Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (105 page)

The last step was the countersigning of the war rescript by the ministers of state so as to maintain the fiction that Emperor Hirohito, a genuine and truly constitutional monarch, sanctioned great
policy changes only in accordance with the advice of his cabinet ministers. Thus was the finishing touch applied to the Japanese system of irresponsibility designed under Meiji.

Before dawn on December 8, Tokyo time, the Imperial Navy and Army launched nearly coordinated surprise attacks at Singora and Kota Bharu. More than an hour later, they struck at the well-defended American naval base at Pearl Harbor, and several hours later at Clark Air Base in central Luzon, thus hitting the main supports of the rising American empire in Asia. President Roosevelt now had the war he did not want, with the country he regarded as a secondary threat to American security.

The diaries of Privy Seal Kido and Hirohito's naval aide, J
, allow us to follow the emperor hour by hour on that first day of the “War of Greater East Asia.” According to J
, “[T]he forces heading for Malaya started landing at Singora at 1:30
A.M
. and completed the landing at 4:30
A.M
. At 2:30
A.M
. the foreign minister [T
g
] presented the emperor with a message from President Roosevelt,” which (according to the recollection of a chamberlain) seemed to annoy him.
¹¹¹
And J
continued:

C
onfronted with military strangulation by oil embargoes and the choice of admitting defeat in China, thereby abandoning a large part of his continental empire and probably destabilizing the monarchy he had inherited, Hirohito opted for his third alternative: war against the United States and Britain. Like most of his top commanders he believed that Germany would triumph over Britain as it already had over all of Europe. If certain strategic schedules were quickly achieved, Japan would be able to counter superior American productive capacity and force at least a standoff with the United States.
¹
Having made his choice, Hirohito dedicated himself totally to presiding over and guiding the war to victory at all costs. It was a most demanding and absolutely vital role.

Yet Hirohito was rarely adequate when exceptionally strong personal leadership was needed to coordinate and control the decentralized power structure and mediate conflicts between the general staffs and their ministries. Too inhibited and slow in producing ideas, he was never able to surmount rivalries between the military services and thereby maintain their unity of purpose and effort. This proved costly. What Hirohito did was provide his chiefs of staff with continuous oversight based on his strong sense of responsibility for the empire and, ultimately, the interests of the imperial house. He also reinforced their belief in the inherent superiority of offense over defense. Optimistic by nature, he approached
difficult military situations with the attitude that the troops could succeed if only they tried harder. On the other hand, before approving campaign plans he was habitually cautious. He not only looked for what could go wrong and expected that it quite likely would, but actually
predicted
it would unless the high command took some action that he recommended. Hard-won experience had made him a deeply suspicious leader who did not have full confidence in the way his army high command conducted operations. He was pointed, sometimes extremely harsh, in criticizing command errors and rebuking overconfidence.

Although Hirohito never visited the war theaters as did other commanders in chief, he exercised a decisive and controlling influence on theater operations, both in planning and execution, whenever he chose to do so. As during the first four years of the China war, he went on issuing the highest military orders of the Imperial Headquarters, and sometimes audited the conferences that led to the decisions transmitted in his name. He continued to receive in audience generals and admirals returning on duty from the Pacific and China battlefronts. He publicly encouraged and praised front-line units (and, later, home-front organizations). He continued sending messages and messengers to the fronts, and bestowing rescripts (which carried far more honor and prestige than did presidential citations for American commanders) on meritorious officers. He carefully edited his rescripts to be sure exactly what words were used. He visited bases, battleships, and various army and navy headquarters. He inspected military schools, granted audiences to industrial leaders to encourage production, took a keen interest in weapons development, and everywhere drove home the message of sacrifice for the state.

But Hirohito's greatest strength during the war years may have been his ability to transform his natural reticence and inhibitions into a quality of leadership. His charisma resided in his whole imperial being, as distinct from his rather ordinary human qualities—in
the myth of his ancient lineage and the traditions and obligations of emperorship over the centuries, down into the modern period of pure invention and manipulation by image makers. In many ways it was his stubborn persistence and determination not to fail as a monarch that helped him to survive the war.

The architects of the Meiji constitution of 1889 could not have foreseen an emperor with Hirohito's rigid character yet capacity for tolerating institutional change. Nor could his teachers at the Ogakumonjo have anticipated the great Asia-Pacific war that he would initiate, guide, and—after prolonged vacillation—end. Nevertheless, by empowering the emperor militarily as supreme commander, ultimately and solely responsible for declaring and waging war and making peace, It
and his colleagues decades earlier had burdened the yet unborn Sh
wa emperor with enormous responsibilities from which he could have no escape so long as he ruled.

There were also religious duties—the very essence of his inherited position—which some of his predecessors had found so onerous that they abdicated rather than be bothered with them. Hirohito clung to his religious obligations even in wartime. He also continued to perform ceremonies such as the annual
utakai-hajime
poetry party, at which he and his officials judged
waka
submitted by his subjects.

Since he had staked the destiny of the nation and the protection of his throne on war, it was more than ever necessary to invoke the favor of the Shinto deities. Thus, from the diary of Privy Seal Kido K
ichi a year and three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor:

From the diary of Lt. Comm. J
Eiichir
, naval aide-de-camp to the emperor: