The Diplomacy of Defeat
In the Summer of 1944 when the jushin, the elder statesmen of Japan, succeeded in removing Hideki Tojo as Premier, they did not in any way diminish the power of the militaristic policy he represented. The military faction remained as strong as ever in its power over the conduct of the war. Consequently Tojo’s successor was a compromise candidate, General Kuniaki Koiso. He was the schism incarnate, a Premier who had no illusions about the eventual outcome of the war but was nevertheless convinced that the Americans would be much too harsh in discussing peace terms. The Imperial Army had agreed to his Premiership only because the generals had decided to ignore him when it came to making military strategy. The jushin had agreed to Koiso because they now had their own man, Admiral Yonai, the former Premier and an ardent end-the-war advocate, to stand behind the troubled Koiso and keep watch.
The new Premier had little chance to be effective. When MacArthur landed at Leyte in October 1944, Koiso broadcast the news that the forthcoming battle would be a “Tennosan,” a decisive battle of the war, wherein Japan would be victorious. Thus out on a shaky limb, he was dumbfounded to learn that the Japanese Army had altered its plan and decided to wage its ultimate battle on Luzon.
As American forces spread to Luzon in January 1945, then to Iwo Jima in February, Premier Koiso became increasingly convinced that a drastic revision in command structure was necessary, because the Army continued to operate without telling him its plans. Koiso was left out of all strategy decisions. When he asked where the Americans would attack next, unanimous opinion centered on Formosa. When the Americans came instead to Okinawa on April 1, Koiso laughed in frustrated rage, for one day a lunatic had come to his office and told him quite seriously that Okinawa would be the next battlefield. Obviously, Koiso had gotten better advice from a madman than from experts in his own army.
On April 5, 1945, Koiso again demanded that the military structure be altered so that the Premier could share in the decision-making process. On the same day the generals and admirals refused to consider his proposal. Koiso could then do nothing but resign, which he did within hours.
An old man, retired Admiral Kantaro Suzuki, was Koiso’s successor. The new Premier’s ascendancy was sudden and surprising, at least to him. On April 5, Suzuki was summoned to a meeting of the jushin. On learning that he was their choice, the old man protested vehemently and tried to dissuade his supporters. The discussions continued over dinner. As the last course was being served, one man, Marquis Koichi Kido, approached the reluctant candidate and said, “Come here just a minute, Suzuki-san.” He then led the old admiral to an adjoining room.
Kido was the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and the Emperor’s closest confidant. A moustached, bespectacled aristocrat, Kido served as a buffer between Hirohito and the outside world. In his role as adviser to the Throne he exerted tremendous influence. He had made, and destroyed, many careers.
When he was alone with Suzuki, Kido explained, “Japan’s situation is so critical that I, as Lord Keeper, must implore you to make a firm decision to save the nation.” The intensity of these remarks struck Suzuki forcibly and he protested no more.
Several hours later, Suzuki was summoned to the Emperor to form a cabinet. Before he officially consented he felt obligated to remind the Emperor of his weaknesses, which included lack of political skill and advanced age. The Emperor retorted, “Your unfamiliarity with politics is of no concern, nor does it matter that you are hard of hearing.” Hirohito wanted Suzuki to assume the office because he felt comfortable with him in charge of the nation’s destiny. Once he had said of the old admiral, “To Suzuki I could pour my heart out.” Now the Emperor was placing the country in the old admiral’s hands. Though he did not specifically tell Suzuki that he wanted him to bring about surrender, Suzuki sensed what was on Hirohito’s mind.
Suzuki became Premier while the fierce and bloody battle for Okinawa was raging 350 miles to the southwest. The Americans there had no idea that the Emperor of the Japanese people had just entrusted the nation to a man he hoped would strive for peace. For his part, Suzuki was not aware, as he took office, of the dimensions of the military disaster that confronted his country.
