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World
WarII
in the
Pacific
This page intentionally left blank
 World
WarII in the
Pacific
(second edition of Never Look Back)

MARK D. ROEHRS WILLIAM A. RENZI

AND
 First published 2004 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2004 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by

any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to
persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise,
or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas
contained in the material herein.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should
be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for
whom they have a professional responsibility.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and

are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roehrs, Mark D., 1965–

World War II in the Pacific / Mark D. Roehrs, William A. Renzi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7656-0835-9 (alk. paper)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Area. 2. World War,
1939–1945—United States. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Japan. 4. Pacific Area—
History. I. Title: World War Two in the Pacific. II. Title: World War 2 in the Pacific.
III. Renzi, William A., 1941– IV. Title.

D767 .R64 2003

940.54’26—dc21 2002036576

ISBN 13: 9780765608369 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 9780765608352 (hbk)
 Contents

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Preface to the First Edition ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii

1. Rising Sun 3
Japan Comes of Age • The Meiji Restoration • The First
Sino–Japanese War • The Russo–Japanese War •
America’s Growing Pacific Empire • World War I
2. The Road to Pearl Harbor 20
The Washington Treaty System • Victory of the Japanese
Militarists • The China Incident
3. Planning Operation Hawaii 44
Yamamoto’s Plan • American Attitudes on the Eve of the War •
The Attack on Pearl Harbor • The Results of the Attack
4. From Pearl Harbor to the Java Sea 67
MacArthur and the Philippines • The War Spreads •
The Fall of the Philippines • More Japanese Victories •
A New Kind of War
5. Coral Sea and Midway 86
The Doolittle Raid • The Battle of the Coral Sea and Its
Consequences • Midway
6. First Allied Land Victories 105
Fighting on New Guinea • Guadalcanal and Related Actions •
The Japanese Are Driven from New Guinea • American
Strength and the New Technology of War • The Debate over
the Theaterwide American Strategy of Island Hopping •
Implementing Island Hopping in the Central Pacific
 7. The Marianas and the Philippines 131
The Marianas • MacArthur Returns to the Philippines •
The Battle of Leyte Gulf • The Kamikazes • Leyte
and Luzon Islands • Western Prisoners of War •
The Liberation of the Philippines
8. Submarines, Firebombs, and Survival 154
Submarine Warfare • Life in Japan • Tokyo Rose
and Japanese Wartime Propaganda • Japan Prepares for
Invasion • Japanese Americans in the United States
9. The China–Burma–India Theater 181
China • Burma and India • The Significance of the
CBI War
10. The Final Campaigns 200
Iwo Jima • Okinawa • The B-29 • LeMay and Firebombing •
Operation Downfall and the Atomic Bomb
11. Allied Endgame 223
Allied and American Postwar Planning • American Military
Plans for Victory • American Diplomatic Efforts for Peace •
The Soviet Union Enters the Pacific War
12. Japan Surrenders 239
The Emperor and the Japanese Cabinet • Peace
Feelers • The Decision to Surrender • Never Look Back

Index 261
About the Authors 269
 Preface to the
Second Edition

This second edition is offered both as an improvement upon the first and in
response to the impressive volume of manuscripts added to the historiogra-
phy of the Pacific War during the last decade. While few startling new revela-
tions have been offered, much of the work is extremely thoughtful and has
served to both broaden and deepen our understanding of the characters and
events of that conflict. This is especially true regarding areas once overlooked
or treated only peripherally by the standard texts, including the role of the
comfort women, internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry, the
conduct and effects of the American firebombing campaign, eyewitness nar-
ratives, and the American approach to war termination without the atomic
bomb. Certain biographies and memoir collections have also proven useful
in shedding new light on key individuals in the struggle. Possibly the most
interesting development of the past decade, however, has been the debate
over the American use of the atomic bombs and their place in the public
memory. These new studies have helped better explain a crucial period in
history and, while not displacing the classic texts, have contributed signifi-
cantly to the richness and fullness of our understanding.
More significantly, the addition of two new chapters dealing with the road
to war and the war’s conclusion greatly strengthens the narrative of this sec-
ond edition. The opening chapter incorporates much of the rich new scholar-
ship on Japan’s development between the Meiji Restoration and the outbreak
of World War I. Japan’s ambitions and motives in the war are made clearer
by greater study of the course of Japanese modernization. The chapter en-
titled “Allied Endgame” describes the Allied and American plans for war
termination conceived of prior to the development of the atomic bomb, as

vii
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

well as the means for obtaining Japan’s capitulation short of deployment of

that weapon. It also reflects one of the most dynamic current trends of re-
search on the Pacific War.

viii
 Preface to the
First Edition

This book exists for several reasons. First, the authors have devoted years to
the study of World War II, one having had his interest in the topic begun by
the late Gordon W. Prange, for whom he was graduate assistant for five years.
In the last decade, moreover, a spate of fresh primary and secondary source
materials has become available. As our bibliography attests, we have made
liberal use of these riches, together with, of course, the best of the old, or
standard, works on the topic that are likely to remain classics.
We have concentrated on the Japanese-American episodes of the conflict
in “The Great Pacific War” (which is what the war is called in Japan) for the
simple reason that they were decisive. British participation, as well as Aus-
tralian and New Zealander efforts in the struggle and the China–Burma–
India theater, are all dealt with, but not to the same degree. We do not mean
to negate or disparage the action in these other theaters, but since the conflict
was primarily a Japanese-American one, this central perspective is main-
tained in order to retain a balanced narrative.
The reader will remember, of course, that Japan lies across the Interna-
tional Date Line. Like almost all other authors, we have retained zone times
(also known as “local,” “real,” or “actual” times) in the narrative. Thus, De-
cember 7, 1941, was December 8 in Japan, and Pearl Harbor Day, a national
holiday by imperial proclamation, was celebrated on December 8 in Japan
during the war years. We have not used a standard system of transliteration
for “oriental” names, for the simple reason that many of the actors are al-
ready well known and being doctrinaire in the matter might well be confus-
ing; in most instances, we have employed the usual or most common
transliteration for the family names involved.

ix
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

We have tried to give both the Japanese and American points of view
toward the conflict, in both its origins and actual conduct. The American side
is relatively well known to many English-language readers; the Japanese
side, perhaps less so. We have tried to keep a relatively even balance, but if
we tend occasionally to explain Japanese motives and values a bit more than
American ones, it is in the simple belief that they will be of greater interest to
the reader.

x
 Acknowledgments

I am greatly indebted to many people for their assistance in making this

manuscript possible. I would like especially to thank my friends and col-
leagues Doctors Jim Lorrence and Chris McDonald for reading drafts of the
text and offering valuable insights and suggestions. I am grateful to my edi-
tor, Andrew Gyory, for his patience, and for giving me the chance to accom-
plish this work. I am greatly in debt to my wife, Laurie, and daughter,
Elizabeth, for allowing me the opportunity and inspiring the motivation to
complete this task. Finally, I owe an unrepayable debt to the late Dr. William
A. Renzi for encouraging me to pursue my love of history. He passed away
when the first edition was released, and his absence in preparing this second
edition has been sorely felt. Naturally, though many have contributed to the
making of this text, any errors contained in it are my own.

xi
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

The Pacific War has provided subject matter for numerous textbooks, battle
studies, personal memoirs, unit histories, and biographies. Collectively these
works constitute a rich and enormous, if not exhaustive, reference resource
base. And though they are very valuable within the field, the following weak-
nesses have tended to limit their usefulness within the typical classroom.
These books, while well researched and often painstakingly documented,
are often too detailed or specific for the general user, and often fail to deliver
a broad context for the material they contain. A further significant drawback
to many of these volumes is that they focus primarily, if not exclusively, on
the Allied, or more often, American, experience of the war. Similarly, many
of these books concentrate on specific aspects of the war, such as battles,
weapon systems, individuals or groups, or political figures. Consequently,
few of these works attempt to place the struggle in any form of historical or
global context. The purpose of this text is to synthesize and present the vital
elements of the history of the Pacific War in a format specifically suited to
the novice historian, and, when appropriate, to suggest directions for further
investigation.
This volume concisely bridges the gaps left by the other literature of the
war and delivers a rational, systematic, and thorough survey of the entire
scope of the Pacific War. Beginning with the background and situations that
led up to the war, and proceeding through the course of the fighting, this
survey gives special attention to the significant personalities and events af-
fecting all parties involved in the conflict as well as the military, political,
economic, and social developments during the war. It is the author’s inten-
tion that this brief history of the Pacific War will serve to introduce readers to
the various broad themes of the conflict and provide an evenhanded over-
view of the war’s most significant features. To that end, the narrative begins
over half a century before the attack on Pearl Harbor, or even the Japanese
seizure of Manchuria.
xiii
 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 begins in mid-nineteenth-century Japan with the so-called “Meiji

Restoration,” which ousted the decrepit Tokugawa shogunate and brought a
new, constitutional government to power under the nominal leadership of the
boy emperor. This new leadership launched Japan into a period of unprec-
edented growth, and extended Japanese interests into China and the North-
ern and Central Pacific, where they encountered an expanding United States,
also feeling the flush of expansionistic energy and the desire to exploit the
resources of the vast Pacific basin. This contact resulted in mixed feelings on
the parts of both nations as racism and ultra-nationalism fueled the natural
rivalry between them. The chapter ends with Japan and the United States
playing a limited military role in the primarily European conflict of 1914–
19, though both countries profited from their participation in the war.
Chapter 2 begins with the victorious Allies establishing military limita-
tions in 1921 in hopes of preventing a repeat of the events that had led to war
in the previous decade. The U.S. and Japanese navies that confronted each
other in the Pacific during the 1940s were very much a creation of these
treaty stipulations. Close examination of the political situation in Japan dur-
ing the 1920s reveals a growing militarism in political circles and increasing
influence on the part of the active duty officers who held the posts of minis-
ter of the army and minister of the navy in the prime minister’s cabinet. The
Japanese were anxious to exploit the trade and territorial expansion that had
accompanied the reduction of European influence in the Pacific during World
War I. The Americans likewise hoped to increase their presence in the mar-
kets of Asia, and viewed the Japanese as both competitors and potential en-
emies, as is clear in American “Orange” plans for hostilities. The chapter
ends with the Americans and Japanese viewing each other with barely con-
cealed hostility as Japan sinks deeper into the China quagmire with little
hope for an easy or immediate extrication.
Chapter 3 details the Japanese planning and execution of one of the most
daring and successful military actions of all time, the attack on the U.S. na-
val forces stationed at Pearl Harbor. From the selection of Adm. Yamamoto
Isoroku, through the extensive planning and preparation, to the nearly com-
pletely successful execution of the plan, the author draws from the landmark
works of Gordon Prange to give insight into how the attack was accom-
plished, why it caught the Americans so thoroughly by surprise, and how it
fulfilled the reasonably limited hopes of its author and designer, while at the
same time leaving Japan susceptible to the rapid and devastating retaliation
of the United States.
Chapter 4 is a litany of Allied defeats and Japanese successes. As Yamamoto
had promised, his forces “ran wild” for the first six months after Pearl Harbor
and captured an empire for Japan that reached from the Indian Ocean to the

