Violent Interlude
The news that Americans would be coming into the Tokyo area in only five days was terrifying to Japanese officials. They had good reason to worry.
Scattered reports filtering into command posts reflected a series of plots against the Government and surrender. American reconnaissance planes had twice been attacked by Japanese fighters since the truce of the fifteenth. Atsugi was still a source of trouble. Though Kosono had been dragged away to a padded cell, his men refused to leave the airbase. Their planes were still operational, their spirits still inflamed with the passions of misguided patriotism. Now Atsugi was the designated landing place for the first American units, and yet it was not under control.
Atsugi’s defiant sentiments were shared by many young men in the armed forces of the Empire. Already a detachment of soldiers had moved on Tokyo from Mito, a city to the north, to start another coup. They had come by train to a wooded area known as Ueno Park and encamped for the night on its slopes and grass.
In downtown Tokyo, the Kempei Tai decided on a bold stroke to remove the threat to peace. Major Ishihara, one of the cohorts of Hatanaka and Koga during the attempted coup at the palace on August 14, was now released from his cell. Police had discovered that he was a close friend of the rebel leader at Ueno, and they hoped he would be able to dissuade his friend from rebellion. Ishihara had changed markedly in the past few days. Contrite over his role in the uprising, he was only too happy to cooperate with the Kempei Tai.
On the evening of August 17, he went to Ueno Park, arriving just a little before midnight. Standing among hostile soldiers, he called to his friend, “Okajima, where are you?”
Another officer rose in front of him and demanded, “What do you want with him?”
Ishihara repeated, “Okajima—”
The other man shot him dead.
When the rebel Okajima was summoned to view the body, he began to cry. His aide ripped out his sword, lunged at Ishihara’s killer, and drove the weapon through his heart.
At that moment, Okajima lost his zest for a coup. When representatives of General Tanaka pressured him the next morning to disperse his men, he quickly agreed.
On the day after Kawabe returned from Manila, August 22, another crisis erupted on Atago Hill in Tokyo. A group of right-wing students, determined to resist the surrender, had been positioned in a building on top of the hill for several days; they had assembled an arsenal of ammunition and grenades. Already nervous over the pending Allied occupation, the police had quickly tried to quell the disturbance. On August 20, Kempei Tai colonel Makoto Tsukamoto walked up the slope to reason with the students. His pleas were ignored. Other police officials went to the top of Atago but were unable to disband the group. On August 22, armed men surrounded the rebels.
A call went out to Yoshio Kodama, entrusted by the Government with the handling of such incidents around the capital. Through driving rain, Kodama went to the scene in the afternoon. Both in the building and on the drenched slopes below there were enough guns in possession of rebels and militia to start the war all over again. Kodama rushed to talk to the leader of the student group and discovered he was a long-time friend, Yoshio Iijima. Iijima explained that the rebels believed the Emperor to have been forced by his advisers to surrender. When Kodama told him that he was wrong, Iijima was crushed. He and his friends broke down and cried.
When he recovered he asked, “Can we stay here at least till morning? Then we’ll leave and cause no further trouble.” Kodama promised to check with the police and left the building.
A steady rain had now changed to a torrential downpour. At the bottom of the hill Kodama talked with the chief of police, who told him he could not take the responsibility for allowing the insurgents to stay longer than six o’clock that night. He had already issued them an ultimatum, he told Kodama, ordering them off the hill. If the insurgents refused to withdraw, he would have to follow his orders and send his own troops up after them. Then he added, “If you get permission from headquarters I’ll be happy to go along with their wishes.”
Kodama ran back to the unhappy group at the top and outlined the problem. Iijima explained his reason for staying until morning: “We wanted to choose some men to die for their responsibility in this affair.” The pitiful group had decided to punish itself for its own indiscretion. Kodama begged them to delay their decision until he got back.
Once more he ran down the hill in the driving rain, and once more he talked with the chief of police, who shouted over the fury of the storm: “I want to avoid any unnecessary sacrifices. I hope your efforts will succeed. Hurry back.” Kodama raced off in a car to Metropolitan Police Headquarters to get an extension on the six o’clock deadline, now only thirty minutes away.
At three minutes to six, he returned armed with the power to negotiate with the rebels. As he got out of his car and looked up through the rain, he heard the reports of pistols being fired. They were followed almost instantly by an awesome series of shattering explosions which turned the top of Atago into a spreading column of black smoke. Kodama ran up the slope along with the police.