Ironically, not many days were to pass before the United States, too, would find itself with an untried leader. On April 12, President Franklin D. Roosevelt—who had been in office twelve years—died in Warm Springs, Georgia, and left a dazed Vice-President to conclude a global war and win a lasting peace.
Almost from the moment of his swearing in, President Harry S. Truman underwent intensive briefing sessions as his advisers prepared him for the awesome decisions that lay ahead.
On V-E day, May 8, 1945, Truman had been Chief Executive for only twenty-six days. Just the night before, he and his family had finally moved into the White House and slept there for the first time. In his office on the morning of May 8, he announced the capitulation of Germany to a hushed Washington Press Corps. “General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly all over Europe.… We can repay the debt which we owe to our God, to our dead, and to our children, only by work,” he said. “If I could give you a single watchword for the coming months, that word is work, work, and more work. We must work to finish the war. Our victory is only half-over.”
Truman was not exaggerating the issue. Indeed, the military and diplomatic problems which faced the United States were considerable. Truman had very quickly come to realize that relations between the United States and her wartime ally, Russia, were deteriorating. Nevertheless, he knew that his military advisers still hoped for Soviet involvement in the struggle against Japan. To that end, the late President Roosevelt had agreed at Yalta to give Premier Stalin territorial rights in the Far East. Yet the two top American diplomats in Moscow, Ambassador Averell Harriman and George F. Kennan, were urging a harder line toward the Russians. Dismayed by contradictory attitudes emanating from the Kremlin, the diplomats were fearful that the price of Soviet participation in the Pacific war was too high.
As for the Pacific war itself, there was no doubt in the President’s mind of the outcome. Yet the cost in American lives was rising at an alarming rate. American casualties were growing tragically as enemy defensive tactics became more desperate. As Commander-in-Chief of all United States Forces, Mr. Truman found himself paying in dear coin for United States victories in the Pacific. Small wonder Truman’s jubilance was modulated as he announced the end of the war in Europe.
While the new American President grappled with the problems of impending victory in the Pacific, and while the new Japanese Premier endeavored to construct some workable alternatives to absolute defeat, diplomatic and intelligence personnel of both nations were engaged in desperate, yet hopeful, schemes for ending the conflict quickly.
Toward the close of the war in Europe, when allied troops began to threaten Berlin, some members of the Japanese embassy staff had crossed the border into Switzerland and became attached to the Japanese legation in Berne. Among them was an obscure naval officer, Commander Yoshiro Fujimura. In Berne, the tall, soft-spoken Fujimura renewed an old friendship with an intensely pro-Japanese German national named Dr. Friedrich Hack.
Hack had many intimate friends in Japan. As early as 1910 he had been a businessman in the Far East where he had become friendly with some young officers in the Japanese Fleet. He cultivated those friendships over the years. Hack needed such connections in 1938 when he got into serious trouble in his own country, Nazi Germany.
As a long-time ally of Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hack had been allowed into Hitler’s inner circle. Unfortunately for him, he objected to various policies enunciated by the German Government and found himself persona non grata. Ribbentrop decided that Hack would have to be silenced. A false charge of sodomy was brought against him and he was sentenced to a concentration camp, presumably forever. Ribbentrop reckoned without the influence of the Japanese Navy. Hearing of Hack’s plight, naval officers went to the Japanese ambassador to Germany and demanded that he be released. The Nazis, not wishing to upset the delicate harmony between Japan and Germany, freed Hack, who was then spirited to Tokyo for safekeeping.
Even there, the harassed refugee was in danger. Orders were given to the German legation in Japan to kill Hack at an appropriate time. The Japanese Navy, aware of the situation, once more protected its friend and sent Hack to Switzerland as an authorized agent purchasing strategic materials for the Empire. When Germany became embroiled in the war, the Nazis forgot about Hack, and he settled down to work for his adopted homeland.