xiv
 INTRODUCTION

islands of the Central Pacific, and from the westernmost Aleutian Islands to
the jungles of New Guinea. The forces of Great Britain, France, Holland,
Australia, and the United States were nearly powerless in the face of the
rapid Japanese onslaught, though some of the emperor’s gains were dearly
bought. The Japanese war machine surpassed all of its timetables and achieved
a victory so vast that it left the citizens of the empire suffering from what
some historians have termed “victory disease,” or the feeling that defeat was
impossible. Perhaps the Japanese fortunes in their subsequent campaigns
were symptoms of this affliction.
The Japanese were not nearly as meticulous in the planning, nor as suc-
cessful in the execution, of their next operations. Chapter 5 details the Allied
successes in the Doolittle Raid, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the turning
point Battle of Midway. A combination of bravado, technology, and luck was
responsible for turning the tide of the Pacific War during 1942. Col. James
Doolittle’s daring daytime raid of Tokyo in April 1942, employing long-range
bombers flown from aircraft carriers, shook the Japanese high command’s
sense of invulnerability and negated a promise they had made to the citi-
zenry of the empire that the war would never be brought to the homeland.
The fighting in the Coral Sea witnessed the first battle in history in which the
primary contestants never visually contacted one another. Carrier-based fighter
and bomber forces struck at their foes over vast expanses of ocean with both
sides managing to sink one of the other’s precious aircraft carriers. The battle
saved the Allied base at Port Moresby, but more importantly, it changed the
face of naval warfare forever. Yamamoto’s knockout blow, conceived to de-
stroy U.S. naval strength in the Pacific at the tiny Central Pacific atoll called
Midway, indeed achieved a devastating result, though not the one its de-
signer had intended. American code-breakers learned of the Japanese plan
and laid a trap for the massive Imperial force. The resulting struggle cost
Japan four of its best aircraft carriers and, more importantly, the initiative for
the remainder of the war. After Midway, the Allies would determine where
and when the next fight would take place.
While Midway had disabled the Japanese navy, its land forces were still
very much intact. Chapter 6 discusses the first significant Allied effort to wrest
territories from the Japanese that they had conquered during their earlier ad-
vance through the Pacific. The remote and heretofore virtually unknown island
of Guadalcanal became the site of some of the fiercest and most protracted
land fighting of the Pacific War. Little quarter was asked or given in the brutal,
often fanatical, fighting. Both the Allies and the Japanese committed their
strength and determination to securing the island. Between August 1942 and
February 1943, tens of thousands of American and Japanese soldiers fought
and died in the malarial jungles of this tiny island in the South Pacific. After

xv
 INTRODUCTION

Guadalcanal, the process of isolating or “hopping” islands became the stan-

dard technique of the advancing Allied forces, often stranding thousands of
Japanese soldiers on island garrisons where they could not be resupplied or
play any significant role in the remainder of the conflict. This process worked
splendidly in the Solomon Island chain along the coast of New Guinea, and
into the Marshall and Caroline Islands of the Central Pacific.
The campaigns of 1944 found the two prongs of the Allied advance ap-
proaching the Central Pacific’s Mariana Island chain as well as the Philip-
pines. Chapter 7 describes the desperate battles waged by the Japanese
defenders of the regions they now considered the outer boundaries of the
home islands. The Japanese had initiated a substantial colonization effort on
Saipan in the Marianas, and had launched the largest surface action since
Midway to try and safeguard it. The ensuing battle, known as the “Marianas
Turkey Shoot” was a disaster for the Japanese, as were the suicidal defenses
of the island’s garrisons. The Allied threat to the Philippines and, by exten-
sion, Japan’s lifeline to its southern resources region brought forth the larg-
est naval battle of all time. The Battle of Leyte Gulf included the participation
of hundreds of ships and thousands of aircraft, as well an amphibious land-
ing. The struggle for the Philippines also produced the Japanese ultimate
solution to the Allies’ naval and air superiority, the kamikaze. Suicide pilots
launched themselves and their crafts into the ships of the Allies in a vainglo-
rious attempt to reverse the tide of the war. While certainly one of the most
terrible weapons of the war, the kamikaze proved to be too little and too late
to save the collapsing Japanese empire.
Chapter 8 breaks from following the course of battles and campaigns to
examine the seemingly disparate topics of submarine warfare, life in Japan,
and the empire during the war, as well as the condition of Japanese Ameri-
cans in the United States. Submarines, while not the most romantic weapons
of the Pacific War, proved to be the most effective. America’s submarine
effort denied Japan access to the vital resource wealth of its conquests. Once
the problems resulting from faulty ordnance were worked out, American sub-
marines took a devastating toll on Japanese merchant shipping, as well as
gaining several notable victories against combat vessels. Due to wartime re-
strictions and the success of the submarine campaign, the average Japanese
citizen enjoyed few of the benefits of mastery of a vast empire, and indeed
suffered substantially from reduced food and fuel supplies by war’s end.
These deprivations did not, however, dampen the resolve of the emperor’s
subjects to sacrifice everything necessary to obtain victory, and in fact mil-
lions were enlisted in a national guard in preparation for the inevitable Allied
invasion. But Japanese in the home islands were not the only ones subjected
to brutal restrictions. Americans of Japanese ancestry were also victims of

xvi
 INTRODUCTION

the war, as forced relocation and denial of fundamental rights was the U.S.
government’s response to a racist and paranoid West Coast. Tens of thou-
sands of Japanese Americans were forced to abandon their homes and prop-
erty and relocate to government camps with very little warning and no
compensation. This wartime relocation program remains one of the most
infamous actions of World War II.
Chapter 9 examines one of the most overlooked theaters of the war. The
campaigns in China, Burma, and India provide several of the most colorful
characters of the war and some of the most enduring images, but as a military
theater the region almost certainly takes a secondary position to the naval
warfare of the Central Pacific. The legacy of anti-European imperialism that
continued after the war and led to the eventual withdrawal of all colonial
governments in the following decades is certainly a significant, if not wholly
intended, outcome of this campaign.
Chapter 10 concludes the land battle of the Pacific War. The bloody and
dramatic conquests of Iwo Jima and Okinawa left the Allies at the very door-
step of the Japanese home islands, and placed the cities of Japan well within
range of the new long-range bombers. The Imperial Navy made one last futile
sortie, sacrificing its only remaining super-battleship to the desperate and
doomed cause. Meanwhile, Allied bombers began to rain devastation upon the
Japanese from the skies. The devastation wrought upon Japanese cities by
the B-29 firebombing campaign from March through August 1945 is one of
the most terrible examples of massive military and civilian destruction in the
annals of war. Within the context of the bombing campaign, already highly
successful in terms of sheer destruction, the atomic bombs provided emphatic
punctuation to a line of devastation that had largely already been written. Ironi-
cally, neither bomber nor bombed appreciated all of the atomic devices’ ter-
rible destructive power, and therefore its real horror, radiation, was not an
element of coercion forcing the Japanese decision to surrender.
Chapter 11 discusses the diplomatic and military planning efforts that pro-
ceeded simultaneously in the Allied capitals as the war reached its conclu-
sion. Plans for a massive invasion of Kyushu were well advanced by late
1945, and troops were already being shifted from Europe to participate in the
expected landings. The Soviet entry into the war was but another phase of
the intended invasion, though it had a greater impact than even the Allied
planners had anticipated.
Chapter 12 details the process through which surrender was accomplished
and the collapse of the Japanese empire assured. In the face of determined
resistance on the part of some military factions in the government, a coali-
tion of civilian and military leaders brought about a surrender decision and
used the emperor himself to make the decision known to the Japanese people.

xvii
 INTRODUCTION

The attempts by members of the cabinet and individuals in the army to stop
the process, even up to the final hour before official surrender, are a testa-
ment to the tenacity with which the Japanese military clung to its hopes for a
negotiated peace. Citizens’ responses to the emperor’s words also demon-
strate that Japan, while physically devastated, was not yet broken and could
have resisted even still, had the emperor called for such a sacrifice. The book
concludes with the words of the emperor exhorting his people to look be-
yond the bitterness of the present and find a way to keep pace with the future.
Unfortunately this volume has had to omit, or only slightly cover, numer-
ous fascinating details of the war. This was necessary to maintain the flow of
the history and to stay within reasonable bounds for the typical survey course
format. The author encourages readers to consult outside sources on specific
aspects of the war, and, to this end, has included a list and brief description
of the best, as well as the most up-to-date, appropriate secondary works at
the end of each chapter.

xviii
World
WarII
in the
Pacific
This page intentionally left blank
 1
Rising Sun

Japan Comes of Age

The year 1868 was as dramatic and important in Japanese history as the year
1941. For that year the boy emperor, Meiji, guided by a small group of war-
lord-noblemen, or genro, established the Japanese capital in Tokyo and be-
gan modernization of Japan. The motives that impelled the Japanese to begin
industrialization were diverse. The traditional explanation on the American
side of the Pacific has been that U.S. commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in
1853 had significant influence on Japan’s decision to terminate its isolation.
However, the internal factors that motivated the Japanese to abandon their
traditional isolationism were more numerous and complex. Along with the
arrival of the Americans were more pressing threats to the old order, includ-
ing longstanding rivalries between various daimyos within the Tokugawa
shogunate, as well as the regional ambitions of European powers, most dra-
matically demonstrated by the devastating British victory over China in the
opium wars and the arrival of the Russian empire on Japan’s Pacific sea-
board. Russia’s subsequent founding of the port of Vladivostok—its name
may be literally translated as “rule over the East”—on the Sea of Japan,
which had heretofore been a virtual Japanese lake, gave credence to Japa-
nese fears of European intentions in Asia. Further, any influence the United
States might have had was doubtless terminated by the U.S. Civil War, which
seemed to Japan to demonstrate American weakness and incompetence.
The shogunate government, or bakufu, decision to sign a trade treaty with
the Americans in 1858 may have provided the final impetus for its enemies’
decision to revolt. Led by samurai of the Choshu and Satsuma daimyos, anti-
bakufu forces denounced accommodation with the Westerners and called for
reverence to the emperor and expulsion of the barbarians. In an ironic twist,
the Tokugawa leadership, which had been the leading advocate of tradition-

3
 RISING SUN

alism and Confucian values, became associated with modernism and pro-
Western sympathy. Attacks in 1864 on British and American shipping by
forces from the Choshu faction resulted in reprisals and bombardment of
coastal defenses, but not wholesale invasion and war, as had happened in
China. Anti-Western demonstrations and the assassination of several promi-
nent Westerners as well as members of the bakufu followed, but also failed to
remove the “barbarian influences” from Japan.
Powerful samurai from numerous daimyo realized the futility of contin-
ued resistance to the Americans and Europeans and instead embraced the
military and economic technology of the West as a means of self-strengthen-
ing. Cries of “rich country, strong army” replaced the calls for expulsion of
the barbarians. Support for the bakufu was nearly nonexistent by the time
samurai from Choshu and Satsuma called for the shogun’s surrender of po-
litical leadership. The actual transfer of power from the bakufu to the rebels;
then, was relatively bloodless. Consent of the young Meiji emperor justified
the change and also ensured that rebel samurai would carry out the functions
of government in his name.

