The Mounting Peril
General Anami could not sleep. Aware that his side had been temporarily thwarted by Togo’s intervention in the cabinet meeting, he cast about for a new device, a stratagem to block unconditional peace. While the citizens of Tokyo slept on into August 13, the general conferred with aides at his residence. He finally ordered his aide Colonel Hayashi to leave on an important errand.
The colonel drove to the home of General Umezu and confronted the Chief of Staff at 4:00 A.M. Hayashi apologized for waking him, then said: “It is requested that the Emperor’s decision be changed through the efforts of senior members of the Army. The Emperor has no confidence in Field Marshal Sugiyama. Therefore, the War Minister is contemplating having Field Marshal Hata make an appeal to the Emperor. What do you think of that?”
The question put Umezu in a difficult spot. Clearly Anami was asking for approval of a device to delay surrender. If Umezu disagreed, the onus of guilt could fall on him. He walked about for a few moments, then turned to Hayashi, and said, “I’m sorry. I support the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration.”
Hayashi rushed back to Anami with these fateful words and the War Minister was shocked into silence. His valued ally Umezu appeared to be deserting him. Anami felt desperately alone as he went to bed for a brief, merciful rest.
Within a few hours he was awake and on his way to see the Marquis Kido, who received Anami warmly and ushered him into his study. The two men were old friends. Both had worked for the Emperor as young aides in the household of the Imperial Palace. Kido had no illusions about the general’s uncomfortable position in these last days. He fully realized Anami’s dual role: first, to win the best possible terms for the Emperor and his army; second, to keep that army quiet until he accomplished his primary mission. It was the most difficult job Kido could imagine at that moment.
Anami opened the conversation by complaining, “No self-respecting nation could possibly accept the Allied terms.”
Kido was ready for this argument and replied: “There is no way out. The Japanese have sued for peace. The Americans have given the terms. For Japan now to add conditions to conditions would result in certain rupture of negotiations and a renewed ferocity to the war. Look at it from the American position. What would they think the Japanese were plotting if, at this late stage, they put new rules into the game? If the Emperor changed his mind and rescinded the peace proposal, the Allies would consider him a fool or a lunatic.”
Anami remained unconvinced. “Pessimism never yields good results. We should make one last effort to achieve better terms.”
Kido said, “We must abide by the wishes of His Majesty. We must accept the Allied reply in its present form.”
Anami started to smile. “I understand your position very well. I knew you would say something like that.” Then he stopped for a brief instant before voicing the thought that nagged at him constantly: “But the atmosphere in the Army is so tense.” He did not elaborate, just rose from the chair and said goodbye to Kido, who gazed sadly after the general as he went out to another appointment.
Anami was determined to avoid his young aides as long as possible. So far, Takeshita, Ida, Hatanaka and the others had not been able to sit down with him and discuss the coup. Time was slipping by and yet they could not get the key man to endorse their rebellion. While they fretted at the War Ministry, the general went directly to a meeting of the Big Six.
There he found the peace faction once more united. A restful sleep had improved Togo’s mood and given him a fresh perspective on his duties. Suzuki was chatting amiably with everyone. Puffing on his cherished cigar, he had reversed his previous day’s arguments and now resolutely championed the acceptance of the Byrnes note and the Potsdam Declaration. Admiral Yonai, whom Anami disliked intensely, maintained his rigid posture in favor of immediate surrender.
General Anami and his cohorts, Umezu and Toyoda, clung to their insistence on conditions. Umezu was no longer a diehard, as Anami well knew from the early morning conversation with Hayashi. Yet in public, the gruff Chief of Staff supported his superior against the diplomats. Anami had little else to feel cheerful about that morning. The Big Six were still hopelessly split. At noon the group adjourned for lunch and a later cabinet meeting.
If Anami had troubles with his own officers, his antagonist in the peace group, Admiral Yonai, was equally distressed by the machinations beneath him at the Naval General Staff. At noontime on the thirteenth, the Navy Minister finally lost his temper. He had been advised that Admiral Toyoda had complained of the Japanese capitulation to the Emperor just the day before, and he deeply resented this insubordination. He had also learned that the Vice-Chief of Staff, Admiral Onishi, the Father of the Kamikazes, had spoken disparagingly to various cabinet members about Yonai’s own will to fight. If Yonai was annoyed at Toyoda, he was incensed at Onishi, who was engaged in a campaign of character assassination.
The Navy Minister fumed for twenty-four hours and then decided to have a face-to-face meeting with the two offenders. As a precaution, Yonai asked his assistant, Admiral Zenshiro Hoshina, to stay as a witness to the encounter. Hoshina was to record significant dialogues and act as a bodyguard in case of any physical danger. Both Yonai and Hoshina feared the volatile Onishi whose reputation for rashness was almost legendary. The warrior was like an unstable element, capable of a violent reaction to a situation.