Happy in Switzerland, Hack enjoyed doing whatever he could for his benefactors back in Japan. Belligerent actions on the part of the Japanese military between 1939 and 1941 alarmed him, and he wrote to his Navy friends in Tokyo urging caution in dealing with Far Eastern problems. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, he was disconsolate. Because he knew something of the strength of America, the victories of the Imperial Navy did not impress him. Just before Christmas he wrote a letter conveying his despondency to one of his friends in the Japanese embassy in Berlin—Commander Fujimura. In it he said that his beloved Japan had made a fatal blunder in attacking the United States.
Fujimura found the letter in his office when he returned from a pre-Christmas party given for the embassy staff. Free-flowing wine had added to the intoxicating effect of recent Japanese successes. Heady from the liquor, Fujimura was in a mellow mood as he opened the letter. His pleasure evaporated as he read it. What was the matter with Hack? Fujimura could not understand the dark pessimism from Berne. Hack was warning that Japan must get out of the struggle as soon as possible, that it must arrange a negotiated peace before American industrial power crushed the nation.
Fujimura put down the paper and stared out into the darkness of wintry Berlin. A sobering fear gripped him as he brooded on Hack’s Christmas message. Could he be right? Was Japan doomed to ultimate defeat? Fujimura sat for hours behind his desk and slowly realized the logic of Hack’s letter. America’s industrial might was too much for Japan to challenge. A swiftly negotiated peace was the only sensible alternative.
As Hack’s prophecy came true, the two men corresponded frequently. Midway, Guadalcanal, Saipan, Leyte; the names changed but the results were the same. Japan was being beaten to its knees. In Berlin, Fujimura was helpless to do anything but watch. In Berne, Hack read the newspapers and chafed at his inability to help his adopted homeland.
Fujimura stayed in the German capital as the Nazi war machine foundered. He endured frequent bombings and realized that the end was near in Europe for Japan’s ally. He also became increasingly appalled at the brutality of the Hitler regime, the attempted extinction of the Jews, and he struck out at it in the only way he could. As a privileged member of a friendly embassy, he had access to black market food supplies. By plying Gestapo officials with choice cuts of steak and expensive coffees, he gained the confidence and loyalty of men who could help him in clandestine activities. Operating under his diplomatic cover, he managed to save seven Jews from the ultimate horror of the gas chamber by smuggling them out of the country.
As the end came for Germany in 1945, Fujimura himself crossed the border into Switzerland, determined to find a way to save his own nation. He quickly contacted his old friend Hack and the two began to plot Japan’s exit from the war. Their obvious strategy was contact with America, and the means lay right in Berne. On quiet Herren Street, the Office of Strategic Services maintained an active center for clandestine activities in Europe.
This huge espionage organization had direct access to President Roosevelt, who was captivated by its leader, an imaginative ex-lawyer named General “Wild Bill” Donovan. Roosevelt allowed Donovan a free hand in mounting secret operations. OSS men and women infiltrated the entire European continent. Their successes were many, their failures sometimes spectacular. Their common bond was the challenge of the unusual assignments they undertook. One such venture had resulted in the surrender of the German Army in northern Italy. When the commanding Nazi general, Wolff, wanted to deliver his army to the Allies in order to save further bloodshed, the OSS arranged contacts with American and British military men, who worked out the details. Wolff was nearly caught by the Gestapo as he negotiated, but he survived because of helpful assistance from the American spies, who smoothed the complicated and treacherous path to peace.
Fujimura and Hack knew of this recent incident. Hack contacted the OSS and an informal meeting was arranged.
The chosen site was a restaurant lying at the foot of the Jungfrau. Fujimura and Hack entered and walked through to a balcony where they stood in the chilled air gazing out at the white mountain. Their breath freezing in the midday sunlight, they chatted for a while. Physically, the two men presented an odd contrast. The Japanese, ramrod straight, reflected his years of military training. Hack, a man addicted to tweeds, umbrella and bowler hat, lounged comfortably against the railing, very much the cultured European gentleman admiring the scenery. He bore a close resemblance to Britain’s former prime minister, Neville Chamberlain.
