WAR RESPONSIBILITY--delving into the past (15) / Lower-ranked officers also to blame

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Top-ranking political and military leaders were not solely responsible for the horrors of the Showa War.

Arbitrary, unbridled actions and misjudgment by lower-ranked military officers and bureaucrats, who were in positions to support the leaders, seriously influenced the nation's direction at that time.

Army and Naval General Staff officers, who drew up plans for various military projects, did not have command authority and were not responsible for the consequences of any military actions.

Kanji Ishihara, a Kwantung Army staff officer, was the first of the military officers who showed they could manipulate their superiors and carried out military operations as they wished. At the time of the Manchurian Incident in 1931, Ishihara was only a lieutenant colonel, but he could make Kwantung Army Commander in Chief Shigeru Honjo accept the doctrine of himself and his cohorts.

The cabinet of Prime Minister Reijiro Wakatsuki rubber-stamped a dispatch of military forces to China only after the Japanese troops stationed in Korea arbitrarily crossed the border into Manchuria. The cabinet apparently could not resist the lure of going along with what had become a fait accompli after considering the benefits that could be gained.

Ishihara gave Japan a large foothold for invading other countries and established what should be called the "Ishihara model"--a military-led political model under which military staff officers gain control of state power to effect their policies.

Akira Muto and Shinichi Tanaka, staff officers of the Kwantung Army, followed suit.

Seishiro Itagaki, another staff officer of the Kwantung Army, was Ishihara's closest ally. They worked closely with Kenji Dohihara, chief of the Mukden Special Service Agency, and finally established Manchukuo as Japan's puppet state in Manchuria. Ishihara, Itagaki and Dohihara became "heroes" although in reality they were rebels who violated the army's Penal Code by arbitrarily moving units.

Itagaki and Dohihara moved forward with plots to put northern China under Japanese control by additional dubious maneuvers. Itagaki, later as war minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Kiichiro Hiranuma, also supported signing the Tripartite Alliance with Germany and Italy.

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Acting behind scenes

Lt. Col. Teiichi Suzuki, working for the War Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau, played a central role in Mokuyo-kai (Thursday Society), an association of general staff officers such as Ishihara and Hideki Tojo. Suzuki became a member of the Cabinet Research Board. He later led the Political Affairs Section of the Asia Development Board before becoming president of the Cabinet Planning Board. Suzuki did not work only in military-related offices, but he was constantly involved in a diverse array of general and economic policies.

At the Imperial Headquarters-Government Liaison Conference, he presented fabricated data for an analysis of national power concerning prospects for the management of the war, which paved the way to open the war.

Some revolutionary officers ranked lieutenant colonel or lower set up a club named Sakura-kai (Cherry Society), led by Lt. Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, who masterminded two coup d'etat attempts--the March Incident and the October Incident--in collaboration with the nationalist Shumei Okawa.

Hashimoto continued his unsanctioned actions during the Sino-Japanese War. As chief of the 13th Heavy Field Artillery Regiment, he shelled the British vessel HMS Ladybird on the Yangtze in December 1937.

When Japan was about to embark on the war against the United States, Akira Muto was chief of the War Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau and Takazumi Oka was his counterpart at the Navy Ministry. Military Affairs Bureau chiefs, who played the central role in drawing up national policies, had significantly influenced the selection of prime ministers and cabinet ministers.

Muto engaged in all kinds of political maneuvers. He forced Shunroku Hata to resign as war minister in the overthrow of the cabinet of Prime Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, who had served in the navy. Muto had the second cabinet of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, which succeeded the Yonai Cabinet, decide the "basic national policy outline," which stipulated the establishment of a "new order in the Greater East Asia" and forming a system to prepare the whole people for defending the nation.

Kenryo Sato, Tojo's close aide who replaced Muto, played a crucial role among those who supported Tojo's leadership--namely Vice War Minister Heitaro Kimura and Army General Staff Operations Section Chief Joichiro Sanada. Sato had a scuffle and exchanged blows with Operations Department Chief Shinichi Tanaka, who opposed Tojo's plans for Guadalcanal operations.

At the time of the Battle of Leyte, Sato even interfered with the navy's operation.

"We should take heed of lessons learned from the death of Combined Fleet seamen and utilize these lessons for our future war management," he said, showing support for future operations without prospects for success.