Shortly after noontime, the offenders marched into the Navy Minister’s office and saluted. Ramrod straight, caps held in their left hands, the two men waited for some word from their superior. Yonai let them stand in awkward silence.
Finally he looked up and spoke sharply: “The behavior of the General Staff is execrable. If you have anything to say about me, why don’t you come and tell me about it personally?” His voice rising, Yonai rushed on: “Such an impudent attitude is shameful. Do not do anything like that again.”
Toyoda never moved a muscle. Onishi bent his head and began to sob.
Yonai continued: “And what is the idea of recommending momentous decisions to the Emperor without ever consulting me? For my part, I am not meddling with the this and that of what you are doing at the Naval General Staff. To have behaved as you have done is inexcusable.”
Toyoda remained impassive. Onishi cried loudly, tried to apologize, lost his voice, and stopped. Yonai ordered them out. The two admirals marched through the door, one unchastened, the other heartbroken.
Yonai and Hoshina were both puzzled and thrilled. Neither had anticipated such a reaction from Onishi. To have cowed such a man, even temporarily, was a signal victory for the peace faction. Yonai went off happily to the afternoon cabinet meeting, which proved far different from the stormy one on the preceding day.
Kantaro Suzuki continued to espouse acceptance of the Byrnes note. No longer did the Premier mouth the words of the war party. The breach in the ranks of the peacemakers had been successfully closed to further exploitation.
Foreign Minister Togo, still discouraged by the opposition to his policies, nevertheless was fortified by the change in Suzuki’s demeanor. He continued to argue relentlessly with Toyoda, Umezu and Anami, but was able to hold his own temper in check throughout the meeting.
For several hours the two factions sparred for position, for an opening. It was hopeless. The same conditions were imposed by the military, the same objections to them raised by the statesmen. Each side had become rigidly committed to its own cause.
During a break in the negotiations, General Anami stepped into the next room to call his office at Ichigaya. Standing there waiting for someone to answer, he realistically knew that he could not salvage anything at the conference table. Yet he had to keep up a pretense to his officers. Anami spoke reassuringly to the man on the other end of the phone: “Yes, everything seems to be going our way. They’re coming around to my way of thinking.” As he hung up, he turned to gaze into the astonished face of Secretary Sakomizu who was curled up in a chair nearby, catching a few moments of rest. Anami grimaced, then smiled. “It’s better to let sleeping dogs lie, don’t you think?” Sakomizu recovered his poise quickly and nodded agreement as he watched the War Minister walk back to argue hopelessly against surrender. The Secretary was suddenly filled with admiration for the general who was deliberately deceiving his aides.
As the rebels on Ichigaya Hill continued to dally, the debate began again in the cabinet room. Suzuki demanded a vote from the full cabinet. Since Toyoda and Umezu did not belong to this body, the Premier hoped to isolate Anami. He failed. Though twelve men sided with Togo, two others, the Justice Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs, agreed with Anami. One man could not decide what to do.
An impasse had been reached. Suzuki adjourned the meeting with the warning that he would once again seek the advice of the Emperor.
As General Anami left the room, he knew that the final hours of the struggle were at hand. When the Emperor spoke again, it would be too late to avert unconditional surrender. In the meantime, he had to face the conspirators gathering around him like jackals.
The rebels sought Anami out at his official residence. At 8:00 P.M. ten of them tried to solicit his final approval of a coup. Takeshita was there. So was Inaba. Hatanaka came with Jiro Shiizaki, a longtime friend.
Hatanaka brought a rumor of a plot against Anami’s life. He and others had heard that peace advocates planned to kill the general if he continued to oppose the Potsdam Declaration. Anami scoffed at this story and turned to talk to another officer, Colonel Okikatsu Arao, senior officer of the Military Affairs Section at the War Ministry. Arao was now a spokesman for the plotters. As such, he was in a most uncomfortable situation. Convinced that Anami would never support a rebellion, Arao nevertheless wanted to maintain the respect of the men working under him. For their part, his subordinates trusted the burly, intelligent colonel, who was a natural leader of men and therefore an obvious choice to speak for the rank and file.
Arao himself believed that Anami had decided months before that the war was hopeless. As far back as the fall of 1944, he had accompanied the general on an inspection tour of the Home Islands and heard him say that it was impossible to defend Japan from invasion. In May of 1945, when Anami had ordered the release from prison of Shigeru Yoshida, a friend of the peace faction, Arao had sensed that the general was preparing for the inevitable day of surrender. Yet on the evening of August 13, he stood in front of the War Minister and spoke of a revolution. The hard-pressed Arao handed Anami a piece of paper, containing the outlines of the projected coup. The general took it, read it quickly, then listened with his eyes closed as Arao elaborated on the details.