When the police prematurely fired, the young men had linked themselves into a chain, and pulled pins from grenades. They lay sprawled on the ground, their entrails spilling out, their blood carpeting the grass. The leader, Iijima, his arm blown off, lay with his lungs shredded and exposed. Weeping from shock, Kodama knelt down beside him and washed his face with rain water as police began to collect the pieces of bodies that littered the grass of Atago.
FROM THE JAPANESE IMPERIAL G.H.Q.
TO THE SUPREME COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS
RADIOGRAM NO. 19 (AUG. 22)
… IN SPITE OF OUR UTMOST EFFORTS TO AVOID CALAMITIES OF WAR, THE SITUATION IN CHINA HAS NOT BEEN IMPROVED AND THE ACTIVITIES OF IRREGULAR FORCES … ARE CAUSING SERIOUS DIFFICULTIES IN THE CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.…
Both in Japan and on the fringes of the Empire, trouble continued to plague the attempts at orderly surrender.
On the evening of the twenty-third of August, another important meeting was held in Tokyo. The time had come to choose a man to meet the first Americans to land in Japan, and Japanese officials were anxious to select the proper delegate for this most delicate assignment. Upon this initial confrontation on the soil of Honshu itself might rest the character of the entire occupation.
In the heavy downpour which again drenched Tokyo that day, one man drove to the conference hopeful of being chosen for the job. Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, the ambitious Chief of Intelligence for the Imperial Army, knew that his countrymen had to choose a high-ranking officer for this extraordinary post. Supremely confident of his own abilities, he believed that his experiences with ranking American officers before the war would stand him in good stead when the first Americans arrived and occupation began. But he had no doubt that his nomination would be challenged. He had many enemies among Foreign Office personnel, and they would probably try to prevent his selection. Arisue, a bantam-sized figure, enjoyed the prospect of a fight. A huge cigar clenched in his teeth, he got out of his limousine and walked into the midst of his enemies.
His surmise had been correct. The Foreign Office spokesmen quickly revealed their hostility. Harsh words filled the air when his name was brought up for consideration. He was called a Fascist, a friend of Mussolini, and therefore eminently unsuited for the sensitive chore of greeting MacArthur. Premier Higashi-Kuni was particularly outspoken in supporting this objection to him. Arisue hastened to take up the fight.
He could not deny that he and Mussolini had indeed become close during the period he had spent in Europe as part of his training. However, Arisue argued, just because he admired the Italian leader, it did not necessarily follow that he was a Fascist at heart.
The argument dragged on for some time, with Arisue striking back at his detractors. Perhaps because of his defiant stand, perhaps because there was nothing more positive against him than guilt by association, supporters rallied to his side at a late hour, and General Arisue won out over the faction at the Foreign Office. He was instructed to go to Atsugi Airbase the next day, August 24, to prepare for the arrival of the Americans within forty-eight hours.
When the cocky, bemedaled officer left the building and walked through the still pelting rain, he was both elated at his personal victory and appalled at the monumental challenge before him. Atsugi was a cauldron of intrigue, caused by dissident elements. It was also a badly damaged airstrip, in pitiable condition to receive the conquerors. Arisue went to bed wondering whether he could, in fact, cope with the responsibilities he had fought to assume.
At twelve o’clock the next day he had further reason to doubt. Before leaving the meeting the night before, he had requested seventy men to be present at the noon hour to go with him to the airfield. Just ten arrived at the appointed time.
General Arisue led a small caravan of cars down the dusty road to Atsugi past long columns of Japanese soldiers going the other way. Fully armed, they had been ordered to quit the area to avoid conflict with the approaching Americans. Tanks, artillery pieces and men moved steadily to the north and east as the small procession of black cars headed southwest to Atsugi and a rendezvous with the invader.
To Arisue the spectacle was unreal. His Japanese Army was leaving the field without having engaged the enemy. Unbeaten units were retreating from the beaches and defenses to which they had been assigned. Only the black limousines were traveling in the direction of the pending confrontation. Somewhere to the south, the enemy of recent years and days was preparing to fly into an airfield in strength and take control of his country. Seizo Arisue smoked his cigar in silence as he neared the airport.
When he arrived he saw that the base was a shambles. Hangars had been blasted apart by American bombs. Runways were pitted from frequent attacks. Not one of the bullet-ridden planes littering the field had a propeller.