The Meiji Restoration

The Meiji Restoration, as it came to be called, was a combination of tradi-

tional and modern elements. While adopting the technology and economics
of the West, Meiji leaders were careful to preserve many of the values and
traditions of Japan’s heritage. A significant portion of the Japanese popula-
tion found the changes wrought over the course of the next twenty-five years
to be painful. In the end, no group was more affected than the very samurai
who had begun the modernization. The samurai, Japan’s traditional warrior
class, had begun the process of transformation from standing military oligar-
chy to bureaucratic functionaries during Tokugawa’s reign. Years of peace
had already served to change many of the samurai into administrators and
civil servants of the local daimyo. The restoration accelerated the completion
of this process. One of the first orders of business of the new government
was to break up the old daimyos, destroy the domain castles, and create a
new provincial political order with centrally appointed governors. Thus, the
emperor, not the local samurai, now became the focus of popular loyalty.
Many of the petty samurai—those without extensive landholdings or politi-
cal influence—were pensioned off and sent into unofficial retirement. These
former samurai had the benefit of education and many opted to become teach-
ers, artists, or bureaucratic officials. All of these were considered honorable
professions, but they lacked the prestige associated with the samurais’ former
warrior status. The retirement system was suspended in 1876 when, in order

4
 THE MEIJI RESTORATION

to reduce government expenses, lifetime pensions were replaced by a one-

time lump-sum payoff.
While the samurai class may have disappeared during the Meiji period, the
spirit of the warrior caste did not. In fact, the leading political officials contin-
ued to be drawn from the samurai class and strove to prop up the faltering
system on several occasions. It was, however, the adoption of conscript armies,
more than any other element, that threatened to reduce the status of the samu-
rai and was most hotly debated by the original restoration conspirators.
In 1873, debate coalesced around the question of Japan’s relations with
its nearest neighbor, Korea. Samurai from the Choshu and Satusuma regions,
many of whom had initially been instigators of the restoration, called for a
military campaign on the peninsula to open economic opportunities for Ja-
pan and to restore the position and respect of the samurai class. The govern-
ment refused to endorse the venture, and in 1877 opposition samurai led by
Saigo Takamori launched a desperate and ultimately futile revolt against the
bureaucracy they had been instrumental in creating. The uprising ended with
the siege of Kumamoto Castle and the victory of recently recruited conscript
soldiers over the highly skilled but outnumbered samurai professionals. This
marked the effective end of the samurai as a class, but the samurai spirit and
warrior code (bushido) were adopted by future armies of Japan and remained
a point of great national pride and reverence for future generations.
Another significant characteristic of the Japanese path to modernization
included the leaders’ refusal to become financially indebted to Western na-
tions, though they were not adverse to borrowing heavily from Western tech-
nology. The Japanese had collected and studied Western science books
throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, using their semi-annual
contact with Dutch traders at the port of Nagasaki. After the “opening” of
Japan to foreign commerce in the years following Perry’s visit, Japan imported
numerous Western experts and translated volumes of European texts. Japan
imported technology and technicians from the West and sent its own students
to Western universities to learn modern science and engineering. When the
Japanese students returned, or Japanese technicians had been sufficiently trained
by Western instructors, the Westerners were politely dismissed and techno-
logical progress continued independently. As a result, Japan experienced a re-
markable lack of “brain drain” from these overseas ventures. Most Japanese
students were anxious to return home to develop their skills, often forgoing
more lucrative opportunities in the countries of their education.
As well as studying Western technology, Japanese leaders adopted the
rhetoric of the Western enlightenment. Japanese city dwellers also began to
mimic the tastes and fashions of European culture, often disparaging their
country cousins as uncultured yokels. At the same time, however, the Japa-

5
 RISING SUN

nese leaders reminded the people of the innate superiority and morality of
traditional Japanese values and culture. One of the primary elements of en-
lightenment and nationalist thought adopted by the Japanese was the empha-
sis on education. While domestic institutions of higher education obviously
served the needs of the growing industrial technological sector and staffed
the increasing numbers of bureaucratic positions, the government also em-
phasized compulsory elementary education. The Imperial Rescript on Edu-
cation issued in 1890 stressed learning directed at becoming a proper citizen
and a proper Japanese, paying special attention to the uniqueness of Japa-
nese culture and the Japanese people. Surprisingly, it even advocated the
need for gender equity in education, though this was not observed before the
mid-twentieth century. According to government leaders of the day, Japan
had much to learn from the West technologically, but little morally.
Japan also borrowed heavily from Western models in its development of a
new political structure. Peasant uprisings and political discontent led to calls
for a constitution, which the leaders duly provided. Ito Hirobumi, the primary
author of the Japanese constitution, borrowed heavily from the Bismarckian
German model, which vested primary governing powers in the cabinet while
also allowing for the creation of a representative body. The constitution was
not a contract between the government and the governed, but rather a gift
from the emperor to his subjects. As such, it contained clauses calling for a
popularly elected parliament along with the directive that the decisions of
that body would be subject to the will of the cabinet. The cabinet consisted
of advisers to the emperor on both civilian and military issues as well as
foreign affairs. Members were selected most often, not surprisingly, from the
ranks of the former samurai leaders of the restoration, collectively known as
the genro. The prime minister, again generally a member of the genro, was
selected by the emperor and instructed to form a cabinet to carry out the
imperial will. If the government failed to perform its assigned task, a new
one was formed. The result of this situation saw the same individuals re-
turned repeatedly to a variety of posts within the cabinet system. The genera-
tion of leaders who initiated the Meiji Restoration were relatively young at
its inception and survived to oversee the first four decades of the transition.
Despite frequent reshuffling, few new members and fewer new ideas were
introduced before the opening of the twentieth century.
The growth and development of Japan’s modern industrial base, like that
of most industrialized nations, was accomplished on the backs of the peas-
antry. Unlike the case of industrialization in the Western world, however, the
Japanese central government brought modern technology to a population
that had just been liberated from several centuries of unbridled military des-
potism. The need for speed and efficiency in Japan’s modernization dictated

6
 THE MEIJI RESTORATION

that industry would have to be supported and even directed by the central
government to ensure the greatest productivity and discourage overlapping
efforts. Japanese industry did not grow up in a laissez-faire or free trade
environment, but rather was guided and stimulated by direct contact with the
Meiji leaders and government. This support was enabled by a rather heavy
tax burden imposed on Japan’s traditional economic base, the farming peas-
antry. Japan’s peasants were generally freeholders and the tax burden im-
posed in the 1870s and after—required in currency rather than rice, as had
been the traditional norm—drove many peasants to poverty and often re-
sulted in violent anti-government uprisings. Contact with the West, however,
created greater demand and increased prices for such agricultural goods as
silk, silkworms, and tea, and benefited certain sections of the peasantry, so
that unrest was rarely widespread or unified.
The development of heavy industry followed the British model and even-
tually expanded from small shops of thirty employees or fewer to large fac-
tories with hundreds of workers. Early industries included textiles, mines,
and railroads. The government took a special interest in the growth of the
steel industry and supported expansion and standardization of the nation’s
railroad network. Government subsidies and guaranteed contracts, trading
inexpensive production of military equipment for rights to all technological
innovations, ensured that preferred companies grew with almost no internal
or external competition. As the collaboration between select industries and
the government grew, leaders of those industries branched into other areas—
most often investment banking—and took advantage of the Meiji govern-
ment’s reluctance to purchase loans from foreign agencies to extend credits
to the government themselves. These interconnected industries that depended
on government support and in turn provided financial backing to the govern-
ment were known as zaibatsu. The zaibatsu were (and remain, post–1945)
targets of numerous foreign complaints about unfair trade practices, but they
helped Japan achieve an economic miracle, accomplishing a total modern-
ization of the industrial base in less than half a century. By the last decade of
the nineteenth century, Japan had emerged as a rival to the Western powers
for an economic stake in China and throughout Asia.
In less than fifty years Meiji’s genro and their followers had industrialized
the country. They had also copied the best of each European nation’s contri-
bution to modern society. The Japanese navy was built on the British model;
the army was modeled on that of imperial Germany. From the United States
very little was copied, for the simple reason that the recent Civil War made it
seem unwise to do so. Meiji demolished isolation and brought the Japanese
into the twentieth century. But the Japan that the genro modernized had been
a feudal military dictatorship, and significant echoes of this remained.