Two men watched them silently from inside the restaurant, then moved out onto the balcony and stood nearby like another pair of tourists. The two groups struck up a conversation, then returned to the dining room and sat down together at a corner table. Lunch followed.
The Americans introduced themselves as Paul Blum and a Mr. White. They talked of trivial things. The war was never mentioned and the conversation seemed casual. Yet Fujimura was uncomfortably aware of an undercurrent of suspicion on the part of the men across the table as they weighed him, probed his personality, measured his worth. Though the atmosphere was innocuous, an evaluation was being made which might determine a country’s fate.
The luncheon ended amid pleasantries, and the Americans departed without any indication that they were interested in further talks. Fujimura waited three days for a sign that the OSS cared to continue with him. Then one of the men called Hack and asked that further discussions be held.
It was on May 3, in broad daylight, that Hack walked to Herren Street and talked with Paul Blum. He presented a note which Blum read carefully:
Mr. Fujimura, Japanese Naval Attaché in Switzerland, wishing to do his best toward direct negotiations with the United States and Japan, is desirous to know American opinions on this question.
There was no mention of peace terms. Fujimura included a statement of his personal history which Blum knew was valid enough to warrant further conversation. He knew, too, that the State Department had told the OSS that information forwarded by them so far was interesting enough to explore further. Blum told Hack to contact Tokyo.
When Hack told Fujimura the results of his discussion with the Americans, the Japanese naval officer was elated. He spent several days composing an urgent cable in special code to be delivered only to the highest echelons at the Naval Ministry back home. On May 8, V-E Day, the note went to Admirals Toyoda and Yonai. It contained a lie. Rather than admit that he himself had instigated the talks, Fujimura clearly implied that the Americans had contacted him first. In the cable he included a brief description of Allen Dulles, head of the OSS European operations: “He is a leading political figure of America, who has long associated with Lippmann and Stettinius and especially enjoyed the confidence of President Roosevelt.…” In conclusion, the naval attaché begged: “Your instructions are requested immediately.”
He was in a hurry, but others were not. Two days later, his cable unanswered, he sent another asking for direction from the Naval Ministry. No reply. The naval attaché frantically sent two more. In these, he catalogued American infantry units now boarding on ships in European ports for duty in the Far East. Still no answer from Tokyo.
On the sixteenth of May, Fujimura wrote about Allen Dulles’ work in negotiating the surrender of German armies in Italy. Four days later, he followed that message with a description of Germany in ruins. The next day, the twenty-first of May, Tokyo finally responded.
The Bureau of Naval Affairs had been giving the matter careful consideration. The Navy was genuinely concerned about negotiations, but not in the way Fujimura envisioned. The admirals were suspicious. The telegram admitted that “the principal point of your negotiations with the OSS was fully understood, but there are certain points which are indicative of an enemy plot; therefore we advise you to be very cautious.”
Fujimura was crushed. Behind the wording of the note, he saw the machinations of the conservative element in the Navy, led by Chief of Staff Admiral Soemu Toyoda. He was correct. Toyoda was afraid to give any young officers free rein in peace negotiations lest fanatical elements discover what was going on and rebel.
Fujimura kept trying. He sent back another cable: “As far as we can see, we are positive there is no plot.” Tokyo ignored that message, and seven more sent from Berne.
As June arrived in Tokyo, so did Fujimura’s sixteenth cable. He neither expected nor got an answer. He told Hack, “There is only one thing to do. I will go to Japan myself and plead in person with the admirals.”
Hack once more went to the OSS and told them of Fujimura’s difficulties. When Paul Blum heard what Fujimura planned, he suggested an alternative:
“The United States is fully aware of what is going on in Tokyo.” Blum paused to let the words sink in. “Why doesn’t Japan send a ranking statesman or a general or admiral to Switzerland? The United States will guarantee the air transportation from Japan to this country.” The offer served a dual purpose. It would keep the naval attaché out of harm’s way and also put the negotiations onto the highest diplomatic level.
