Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (121 page)

Yoshihashi's observation of “exhaustion and bewilderment” on the part of the people is worth noting. By March factory production had started to fall; absenteeism was on the rise; so too were instances of lèse majesté—always of keen concern for the Imperial Household Ministry. Over the next five months, members of the militarized imperial family as well as the senior statesmen would speak of a crisis of the
kokutai
. The threat from within that Konoe had warned of seemed more and more palpable. Yet until the very end, most Japanese people, whether living in the country or large urban areas, remained steadfast in their resolve to obey their leaders and to work and sacrifice for the victory that they were constantly told was coming.

Two days after Hirohito's inspection of bomb damage in the
capital, no less a person than retired foreign minister Shidehara Kij
r
, once the very symbol of cooperation with Britain and the United States, gave expression to a feeling that was widely held by Japan's ruling elites at this time: namely, Japan had to be patient and resist surrender no matter what. Shidehara had earlier advised Foreign Minister Shigemitsu that the people would gradually get used to being bombed daily. In time their unity and resolve would grow stronger, and this would allow the diplomats “room to devise plans for saving the country in this time of unprecedented crisis.”
¹⁹

Now, on March 20, 1945, Shidehara wrote to his close friend
daira Komatsuchi, the former vice president of the South Manchurian Railway Company, that, “[i]f we continue to fight back bravely, even if hundreds of thousands of noncombatants are killed, injured, or starved, even if millions of buildings are destroyed or burned,” there would be room to produce a more advantageous international situation for Japan. With the country facing imminent absolute defeat, Shidehara still saw advantages in turning all of Japan into a battlefield, for then the enemy's lines of supply would become longer, making it more difficult for them to continue the war and giving diplomats room to maneuver.
²⁰
This was the mind-set of the moderate Shidehara; it was probably shared by Hirohito.

One day before American troops landed on Okinawa, while rumors were circulating in high court circles of an imminent cabinet change, Konoe allegedly remarked to his secretary, Hosokawa, that soon “the army will increasingly brandish the notion of fighting to the death. But Kido['s]…mind is completely set on [Chief of the General Staff] Anami. Considering our
kokutai
, unless the emperor assents to it, we can do nothing. When I think of the madmen leading the present situation, I can't help but feel weary of life.”
²¹

Konoe at that moment may well have included Hirohito among the “madmen.”

On April 5, three days after Hirohito ordered an end to peace maneuvers in China through an ex-Kuomintang official (one Miao
Ping [My
Hin], whom Koiso strongly supported), and five days into the Battle of Okinawa, the emperor and Prime Minister Koiso parted ways.
²²
Blaming Koiso for Japan's succession of military defeats from Leyte to Iwo Jima, Hirohito brought down his cabinet. Hirohito now chose his former grand chamberlain and trusted adviser, seventy-eight-year-old retired Adm. Suzuki Kantar
, to lead a new government. At that time neither the emperor nor Suzuki was considering any policy change that might lead to ending the war. It was only
after
the Battle of Okinawa had been fought and horribly lost, leaving huge sections of more than sixty Japanese cities leveled by American incendiary air attacks, that Hirohito indicated his desire for peace and started looking for ways to end the war.

In Kido's diary the first clear indication that the emperor would be asked to think seriously of an early peace appears on June 8, 1945, when Kido prepared his own “Draft Plan for Controlling the Crisis Situation.” It was a pivotal moment. This was after the Imperial Palace had been inadvertently bombed, all hope of saving Okinawa had been lost, and on the day that the Supreme War Leadership Council adopted the “Basic Policy for the Future Direction of the War.”
²³
Fighting in Europe had ended. Japan was now completely alone. Kido's “plan,” a nebulous one, called for seeking the Soviet Union's assistance as a go-between so that Japan could obtain more leverage in negotiating with its enemies. By drafting it Kido indicated that he had ended his long honeymoon with the military hard-liners. By accepting it Hirohito indicated that he was at last ready for an early peace.

With the empire collapsing around him, Hirohito entered a period of high tension and emotional depression. In mid-June, shortly after hearing from Kido about the status of the underground bunker in the mountains of Matsushiro, Nagano prefecture, that had been constructed for transferring him and the Imperial Headquarters, he became sick and was forced to cancel his scheduled
activities.
²⁴
Only with great effort did he fulfill a promise to visit his mother on the afternoon of June 15. On June 22 Hirohito himself finally informed the Supreme War Leadership Council directly of his desire to commence diplomatic maneuvers to end the war. According to Kido's summary, the emperor told the assembled war leaders that the decision at the imperial conference on June 8 “concerned the leadership of the war.” Now he wanted them “quickly to complete concrete studies concerning the conclusion of the war, without being confined to the former [decision], and bring it to a realization.” He also added that they were not to lose the chance for peace by being overly cautious.
²⁵
But neither Hirohito nor anyone else in the room was thinking of immediate capitulation. They were thinking only of an early peace and committing themselves just to that.

In early July, after Soviet ambassador Jacob Malik had broken off his inconclusive talks in Japan with former prime minister Hirota, Hirohito for the first time, showed a keen interest in expediting direct negotiations with the Soviet Union by dispatching a special envoy to Moscow. But neither the emperor nor the Suzuki government ever devised a concrete plan on the basis of which the Soviets could mediate an end to hostilities, assuming the Soviets were ever interested in doing so, which they were not. In the Japanese approach to war termination, negotiation with the Soviets to guarantee the emperor's political position and the future of the monarchy was always accorded more importance than the search for peace to end the killing and suffering.
²⁶

From April 8, 1945, until its capitulation, the Suzuki government's chief war policy was “Ketsug
,” a further refinement of the “Sh
sang
” (Victory Number 3) plan for the defense of the homeland.
²⁷
Its defining characteristic was heavy reliance on suicide tactics, and the manufacture of weapons solely for the purpose of suicide missions using massive numbers of kamikaze “special attack” planes, human torpedoes shot from submarines, dynamite-filled
“crash boats” powered by truck engines, human rocket bombs carried by aircraft, and suicide charges by specially trained ground units. While preparations for Operation Ketsu went forward, on June 9 a special session of the Imperial Diet passed a Wartime Emergency Measures Law and five other measures designed to mobilize the entire nation for that last battle.