7
 RISING SUN

The First Sino–Japanese War

Japan terminated its isolation and entered the world arena in the late nine-
teenth century. This period was the heyday of Western imperialism, when
all of the great powers were engaged in conquering Africa and Asia. The
Japanese adopted an imperialist agenda, but they did so rather late in the
game. In a certain sense, it might be argued that World War II in the Pacific
was, at least in the first instance, nothing more than the logical extension of
nineteenth-century imperialism, albeit long after the rest of the world had
begun to abandon imperialism as being overly aggressive, immoral, and,
more importantly, unprofitable.
Japan’s most important early colony was Korea. The Japanese engaged
the Chinese in a rivalry for control of that strategic peninsula. Chinese mili-
tary leader Yuan Shikai hoped to reduce Korea to a dependent state of the
Manchu government and helped sponsor anti-Japanese revolts in Korean cit-
ies. The Japanese considered an independent or Japanese-controlled Korea
imperative to their national security, often referring to the peninsula as “a
dagger pointed at the heart of Japan.” When the Japanese demanded that
China put a stop to these uprisings the Chinese refused to yield. Japan used
the revolts as a pretext to invade and attacked Chinese forces in Korea in July
1894, declaring war four days later. Most outside observers felt that China
would easily hand the upstart Japanese a well-deserved bloodying, but the
poorly trained and undisciplined Chinese armies retreated. Early defeat threat-
ened to become a total rout when the capture of Beijing and collapse of the
Chinese government were threatened by the end of the year. China’s govern-
ment indicated a willingness to negotiate and the Japanese accepted, fearing
that a total dissolution of China would encourage a Western scramble to
divide up the spoils. The ensuing negotiations produced the Treaty of
Shimoneseki of March 1895. China gave Japan the right to exploit Korea as
well as ceding outright several other territories, including Formosa.
Many Westerners, including the United States, viewed the Japanese vic-
tory as a positive development and hoped that the Japanese could impose
some order on the chaos developing in East Asia. However, three European
powers—France, Germany, and especially Russia—were determined to ex-
ploit or at least preserve the Korean peninsula for themselves. In 1895 these
three powers informed the Japanese that Korea could not become a literal
Japanese conquest. The “Triple Intervention,” as the Japanese named it, con-
stituted a body blow to Japanese prestige. Here for the first time was undeni-
able proof that the other great powers would not acknowledge Japan as an
equal, at least not in the realm of colonial ambitions. The resultant shock was
great in Japan and only encouraged further Japanese conquests.

8
 THE FIRST SINO–JAPANESE WAR

Japan’s inability to confront the coalition of European powers involved in

the “Intervention,” and the subsequent belief that Japan’s modernization would
not readily be acknowledged, caused political leaders to adopt a cooperative
strategy for dealing with the West. When unrest in China culminated in the
Boxer Rebellion in 1900, some 22,000 Japanese troops joined with Ameri-
can and European forces in protecting foreign legations in China and putting
down the uprising. The Japanese troops received universal acclaim for their
discipline and efficiency during the affair. The Japanese joined with the United
States in hoping to restrict Russian influence in China, and not only partici-
pated in the suppression of the Boxers but further pleased the Americans by
supporting the Open Door notes of 1899 and 1900. Relatively late entry into
the race for China’s markets and resources left both the Americans and the
Japanese on the outside, looking in at the European imperialists who had
already laid claim to much of China’s coastal wealth. The Open Door plan
promised access to those regions without the necessity of displacing the pre-
vious tenants, a situation that promised to benefit both new Pacific powers
richly. Although, unlike the Americans, while the Japanese preferred to at-
tempt peaceful means first, they were prepared to open the mainland markets
by force if it proved necessary.
The “Open Door” was especially attractive to the industrially rich but
resource poor Japanese. Japan consists of four home islands roughly the size
of the state of Idaho. The islands have absolutely no natural resources, ex-
cept for meager coal deposits and some “white coal,” or hydroelectric power.
From the Japanese standpoint in 1900, therefore, interest in the resources of
continental Asia represented a version of what Americans termed Manifest
Destiny. The regions surrounding Japan contained the iron ore, rice, rubber,
tin, coal, oil, and other resources needed by Japanese industry in order to
thrive. The governments of those areas, China included, were weak and poorly
organized so that the Japanese could not enter into reliable trade arrange-
ments with them to secure these goods. Nor were the native inhabitants
putting those resources to good use. From the Japanese point of view it
only made sense for an efficient, well-managed Asian power to exploit the
bounty rather than allow the Europeans to take it for themselves. The Japa-
nese even pictured themselves as working with the local inhabitants to pro-
duce a better situation for both countries, as opposed to the rapacious
European imperialists who returned nothing to their colonies. But the Japa-
nese (not totally unlike the Americans) approached exploitation of the
mainland’s resources without regard for the cultural integrity of the indig-
enous peoples they would have to conquer. Like the Europeans who had
arrived centuries before, the Japanese paid lip service to respecting and
preserving local customs and language, but such behavior remained no-

9
 RISING SUN

tional. The Asian mainland—particularly Korea and Manchuria—beckoned

as an area rich in resources. Japan’s attention focused first on Korea, where
Russia became its chief rival for domination of that timber-rich country.

The Russo–Japanese War

The Japanese were prepared to fight the Russians if necessary, especially

after 1902, when a Japanese–British naval alliance was signed that would
have benefited the Japanese had Russia acquired even one ally in the forth-
coming war. The British were also pleased with this arrangement as the greatest
threat to their Pacific holdings was thought to be from a potential coalition
and not a single opponent. The treaty allowed the British to maintain a mod-
est fleet in Asian waters and still remain secure. From the Japanese perspec-
tive, the treaty accomplished several valuable goals. In particular, the treaty
specifically precluded French interference in any Russo–Japanese conflict.
Prior to the treaty, the French alliance with Russia and its control of Indochina
had meant that the Japanese would have been facing both northern and south-
ern threats during any confrontation with St. Petersburg. The naval alliance
also enhanced Japanese prestige and provided much desired international
recognition to Japanese military strength.
Russia’s participation in the “Triple Intervention” of 1895 set the stage
for the conflict in 1904. The Japanese resented Russian arrogance and were
further incensed when the Russians pressed the Chinese government for a
ninety-nine-year lease of the strategic Liaotung peninsula and its strategic
naval facilities at Port Arthur. The Russians had further threatened Japanese
security by gaining the right to station troops in Manchuria. The significance
of these insults was magnified in the eyes of a new generation of political
leadership in Japan, more self-confident and aggressive than the aging genro.
Violent encounters precipitated by the Russians against Japanese forces in
Korea increased during 1903, leading military representatives to call for full-
scale war. Japanese leaders attempted to negotiate with the Russians but even-
tually surrendered to growing internal pressure for more direct action. They
refused to accept Russian intransigence in Korea and used the perceived threat
to Japanese security as a pretext for a surprise attack at the heart of Russian
military strength in the Pacific.
By January 1904 the Japanese had decided on war. On February 9, the
Japanese fleet, under Adm. Togo Heihachiro, attacked the Russian Far East-
ern Fleet while it was anchored at Port Arthur on the Yellow Sea. After using
torpedo boats and land-based artillery to cripple the fleet, Japan declared
war a day later. With the Russian navy no longer a threat, troops poured
across Korea and entered Manchuria, China’s industrial heart, on May 1.

10
 THE RUSSO–JAPANESE WAR

Port Arthur was also besieged and eventually fell to the Japanese, but not
before Japan suffered some 56,000 casualties. The Russians hastened to field
an army in Siberia, 6,000 miles away from European Russia. The czar’s forces
were subsequently defeated in three major engagements, the largest of which
took place at Mukden, Manchuria, in March of 1905, but retreated with their
armies intact. The most celebrated battle of the war, however, was yet to
come and would take place not in Manchuria or Siberia but at sea.
In the meantime, the war was producing various international reactions.
The czarist government’s hope that a successful campaign against Japan would
deflect domestic criticism of economic and social policies turned into a di-
sastrous military debacle that expanded disapproval and disillusionment with
the entire regime. In Tokyo, though, the war was an unmitigated success.
Patriotism and nationalistic expectations soared as news of the series of vic-
tories filled the headlines. Within the government, however, the situation
appeared somewhat darker. While Japan was winning most of the military
engagements, it could not afford to continue such costly victories against a
strengthening foe, nor could it hope to force a general Russian surrender
before Japan was bankrupt. Japan had committed nearly its entire army, and
in a dramatic reversal of earlier fiscal policies was desperately seeking for-
eign loans to shore up an overheated wartime economy. Though this news
was not shared with the general public, in early 1905 the government ap-
proached American bankers to secure a series of loans, and asked the Ameri-
can president, Theodore Roosevelt, to act as arbiter for a negotiated peace.
Both the bankers and the president proved accommodating to Japanese wishes.
Indeed, both the Americans and the British had favored the modern, industri-
ous Japanese over the moribund, decadent Russian empire from the start. For
his part, Roosevelt hoped Japanese victory in Korea and Manchuria would
open China to greater trade access and encourage Japanese political interest
and military activity in continental expansion, thereby removing the primary
threat to American interests in the Pacific islands.
For their part, the Russians were unwilling to accept arbitration of the
dispute until the power of a second Russian fleet was added to the military
equation. Czar Nicholas II ordered the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet to the Pa-
cific, an 18,000-mile voyage. The Russians, evidently unsure of victory,
equipped each warship with a Japanese flag to hoist in the event of defeat.
(Perhaps the Russians were not sure the Japanese would appreciate a white
flag, even if it were hoisted as a token of surrender.) After a brutal world
cruise, which included circumnavigating Africa because the British refused
to allow them to use the Suez Canal, the Baltic fleet arrived in Japanese
waters. The ensuing battle of Tsushima, on May 27, 1905, ended in a re-
sounding Japanese victory. The Russians accepted Theodore Roosevelt’s of-

11
 RISING SUN

fer to act as mediator and the war ended in September 1905 with the signing
of the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire). As a result of the settlement,
Japan gained recognition of its right to incorporate Korea into its empire, a
lease on the Liaotung peninsula, and possession of the southern half of
Sakhalin Island.
Victory over a European foe was a tremendous accomplishment for the
Japanese, who less than half a century before had been locked in a feudal
government and society. As a result of miscommunication between the Japa-
nese government and its people, however, the victory seemed less important
than it should have. The Japanese public was led to believe that the govern-
ment would secure both land and indemnification from the Russians, as they
had from China in 1895. The treaty settlement provided less territory and
none of the money the people had been led to expect. It thus caused an im-
mediate public outcry. Mobs rioted in Tokyo accusing Foreign Minister
Komura Jutaro, one of the younger generation of political leaders, and
Roosevelt of having robbed Japan of its victory and selling out the country.
Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft to Japan later in
1905 to soothe anti-American sentiments. Though Taft was able to help avert
a crisis, the reaction violently demonstrated the tenuousness of good feel-
ings toward the United States in Japan. The treaty had riveted Japanese atten-
tion on the United States, as well it might have. While Japan and the United
States had interacted with one another on numerous occasions, and had gen-
erally favorable perceptions of each other, clearly neither country had a truly
accurate understanding of the other. The Portsmouth Treaty was a hallmark
event in the developing relationship between the countries, which was char-
acterized by both competition and mutual interest.