The rebellion was set for 10:00 A.M. the following morning. General Mori had already been approached and had promised to think about it. Even if he refused, the coup could proceed because most of his regimental commanders had agreed to act. Marquis Kido and Premier Suzuki would be imprisoned and the Emperor placed in a form of protective custody. The Eastern District Army would be a big stumbling block unless General Tanaka joined the rebels. He would be approached as soon as Anami consented to lend his name to the plot.
The fateful moment had arrived. On this man’s answer hung the fate of millions. Anami asked: “Are you sure that you’ve thought of everything? It seems to me that your groundwork is a little vague. There are too many things still to be accomplished.” He concluded, “The plan is very incomplete.” Still he did not say definitely whether he was for or against the basic idea of revolt.
The rebels begged for an answer. Anami told Arao to come to his office at midnight to discuss it further. Then he walked with the officers to the front porch. They were both discouraged and optimistic. Anami had not given quick approval as they had hoped but neither had he flatly rejected their plan. Anami waved them down the stairs and then added a note of caution: “Be careful, since they may be watching you tonight. Perhaps you had better return in separate groups instead of a single mass.” The rebels broke up and left quietly.
No one was watching them but Anami had good reason for saying what he did. Earlier in the week he had warned both General Mori and the secret police commander, Okido, to be on the lookout for trouble from the ranks.
Inside the house Colonel Hayashi was furious with his superior. By not vetoing the plan, Anami had implicitly encouraged the plotters. When Anami came back in, Hayashi spoke his mind: “You’ve given those men tacit agreement to their plans. You should say no definitely. It’s silly even to talk of a coup because the people won’t support it.”
Anami listened thoughtfully, then shrugged and said, “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll talk again to Arao.”
Hayashi felt that Anami was letting his men take unfair advantage of him and wanted to protect him from the intrigues. He doubted the War Minister’s political sense and questioned whether he should therefore even be the War Minister. He considered Anami an admirable person, rare among military men, but felt that those same qualities hindered his judgment of officers he liked. Now these officers were taking advantage of the relationship to foster a conspiracy, and Anami did nothing positive to crush the incipient danger.
Tojo, Anami’s predecessor, would have moved ruthlessly against the rebels. But Anami could not act against his own men, and as a result, they would spend the rest of the evening of August 13 making plans for revolt on the next day. Anami would have to change his tactics or the explosion would take place on time.
At midnight, the general was at his office where Arao joined him. Remembering Hayashi’s instructions, Anami told Arao that he doubted the coup would succeed. Again he avoided forbidding the conspirators to proceed with action.
After Arao left, Anami went to Hayashi and explained, “I told Arao what you said but I wonder if he will interpret it to mean that I am against the coup?”
Hayashi murmured, “I wonder.”
By two o’clock on the morning of the fourteenth, Anami was in bed. The other leading figures in the government crisis were also trying to get some rest before renewing the interminable struggle. Foreign Minister Togo had spent several hours in heated argument with General Umezu and Admiral Toyoda. During their discussion, Admiral Onishi, recovered from his dressing-down by Navy Minister Yonai, had burst in and demanded that Japan fight to the very end, to the death of all of the inhabitants of the nation. Togo let him ramble on, then flatly rejected his plea.
Premier Kantaro Suzuki slept like a drugged man. At eighty, he could not keep the pace maintained by Anami and others. His body ached with fatigue, his mind was numbed by the constant strain of debate and intrigue. Within hours, he would have to go once again to the Emperor of Japan for help, and the thought galled him. Somehow Suzuki felt he had failed His Majesty and yet he could not think of another way out of the dilemma. August 14 had to bring a climax.
In the fading hours of the thirteenth of August, a radio message had gone out from American Naval Headquarters in Washington to all units. From the Palaus to Hawaii, from Australia to the fast carriers standing just 150 miles off Honshu, Admiral Ernest King advised, “This is a peace warning.” All strike forces were cautioned to refrain from attacking the enemy in the next hours. Washington was giving the Japanese a few final hours to get their house in order. Beyond that time, assaults would be renewed.
At three o’clock on the morning of the fourteenth, an American colonel, Ray Peers, was trying to get some much-needed rest in his quarters in Kunming, China. He was awakened by Colonel Richard Heppner, who had just received a message from Wedemeyer in Chungking ordering the OSS to put the mercy missions plan into effect. Heppner was not ready and needed help.
Peers had compiled an extraordinary record as leader of Detachment 101, a guerrilla outfit in Burma. Now he was assigned to China as Deputy Strategic Services Officer, in charge of clandestine operations south of the Yangtze River. For one month he had been surveying his new command, getting acquainted with the problems associated with it. He never anticipated any like the one now handed him.
When Heppner outlined the mission, Peers said, “Move the teams up to Hsian right away.”
Heppner brought him up short: “But we don’t have the teams, we have had to use all of our personnel in new operations behind the Japanese lines. So that’s the problem. What do you suggest?”
Peers, a man of action, quickly assumed charge of the project. As dawn broke, he began to screen all available people for the dangerous jumps into Japanese territory. He had very little time left.