Hack rushed back to the Japanese legation to tell Fujimura of Blum’s proposal. The Naval attaché tried once more with Tokyo. After explaining the OSS proposition, he remarked: “In the light of our present plight, can the Navy Minister see any other course than peace with the United States?”
He got an answer within five days: “Your point is well understood. You are requested to take proper measures with the Minister to Switzerland and other persons concerned.” The cable was signed “Yonai, Navy Minister.”
Yonai had always been a cautious man. In the current situation, he wanted to send someone, anyone of high rank, to meet with the Americans, but he realized the power of the military extremists and he dared not. The designated man would certainly die before he left Tokyo. Yonai’s judgment told him to sever this fragile link with the enemy and wait for another opportunity. He did so by passing the controversial Fujimura correspondence on to the Foreign Office for further study, in effect tabling it indefinitely.
Fujimura was consigned to oblivion. As the days passed, his dreams drifted away. He was contacted once by the Japanese Minister to Switzerland, Shunichi Kase, who asked for additional particulars in the matter. Commander Fujimura never heard from his government again.
After the war, Admiral Yonai apologized to him. He met the naval attaché in Tokyo and said: “I assume all responsibility for our failure successfully to guide the preparations for peace and peace negotiations with the Dulles agency. I have no words with which to apologize for it.”
Fujimura had lost his battle, but an American naval officer, Captain Ellis Zacharias, continued to wage a similar one. Beginning at roughly the same time as Fujimura, Zacharias planned his tactics very carefully. One of the few men in the United States who had experience with the Japanese mind, he was convinced that the enemy would make peace if subjected to intense psychological assault. Under the supervision of the Office of War Information, Zacharias and his associates drew up a plan, code-named I-45, which proposed a bold thrust at the cabinet in Tokyo. It envisaged a series of propaganda broadcasts beamed from Washington to Japan.
The American naval officer had been observing the Japanese for twenty years. When Warren Harding was President, Zacharias was a language officer in Japan, studying the natives and learning the trade of espionage. Many years before Americans ever heard of Pearl Harbor, he spied on Japanese fleet maneuvers and, as Friedrich Hack had done, befriended future admirals of the Imperial Navy. Now, in the fourth year of the war, he drew upon a wealth of personal encounters with the foe as he outlined his strategy:
Careful observation of the Japanese under varying conditions and activities, such as conferences, military inspections, and crises, has led to the inevitable conclusion that no Japanese, regardless of rank or position, is so constituted that as an individual he is willing or able to assume responsibility for important decisions without the benefit of lengthy and repeated discussions sufficient to convince him that he does not carry the responsibility alone. This continued demonstration of individual inferiority, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, is the Japanese weakness which must be exploited to the fullest.
His first broadcast, on May 8 (the same day that Fujimura first cabled his office about his contact with the OSS), told the Japanese that Germany had surrendered and that it was only a matter of time until Japan was destroyed. Speaking fluently in the enemy’s tongue, Zacharias mentioned his relationships with Premier Suzuki, with Prince Takamatsu, brother to Hirohito, and finally, with Admiral Yonai. In this way he hoped to establish his credentials.
Within twenty-four hours, he found out that he had been recognized and acknowledged. In a most indirect manner, the Japanese Government spoke to him. The Domei News Agency included in its nightly broadcast an innocent-sounding item: “Prince Takamatsu has been designated to go to the Ise Shrine in the place of his brother, Emperor Hirohito.” Zacharias caught the significance immediately. Mention of the obscure prince, almost forgotten by the people of Japan, was made to tell the American spokesman that his message had been received and the Japanese would listen to further speeches.