America’s Growing Pacific Empire

During the decades after the Civil War, American interest in the Pacific had
been limited to a small but significant China trade and whaling. Aside from
Secretary of State William Seward’s near mania to acquire Alaska from the
Russians in the 1860s, America had expended little energy acquiring posses-
sions beyond its continental borders. However, in 1885, Cdr. Alfred T. Mahan’s
seminal Influence of Sea Power on History intruded on American compla-
cency regarding the security and future direction of foreign economic ex-
pansion. Arguing that modern nations required naval strength to ensure
access to vital foreign resources and markets during wartime, Mahan’s work
launched a global naval building race that included the United States. During
the later 1880s and the 1890s, Americans had joined with the European em-
pires in laying claim to every rock and atoll in the Pacific for use as coaling

12
 AMERICA’S GROWING PACIFIC EMPIRE

stations and naval facilities for their burgeoning fleets. At the same time,
American interest in the strategically located Hawaiian Islands grew beyond
just pineapples and sugar cane. The natural harbor at the mouth of the Pearl
River and the deep-water anchorage at Lahaina were very attractive potential
facilities for a Western outpost in the Pacific. In Hawaii as in other affairs,
Japanese and U.S. interests were growing apace. America’s anticipated an-
nexation of Hawaii in the early 1890s brought criticism from the Japanese
government, which worried about the civil rights of the nearly 25,000 Japa-
nese citizens residing on the islands. This was on top of the sentiments of
some Japanese nationalists who felt that Hawaii would make just as satisfac-
tory an eastern outpost of the Japanese empire as it would a Western one for
the United States.
Though the Japanese government eventually acquiesced to American an-
nexation of the islands in 1898, after assurances of equal treatment for Japa-
nese nationals, there was no denying that Japan and the United States were
now competitors in the Pacific arena. Similarly, though the Japanese pre-
ferred U.S. domination of the Philippines, a prize of the 1898 Spanish–Ameri-
can War, to that of a more aggressive European power, they were loathe to
see the decrepit Spanish replaced by the dynamic Americans in a territory
that lay along the path of one potential avenue of Japanese expansion. Since
the 1880s, in fact, Japanese newspapers had spoken of Japan’s “frontier” in
the Hawaiian Islands. Even the U.S. “Open Door” proclamations of 1899–
1900 had been made in part to discourage Japan from further aggression
against a China toward which the United States had shown a measure of
good will for several decades. The U.S. acquisitions made America a Pacific
power in every sense of the word. Americans realized that they faced poten-
tially stiff economic and territorial competition from a modernized and in-
dustrialized Japanese nation. This new competition blended with traditional
racial biases to produce one of the first real crises in Japanese–American
relations.
In the first decade of the century, the state of California, urged on by native
jingoists including the Oakland-born novelist Jack London, all but declared
war on Japan. Anti-Japanese sentiment existed on the West Coast and even in
Hawaii, the most tolerant of American possessions, to such an extent that on
America’s western seaboard Japanese were forbidden to buy or lease land in
some neighborhoods, and in more than a few they were not welcomed even as
visitors. In part, the jingoists focused on the “yellow peril,” which the Japanese
were sometimes made to exemplify particularly (perhaps because Japanese
immigrants were a bit wealthier than the Chinese and sometimes purchased
farmland). The first “yellow peril” discussions in the United States had been
bruited about during the Sino–Japanese War, when images of a massive Chi-

13
 RISING SUN

nese population industrialized and militarized under Japanese leadership caused

some Americans to fear for the security of America’s West Coast. The “yellow
peril” had again been raised during the Russo–Japanese War as Americans
were appalled at stories of Japanese military barbarity during the conflict. The
upshot of such talk was the call, especially from western state representatives,
for limitation or even total stoppage of Asian immigration to the United States.
Sometimes these racial attitudes and fears took the form of discrimination and
reprisals on the domestic Asian population.
Somehow blaming them for the earthquake in 1906, San Francisco resi-
dents nearly banished the city’s Japanese to Los Angeles. This occurred in
spite of the fact that the Japanese Red Cross raised over $250,000 in emer-
gency relief that was forwarded to the devastated city. The most distressing
episode occurred later in that same year when President Roosevelt was com-
pelled to intervene to persuade the San Francisco school board not to force
Japanese schoolchildren to attend a specifically segregated school with their
Chinese classmates, even though the number of Japanese schoolchildren af-
fected was small. Extremists on both sides of the Pacific called for war to
preserve their rights and dignity. This talk did not carry much weight in official
military circles, but to calm public outcry Roosevelt had the State Department
work out a voluntary solution to the problem of increasing numbers of Japa-
nese along the U.S. West Coast with the Japanese government. The so-called
Gentleman’s Agreement of 1908 restricted Japanese blue-collar immigration
to the United States, and this mollified some of the more ardent anti-Japanese
forces in this country, who evidently believed that a “racial mongrelization”
would eventually occur as a result of intermarriages between Japanese and
Americans, unions then prohibited by law. During his last year in office,
Roosevelt became so concerned over anti-Japanese sentiment, particularly on
the West Coast, that he sent an American battleship fleet on a world cruise with
a stop in Tokyo included to “show the flag” and calm nationalist bluster. The
Tokyo reception was stage-managed beautifully, including Japanese school-
children waving small American flags and singing the U.S. national anthem.
And while the cruise did little to relieve Japanese–American tensions, it did
provide some valuable lessons to the United States Navy.
“We were near war with Japan in 1913,” wrote Secretary of the Navy
Josephus Daniels with pardonable exaggeration. But if war had come in 1913,
the Americans would not have been completely unprepared. While Roosevelt
tended to downplay the worst of the racist rhetoric and worked diligently to
reduce tensions between the Pacific powers, he was not blind to the potential
threat of American–Japanese hostilities. After the graphic demonstration of
the destructive capabilities of the Japanese Navy at Port Arthur and the
Tsushima Straits, in 1906 Roosevelt called upon the United States Navy’s

14
 AMERICA’S GROWING PACIFIC EMPIRE

general staff to prepare war plans anticipating Japan as the principal enemy.
This was the first time that specific orders were given naming Japan as a
potential and likely foe. The resulting scenario was designated the Orange
Plan and largely anticipated the scope and course of the 1941–45 Pacific
War. From the beginning, naval planners envisioned a three-phase conflict in
which, during the first phase, Japan conquered or controlled most of the
western Pacific. After about six months phase two would begin in which the
Americans would begin a step-by-step reconquest of the central Pacific that
would last two to three years. The final phase would include a blockade and
air bombardment of the home islands that could last as long as five years.
Though the original plan anticipated only a U.S.–Japanese struggle, and the
details of the plan were modified to accommodate improved weapons and
technology, the basic plan remained intact from its inception until 1945.
Orange plans were only a minor element of American political thinking
toward Asia in the 1910s and 1920s. The new administration of President
William Howard Taft was the first of several to adopt a blatantly pro-Chinese
outlook. Taft’s primary foreign policymakers considered China a better po-
tential investment opportunity for American businessmen and they impressed
this notion on the president. Taft led the call for the creation of a consortium
to take advantage of China’s financial and territorial development. This was
specifically intended to secure American and European interests in China,
while discounting Japanese claims to a “special relationship” to its large
continental neighbor. Woodrow Wilson continued the pro-China policies, but
for other reasons. Wilson saw China under the ascendancy of Sun Yat-sen, a
Christian convert, as more righteous than Japan. Wilson even withdrew Ameri-
can participation in the China consortium, preferring to operate on a moral
rather than financial basis. Wilson’s defeat in 1920 returned the Republicans
to power and Americans to the China consortium. The Republican adminis-
trations of the 1920s supported a pro-China policy for the same reasons Taft
had started down that path before 1910. Also, the Chinese seemed more be-
nign and a less threatening rival to American interests than the rapidly ex-
panding Japanese, who had acquired Korea in 1910, and made a bid for more
Chinese territory in 1915. Many Americans felt the Japanese were pursuing
a dangerously aggressive foreign policy and could not be trusted.
The Japanese contended that since the United States had acquired a Pacific
empire by annexing Hawaii and conquering the Philippines, Japan had a
perfect right to pursue similar ambitions. A few American jingoists actually
called for war, being particularly concerned to protect the great powers’ free-
dom of trade in China. A conflict might have erupted in the second decade of
the century, especially after 1912 when the emperor Meiji died and was suc-
ceeded by his son Taisho, who was mentally defective and possibly also an

15
 RISING SUN

alcoholic. Taisho was less effective in counseling restraint on Japanese na-

tionalists. The period from the ascendancy of Taisho in 1913 to his son
Hirohito’s regency, begun in 1922, witnessed the steady growth of the power
and influence of political parties in Japanese politics. The final passing of
the genro also caused a leadership vacuum that was eventually filled by mem-
bers of the military. But the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 gave the
Japanese other priorities.

World War I

Japanese diplomats have always enjoyed an international reputation for ob-

jective factual reporting. This era was not an exception. The Japanese cabi-
net met several times that August and, based partially on information available
from their European embassies, determined that the Allies would win the
war after a conflict that would last approximately three years. They were
determined to take advantage of the European war to achieve further gains in
Asia and settle some old scores, reasoning that the great powers would now
be preoccupied. Hence, they delivered an ultimatum to Germany and entered
the war against it on August 23, 1914. This was especially satisfying, as it
represented vindication against a second of the Triple Interventionists.
The Japanese had no intention of actively participating in the European
theater of the conflict. Their purpose was to take advantage of the colonial
power’s preoccupation with the crisis in Europe. Their plan was threefold,
beginning with besieging Tsingtao, the only German naval base in China,
which fell on November 7, 1914. They then gained their first experience of
amphibious operations by seizing German colonies north of the equator, in-
cluding the Marshall, Mariana, Palau, and Caroline islands. The Japanese
also moved into the economic markets abandoned by the Europeans, both
friend and foe. They found ready consumers of Japanese made goods and
enjoyed an expanding and profitable relationship with many of their Asian
neighbors. Finally, the Japanese moved diplomatically against neutral China.
Their interest in China was natural because of its size, the fact that the Chi-
nese revolution of 1911 had left China politically fragmented and unstable,
and because recent Japanese immigration into northern China had placed
nearly 140,000 Japanese in the area. And the Japanese had designs on
Manchuria’s western neighbor, Mongolia, which was huge and underpopu-
lated by Japanese standards.
In January 1915 the Japanese ambassador in Peking, taking advantage of
“the chance of 1,000 years,” delivered an ultimatum to the Chinese govern-
ment, subsequently known as the Twenty-one Demands. The ultimatum was
typed on paper literally watermarked with armaments. The demands were