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Hiding painful facts

Oka belonged to a pro-Tripartite Alliance camp within the navy. After he assumed the post in the Military Affairs Bureau in October 1940, the navy's hard-line stance toward the United States stiffened further. Oka created the Second Section in the bureau, aiming to give the navy more influence than the army in leading the nation's policy. Col. Shingo Ishikawa was singled out to head the important section because he was "fond of politics," having a broad network of political allies.

Within the navy, Ishikawa, along with Toshitane Takata, chief of the First Section of the Military Affairs Bureau, and Sadatoshi Tomioka, chief of the Operations Section, continued to advocate their hard-line ideas. They cracked the whip at superiors who hesitated to advance into southern French Indochina, and strongly insisted Tokyo should wage war against the United States.

"It's like a colonel is guiding the navy," grumbled Lt. Gen. Shigeyoshi Inoue. After the war broke out, Ishikawa said, "I'm the one who brought Japan into the war."

Before the war started, the Naval General Staff argued for an orthodox strategy of ensuring stable supplies of resources in preparation for a lengthy battle by placing Southeast Asia under Japan's influence.

However, Combined Fleet Commander in Chief Isoroku Yamamoto insisted on making a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Capt. Kameto Kuroshima, chief staff officer of the Combined Fleet, persuaded the Naval General Staff into approving Yamamoto's plan, but the surprise attack awoke and enraged the United States and provoked a relentless all-out response.

After Yamamoto's death, Kuroshima became director of the Second Division of the Naval General Staff. He was involved in the development of special suicidal attack weapons, believing it would be impossible to win the war using conventional tactics.

After Japanese forces were crushed in the Battle of Midway, Shigeru Fukutome, director of the Naval General Staff's Operations Department, said to his subordinates, "The losses were massive." However, he instructed them to conceal the extent of the losses suffered in the battle from political leaders.

He did not change his behavior even after he was appointed chief of staff of the Combined Fleet. Mineichi Koga, chief commander of the fleet, was not informed of operations and war situations and therefore he sometimes had to ask young officers, "How is the war situation now?"

In March 1944, Fukutome's plane crashed on Cebu island, the Philippines, as he fled from an air raid in Palau. Confidential documents he was carrying were taken by local guerrillas and passed to U.S. forces.

Tasuku Nakazawa, who replaced Fukutome as Operations Department director in June 1943, finally approved the start of kamikaze suicide operations after Japanese forces suffered a succession of losses in sea battles, including off the Mariana Islands and Leyte island, and Takijiro Onishi, commander of the 1st Naval Air Fleet in Manila, ordered the first attack by a Kamikaze Special Attack Force in October 1944. As "gyokusai" suicidal attacks continued on other islands, he could think of no way to continue fighting using standard tactics.

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Toll in Battle of Imphal

Col. Shinichi Tanaka, when he was chief of the War Ministry's Military Service Section, contributed to the expansion of the Sino-Japanese War. Tanaka became Operations Department director in October 1940.

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Tanaka initiated preparations for war against the Soviet Union. The Kwantung Army mobilized 700,000 soldiers to prevent a Soviet invasion. At the same time, Tanaka championed an advance into southern French Indochina.

A typical Army General Staff officer, Tanaka was very vocal about his hawkish ideas, especially in emergency situations.

Renya Mutaguchi, the 15th Army commander, was another officer who tenaciously stuck to reckless hard-line theories. Mutaguchi, who was trained by Tojo, commanded operations in the Battle of Imphal, in which 72,500 soldiers were killed or wounded.

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Pro-Germany envoy

Hiroshi Oshima was a former army officer who became ambassador to Germany. His pro-Germany attitude was to the extreme. When Oshima was a military attache at the Japanese Embassy in Germany in 1936, he started negotiations over the Anti-Comintern Pact with German Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Joachim Von Ribbentrop--without reporting to the Foreign Ministry--and concluded the bilateral pact.

Around the start of the Japan-U.S. war, he failed to forecast that Germany would attack the Soviet Union, and he also kept sending reports to Japan that mirrored his blind belief that Germany was assured of victory.

Ambassador to Italy Toshio Shiratori, as a leader of the Foreign Ministry's pro-reform group, substantially influenced young bureaucrats. He eagerly supported signing the Tripartite Alliance with Germany and Italy. "It's natural that Japan, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union immediately stand up together and place themselves as equals to those who want to maintain the status quo," he said.