Less than twenty-four hours before Arisue’s arrival, soldiers sent by Imperial General Headquarters had arrived from Tokyo to dismantle the engines and prevent any kamikazes from making last flights against the enemy. This action had precipitated a vicious battle between the Navy personnel based there and the Army visitors. With fists, pistols and pieces of furniture they had fought for the right to control Atsugi. Rooms in the barracks had been demolished, and walls and chairs were smeared with blood. But now the kamikazes were gone. Arisue went to work.
During the evening of the same day, the exhausted general was sitting near an open window going over the status of the work details. Suddenly a loud commotion sounded outside the barracks building. He poked his head out and yelled, “What the hell is going on?” There in the moonlight two soldiers were engaged in a deadly duel with swords. They had reached an impasse over the fact of surrender and had decided to settle the issue by fighting to the death outside General Arisue’s window. Their battleground was badly chosen. With the awesome responsibility of greeting the Americans before him, Arisue had no time for personal grievances. He roared through the stillness at the two combatants, who were so startled that they dropped their swords and slunk away in the darkness. General Arisue returned to his desk and a bottle of beer.
Back in Tokyo, General Seiichi Tanaka was sipping calpis—his favorite soft drink—with his aide in a room next to his office in the Dai Ichi building. He had spent the last twenty-four hours completing paper work. During the afternoon, his second son, Toshimoto, had come to visit him and the general had sent him away brusquely, saying, “Don’t disturb me tonight. I’ll be busy with a guest.”
The day before, Tanaka had been at home for a few quiet hours with his wife and the rest of his family. He played with his grandchildren and read poems in his bedroom. When he said his goodbyes and left the house under an umbrella, his wife handed his aide a revolver, whispering, “Please give this to him.”
A proud man, Tanaka had been bothered for months by the deterioration in Japan’s situation. He was a sensitive intellectual, more apt than most to suffer inner conflict over such a calamity. The general’s background was unlike that of most military leaders in Japan. For three years he had attended Oxford University where he had studied the works of Shakespeare. For one year, 1930, he had served as military attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Mexico City. In both places he was exposed to the more liberal philosophies of Western society. Yet in the last days of the war, Seiichi Tanaka’s Oriental heritage rather than his Western education dominated his thinking.
When he assumed the command of the Eastern Army group, he was entrusted with the defense of the Tokyo district. Yet he had watched helplessly as American planes flattened a different section of the capital on each raid. The raid of May 25, which partially destroyed the Emperor’s palace, had plunged him into complete despair. As sworn protector of Hirohito, Tanaka had wanted to atone for the misfortune by killing himself. Only the personal intervention of the Emperor had dissuaded him.
Unable to forget the enormity of the crime against the Throne, Tanaka continued to brood through the summer months. The attempted coup in the palace on the day of surrender was the final blow. He was shocked and hurt at the audacity of the young officers who besieged the Imperial enclave and killed others to thwart the expressed wishes of the Government. Though he succeeded in dispersing the rebels, he humbly apologized to the Emperor. Hirohito saw his agitation and expressed both appreciation for the general’s actions and hopes that Tanaka would continue to work for the nation.
Tanaka had done so. After the fifteenth, he continued with the demobilization of his troops and was instrumental in resolving a number of anti-surrender outbreaks in the capital. Now the Americans were about to land in his own area of supervision—the ultimate insult to his honor. His last public statement was made to a rebellious student group at Kawaguchi: “I am telling you as the commander of the Eastern District of Japan that Japan was defeated. We must demobilize. I know what is going on in your hearts but we must all think of His Majesty.
“You men all have bright futures. It is you who must lead Japan from now on. Begin again. The atom bomb has changed the state of war completely. It is the will of God that we abandon the long history of the Japanese Army. New generations will come. Please make an effort to construct a new nation.”
The young men before him and the general himself were crying when he finished.
Now, on the evening of August 24, he sat talking with his aide. The calpis he loved was followed by tea. As he finished it, he said fondly to the junior officer, “You have devoted your life to me,” then rose abruptly and went into the next room. His aide sat alone for about ten minutes, his eyes filled with tears. Then a soldier came to him and told him Tanaka wished to see him.
When the aide came to the doorway of the general’s office, he saw Tanaka sitting in an armchair, in full dress uniform. The two men stared at each other for an instant. Then Tanaka pulled the trigger of his pistol and tore his chest apart.
