Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [346]
On 11 August the Byrnes note was dispatched to the Japanese government. It reached Tokyo in the early hours of the twelfth, provoking bitter disappointment among the peace party. Togo, the foreign minister, was at first disposed to abandon his commitment to bow to Washington. Only with the utmost reluctance did Suzuki and Togo finally agree to accept Byrnes’s terms. The most surprising reactions came from some of the military. Deputy Chief of Staff Torashiro Kawabe declared that it was now too late to draw back from surrender, or to question the emperor’s decision. He wrote in his diary: “Alas, we are defeated. The imperial state we have believed in has been ruined.” Kawabe’s superior, Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, was nicknamed “the ivory mask.” He recognised that the war was lost. Toyoda, the naval chief, was similarly resigned. In contradiction to such private realism, however, in the presence of others all three persisted in holding out for conditions. Fearful of their own junior officers, they satisfied their “honour” by submitting a note to the emperor asserting that acceptance of the Byrnes note amounted to acceding to “slave status” for Japan. Hirohito sharply rebuked them, asserting that his own mind was made up. The nation must rely upon American good faith.
The army’s general staff drafted its own defiant response for the Supreme War Council to send to the Americans, asserting Japan’s determination to continue the war. Fantastically, it also emphasised Japan’s refusal to declare war on the Soviet Union, apparently in the hope that Russian mediation still offered a prospect of better terms. This document was never dispatched, of course, but staff officers continued to plot a coup to forestall surrender. Kawabe was told of their intentions, and equivocated. Anami listened to an outline of the coup plan, neither approved nor disapproved, but made suggestions for refining its execution. He agreed to the mobilisation of some units which could secure the Imperial Palace and arrest civilian ministers. Anami’s personal position had become further complicated the previous day, when Tokyo papers published in his name an exhortation to Japan’s soldiers to fight on, “even if we have to eat grass, chew dirt and sleep in the fields.” This display of bellicosity was in reality issued by junior officers without Anami’s knowledge. He refused to renounce the statement, however, because it reflected his personal convictions.
Signals were received from a succession of officers in the field, urging that the nation should fight on. Old Gen. Yasuji Okamura, directing Japan’s armies in China, cabled: “I am firmly convinced that it is time to exert all our efforts to fight to the end, determined that the whole army should die an honourable death without being distracted by the enemy’s peace offensive.” Field Marshal Terauchi spoke for his command: “Under no circumstances can the Southern Army accept the enemy’s reply.” Even by the standards of the Japanese military, in those days the conduct of its leaders was extraordinary. They seemed to care nothing for the welfare of Japan’s people, everything for their perverted concept of personal honour and that of the institution to which they belonged. They knew that continued military resistance was futile. Yet they deluded themselves that they not only could, but must, pretend otherwise. Anami told Kido that the army was utterly opposed to accepting the Byrnes note. Among the civilian politicians, some continued to