Two more broadcasts followed in which Zacharias elaborated on his message. In his fourth talk he struck hard at his target by naming generals responsible for the sorry state of the war. By making such personal attacks, he hoped to draw an official response. On May 27, he got his wish.
Dr. Isamu Inouye spoke for the Government from Tokyo. In highly camouflaged language, Inouye acknowledged that his nation was interested in some sort of general peace. The Japanese professor quoted a parable:
“The wind and the sun decided to make a man remove his coat. The wind blew harder and harder but the man held his coat tighter and tighter. The wind failed. The sun gently smiled and warmed the passerby with his sunbeams. The passerby shed his coat.”
To Zacharias the implication was clear. The professor was warning that force would be met with continued resistance, but that reasonable conditions of surrender would bring cooperation from Japan.
At the end of his broadcast, Inouye said: “I should like to know what Zacharias-kun thinks of these words from Japan.” Kun is a term used only between close friends.
Pay dirt. A direct line had been opened from Washington to Tokyo. The Government of Japan was listening to a relatively obscure naval captain in America as he probed the Japanese mind and tried to force it to do his bidding.
In early June, Zacharias pressed the campaign. The OSS in Switzerland had stolen a copy of a report filed by Jiro Taguchi, Domei News representative in Europe, to Minister Togo at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. Formerly a fanatical supporter of the war, Taguchi was now urging that Togo act quickly before the country suffered what Germany had. In his next broadcast Zacharias openly alluded to the report. He pointed out its obvious truth and reminded Japan that unconditional surrender would not mean enslavement.
By the middle of June 1945, Zacharias still manned an open line to the capital of the enemy. Over it he continued to talk to the highest echelons in the Japanese hierarchy. His approach seemed to be working.
Through July, Zacharias broadcast a new series of messages. He was joined in the attack by another military man, Colonel Sidney Mashbir, who broadcast a weekly series of commentaries on the war from Manila. Mashbir, too, directed his remarks to the cabinet and old friends from prewar days.
Mashbir’s background was similar to Zacharias’. Both men had worked together in Tokyo years before. Both men had spied for the United States Government. But Mashbir had gone further than his naval colleague. As an Army captain, he had tried to create an espionage network within the borders of the Japanese Home Islands against the day when America might be at war with Japan and need to have vital information at its disposal—this, early in the 1920’s. In 1923, ostensibly annoyed by peacetime bureaucrats in the Army, Mashbir resigned his commission and tried, although unsuccessfully, to continue his undercover activities with Japanese “true patriots,” as he later called them, whose names he has never revealed.
In World War II as a colonel on General MacArthur’s staff, Mashbir supervised a huge team of translators, mostly Japanese-Americans, who decoded messages and interrogated prisoners. By radio from Manila in the summer of 1945, Mashbir’s words began to echo and supplement Zacharias’ radio barrage.
In Washington, Zacharias was becoming more explicit: “The leaders of Japan have been entrusted with the salvation and not the destruction of Japan. As I have said before, the Japanese leaders face two alternatives. One is the virtual destruction of Japan followed by a dictated peace. The other is unconditional surrender with its attendant benefits as laid down by the Atlantic Charter.”
In addition to this radio message, he placed in the Washington Post an anonymous letter telling the Japanese that they had only to ask what the specific details of Allied surrender terms would be. His newspaper article was picked up by the Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, who forwarded its contents to Tokyo without comment.
His radio statement brought a swift response. On July 24, a Japanese spokesman, another Dr. Inoue (first name Kiyoshi), formerly a professor at the University of Southern California, answered in English from Tokyo: “Should America show any sincerity of putting into practice what she preaches, as for instance in the Atlantic Charter, excepting its (punitive) clause, the Japanese nation, in fact the Japanese military, would automatically, if not willingly, follow in the stopping of the conflict and then and then only will sabers cease to rattle both in the East and in the West.”
This virtual admission of defeat and expression of a willingness to negotiate was the last Japanese statement in the extraordinary dialogue. Tokyo was to go no further. On the brink of success, Zacharias would hear only silence.