Carefully arranged on the desk beside him were his last bequests and mementos. There were six letters, his military cap, a pair of white gloves, and a gorgeous sword presented to him by the Emperor. Behind these stood a small statue of the Emperor Meiji, a cigarette case, two sacred books on Buddhism, an eyeglass case with eyeglasses, and a set of false teeth.
The general’s last message to his family was simple: “All of us devoted ourselves to His Majesty as military men but now I feel terrible that Japan has been defeated. I am going to die but I do not regret it at all. I cannot help but wish for the prosperity and health of our family.”
Mourners came to the office in the next hours. Mrs. Tanaka arrived and was impressively stoical in her acceptance of the death of her husband.
As she helped to change his uniform, badly stained with blood, a tall, bald-headed man stood to one side watching. General Gen Sugiyama, commander of the First Army, listened thoughtfully as Tanaka’s aide explained his reasons for committing suicide. Since Sugiyama himself was undergoing a painful examination of his own philosophy in these emotional days after surrender, Tanaka’s action came at a most crucial moment in his tortured thinking. Shortly thereafter the mustachioed Field Marshal paid his condolences to Mrs. Tanaka and left. Behind him the relatives and servants of Seiichi Tanaka placed his body in a wooden coffin.
Several hundred miles to the southwest of rainy Atsugi, another man was wondering exactly what conditions there were. He was particularly concerned because he was to be the first American soldier to set foot on Japan. He did not expect to live through the experience.
Charlie Tench, a colonel and West Point graduate, never thought of himself as a hero. As a member of MacArthur’s staff in Manila, he had spent most of the war planning details of various invasions. When the atomic bomb fell, Tench found himself temporarily out of a job.
On the afternoon of August 19, he was sitting in his room reading old magazines when he received an unexpected summons to the office of General Stephen Chamberlain. The general laid before him a challenging assignment. Somebody had to lead a party of men into Japan before the main force landed. Communications had to be set up, the runways at Atsugi made serviceable, and order established at the airfield.
The general outlined the negotiations currently in progress with the Kawabe delegation in Manila, then asked, “How would you like to command the advance group into Japan?” Tench was flattered, though a bit staggered at the thought of being the first one into enemy territory. He recovered quickly, however, and said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
When the Kawabe delegation left, final plans were made for Tench’s “invasion.” He and his men would go to Okinawa on the twenty-fifth and leave for Japan at midnight that same day. The intervening period would be utilized by the Japanese to quell any disturbances by the kamikazes.
Tench was not very happy about the fact that rebels still roamed through Japan. At the colonel’s mess in Manila, he endured the heavy humor of fellow officers who kept a betting pool on his chances for survival. Opinion was divided equally. Fifty percent thought his plane would be blown from the sky as it approached Atsugi. The others were sure that he would be murdered as he stepped from the plane. Tench was not amused. He was aware that General Kawabe had been worried about the unrest in his own country, and that he had implored the Americans to hold off occupation for at least ten days.
On the twenty-fifth, the advance party emplaned for Okinawa. It was buffeted by a typhoon, gaining strength in the area, and it did not reach Fifth Air Force Headquarters until noon of that day.
Tench went to the headquarters of General Whitehead and participated in a thorough briefing on the mission. Though no one openly suggested that the Japanese around Tokyo might resist the landing, everyone recognized that possibility. Tench was on edge but kept his thoughts to himself. As the afternoon progressed, the typhoon’s fury increased. The rains became a deluge, and the area around Atsugi in Japan lay in the middle of the storm. While the Japanese labored desperately to make the airfield ready, the Americans debated the wisdom of sending Tench out into the bad weather. In the evening, the answer came from Manila. A forty-eight-hour postponement was ordered. The Japanese had two more days to bring sanity to the airstrip, to control the unmanageable elements, to repair the damage to the base. Everyone in Japan, and particularly Colonel Charles Tench on Okinawa, breathed deeply in relief.
Japan was growing tense with fear.
In Gifu City, the mayor ordered all girls aged fifteen to twenty-five to go into the mountains to avoid American soldiers.
Women workers at the Nakajima Aircraft Company plant in Utsonomiya asked the factory manager for poison to swallow in case American soldiers tried to rape them. They were given cyanide capsules.
At the Kanto Kyogo Company, similar capsules were distributed to one thousand women workers in order to help them “maintain their honor as Japanese ladies” in case of attack.
