after the Korean War began, only the 7th Division with some Army service troops and Air Force units remained in Japan, and even the 7th was alerted to go.

In those crucial days, the United States became rapidly aware that we did not have enough forces in Japan to stop the communist aggression. Moreover, anxious examination showed that we could expect no reinforcements from the United States for months. We had the atomic bomb, but we had no ground reserves.

When the 7th finally embarked for Korea, there would be no ground troops left on Japan to protect the Japanese government and our bases from internal insurrection, let alone an attack from without. A nation of 90 million people had been completely disarmed. Its warships, aircraft, tanks, military transport, artillery, machine guns, and rifles had been committed to junk heaps. Even its officers' samurai swords had been carted off as souvenirs in the baggage of our officers and enlisted personnel returning to the United States. The country was a military vacuum.

Japan and America were at a critical crossroads. The situation called for bold and creative action. It was of little value now to debate whether we should have gone into Korea. The decision had been made, despite inadequate military
capabilities. But the United States has always in its history been blessed with having the right man in the right place at the right time. So it was in June 1950. At this critical moment in our history, America had the only man who could have done what was necessary in Japan. For it is indeed doubtful that there was another man in the service of the United States except General MacArthur with the self-assurance, the self-conceit, and the moral courage to order the rearmament of Japan. This he did, contrary to international agreements at Potsdam, in violation of instructions from the Far Eastern Commission, in contradiction of the noble aspirations of the Japanese constitution, and with little help from his own government.
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CHAPTER TWO

JAPAN BEFORE KOREA

International conflicts, like all violent human events, can result from conscious planning, provocative acts, or miscalculations. In 1950, it was probably that American miscalculations in the Cold War, which was then being waged between the United States and the Soviet Union, influenced a flow of events that precipitated the Korean War. Certainly the communists caught us completely by surprise. Yet if those responsible had been watching events as they unfolded in the world and hardened in Japan, we should not have been surprised.

The forces that had held communist Russia in alliance with the Western nations were always under severe stress and strain. When Germany surrendered, the alliance came apart. The Cold War in Europe began the day the fighting war with Germany ended. Soviet communism overran Eastern Europe and pushed menacingly toward Greece. For a time, the United States hesitated, then on March 12, 1947, President Harry S Truman, in a bold move, announced what became known as the Truman Doctrine, declaring the determination of the Unites States to block Soviet communist expansion. Three months later, the Marshall Plan gave substance to our declaration. As the months went by, the United States became increasingly committed to using military power to carry out its foreign policy in Europe. Twelve nations, headed by Britain and France, rallied to our support, and on April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty, pledging “collective security of the North Atlantic Area,” was signed in Washington.

On October 1, 1949, less than six months after the formation of NATO, the Red Chinese drove Chiang Kai-shek's regime from the mainland of Asia, and Mao Tse-tung established a communist government in China. Herbert C. Hoover, former president of the United States, commenting on the situation in the Far East, posted the score in the Cold War as 400 million to zero, referring, of course, to the loss of 400 million Chinese to communism, a slight underestimation.

In the months that followed, the Big Three foreign ministers (of the United States, Britain, and France) met to examine and ponder the world situation. With the formation of NATO, Europe seemed secure. In the Far East, however, communism had overrun the heartland of Asia. If the Cold War was to be stabilized, the West had to face up to the enemy in that area. The Big Three foreign ministers talked about “total diplomacy” and hinted about demonstrations of power. There was vague speculation about actions to be taken in Japan, where the United States maintained an occupation force of substantial ground, sea, and air power. If a demonstration of power was needed in Asia, Japan was the place to make it.

It was not clear what the Big Three foreign ministers meant by “total diplomacy.” Seemingly the concept proposed a containment of the Soviet Union on all fronts—economic, political, and military. One facet of the “total diplomacy” strategy seemed to contemplate a policy designed to destroy the prestige and influence of the Russians in the Japanese environment. In retrospect, one can now see that this strategy fashioned three blows that were struck at the Soviets during the later part of May and early June 1950, only weeks before the Korean War. The first of these blows knocked the Russians out of the negotiations on the Japanese peace treaty.

Exploratory talks on a peace treaty with Japan had been going on for some time. As early as March 19, 1947, General MacArthur, in an interview with the press, indicated that he thought Japan's sovereignty should be restored “as soon as possible.” At that time, the supreme commander envisioned a special status for Japan, a kind of international protectorate under “mild” controls and guidance from the United Nations. It is significant that General MacArthur, back in 1947, pointed out that “if the UN is ever to succeed, this was the most favorable opportunity it had.” He conceded that it might be advisable to reconsider Japan's pledge against maintaining “war potential,” suggesting that a small military establishment for the nation might be desirable. Nothing ever came of General MacArthur's proposal, but who knows what course events might have taken in the Far
East had the occupation forces been removed and Japan placed under United Nations protection.
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In the spring of 1950, rumors began to circulate in Tōkyō about a separate peace treaty for Japan with each of the Allied nations, which immediately polarized Japanese politics. In the controversy that developed, Prime Minister Yoshida and his Liberal Party (JiyÅ«tō) were prepared to sign a peace treaty with any of the nation's former enemies willing to recognize Japan's sovereignty. The Japan Socialist Party (Nihon Shakaitō) protested loudly, wanting a multilateral agreement that would give Japan a single peace treaty with all the Allied nations, including the Soviet Union. The debate came to a head when Dr. Shigeru Nambara, president of Tōkyō University, dramatically declared that he stood for a “total peace treaty or none.” Yoshida is alleged to have retorted privately, “He's crazy.” Publicly, the prime minister replied on May 3 that Dr. Nambara “was playing to the galleries.”