16
 WORLD WAR I

separated into five sections. The first dictated transfer of the German conces-
sions in Tsingtas to Japan. The second required further concessions in Southern
Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. The third part called for a ninety-nine–year
lease on the Southern Manchurian Railroad for Japan, and access to iron and
coal deposits in central China. The fourth part demanded concession of Fukien
Province to the Japanese. The fifth and final part demanded that the Chinese
employ Japanese political, military, and financial experts in their national
government. It also called for Japan to receive privileges to build temples,
schools, and three additional railways in China.
These demands were neither new nor totally unexpected, as various na-
tions had made similar requests over the past century. However in this case
China could not fall back on its traditional technique of blocking the ag-
gressors by playing off one great power against another to maintain its
sovereignty. Both the British and Americans denounced the demands and
called upon Japan to wait for final settlement of the European crisis before
attempting any transfers of territory or sovereignty in China. Ironically,
both Britain and the United States felt that parts one through four were
probably reasonable and even potentially stabilizing and profitable for all
nations interested in the China trade. It was the fifth part, that constituted a
virtual surrender of Chinese sovereignty to the Japanese, that proved most
offensive and led to the denunciation.
Though the Japanese retreated from their position on the demands, after
the armistice of 1918 ended World War I they were determined that the forth-
coming peace treaty should ratify their possession of the former German
colonies. Prince Saionji Kimmochi attended the Versailles Conference in 1919
as Japan’s representative and a member of the “big five” powers. The Japa-
nese easily obtained the German islands north of the equator, but they were
unable to obtain a coveted racial equality clause specifically requested by
Emperor Taisho. The Japanese hoped to obtain international recognition and
great power status through international law. But even without the equality
clause, Japanese diplomats managed to secure recognition of Japan’s “spe-
cial relationship” with Manchuria through secret deals with the Allied na-
tions during 1916. Similarly, the Lansing–Ishii agreements of 1917 secured
American recognition of Japan’s role in Manchuria in return for a Japanese
reaffirmation of the “Open Door” in China.
President Wilson fueled the growing animosity by accepting common
descriptions of Japan as the “Germany” of Asia. Wilson’s personal reli-
gious bigotry led him to view Japan as an obstacle to peace and to accept
the notion of inevitable conflict between the two countries. Even Wilson’s
advisers differed over how to handle the Japanese. Presidential adviser
Edward M. House recommended working with the Japanese and integrat-

17
 RISING SUN

ing them into a common front for stability, while Secretary of State Robert
Lansing encouraged the president’s view that China should be America’s
primary friend in Asia. In the end, Wilson himself denied Japanese calls
for the racial equality clause, believing that the American Senate would
never accept a treaty based on such a principle. Indeed, the Senate did not
accept the Versailles Treaty, but it was not a racial equality clause that they
found so offensive. Failure of the racial equality clause was painful to many
Japanese unfamiliar with the other secret deals, however, and blaming this
largely on President Woodrow Wilson, they engaged in a spate of jingoism,
evidently encouraged by the government.
American distrust of Japanese motives was exacerbated by the Siberian
intervention of 1918 and after. Japan joined with the other allies in invading
and occupying portions of Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. Eventually
some 70,000–80,000 Japanese troops were stationed in Siberia, ostensibly to
protect Japanese nationals and possessions, and to assist in the escape of the
Czechoslovakian battalion. The size and behavior of the Japanese force an-
gered Americans, even though the Japanese had refrained from intervening
until after receiving U.S. encouragement. Further complicating the situation
was the fact that the Japanese chose to remain in Siberia until 1922, some
two years after the substantially smaller American force had departed.
The outcome of deteriorating U.S.–Japanese relations during the 1910s was
a refocusing of defensive perceptions by both nations. Although the United
States had begun to perceive Japan as a serious military threat as early as 1907,
little had come of this outside of initial Orange plans. The naval building pro-
gram of 1916 can be seen as the first real policy aimed at U.S. preparations to
meet a threat in the Pacific, as most of the fleet to be built was intended for the
Pacific. In fact, after the war in Europe ended, Wilson transferred the bulk of
the American fleet to the Pacific, where it remained until 1941. Even if naval
planners always accepted that the western Pacific would be outside of America’s
reasonable defensive perimeter, after 1919 they had every intention of making
the eastern Pacific an unquestioned U.S. preserve.
Similarly, the Japanese military establishment reconsidered its perception
of Russia as Japan’s primary foe after World War I. While the army contin-
ued to prepare for a continental war against traditional foes like China and
Russia, the navy won new support for its own building program, pointing to
the United States as a potential rival for the resources of the central and
western Pacific. After 1919, Japan entered into a naval arms-building race
with the United States and Britain to secure its future as a maritime power in
Asia. Once again, Japan opted to confront Western aggression with its own
tools, and undertook a program of self-strengthening in preparation for what
it felt was an inevitable confrontation.

18
 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

These rivalries underlay the conflict in Asia and the Pacific for the next
two and a half decades. American and Japanese interests clashed frequently
as Japan attempted to implement its own “manifest destiny,” a destiny that
required the territory and workforce of continental Asia and the resources of
the southern Pacific islands. At the same time, the United States attempted to
retain rights of free trade and open access to the lucrative markets of China
and the Pacific Rim.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Edwin Reischauer, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, provides a useful in-

troduction to Japanese culture and folkways in The Japanese (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). Some very good general studies of
Japanese development after the Meiji Restoration have been added recently
as well including Marius Jensen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press, 2000); and Masayo Duus, Modern Japan (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1998). The standard work on the place of the military in
Japanese society remains Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1946). Joining Charles E. Neu, The Troubled En-
counter: The United States and Japan (Malibar, FL: Kreiger, 1981), as one
of the best surveys of Japanese–American relations prior to the conflict is
Walter LaFeber’s The Clash: U.S.–Japanese Relations Throughout History
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). For the Japanese theory and way of war,
Tsunetomo Yamamoto’s Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (New York:
Kodansha, no date) is invaluable, but see also S.R. Turnbull, The Samurai: A
Military History (New York: Macmillan, 1977).

19
 2
The Road to Pearl Harbor

War between Japan and the United States was neither inevitable nor unavoid-
able. Consequently, the progress of international relations that culminated in
the surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on the morning of
December 7, 1941, was not such that a single turning point or crucial incident
marked the start of irreconcilable differences. In fact, the very opposite seems
to be true. There were numerous instances of real cooperation and opportuni-
ties to forestall hostilities in the two decades between the conclusion of World
War I and the opening volley of the Pacific War. As a result, the history of this
period is better seen as one of gradual shifts of attitude and incremental move-
ment toward confrontation. Most ironically, on the very eve of the war be-
tween the two great Pacific powers, influential factions in both countries were
aware of the potential for conflict and were working diligently to prevent it.
One area of misunderstanding and conflict that plagued U.S.–Japanese
relations throughout the interwar period was Japan’s expanded role in Asia
after 1920. Japanese economic and military interests in Korea and southern
Manchuria were already well established by the end of World War I, but
acquisition of the German mandated territories in the central and southern
Pacific, as well as the leasehold on the Shantung peninsula, expanded Tokyo’s
imperial vision. The new territories promised to relieve some of the pressure
of Japan’s expanding population and industrial growth. In return, the Asian
mainland could provide both much-needed raw materials and outposts for
expanded military and economic ventures. To Americans, these new Japa-
nese ambitions represented a potential threat not only to the United States,
but also to European empires and resources in the Pacific. Because of this
perceived predatory expansionism, some American authors even began to
refer to Japan as the “Germany of the Pacific.” Other Americans saw the
twenty-one demands of 1915 coupled with Japan’s new acquisitions as part
of a unified effort to dominate all of Asia and its precious trade markets and

20
 THE WASHINGTON TREATY SYSTEM

natural resources. Though many of these American voices were still on the
fringe, their dire predictions of future conflict between the United States and
Japan represented a powerful anti-Japanese sentiment in the American pub-
lic that was to surface from time to time between 1921 and 1941.
What appeared to some in the United States as Japan’s “unified” effort to
dominate all of Asia was, for Japan, far from well organized. Japan entered
the postwar period in a state of relative political drift for numerous reasons.
By 1920, most of the genro responsible for leading Japan through the Meiji
Restoration and the subsequent modernization of Japan’s industrial, economic,
and political structure, were dead. Functionaries of the nascent political par-
ties and members of the military officer corps increasingly filled their posi-
tions in the government. New political parties of the left appeared, while the
collapse of the postwar economic boom in 1921 began a decade-long infla-
tionary period as competition for the markets surrendered by the Europeans
after 1914 once again became fierce. Though Japan had unquestionably po-
sitioned itself as one the great powers, it was suffering from a lack of leader-
ship to guide it in this new international situation. Or perhaps it would be
more correct to say that Japan suffered from too many leaders, as politicians,
military commanders, and economic leaders of the powerful zaibatsu in-
creasingly became powers unto themselves in the following decades. These
different agencies used a variety of means to appeal to public sentiment,
though none more successfully than the military.
This crisis of leadership was complicated by the deteriorating health of
the emperor. After a severe stroke in 1919, Taisho became increasingly un-
stable, his condition worsened by his heavy drinking. Subsequent less de-
bilitating strokes in 1919 and 1921 impaired Taisho’s memory as well as his
ability to speak and walk, and on several occasions may have even caused
him to fall from his horse. In 1921, after, among other oddities, the emperor
rolled up a scroll and peeked through it at members of the Diet, his son,
Hirohito, assumed power as regent. While Hirohito was quite healthy and
quite sane, he had lived a sheltered life and was largely unacquainted with
political affairs. Though personally inclined to pacifism, Hirohito was often
unwilling to intervene in the daily business of government. Indeed, constant
intervention was not the role envisioned for the emperor under the Japanese
constitution, but it may have been better had the emperor assumed more
direct leadership in the events that followed.

