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The conclusions of the Yomiuri Shimbun's War Responsibility Verification Committee, from this source.

Responsibility for Showa War

THE DAILY YOMIURI：　SUNDAY,AUGUST 13, 2006

Yomiuri sums up who's to blame for 'Showa War'

The Yomiuri Shimbun and The Daily Yomiuri will report today and Tuesday
the findings of a yearlong examination by an in-house committee into the
responsibility of wartime national leaders.

The Yomiuri Shimbun's War Responsibility Verification Committee
has examined various factors in battles that started
with the Manchurian Incident - a conflict that from today we will
collectively call the "Showa War" - such as why Japan recklessly entered
the war and why it took so long to bring the fighting to an end.

Works by the committee have been carried occasionally in The Yomiuri
Shimbun.

To conclude the War Responsibility series, The Yomiuri Shimbun and
The Daily Yomiuri will carry final reports today and Tuesday
in which we clarify the degree of responsibility of Japanese political
and military leaders, as well as chiefs and officials in the army and
naval general staff offices and ranking bureaucrats.

At the same time, we look at what lessons the country and
people should learn from the war.

The War Responsibility series, which started in August last year
in The yomiuri Shimbun, inspected the period
from the Manchurian Incident of 1931 (sixth year in the Showa era)
until the end of the fighting in 1945 (20th year in Showa era).

The Yomiuri Shimbun has decided to rename the last world war
as the "Showa War."

This war has been called the Greater East Asia War, the Pacific War,
the 15 Year War, the Asia-Pacific War or the Second World War.

Each of these titles has some justification, but they are not necessarily
appropriate when considering factors such as a sense of resistance
against certain ideologies, the period of the war and areas
where fighting took place.

These names have been used independently. Some people refer
to the war as "that war" or "the latest war." As a result,
no name has been universally adopted by the Japanese,
even though this year marks the 61st year since the war ended.

The Showa era lasted for a relatively long period of slightly
more than 62 years from Dec. 25, 1926, to Jan. 7, 1989.

The war lasted for about one-fourth of the entire Showa era.
Many Japanese already consider the war in a historical context.

The Yomiuri Shimbun decided to call the war the Showa War
not because of consideration to Emperor Showa,
but because the war occurred during the Showa era.

For the first part of the final report, turn to Pages 10-12.

Why did the nation attack China and the United States ?

Why did Japan engineer the Manchurian Incident and then
launch the Sino-Japanese War?

Why did the nation attack the United States and recklessly
continue to fight when prospects for victory were fading fast?

Wasn't it possible to avoid the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki by the United States?

4
In an attempt to find answers to these questions, The Yomiuri
Shimbun's War Responsibility Verification Committee
over the past year has verified a series of battles in the "Showa War."
Which political and military leaders should take the blame
at each critical phase of these wars?

We now present our conclusions.

１．The Manchurian Incident

The starting point of the Showa War was the Manchurian Incident
that took place in September 1931. Who should be blamed
for having caused the incident?

The main instigators of the incident were Kanji Ishihara and
Seishiro Itagaki, staff officers of the Kwantung Army,
a unit of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Determined to conspire together to grab power and lead the country,
they became the masterminds of the act of aggression into Manchuria
(currently part of northeastern China) and literally dragged
the nation into a series of wars.

At the core of Lt. Col. Ishihara's militarist thinking was the pursuit
of the "Final World War Theory" to determine the No. 1 country
of the world in a war between Japan and the United States,
which he considered the greatest nations of the Eastern and
Western civilizations, respectively.

In January 1928, at a meeting of the Mokuyo-kai (Thursday Society)
group of elite officers who graduated from the Imperial Japanese
Army's War College, Ishihara said, "The nation could stand being
in a state of war for even 20 years or 30 years if we have footholds
all over China and fully use them."

In June of that year, Daisaku Komoto, the predecessor of Itagaki,
assassinated Zhang Zuolin, a Chinese warlord who had a strong
influence in Manchuria, by blowing up the train in which he was
traveling.

This incident would become a model for the Manchurian Incident.

The Manchurian Incident took place as members of the Kwantung
Army blew up a section of South Manchuria Railway lines
in Liutiaogou (Lake Liutiao), outside Mukden (currently Shenyang).

The army then took control of Mukden in a single day.
The temporary mayor's post of Mukden was taken up
by Kenji Dohihara, then chief of the Mukden Special Service
Agency.

The Kwantung Army began advancing into Jilin Province
beyond its original garrison areas. Shigern Honjo, then commander
of the Kwantung Army, initially opposed sending troops to Jilin.
But he eventually yielded to Itagaki's persistence and decided
to give the go-ahead to the deployment.

Senjuro Hayashi, commander of the Japanese Army in Korea,
also decided to dispatch his troops to Manchuria without an order.

He followed advice from staff officers of the Japanese Army
in Korea, who had ties with Ishihara and Itagaki.

Kingoro Hashimoto, chief of the Russia group of the Army General
Staff's 2nd Bureau, had close contacts with them.