Though Captain Ellis Zacharias continued to broadcast from Washington to Tokyo, though Yoshiro Fujimura waited vainly in Berne for the chance to help his nation get out of the war, the ruling body in Japan chose Russian mediation as the most promising avenue to an acceptable settlement. It decided to entrust its hopes for peace to conversations with Moscow.
On June 22, within hours of General Ushijima’s death on Okinawa, the Emperor had directed the Supreme War Direction Council—Japan’s “inner cabinet”—to begin formal peace negotiations, if possible, through the “good offices” of Russia.
Because of prohibition by the Japanese military, direct conversations with the United States had been ruled out of the question. Statesmen in Tokyo suggested Russia as an alternative because it offered the Army two distinct advantages. Two months before, even as Suzuki was asked to form his own cabinet, Russian Foreign Minister Molotov had informed the Japanese Ambassador, Naosoke Sato, that the Soviet Union would not renew its Neutrality Pact with Japan. It would thus lapse automatically in one year. The implications were obvious. But if the Russians could be persuaded to mediate between Japan and the United States, they would probably stay out of the war. And if Japan at the outset offered Stalin certain Far Eastern territorial concessions, in exchange Japan might get raw materials needed to continue the war. No matter what the outcome of the negotiations in the coming months, Japanese Army leaders felt their strategic position would be improved by this ploy.
Direct action had become imperative. For several weeks prior to the Emperor’s mandate, a former Premier, Koki Hirota, had tried informally to initiate contact with the Soviet Union through the Russian Ambassador to Japan, Jacob Malik. His deliberately casual approaches had failed to get anything but brusque rebuffs from Malik, who fully understood the implications of the Japanese maneuver. Now the Emperor was urging a high-level approach to Moscow.
Fifteen days later, on July 7, Hirohito called Premier Suzuki to the palace to ask what had been accomplished. When Suzuki admitted that he and others were still seeking the proper approach and presentation to the Soviets, the Emperor suggested: “How about dispatching a special envoy there with my personal message?”
Nearly a week later, Prince Fumimaro Konoye—an aristocrat of the first rank, and three times Premier in the past—met with the Emperor and accepted the special assignment. In Moscow the Japanese ambassador, Naosoke Sato, attempted to see Molotov within hours to inform him of the projected visit. The Russian Foreign Minister refused to see him, giving as a reason his imminent departure for the Potsdam Conference. Sato met with Alexander Lozovsky, the Vice-Minister, and stressed the importance of Konoye’s intended mission. Lozavsky avoided a commitment, saying he would await Molotov’s return from the Big Three meeting. Sato begged him to call Potsdam and make Molotov aware of the new development. Lozovsky promised to do so.
Several days passed. The Russians had other things on their minds. Stalin was making plans to enter the war against Japan, a move that would ensure, at relatively small cost to the Soviet Union, a favorable share of Far Eastern territories.
In July 1945, while Japanese diplomats strove to set up a viable procedure for peace negotiations through Russia, the Imperial General Staff published a report dealing with the strength of the United States armed forces. The report listed in detail the Army and Marine divisions either in the Pacific or coming there from Europe. It catalogued the American air groups down to the individual unit. The estimate was neither pessimistic nor blindly optimistic. It merely pointed out the massive might of the enemy.
Another related paper was already in circulation in the offices of the Navy and Army general staffs. Called Ketsu-Go, it was the operational defense plan designed to obstruct an invasion of Japanese soil.
Ketsu-Go would go into effect when enemy troops attempted to seize either offshore islands such as Cheju-do, or the main islands of Shikoku, Honshu, or Kyushu.
It called for the all-out employment of every available weapon left in the arsenal. The Japanese had hoarded planes, boats, bullets and guns for one great battle. Five thousand two hundred and twenty-five aircraft were to be used as suicide planes. Many of them were hidden under trees or under camouflage nets. Their gas tanks held only enough fuel for one trip to an invasion beach. Their runways were narrow swaths cut through meadow grass. No provision had been made for landing again.