The Washington Treaty System

In 1917, the United States announced a naval building program that would
create an American navy “second to none.” After the crisis of war passed,

21
 THE ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR

however, the fiscally conservative Republican Congress, led by Senator Wil-

liam H. Borah, evidenced no desire to pay the construction and maintenance
costs entailed in such a program, to say nothing of facing the international
ill-will engendered by the policy. Instead, Congress hoped to stave off the
burdensome expense and the arms race such a program had already begun
through international cooperation. In November 1921, the United States in-
vited representatives from Great Britain and Japan to discuss naval arms limi-
tations in Washington. The invitation was received warmly in London and
Tokyo for different reasons. Like the Americans, the British were anxious to
cut defense spending and wanted to avoid a disastrous naval arms race with
the United States. Britain was even willing to trade the beneficial Anglo-
Japanese Naval Treaty, which it knew the Americans disliked, if it meant an
end to the new arms race. At the same time, postwar inflation in Japan made
a series of U.S.-sponsored loans by the Morgan Bank attractive enough to
lure the Japanese to the bargaining table. The primary accomplishment of
the conference was agreement on a 10 : 10 : 6 ratio for capital ships (exclud-
ing aircraft carriers, which were covered by a different ratio), meaning that if
each power built to treaty strength the Japanese navy would be three-fifths
the size of the American and British navies. In addition, a ten-year morato-
rium was placed on all new capital ship construction. Erection of new fortifi-
cations in the Pacific was also forbidden, with exceptions made for the U.S.
base of Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, the British fortress at Singapore, and
several Japanese possessions.
More significantly for the Americans, the Washington conference ac-
complished other substantial goals of U.S. foreign policy including ending
the Anglo–Japanese Alliance, which members of the U.S. State Depart-
ment had targeted for destruction because of its implied threat against
American interests in the Pacific. Also, the Five and Nine Power Treaties,
signed by the three primary participants along with other nations with Pa-
cific interests, reestablished the principle of the “Open Door “ while avoid-
ing discussion of Japan’s role in Korea and Manchuria. The United States
also received permission to build a communications outpost on the island
of Yap. Finally, in a gesture both satisfying to American jingoes and finan-
cially and militarily economical for Japan, Tokyo unilaterally surrendered
its concession on Shantung and announced the end of its Siberian occupa-
tion during the conference.
Though Japan’s navy had hoped for a 10 : 10 : 7 ratio, if not absolute
parity, and was disappointed with the limitations placed upon it, the Japa-
nese government was generally satisfied with the system. From the Japanese
navy’s standpoint, however, insult was added to injury when a few years
later they discovered that the American delegation had learned via cryptog-

22
 VICTORY OF THE JAPANESE MILITARISTS

raphy that Japanese representatives had been instructed to accept 10 : 10 : 6

as a last resort. The one glaring failure of the Washington system was its
inability to deal with more than just capital ship ratios. For various reasons,
the moratorium on capital ships failed to include cruisers, and those became
the focus of naval building during the 1920s until the London Conference of
1930 placed a similar 10 : 10 : 6 cap on them. So while the race to build
battleships and aircraft carriers was suspended, by the end of the 1920s all of
the signatory powers were engaged in significant cruiser construction efforts.
Internationally, the results of the Washington conference were greeted with
praise and high hopes. It initiated a decade of peace and generally good
relations among the signatories, often in spite of political ineptitude. For
instance, the conference had scarcely concluded when the United States en-
acted the Immigration Act of 1924, which forbade further Japanese immi-
gration. Had the Americans chosen to submit Japanese immigrants to the
same quotas placed on Europeans—a fate Japan would have submitted to
with little cause for animosity—the number would have been less than 200
per year. However, exclusion of “orientals” was the order of the day, and
representatives from the West Coast were adamant. While the exclusion act
gave ultra nationalists in both countries plenty of fuel for war talk, it did little
to change thinking in military circles. The United States Navy had perceived
Japan as its most likely enemy since the 1910s and, similarly, the Japanese
placed the United States at the top of its list of potential foes. Neither, how-
ever, saw this particular legislative crisis as a potential causus belli; conse-
quently, neither raised its own preparedness significantly.

Victory of the Japanese Militarists

With the demise of Taisho, who had lived in seclusion since 1921, on Christ-
mas Day 1926, Emperor Hirohito’s reign officially began. From the outset
the new emperor, who had chosen the motto Showa—enlightened peace—as
his posthumous “throne name,” disliked the plans his military was obviously
hatching.
As a cure-all for Japan’s problems, a Japanese “expedition” to occupy and
“bring order” to Chinese Manchuria, which was admittedly in disarray, was
openly bruited about Tokyo in the late 1920s. There is no doubt that barbar-
ism and banditry were the order of the day in Manchuria. Civil war tore
China throughout the 1920s and 1930s as warlords vied with nationalists
and communists for control of the remnants of the deceased Qing empire.
Many Westerners viewed Japanese control of Manchuria as a potentially sta-
bilizing force and were receptive to any program that promised to bring or-
der to the Asian mainland. But in actual fact the Japanese coveted Manchuria

23
 THE ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR

for its extensive iron ore, coal, and oil resources. Such resources would free
Japan from its dependence on foreign nations (particularly the United States)
for raw materials, and would ensure its status as a great power.
During the 1920s, Japanese policymakers developed a foreign policy that
envisioned creating an Asian empire for Japan similar to those held by West-
ern powers. Japan even spoke of this empire in terms not dissimilar to
America’s idea of Manifest Destiny. Japan’s egocentrism led Japanese to
believe that they were the most advanced Asian race and that therefore it was
both their right and their obligation to dominate and lead the other Asian
nations. In the 1920s, that vision focused primarily on the conquest of the
Asian mainland, a notion that American presidents as early as Theodore
Roosevelt had actually endorsed and encouraged. Prime Minister Tanaka
Giichi became the spokesman for this vision and advocated a harsh line against
both Chinese corruption and instability, and Asian communism. Most Japa-
nese political and military leaders came to accept as axiomatic that expan-
sionist foreign policy was their nation’s only hope of survival.
This assumption became an absolute necessity after the collapse of the
Japanese economy following 1929. Farmers and peasants, who had only
been on the margins of the economic boom of the 1920s, were overwhelmed
by the economic disaster of the Great Depression. Most Japanese raised
silkworms as a secondary income source, and the greatest consumer of
Japanese silk was the United States. The onset of the Great Depression
destroyed the silk market in the United States and meant the loss of an
income for many Japanese that represented the difference between sur-
vival and starvation. The economic crisis revealed the depth of Japanese
dependence on foreign markets and resources and led many to believe that
expansion and conquest were not a military luxury but rather an economic
necessity. The Japanese began operating on these beliefs, however, with-
out ever fully reconciling them with the economic and security consider-
ations of the other great powers with significant previously existing interests
in the Pacific. This fundamental incompatibility would eventually lead to
conflict. Initially though, most Japanese saw their involvement in Manchu-
ria as a logical extension of their natural interests.
Some Japanese, admittedly a minority, viewed bringing order to China’s
northern provinces as a duty, since the government in Peking obviously could
not do so. Emperor Hirohito reigned, but he did not rule and hence had no
voice in the actual formulation of policy; he could only watch the drift toward
conquest and war, as helpless as any civilian. If the emperor objected to any
particular military stratagem, the army, via the time-honored doctrine of
gekokujo, could simply declare that the emperor was being ill-advised and that
true obedience dictated the course the military had chosen. And some Japa-

24
 VICTORY OF THE JAPANESE MILITARISTS

nese viewed the emperor’s position as so lofty that they considered mundane
affairs of state to be beneath him. In any event, it would be easy to fabricate an
excuse for military action in Manchuria, since Japanese troops had occupied
Korea and exercised the right to guard Manchuria’s rail lines since 1905. The
prolonged existence of this occupation force, the Kwantung army, had given it
a life and personality of its own. Populated mostly with the sons of peasants
and farmers, the ranks of the Kwantung officer corps and soldiery were more
than willing to manufacture the means to alleviate the suffering of their fami-
lies and friends back home, even if it meant risking war.
On the night of September 18, 1931, the plot against Manchuria began to
unfold. An explosive charge was planted under a rail line near Mukden; it
duly exploded, although it merely scattered some of the roadbed’s ballast.
Nonetheless, that same evening the Japanese army occupied Mukden and
seized the Chinese arsenal in that city. A subsequent investigation of the
incident by the League of Nations disclosed that a train had passed safely
over the line only twenty minutes after the explosion and revealed the fabri-
cated nature of the entire episode. Japan withdrew from the League, how-
ever, when the findings were made public.
The Japanese government’s policy during the 1920s had been one of co-
operation with the Peking government, with all attempts at economic devel-
opment carried out through appropriate agencies. They reversed this policy
in the early 1930s, however, and began supporting individual Chinese war-
lords and encouraging the individual efforts of powerful Koumintang gener-
als. Kwantung leaders took this policy so far, that when warlord general Chang
Tso-lin refused to cooperate and turned on the Koumintang, they had him
assassinated. Like the Mukden Incident, this act of rogue policymaking was
excused by the general public and went virtually unpunished, making the
cabinet and even the throne guilty after the fact of complicity with the radical
militarists. Japan’s leaders were not alone in dismissing the actions of the
Kwantung army. The international community did nothing to castigate the
Japanese for their actions either. In fact, America’s Stimson Doctrine, a policy
of nonrecognition of territorial gains acquired by force, was the harshest of
the international responses.
The Mukden Incident marked the ascendancy of the Japanese military in
national politics and in the cabinet itself. When coupled with several army-
inspired assassinations of political figures opposed to war, it brought about
the end of the power of the political parties and began the domination of the
government by the military. Both the army and the navy could bring down
any cabinet by ordering their own service ministers (Ministry of War and
Navy) to resign. This right, inherent in the Japanese governmental structure
by common accord, was henceforward greatly abused. The extent of the

25
 THE ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR

military’s power over the course of Japanese policy may be inferred from the
fact that it could enjoy the luxury of internecine warfare among its own fac-
tions after 1931.
Though Japan had conquered Manchuria, it did not end all of the region’s
difficulties, for bandits still plundered the countryside by night. Also, Man-
churia did not prove the boon to the Japanese economy that had been antici-
pated, as Japan’s rule cost its economy as much in iron and oil as it obtained
from Manchuria. Indeed, Manchuria, or Manchuko as the Japanese renamed
it, was virtually self-sufficient. The expected windfall of natural resources
and wealth was never forthcoming. However, by dominating the resources
and manufacturing of the region, the Kwantung army and Nissan, the zaibatsu
organization created to govern Manchuko’s economy, became virtually in-
dependent both economically and politically. Neither the army nor the throne
made any strong moves to counter this development either. The Manchurian
Incident was a great popular success in Japan, and denunciation or disciplin-
ing of its leaders would have met with sharp disapproval among the Japanese
masses. In fact, Japanese control of China’s northern provinces did begin to
alleviate one concern of the expansionists: The opportunities for Japanese
citizens to find lucrative jobs in the expanding bureaucracy of empire led to
mass emigration from the home islands that would continue throughout 1945
into all of Japan’s acquired territories. This talent drain proved to be both a
blessing and a curse, as the relief to Japan’s burgeoning population came at
the cost of the loss of some of its most able citizens.
Given the mixed success of the Manchurian Incident it is a small wonder
that two factions emerged among the staff officers in Tokyo, both calling for
further expansion to find Japan a suitable area for exploitation and possible
colonization. A large majority of the adherents of both groups were majors
and colonels, although it was generals who determined membership and ide-
ology. The Kodo, or Imperial Way, faction held that the Soviet Union was
Japan’s primary enemy, and that after Manchuria had been pacified, Japa-
nese expansion should take place at the expense of the USSR. The opposing
Tosei, Control, group also desired that gains in Manchuria be consolidated,
but believed that Japan’s destiny lay to the south. Specifically, the Tosei be-
lieved that the Philippines, Hong Kong, the Malay peninsula, Thailand, Burma,
and particularly the Dutch East Indies constituted Japan’s version of Mani-
fest Destiny. In the early 1930s officers of both schools first used the term
“El Dorado of the South” to describe the latter areas. Some officers actually
subscribed to both schools of thought, and debate between them at first seemed
routine. By early 1936, however, the Kodo felt they had lost ground. They
saw an opportunity to strengthen their position when a group of young offic-
ers launched an insurrection in the heart of Tokyo. The young officers hoped