In Tokyo itself, newspapers published a series of articles advising the people how to act toward the advancing Americans. Women were warned to wear loose-fitting clothes in order to appear less attractive to soldiers. In case they were attacked, they must “maintain their dignity while crying loudly for help.” Fathers and husbands were cautioned to remove their females to the countryside until the occupation was well underway. It was repeatedly stressed that women should not smile at strangers as they often did because Americans might misconstrue the basic Japanese friendliness as an invitation of another sort.
Above all, the citizens of Japan were reminded of the country’s proud spirit which would lead them to a better life in the coming years. The Government was attempting to shore up the confidence of the people, to restore some semblance of self-respect to the nation.
FROM THE JAPANESE IMPERIAL G.H.Q.
TO THE SUPREME COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS
RADIOGRAM NO. 13
SOME OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE ALLIED POWERS WITHOUT GIVING A PREVIOUS NOTICE CAME RY AIRPLANE TO SOME PLACES UNDER JAPANESE CONTROL FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKING CONTACT WITH OR GIVING COMFORT TO PRISONERS OF WAR OR CIVILIAN INTERNEES.… WE EARNESTLY REQUEST YOU TO PREVENT THE RECURRENCE OF SUCH INCIDENTS.…
The Japanese were complaining about the mercy teams sent from Gus Krause’s base at Hsian to various prison camps. They were afraid that such missions would cause bloodshed between Americans and still armed Japanese troops. So far, all of the parachute units dropped behind enemy lines had come through the ordeal unscathed, without suffering any killed or wounded. The fears of the officials at Chungking and Kunming had not materialized.
At Mukden, Hennessy’s team survived an initial fright and effected a complete success.
At Weischien, parachutists found their biggest problem the civilian internees. Overjoyed at the sight of healthy-looking Americans, some of the women proved almost unmanageable in their affection.
At Keijo, Korea, the American team was greeted by a Japanese officer, who begged them to go home before any trouble erupted. He offered them gasoline, then put them under protective custody. The next day the Americans returned to base without getting to the nearby POW camp. The commanding officer of the parachute team was promptly relieved of his duties by angered American superiors.
At Peking, a team under Major Roy Nichols jumped in to find the Japanese-held city already “pacified” by Jim Kellis and his small band. While tending to the needs of POW’s in the area, Nichols’ group, code-named Operation Magpie, solved a mystery that had disturbed American officials for over three years. Guided by a released internee, Hector Duberriere, the team overcame Japanese efforts at concealment and found the last survivors of two American bomber crews missing since 1942.
In April of that year, a group of B-25’s under General Jimmy Doolittle had been sent from the carrier Hornet to bomb Japan. On returning from the mission, eight airmen crash-landed in China and were trapped by the Japanese. Tried for “indiscriminate attacks on civilians,” the Americans were sentenced to death. Three were actually executed.
On October 15, 1942, Lieutenant Dean Hallmark, Lieutenant William Farrow and Sergeant Harold Spatz were led out to a cemetery in Shanghai. They knew they were about to die. The day before, they had written last letters home.
Farrow told his mother: “Read Thanatopsis by Bryan if you want to know how I am taking this. My faith in God is complete, so I am unafraid.” Spatz told his father that he loved him. Hallmark could not really believe he was going to be dead soon.
At the cemetery, the fliers were made to kneel before three wooden crosses to which their arms were tied. White cloths were wrapped around their foreheads. Black dots in the middle of each cloth marked the aiming point for the firing squad. The Americans died in a volley of rifle fire.
After the execution, Japanese soldiers placed the bodies in caskets and saluted the fallen warriors.
The sentences of the remaining crewmen were commuted to life imprisonment. Lieutenant Robert Meder lingered for over a year before dying of malnutrition, beri-beri and medical neglect. Of the surviving four, Sergeant James De Shazar became increasingly weak and was subject to visions. Lieutenants Robert Hite and Chase Nielsen remained in relatively fair condition, compared to George Barr, who was almost dead when he was rescued. Barr was hospitalized in China for months. The other three started for home immediately.
Elsewhere, the world was pleased by the announcement on August 24 of a peace pact. Chiang Kai-shek and Joseph Stalin, through their representatives T. V. Soong and V. M. Molotov, had agreed on a joint policy in the Far East, especially in the area of North China and Manchuria. Russia professed special interest in Port Arthur and Dairen, warm water ports on the Yellow Sea. China professed equal interest in Manchuria itself. Many points were thrashed out in the nine-part pact, but one in particular stood out. The Russians agreed “to render to China moral support and aid in military supplies and other material resources, such support and aid to be given entirely to the Nationalist Government and the Central Government of China.”
