Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [124]
Lieutenant General Saburo Endo of Army Air Force Headquarters stated, “Those responsible for control at the beginning of the war did not recognize the true value of aviation . . . therefore one defeat led to another. Although they realized there was a need for merging the army and the navy, nothing was done about it. There were no leaders to unify the political and the war strategies, and the plans executed by the government were very inadequate. National resources were not concentrated to the best advantage.”
In short, in Japan’s military, parochialism trumped efficiency at every turn.
A Losing Proposition
Why Tokyo persisted with a losing war for so long remains an enduring question. The closest comparison is found in Nazi Germany, which received about 1.3 million tons of bombs in the Heimat (homeland) and slightly more throughout the greater Reich. In contrast, Japan itself was subjected to “merely” 161,000 tons of conventional ordnance plus the equivalent of some 35,000 tons in two atomic weapons. At least 330,000 Japanese died by bombing whereas Germany’s toll (inflicted over five years versus fourteen months) might run almost twice as much. The salient point is that neither regime in Tokyo or Berlin ended the war out of concern for massive civilian suffering until excruciating pain and unprecedented destruction had been inflicted.
How then to explain Japan’s insistence upon apocalyptic ruin?
A recurring theme in statements of military and civilian leaders is the profound belief that defeat equaled an end to Japan’s national existence. In his memoir, onetime foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu wrote, “Day by day Japan was turned into a furnace from which the voice of the people searching for food rose in anguish. And yet the clarion call was accepted. If the emperor ordained it, they would leap into the flames.”
Vice Admiral Takejiro Onishi, father of the kamikazes, provided insight to the warped perception of the Japanese high command. In March 1945, a month before the invasion of Okinawa, he issued a statement from Taiwan. He conceded that “the enemy’s offensive operations are drawing ever nearer to the home islands, and air raids . . . are getting more severe by the day . . . [and] the logistical situation . . . has become dire.” However, in the same paragraph he asserted, “I can guarantee absolutely that Japan will not lose . . . the war is just beginning.”
Onishi further stated that the expected Allied invasion would be repelled with “acceptable” Japanese casualties of 3 to 5 million, though he allowed that eventually 20 million might perish. Nevertheless, with sufficient “Japaneseness of spirit” the struggle might be maintained for years or even decades.
Nor was Onishi a lone voice. Historian Alvin Coox quoted a staff officer who served at Imperial General Headquarters in 1945: “we must fight in order to glorify our national and military traditions; that it was an engagement which transcended victory or defeat.”
Against an enemy who seemed bent upon extinction, there was precious little middle ground for the Allies. The cultural divide between Japan and the West represented far more than a gap: it was a vast chasm.
Those Westerners in Japanese hands immediately recognized that abyss, evident in matters great and small. For instance, in April 1945 a B-29 named Mrs. Tittymouse crashed in Tokyo’s Chofu district. A group of soldiers and civilians quickly gathered to examine the remains of the giant machine. The men noted the professional-quality nose art depicting a full-figured nude, which they regarded approvingly. Women were disgusted at the men’s reaction.
The Japanese response reflected an inability to absorb the nature of the enemy. As an American historian living in Japan has said, “The gawkers were less offended by the nose art itself than by the fact that they were being bombed by