26
 VICTORY OF THE JAPANESE MILITARISTS

to force the government to cease cutting the military budget and adopt an
expansionist foreign policy. Though the Kodo generals had nothing to do
with the initiation of the uprising, they did attempt to coopt the movement
once it had begun. In the early morning hours of February 26, 1936, just after
a severe snowstorm had blanketed the city, troops commanded by Kodo of-
ficers seized control of a portion of the capital adjacent to several of the
foreign embassies. They hoisted helium-filled balloons with streamers pro-
claiming the virtues of their cause and assassinated some high-level offi-
cials, including several of cabinet rank who had been publicly opposed to
their imperial vision.
Hirohito determined that he would not remain a spectator. He demanded
the insurrectionists’ surrender and reportedly ordered his own palace guard
units to mobilize fully. The siege dissolved as ordinary soldiers, who had not
been informed of the intent of their officers, returned to their barracks upon
promises of full amnesty. The young officers petitioned the emperor to allow
them to commit ritual suicide rather than surrender, but were refused and
opted to have their day in court and make their cases fully known there.
Order was restored late in the evening of February 29, and the emperor or-
dered harsh treatment, including the institution of court martials, for the of-
ficers involved. Yet the army, however divided, closed ranks and looked after
its own. It circumvented the emperor’s orders without his knowledge, and
the young officers were portrayed as pure-spirited, self-sacrificing patriots
working only for the well-being of the empire. But the back of the Kodo had
been forever broken. As many of the foreign ambassadors in Tokyo reported,
future Japanese overseas expansion was now more likely to be southward.
The year 1936 also witnessed Japan’s official withdrawal from terms of
the Washington and London naval treaties. The emerging naval arms race in
alternative classes of weapons as well as worsening relations with Western
powers, including U.S. commitment to a major new building program, led
Tokyo to discard the pretense of the limitations agreements. In reality, Japan
had ignored much of the treaty from the very start. However, the British and
the Americans had never bothered to check on reports of those violations.
Japan had placed numerous island fortifications on restricted territories and
stretched the limits for naval tonnage on numerous classes of vessels.
Early in 1937 Hirohito resolved to stem further military adventures. He
returned to tradition by appointing a nobleman, Prince Konoe Fumimaro, as
premier. Konoe was in every way an unusual choice. One of the emperor’s
few personal friends, he was a reputed socialist and virtually a professional
pacifist. A youthful bout with tuberculosis had left him with a streak of lazi-
ness and indifference that was to prove frustrating. Konoe accepted much of
the expansionist vision of the military, but was also sincerely dedicated to

27
 THE ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR

avoiding conflict with the Western powers, a contradiction he never success-

fully reconciled. Konoe took office with the intention of making the military
his servant. When he could not realize this ambition, he lapsed into indiffer-
ence without giving up the seals of office. The greatest irony of his several
premierships would be his approval of Operation Hawaii, the surprise attack
of December 7, 1941.
Konoe had scarcely taken office when a crisis erupted in China, sparked
by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Continued incremental incursions into
northern China had brought Japanese troops south of the Great Wall and to
the very gates of Peking. On July 7, 1937, in a demilitarized zone near Pe-
king, a Japanese soldier disappeared during night maneuvers in the treaty
port of Tientsin. The Japanese demanded Chinese help in finding the missing
soldier, implying that he had been kidnapped. Local fighting between Chi-
nese and Japanese ensued, and each side believed itself the aggrieved party.
(The soldier reportedly turned up several hours later.) After a series of high-
level conferences in Tokyo, the Japanese military responded to this incident
with force. The military assured the government that the conquest of addi-
tional Chinese provinces would take no more than six weeks. Believing that
Japanese national pride was involved, Konoe adopted a very hard-line atti-
tude toward China, evidenced in his subsequent dealings with Chiang Kai-
shek and his response to U.S. overtures to end the hostilities on the continent.
Sino–Japanese hostilities also began in the southern provinces as Chiang
attempted to expel Japanese military and civilian personnel from Shanghai.
Shanghai was an important economic and symbolic center of nationalist
power, and Chiang felt compelled to commit the bulk of his best troops to
expelling the Japanese from this vital center. The Shanghai campaign ex-
panded rapidly and disastrously for the Chinese. While the defense of Shang-
hai demonstrated impressive Chinese resolve and exacted considerable
casualties on the Japanese, its final outcome was a crucial loss for Chiang
and ultimately led to the taking of his capital at Nanking. Shanghai also
demonstrated a pattern that would be repeated throughout the Japanese cam-
paign in China. Japanese forces were extremely successful while operating
in urban areas along China’s extensive coastline, but once the line of battle
moved inland, beyond easily maintained supply lines and out of the range of
the navy’s guns, progress slowed and pacification of the countryside became
very difficult.
Tokyo was pleased with the impressive gains that were quickly achieved,
and the emperor ultimately forgave Konoe, but not his military. In conse-
quence he refused to declare war against China, hoping that the Western
world would perceive that he had not desired a major conflict. His signals
were misread. World opinion presumed that the lacking declaration of hos-

28
A Chinese sentry stands over a squadron of P-40 fighter planes ornamented with the distinctive “Flying Tiger”
nose art. (National Archives)
 THE ROAD TO PEARL HARBOR

tilities was a manifestation of Japanese duplicity, and embarrassed Japanese

diplomats were forced to refer to hostilities in China as the “China Incident,”
as if using a singular noun would somehow terminate the conflict. American
opinion was particularly aroused. Again Japan seemed to be following the
fascist pattern of Mussolini in Abyssinia against an equally helpless China.
Sentiment on the U.S. West Coast was particularly strong, and more than one
Sunday school class contributed funds to help the Chinese government.
Konoe further obliged the military in November 1937 by issuing the Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere proclamation, more commonly known in
Japan as Dai Nippon, meaning literally (and much more simply) “Greater
Japan.” As originally worded and conceived by Konoe, this document pro-
claimed Asia for the Asians and an end to white colonialism. But the com-
mon Japanese expression Dai Nippon conveyed the military’s (if not Konoe’s)
true intent. The Chinese government responded by ordering a full military
mobilization, and a full-scale war in China began. For the Japanese the war
in the Pacific began in 1937, reputedly as a result of Chinese aggression.
In Japan many household commodities and foodstuffs became scarce as
the war weakened the economy. Ironically, the expansion initially launched
to help relieve Japan’s crippling lack of raw materials caused even greater
demands to be made on the resources and population of the home islands. By
1938, Japan’s growing military commitments had produced a classic trap for
the Tokyo government. The territorial gains that had promised to alleviate
shortfalls of resources crucial to Japan’s industry and economy, were actu-
ally costing more to obtain that they were providing. At the same time, Japan
could not afford to disengage itself from these military obligations for those
same economic reasons, as well as those of national honor. After having
successfully recovered from the worst of the depression by 1936, Japan was
once again accumulating an enormous debt as a result of its increasing mili-
tary operations.

The China Incident

Japanese behavior in China became atrocious. Chinese soldiers attempting

to surrender were frequently executed on sight. Civilians were openly mas-
sacred, the slaughter following the fall of Nanking in December 1937 being
only the most notorious example. There, approximately 250,000 civilians
and POWs were raped and slaughtered in a fortnight’s murderous debauch.
Konoe attempted to halt the conflict through diplomatic initiatives, but his
efforts failed. Worse, in early December 1937, Japanese planes flying from
an aircraft carrier deliberately attacked Britain’s HMS Ladybird, killing one
sailor, and sank the American gunboat Panay in the Yangtze River. President

30
 THE CHINA INCIDENT

Franklin D. Roosevelt was outraged. He gave a speech calling on America’s

friends to “quarantine aggression,” the reference in part being to Japanese
involvement in China.
Roosevelt’s secondary response was to write to American industrialists
and request that they begin curtailing trade with the Japanese. This he could
plausibly do because American manufacturers knew they could easily mar-
ket the same materials to customers in Europe. American companies, includ-
ing Standard Oil, complied with Roosevelt’s request, although at first the
Japanese did not know of his role in the matter. When Roosevelt’s role was
appreciated, the Japanese grew fearful lest a complete trade embargo leave
them stranded in their home islands with no raw materials.
In consequence, Konoe submitted his resignation to the emperor in Janu-
ary 1939. At the emperor’s personal request, Konoe returned to the govern-
ment as prime minister and formed a new government specifically intended
to resolve the war in China while at the same time advocating further en-
largement of the military. Worse, Konoe’s choice for foreign minister,
Matsuoka Yosuke, was a strident militarist and advocate of regional power
blocs. Matsuoka envisioned a Pacific power bloc under Japanese control as a
natural addition to U.S., German, and Russian power blocs in other parts of
the world. Although apparently desirous of peace with all nations, Matsuoka
was greatly impressed by Nazi Germany and became a firm advocate of a
direct military alliance between Japan and Germany. This alliance, he hoped,
would neutralize the United States while Japan acquired its Pacific empire.
He found allies among many army staff officers in Tokyo who deluged Konoe
with letters and phone calls advocating such an alignment. When Konoe ob-
jected that such an alliance would be resented in the United States and would
brand Japan as a fascist aggressor, Matsuoka, who had been educated in
Oregon, replied that he knew American public opinion better than anyone
else in the cabinet and that the United States would not be alienated. The
foreign minister voiced this opinion so vehemently and with such unction
that his cabinet colleagues began to doubt his mental stability. On one occa-
sion, a close friend asked Konoe if Matsuoka were insane; Konoe replied
that this was unfortunately not the case, as insanity would at least furnish
precedent for removing him from office. (When Matsuoka died in 1946, he
was clearly psychotic.) But Konoe could not remove him, for Matsuoka had
many army allies in Tokyo.
In the end Matsuoka had his way. Since the cancellation of the Anglo–
Japanese Alliance in 1922, Japan had felt itself a nation without friends.
Germany was not a perfect solution. In fact, in many ways, Germany was
exactly wrong for that role, but its growing strength made it a formidable
force to be associated with. A military alliance with Germany, and Italy as

31
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