The World at War (9 page)

ANTHONY EDEN

British Foreign Secretary 1935–38

Cadogan and I had been working with the Foreign Office for two years trying to improve our relations with the United States, particularly in respect to the Far East, and we had made some progress.
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Rather remarkably when we opened the new dock at
Singapore the United States offered to send two cruisers to attend the ceremony, which was quite an unusual gesture for those days, and then later Roosevelt offered to send a senior naval officer across to London to discuss how we would coordinate our naval policies in the Far East.

LEWIS BUSH

In
Hong Kong in 1940 when I went there in the Royal Navy there were certain people like myself who knew full well the potentialities of the Japanese as fighting men. There were others, however, who were completely with their heads in the sand, completely ignorant, who even expressed the opinion that the Japanese hadn't a hope of taking Hong Kong, or hadn't a hope of fighting a European power let alone achieving a victory over them. I remember on one occasion, I think it must have been about the beginning of 1939, when a British national newspaper ran a story in which the opinion was expressed that the Japanese could never be good fliers because they had no sense of balance through being carried on the backs of their mothers as children. And people used to argue with me or other people who had been in Japan and quite frankly it became rather ridiculous. If any one of us just pointed out the power of the Japanese fighting ships or what they were doing in the air, the aircraft they were designing, we were either laughed at or looked upon as being traitors.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

In the Navy, to cope with the combined strength of British and American navies without being an act of suicide, any intelligent naval officer would have chosen to limit hostilities to either one of them, not take on two great navies at the same time. I know that some of the officers thought that it would be possible to separate the two but it proved that this was impossible, that they are one and the same. Particularly we in the Foreign Office thought that hostility with Britain would automatically involve America and vice versa. The Navy simply had to accept this judgement that to fight only with America or only with Britain was impossible, so it had to take on the two powerful navies, like it or not.

STAFF OFFICER DOI

Germany informed Japan that it was going to invade the Soviet Union about twenty days before they took action. There were two views in the Japanese General Headquarters, one said that Japan should take considered action with Germany, the other said that Japan should wait and see. This view was that Germany's war against the Soviet Union might not go as well as Germany thought; moreover it was thought that there was no definite cause for going to war against the Soviet Union. The decision of the General Headquarters was to wait for a while and see how the situation would develop.

HISATSUNE SAKOMIZU

The Japanese similar to
German people, especially military people, believed that Germany Army will destroy Russia within a very short period.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

Sorge I knew not very well, but those who knew him did not suspect that he was a spy, a master spy.
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He infiltrated the inner circle of Prince Konoye, the Prime Minister. Prince Konoye had with him intelligent people like Ozaki Hotsumi, and Ozaki was frequented and consulted by Konoye on the count of our policy of China. That Sorge was employed by the Russians was not known to us but he had many tentacles and penetrated into the secrets of our government. Also because of his connection to the German Ambassador, he had full access to the German archives and he also had his own sources of information. Sorge was sent abroad to find out the intention of the Japanese High Command as regard the Soviet Union: are they attack Soviet Union or not? And Sorge concentrated on finding out this question, which was vital to the security of the Soviet Union, and shortly before the German attack, when Sorge was arrested, he confided to the Military Police that about a month beforehand he had come to a definite conclusion that Japan was not moving against the Soviet Union. The fact that the Soviet Union had easy access to our government and High Command naturally militated against our interests.

TAKEO YOSHIKAWA

Japanese spy at Hawaii

I went to Hawaii in 1940, 7th March I think it was, and I worked ten months in Hawaii until the bombing attack over Honolulu and Hawaii. Sometimes I went to a geisha house early in the morning, at dawn, so I get up early and I saw the moving of the fleet go through the narrow strait. I go round by taxi or by bus around the Pearl Harbor Road and took the names of the ships. There are many names but there are sisters, you know sister ships, so it is very difficult to find out the name of one.

GENERAL TEICHI SUZUKI

Army Cabinet Minister

Ever since the First World War, or rather ever since the Russo-Japanese War, the United States had followed a policy of checking Japan's expansion. Therefore in the negotiations of 1940–41 the United States was not prepared to listen to what Japan said – the American idea was to check Japan completely before listening to what Japan had to say. It was because of this mounting pressure that Japan decided to go into Indochina, and it was very clear that if Japan did make the advance the economic embargo against Japan would be tightened further, therefore Japan was prepared for it.
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YOSHIO KODAMA

Japan, at that time, was not able to purchase anything abroad because of the economic blockade and so the Navy gave specific orders to me to set up a secret mission to obtain as much material for the Navy Air Arm as possible. This
Kodama Mission was not known to the public, it was a completely secret organisation. But for three and a half years we purchased material abroad and in secret, and we got everything for the Navy Air Arm from China, from Singapore and Thailand. We collected all this material, and I can say the truth is that it was thanks to our efforts that for three and a half years of war the Navy Air Arm was able to continue in existence.

COMMANDER SANEMATSU

It was the Army that was most surprised. This was because the Army did not know the United States. For example this is shown by the fact that the Army did not think that even though they went into Indochina it would call for such a strong retaliation from the United States as an embargo on the exports of oil to Japan.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

As to the action in choosing General Tojo, I myself asked Konoye and he said that nobody except Tojo would offer enough to control the Army, which 'was running our morgue'. This was heard by many other people. Also Tojo was deeply devoted to the Empire and if His Majesty made Tojo Prime Minister, Tojo would faithfully abide by his wish.

GENERAL SUZUKI

It was in 1941 that I became a Cabinet Minister. Japan was in very poor economic straits as a result of the incident with China. Japan's economy was already on a war footing but the planning of the war economy was not going so well.

