An Inoffensive Rearmament (5 page)

The devastation of Japan is a tragic testimony to the vulnerability of a modern nation to the horrendous destructive capability of massive air power. Hordes of American bombers had laid waste to the major cities of the country. Tōkyō, Ōsaka, Kōbe, Yokohama, and a score of other centers had been gutted. Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were A-bombed. Under this pounding from the skies, the Japanese industrial machine collapsed, and production in the home islands came to a virtual halt. When the bombing stopped, one-quarter of the nation's industrial capacity had been destroyed and another third of her physical plants had suffered severe damage. Eighty percent of the cotton textile plants had to be scrapped. Coal production deteriorated to the point where not enough coal was mined to operate railroads. Chemical production, so essential for industry and protection of public health, dropped to 21 percent of prewar years. The great steel mills of the nation were silent in the rubble, while the shipyards stood still, their rusting cranes and girders entwined in the stillborn vessels on the water. By November 1945, total industrial production in Japan had dwindled to 9 percent of the wartime peak.

More critical than the destruction of Japan's industrial capacity was the chaotic dislocation of the food supply system. Historically a food-deficit country, producing only 85 percent of its requirements during the war, Japan for years had been importing about 3 million tons of food a year, mainly from Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. By 1946, the food distribution system was hopelessly snarled. Whereas during the war years, rice collection from farmers produced 36 million
koku
, only 19 million
koku
were collected from farmers in the crop year of 1946.
¹
If it had not been for the timely shipment to Japan of nearly 900,000 tons of food donated by the United States, thousands of Japanese would have died of starvation. As it was, thousands still suffered from malnutrition. In the cities, hunger and misery were prevalent as people struggled to survive in the rubble in primitive shelters, in rags, without heat, and without food. Life was endurable only on farms, nearest to the source of food.

To compound this unrelenting misery, the population of Japan continued to explode. By 1949, 5 million of the 6,614,000 Japanese nationals, military and civilians, had been brought back from Southeast Asia, China, Manchuria, Korea, the Soviet Union, and islands of the Pacific. These teeming millions, joined by some 5 or 6 million newly born by 1950, brought the population of the country to approximately 83 million. Compressed into an area about the size of California, limited by topography to 15 million acres of cultivated land, with their industry and world trade disorganized, the people of Japan seemed indeed forsaken by their ancestors. For the family, naked survival became the sole purpose and objective of life.

The Japanese, however, know how to endure, and the struggle for existence took on the pattern of a giant anthill that had become cruelly disturbed. Farmers hardly left their fields, praying for rain and fertilizer. Fishermen made their delivery runs with torn nets and inadequate fuel for their engines. Workers reported to gutted mills and factories hungry, cold, and inadequately clothed. Those who were fortunate to have employment in an office slept on their desks for lack of better shelter. Hundreds of thousands were unemployed, while thousands of others shared the same job, doubling up. A driver of a motorcycle, for example, had to have an assistant driver, who was forced to perch perilously somewhere on the front wheel. Jobs meant survival.

As the demand for necessities grew, a vast black market was born to supply the needs of the people in cities. In this new venture, the farmer became the man of the hour. He manipulated his harvest to outwit the government rice-collecting agencies. An extra
koku
of rice that could be hidden from the collector brought the farmer riches and economic power. The city slickers who operated the black markets in the cities now journeyed daily into the country to pay homage to their sources of supply.

A key person in the black market operations was the “rice carrier.” This was a specialist in some instances, in others the family provider. The specialist customarily made two or three trips into the country a day to load liberated rice into a knapsack or a bag and carry the white gold to his or her town or city. A seasoned rice carrier was especially adept at evading or buying off the police. Often the most successful rice carrier was the policeman's wife.

While on the one hand the black market stimulated a fantastic surge in raw capitalism, producing many powerful black-market millionaires, the suffering of the masses in the devastated cities encouraged the growth of radical and subversive elements. The beleaguered housewives, waiting in line for their rice rations, were particularly susceptible to the influence of the radicals. Too often the ration distribution centers would run out of staples. On such occasions, the operator of the center would try to induce the housewives to accept sweet potatoes or some other substitute for rice. Only a Japanese person can understand what it meant to the women to be offered sweet potatoes instead of rice, their main staple. The radical provocateur, waiting for precisely such a breakdown in the distribution system, would rush forward to lead the housewives in a banzai charge on the rice
warehouse. The provocateur would then capture the rice and distribute it to his women warriors. Nothing won the appreciation of the housewives so much as a successful fight for their rice rations. It is reported that the heavy vote that the Japan Communist Party (Nihon Kyōsantō) delegate Yoshio Shiga received in his campaign for the Diet, or national parliament, representing the city of Ōsaka at that time, was owing in great measure to the success of his agents at the food distribution centers.

During these tragic years, most of the people existed through the exigency of what became known as “bamboo shoot living.” In their struggle for survival, the Japanese literally peeled the very clothes off their backs, one layer after another, like peeling bamboo shoots, to buy food for themselves and their families. Clothes, valuables, and household goods were pawned, family treasures sold, even military medals were traded for a bowl of rice. Yet during all these trying times, I saw individual Japanese walking the streets with toothpicks prominently poised in their mouths as though they had just finished a satisfying meal. Most dramatic of all were the unmatched and unbent heroes who in the spirit of the ancient samurai hungered and suffered rather than do anything dishonorable or break the law. The nation was traumatically shaken one day when the distinguished judge in the Tōkyō District Court, Yoshitada Yamaguchi, died of starvation rather than dishonoring himself by going to the black market.