Japanese planners realized that only a single battle could be waged and that it must begin and end at the beach. The kamikaze planes would concentrate on the transports and landing barges. Unlike other invasions where aircraft carriers and warships had been singled out, the prime targets this time would be the soldiers and Marines coming in through the surf. The reasoning was simple: Kill as many men as possible and shatter American morale. Any hope of a negotiated peace rested on the infliction of enormous casualties. Beyond that the Ketsu-Go defense plan could promise nothing more. It was a desperate strategy, fashioned by men aware that Okinawa had been the last real opportunity to stop the Americans.
Japanese intelligence experts continually sifted all available data in forecasting both the time and place of attack. Intelligence units listened to radio broadcasts and read newspaper reports for information about troop movements. Though many embassy channels had been closed to them as more and more nations ranged themselves against Japan, analysts in foreign countries interpreted enough material to form a fairly accurate picture of military movements and industrial production figures. Aided by these bits and pieces of data, the intelligence section of the Army General Staff in Tokyo set about predicting D-Day.
Radio monitors in Japan listened to merchant ships steaming in the Pacific from port to port. Most of these vessels spoke in clear language to each other and to authorities on shore. As unusually heavy traffic moved northward toward staging areas in the Okinawa region, as message volume picked up noticeably around the Philippines, the Japanese assumed that preparations were well under way for the move on Japan. Aware of the time patterns shown by the sequence of previous American assaults on Pacific islands, and mindful of the tremendous number of ships and men that would be employed in the ultimate invasion, the Japanese decided the Americans would land in Japan no later than November 1, 1945.
Though opinion was divided as to the actual point of the major thrust, it was finally agreed that Kyushu would receive the first blow. It would have to be seized before any attack on the main island, Honshu. From this vantage point, the Americans could utilize superior air power to cover most of Japan and limit any aerial interference with the main blow at the beaches around Tokyo itself.
In narrowing the choice of a first assault site to Kyushu, the defense strategists realized that they must have troops already in place when the attack came.
The problem, therefore, was to guess the exact invasion beaches. Two were chosen, one at Kagoshima and the other near Ariake. Behind these sandy avenues to the interior, intensive construction was begun. The Japanese pinned their defense of Kyushu on a calculated gamble that the Americans would attempt to walk across these white strips of ground.
They guessed correctly. On May 28, 1945, a document had begun to circulate among the senior officers of the United States Army in the Pacific.
On the cover was a simple title: Downfall, Strategic Plan. It was the blueprint for the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Downfall’s aims were boldly stated:
1. To force the unconditional surrender of Japan by lowering the Japanese ability and will to resist by establishing sea and air blockades, conducting intensive air bombardments, and destroying Japanese naval and air strength.
2. To invade and seize objectives in the industrial heart of Japan.
Operations on the Japanese mainland would be divided into two phases. First Kyushu must be taken; then Honshu, particularly the Tokyo plain, must be overrun. The date for the invasion of Kyushu, code-named Olympic, was November 1, 1945. The main beaches chosen for assault were around Kagoshima and Ariake.
General Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army, spearheaded by the Second, Third and Fifth Marine Divisions plus the First Cavalry Division, would land in the midst of concentrated fire from well-entrenched Japanese defenses. The bloodshed might be enormous.
There was one great omission from both the Japanese and American plans.
In the Imperial General Staff’s estimate of the whereabouts of American units, a notation was appended to the list of B-29 squadrons still assumed to be in the United States. Dated May 8, the notation read: “One other unit is available but its identity has not been ascertained as yet.” The missing squadron was the 393rd, then leaving the United States under the strictest security for its new home on Tinian. The 393rd’s mission was specific. As part of the 509th Composite Group, it was to drop atomic bombs on the cities of Japan.