Regarding the declaration, The New York Times reflected general feeling in the United States when it observed: “The clouds of civil war that have darkened China’s horizon are already beginning to recede.”
Some interested parties did not think so. State Department officials in Washington were not sure that Stalin had guaranteed China anything. Others, like Ambassador Averill Harriman in Moscow, were disturbed to realize that since Soviet armies were already in control of Manchuria, Russian adherence to any agreement was strictly at the whim of the Kremlin. Worried Americans could only hope that Stalin meant to keep his word, and to maintain, among other things, an Open Door policy in China. It was a forlorn hope.
Russia had already formulated a far-reaching scheme for the entire Far East. In July a Japanese espionage agent had gained access to a Soviet committee report prepared especially for the pending Potsdam Conference. This ambitious policy paper outlined both a long-range strategy and short-term tactics. Ultimately it called for (1) the union of Japanese leftists with disaffected Army and Navy officers after the war in order to thwart the growth of an “American” democracy in Japan; (2) combination of Japanese industry with Chinese agriculture in a Sino-Japanese Leftists Union, which would eventually control the propertied classes in both countries; (3) the organization of both Korea and Formosa into Communist states.
For the immediate future, it suggested support for the agrarian class in Northwest China, and envisioned this group as an anchor of strength for the Russians in the Far East.
The Soviets acted on this last objective in August of 1945.
FROM THE JAPANESE G.H.Q.
TO THE SUPREME COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS
AUGUST 24, 1945
… IN CERTAIN LOCALITIES DISARMED JAPANESE FORCES AND CIVILIANS ARE BEING MADE VICTIMS OF ILLEGITIMATE FIRING, LOOTING, ACTS OF VIOLENCE, RAPE AND OTHER OUTRAGES.… THE SITUATION IS CERTAIN TO GET OUT OF CONTROL.…
On the Asian mainland, the Communists had just begun to fight. Soviet forces were swarming over the countryside. plundering like the Mongol hordes of the twelfth century. Already they had lanced through weakened Japanese fortifications along the Manchurian and Korean borders and were headed directly for the populous plains around Mukden and Port Arthur. Acting in concert with them, the long-besieged troops of Mao Tse-tung infiltrated from the caves of Yenan toward the big cities of North China in quest of guns and ammunition for the final battle to defeat Chiang Kai-shek. At Kalgan, near the Manchurian border, Russian soldiers captured a huge ammunition dump and turned it over to Communist guerrillas, an action specifically prohibited at the Yalta Conference. Stalin was beginning to break his agreements with the Chiang Kai-shek Government, with America, with all his wartime allies.
In North Korea, political officers of the Soviet Army agitated in the streets, exhorting the Korean civilians to expropriate all Japanese property. An “Executive Committee” of the Korean People was quickly formed as the Reds moved to set up a base for subversion of the masses. The discernible pattern was a familiar one; Russia had begun to seduce its newly won territories. Slowly a curtain of steel was being established around Stalin’s Far Eastern gains.
In North China, American OSS units in the field were virtually surrounded by militant Chinese Reds. Major Gus Krause’s prophecy of a new war was tragically accurate. In the countryside around the big cities, the Communists daily grew bolder. They blocked entrance to towns, they engaged in skirmishes with Nationalist and Japanese forces. They also killed their first American.
John M. Birch was a captain in the Air Force and a special agent attached to the OSS. From the main base at Hsian in North China, Birch operated in forays behind the Japanese lines. Fellow officers knew him as a quiet, unassuming person, devoid of any personality traits which would make him stand out in a crowd. Later, in fact, some at Hsian were hard pressed to recall anything at all unusual about him.
When Emperor Hirohito broadcast the news of surrender to the Japanese people, Captain Birch was at Lingchuan, in Anhwei Province, positioned there to take advantage of any precipitate enemy collapse. Within days, Birch received instructions from Hsian to proceed toward the city of Suchow in an attempt to ascertain Chinese Communist intentions in the area. The OSS was concerned about the growing menace from the Reds, and had ordered several teams to reconnoiter their territories for further information to be passed on to Washington. Birch headed toward the danger zone at the head of a mixed band of American, Chinese and Korean agents.