When Prime Minister Yoshida greeted the Korean War with his quiet “It's the grace of heaven,” he was reacting only in part to the desperate economic situation that continued to face Japan in 1950. More important, Yoshida saw the Korean conflict as a God-given opportunity for an accelerated peace treaty and eventual independence for the nation. The “unconditional surrender” terms had brought to Japan American crusaders who tore the very fabric of the country, reorganizing the political, social, economic, and even religious patterns of the people. Japan trembled under the impact of these reforms and the consequences they ushered in.

The objectives of the occupation of Japan as formulated by the Allied powers and transmitted by the Far East Commission to the supreme commander for Allied powers (SCAP) were as follows:

       
1.
    
To ensure that Japan will not again become a menace to the peace and security of the world.

       
2.
    
To bring about the earliest possible establishment of a democratic and peaceful government that will carry out its international responsibilities, respect the rights of other states, and support the objectives of the United Nations. Such a government in Japan should be established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.

The Allied nations further agreed and directed SCAP that the above objectives should be achieved in the following manner:

       
1.
    
Japan's sovereignty will be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku, and such minor outlying islands as may be determined.

       
2.
    
Japan will be completely disarmed and demilitarized. The authority of the militarists and the influence of militarism will be totally eliminated. All institutions expressive of the spirit of militarism and aggression will be vigorously suppressed.

       
3.
    
The Japanese people shall be encouraged to develop a desire for individual liberties and a respect for human rights, particularly the freedoms of religion, assembly and association, speech, and the press. They shall be encouraged to form democratic and representative organizations.

       
4.
    
Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain its economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those that would enable it to rearm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials should be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade will be permitted.

Under these directives and policies, some of which were unusually harsh and restrictive but all of which were aimed at establishing a progressive modern democracy, General Douglas MacArthur, the fabulous supreme commander for Allied powers, carried on the greatest peacetime revolution the world has ever seen. First, the nation was completely and totally disarmed. Anyone remotely responsible for the war or supporting it, except the emperor, was purged. The purge list included all professional military officers, top politicians, and the nation's most successful and influential industrialists, bankers, and businessmen. A new ultra-democratic constitution was forced upon the country, humanizing the emperor, giving women the right to vote, and forever prohibiting military forces and war potential in the nation.

A host of American Army officers, DACs (Department of the Army civilians), consultants, economists, scientists, and all manner of experts scrambled over the rubble of Japan. The Japanese government, national and local, was reorganized. Americans introduced the election of governors, mayors, and hundreds of other officials who previously had been appointed to their post from Tōkyō. We helped the Japanese to recodify their laws and change their judicial system. We assisted in organizing labor unions, women clubs, farm and fishing cooperatives, and parents and teachers associations. We stimulated the Japanese to build new hospitals, to reform their penal system, and to reorganize their police forces. Proudly we guided the reorganization of a democratic educational program, initiated private and public welfare programs, and helped to establish an extensive system of medical care centers. Most significant, we introduced a land reform program in which the Japanese government achieved what the communists had promised when they had turned land over to millions of families who for centuries had worked the soil daily but had not owned it.

The Americans and the Japanese who labored on these great programs can be proud of a job well done. Some of the tax reforms may have been imposed autocratically and by coercion, but the result was to bring a great nation more completely into a progressive world.

From the American point of view, it was a benevolent occupation. We labored for Japan as conscientiously as we had fought for America. If there were mistakes, they were sincere mistakes stemming from lack of understanding of Asian culture rather than from malice. Many Americans returned to the United States thoroughly Nipponized, singing the praises of the Japanese people. On their side, thousands of Japanese admiring power, especially foreign power, became astonishingly American, or so it seemed.

In commenting on the historical significance of the occupation on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the Japanese surrender, General MacArthur said, “I dare say that no occupation in history has been subject to such an extraordinary divergence of opinion carried in the media of public expression than has the occupation of Japan. Some writers have been extravagant in their praise, others no less extravagant in their criticism. Simultaneous attacks have been leveled against occupation policy by the leftists as too revolutionary and by conservatives as too liberal. The truth, awaiting the judgement of history, will rest somewhere in
between.” He concluded his statement with the words, “Of the Japanese people I can pay no higher tribute than to repeat that they have fully and faithfully fulfilled their surrender commitments and have earned the freedom and dignity and opportunity which alone can come with the restoration of a formal peace.”

With the crisis breaking in Korea, the Japanese people were to demonstrate a deep appreciation for their conquerors. They could have turned against us, as so many conquered people have done in history, but instead they not only remained friends but actually became allies. Thousands of young Japanese volunteered to serve in American military forces to help us in Korea. And when American wounded returned to hospitals in Japan and blood for our troops was not available from the United States, thousands of Japanese men and women, the common people, gave their blood. We were all grateful for their cooperation and support. I regret to say, however, that too many Americans have failed to understand that the Japanese have their own vital interests as a nation that sometimes coincide with our own but on occasion diverge.