DINGLE FOOT

British Liberal MP and Wartime Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare

We were responsible for keeping track of all neutral shipping because we had to exercise contraband control. We might bring neutral ships into Gibraltar or the West Indies in order to search them for any goods that might be reaching the enemy. On some day, I don't remember the exact date, in October 1941 when Japan was still neutral, I was summoned to the blockade committee which met each day. Our shipping experts presented a very interesting report: they said apart from one whaler lost in the Antarctic every Japanese ship in their mercantile marine is heading for home as quickly as it possibly can. There were no outbound Japanese merchant ships, they said, we therefore reckon that by the 1st of December every single ship in the Japanese mercantile marine will be back in home waters. Well, you couldn't have had a clearer intimation than that. We reported to our own government and to the American government because although the United States were technically neutral we had an American observer on the committee, so they must have been fully informed as to our conclusions.

MARQUIS KIDO

Of course Japan tried to reach a diplomatic solution but Secretary of State Cordell Hull's attitude was very firm. That made negotiations very difficult and finally when the
Hull Note was delivered, Japan was place in a position where she had no alternative but to fight.

GENERAL SUZUKI

It was not only Tojo but the entire nation which became determined to fight when Japan was presented with the Hull Note.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

When General Tojo was called upon to organise the new Cabinet before the outbreak of war, the Emperor conveyed his wish to the effect that the time limit attached to the negotiations with America, previously adopted by the liaison conference of government and High Command, should be disregarded. The Emperor tried to shape a fresh course in conducting our negotiations with America, but, unfortunately, events then overtook us. Even General Tojo tried at one time, at least during the first fortnight, to make the divisions but that was physically impossible because the situation was that American and British troops and fleet were at a strategic point in the South Seas and there was the mass circulation of the papers and periodicals inflaming the war question. This made it very difficult for General Tojo and the horse ran away from the stable.

HISATSUNE SAKOMIZU

The Emperor was very strict idea that he must obey the constitution, so if the Cabinet decide by the Cabinet Meeting then best way for the Emperor not to deny them, always say yes.

GENERAL SUZUKI

Tojo had no intention to go into war in the first place – it was the momentum of the situation that caused him to go to war. He understood well that Japan's
economy lacked the strength to conduct a long-term war against the United States.

STAFF OFFICER DOI

The General Headquarters knew that Japan's oil supply, combining those of the Army and the Navy, was sufficient for only half a year or a year of fighting. So the plan was to get oil from Sumatra and continue the defensive war.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

Tojo was an honest man, he was deeply devoted to the Emperor, but he was, I do not think, suitable to be Prime Minister. He was very studious; he was rather famous as a Commander of Military Police in Manchuria. As Prime Minister he would assemble details after details: he always carried the famous black notebook; into it he entered surprising amount of details, not only of military affairs but also diplomatic matters. For instance, Privy Council met and Foreign Minister was there to present diplomatic case for approval. Tojo would incessantly intervene asking the Foreign Minister for a minute or two, during which time he would explain the why and how of a situation.

MARQUIS KIDO

The Emperor did not think the raid would be conducted before a declaration of war. We told him that Pearl Harbor would be raided but that it would only be as soon as possible after war had been declared.

TOSHIKAZU KASE

Some people say that Pearl Harbor was a sneak
attack. It was a surprise attack but it was meant to be not quiet, because I was in charge of the American desk and took personal charge of the negotiations with America, and together with the Foreign Minister Mr Togo tried very hard to notify the breakdown of the negotiations before the active attack took place.
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IAN MUTSU

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Japan had already been at war for many years, rather hopelessly bogged down in China for years, and things were getting scarce and the military were everywhere. All you could read about was the war, so the declaration of war against the rest of the world was just a development rather than a sudden plunging into war.

MARQUIS KIDO

When the war began, Japan's Army and Navy were at the height of their power, Japan could not step back when it was presented with the
Hull Note, which was tantamount to an ultimatum. The Emperor was unable to prevent a war by himself. When the decision to stop fighting was made Japan was already completely defeated, Japan had nothing left. I think it was all a matter of how the world situation stood at each stage.

CHAPTER 3
APPEASEMENT AND PHONEY WAR

Thanks partly to a successful effort by some journalists and historians to portray appeasement as a sin to be visited solely on the British Conservative government, remarkably little attention has been given to the fact that European Communist and Socialist parties alike were adamantly opposed to rearmament until late 1936, while Communist parties continued to denounce the war and to sabotage the war effort until Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1941. The result has been an over-emphasis on the efforts of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to avoid war at almost any price in 1937
–
39, with far too little importance attached to the isolationism of the USA and the fact that, without active Soviet connivance, Germany could never have rearmed. Britain and Trance certainly failed to show the united opposition that might have deterred Hitler and damaged him domestically while, crucially, at Munich in September 1938, they refused to support Czechoslovakia against German aggression, persuading Hitler that they were morally bankrupt and would be unlikely to resist an attack on Poland. Chamberlain may indeed deserve obloquy for proclaiming that a meaningless document signed at Munich guaranteed 'peace in our time', but in essence he was making the best of a bad job; his supporters argue that the fiasco did at least buy time for rearmament. Britain and Trance ultimately honoured their obligations when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, though there was nothing practical they could do to help the Poles. Thanks to its own agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union took the opportunity to seize a third of all Polish territory and later to massacre thousands of captured Polish
officers. France was locked, into a defensive strategy behind the Maginot Line and Britain's principal military effort was invested in the Royal Navy and in what proved to be the false deterrent of the RAF's long-range bomber force. The Phoney War was a holding action to give time for an Allied blockade and economic warfare, including the failed intervention in Norway that brought Chamberlain down, to collapse the German economy while the Allied war effort reached full pitch. It was not an inherently foolish strategy, but it required time to reach fruition and Hitler had already shown that he was not a man for inaction.