The boyish-looking captain with the protruding ears was exceedingly well qualified for his job. The son of a Baptist missionary, he had spent much of his life among the Chinese people. He was amazingly fluent in the varied dialects of the countryside, and had also acquired a profound understanding of the Chinese. He was deeply disturbed by the rising power of the Communist army among the peasants and firmly convinced that the Reds posed a tremendous threat to the future of the country. Now at noon of August 24, Captain Birch embarked on a supposedly routine journey to Suchow.
The trip was not easy. The unit went on foot, by boat and by train. Communists were in evidence on all sides. In the vacuum left by the retreating Japanese, they had come out into the open to assume control of key points. Entire sections of railroads were being systematically ripped up by Red guerrillas, who occupied much of the rural landscape. Birch became increasingly dismayed.
As the OSS team neared Suchow, Birch and the others were forced to proceed by foot due to increasing interference with rail travel.
On August 25, he and his party had advanced to within thirty miles of their objective. At a rail depot, they ran right into a Communist roadblock, set up to prevent access to the Japanese-held city.
Birch was furious. Already disturbed by the harassment imposed by the Reds during the arduous journey, he was incensed at this latest incident. He ordered his aide, a Nationalist officer named Tung, to find the Communist commander in charge and request permission to proceed into Suchow.
Tung found the man and repeated Birch’s instructions. The officer listened for a moment, then turned to an aide and said, “Here come some more spies.” He added that the Birch team should be disarmed.
Birch’s aide was horrified at this prospect and rushed back to the American captain to warn him. Birch immediately confronted the Chinese commander who had voiced the threat. “So you intend to disarm us. Are you bandits? Are you the man responsible for this situation?” When the officer said that he was not, Birch insisted that he be taken directly to the Chinese officer’s superior.
He told Tung, “I must find out who these soldiers belong to and who the commanding officer is.” Fearful of the consequences, others in the Birch party cautioned him to be more subtle in dealing with the belligerent Communists who now escorted him along the rail line. One of the Nationalist officers in the OSS team whispered to Tung, “Tell the captain to be more polite to this group.” Although Tung repeated the urgent message, Birch refused to change his attitude. He was disgusted with the hostile guerrillas and determined to have a showdown.
He spoke to Tung as they marched along: “I want to find out how they intend to treat Americans. I don’t mind if they kill me, for if they do, their movement will be finished. The United States will use the atomic bomb to stop their banditry.”
The Communists led the OSS team from one position to another, looking for the one officer Birch had requested permission to address. The American captain’s temper was growing shorter by the minute as he was forced to walk around and around in the custody of the Red guerrillas. Finally he exploded. Seizing the nearest officer by the collar, he shouted, “You’re worse than bandits.” His aide, Tung, said quickly to the officer, “He is only joking.”
In this tense atmosphere, a senior Communist officer appeared from a building and stood watching the two men shouting at each other. Suddenly he shouted, “Load your guns and disarm him.” His finger pointed directly at Captain Birch. Tung saw that Birch was in no mood to be coerced, and pleaded, “Wait a minute. I’ll get his gun for you.” The Communist officer in charge looked at him coldly and said to his men, “Shoot him first.”
A guerrilla cocked his gun and fired into Tung’s right leg near the hip. As he fell to the ground, another soldier fired at John Birch. Tung heard a man say, “Bring him along,” apparently in reference to Birch, who was lying in agony in the dust. Before Tung lapsed into unconsciousness, he heard Birch cry, “I can’t walk.”
The Communists dragged the OSS captain to another spot, where his hands were bound behind his back. He was then prodded into a kneeling position before his captors. A Communist officer stepped behind him, placed a pistol to his head and blasted a hole in his skull. The body sagged face down, blood spreading quickly from it. Then, perhaps to hinder identification, Birch’s face was repeatedly slashed with bayonets.
Several days later, other OSS agents found him, his hands still tied behind his back, his G.I. fatigues caked with blood. He lay in the dirt, his face a festering mass without any recognizable features. The body was photographed, wrapped in a white shroud and placed in a pine box. Taken to Suchow, Birch’s original destination, it was buried on the side of a hill overlooking the city. His murderers had long since vanished into the countryside.
The details of John Birch’s death were brought back to OSS headquarters. Pictures of his mutilated body were displayed to shocked American officials who could do nothing more than relay this latest symptom of Communist hostility and aggressiveness to Washington. They hoped that such evidence of Red tactics in China might alert the United States Government to take a more positive stance in the crucial weeks ahead.