Hashimoto formed the Sakura-kai (Cherry Society) group
that comprised young reformist officers, and used the group
as a foothold to lead two failed coup attempts called
the "March Incident" and the "October Incident.

" The March Incident was aimed at installing War Minister
Kazushige Ugaki as prime minister. Others involved in the incident
included Kuniaki Koiso, chief of the ministry's Military Affairs
Bureau.

The October Incident was linked to the Manchurian Incident,
although it was poorly planned. However, it would be the forerunner
for a series of coups and terrorist acts, such as the May 15 Incident
of 1932 and Feb. 26 Incident of 1936.

Before the Manchurian Incident, War Minister Jiro Minami
strongly advocated to take hard line stance on Manchuria and
Inner Mongolia.

Without complaint, Prime Minister Reijiro Wakatsuki
readily approved the dispatch of troops from the Japanese
Army in Korea to Manchuria at its own discretion after being
told about it by Minami.

The helplessness of politicians from being able to prevent
military officers stationed outside thc country from spinning
out of control surfaced for the first time at this point.


Those mainly responsible:
①Kanji Ishihara, staff officer of the Kwantung Army
②Seishiro Itagaki, staff officer of the Kwantung Army
③Kenji Dohihara, chief of the Mukden Special Service Agency
④Kingoro Hashimoto, chief of the Russia group
　　of the Army General Staff's 2nd Burea

２．Walked out from the League of Nations

On March 1, 1932, less than six months after the Manchurian
Incident, the establishment of Manchukuo as a country was
declared. Dohihara had Aixinjueluo Puyi, the last emperor
of the Qing dynasty, serve as the sovereign head of Manchukuo
under the title of regent and later emperor.

On May 15,1932, Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai was assassinated.
The cabinet of Makoto Saito, Inukai's successor, approved
the establishment of Manchukuo. The House of Representatives
unanimously passed a resolution to approve Manchukuo as a nation.

At a plenary session of the lower house, Foreign Minister Yasuo
Uchida said the nation would not hand over its rights and interests
in Manchuria even if Japan's territory was turned into "scorched earth."

Uchida responded to an interpellation by Tsutomu Mori, a member
of the Rikkenseiyukai party, also known as Seiyukai. Mori symbolized
the politicians who were vocal in calling for the maintenance of
rights and interests in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia.

A report by the Lytton Commission, an investigation team led
by Victor Alexander George Robert (V.A.G.R.) Bulwer-Lytton
appointed by the League of Nations on Japan's advance
in Manchuria, was submitted to Japan in October 1932.

War Minister Sadao Araki harshly criticized the report and
called for the nation to withdraw from the League of Nations.

Araki, who served as war minister in the cabinets of Inukai
and Saito, thus openly endorsed the actions of the Kwantung Army.

The Lytton Report did not condemn Japan in a one-sided manner.

Indeed, the report included a proposal to establish a provincewide,
autonomous government in Manchuria. But when a recommendation
statement based on the Lytton Report was adopted at the General
Assembly of the League of Nations, only Japan opposed it.

Yosuke Matsuoka, head of the Japanese delegation, then walked out
of the meeting, signifying Japan's withdrawal from the league.

３．Sino-Japanese War（１）

Meanwhile, the battlefield temporarily spread to Shanghai.
This development called the First Shanghai Incident, was p1otted
by Ryukichi Tanaka, an assistant army attache at the Japanese
Legation m Shanghai.

Who should take the blame for the escalation of a small incident
into all-out war between Japan and China?

On June 4,1937, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe launched his first
Cabinet.

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident-a brief unplanned battle between
the Imperial Japanese Army and Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese National
Revolutionary Army-occurred a month later on July 7.

The incident was the trigger for the Smo-Japanese War.

As the incident itself was unplanned, the slide to all-out war could
have been avoided if the flare-up was handled properly.
In fact, a ceasefire accord was signed in Beijing, and the matter
appeared to have been settled locally.

But on the same day, the Konoe Cabinet announced it would send
more troops to northern China, a step that caused the escalation of
military involvement.

Konoe failed to exercise political leadership at each of the following
critical phases:

①When the decision to dispatch more troops was made.
②When a de facto shift from a nonexpansion policy in China was announced.
③When peace efforts through mediations by German Ambassador to China
Oskar Trautman were made.
④When the so-called first Konoe statement that closed channels for
negotiations with China's Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government
was announced.

In the early days of the Sino-Japanese War, Konoe indeed pursued
a peaceful settlement by planning summit talks with Kuomintang
leader Chiang Kaishek and attempting to dispatch an emissary
to the Nationalist Party government.

But he backed down when he met opposition, mainly voiced
by army officers.

Foreign Minister Koki Hirota, along with Konoe, remained silent
during a meeting of related ministers that decided
to send the first three army divisions.

Hirota and Konoe also did not voice any objection during a subsequent
Cabinet meeting. Together with War Minister Hajime Sugiyama and
Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, Hirota also called for an end
to peace negotiations with the Nationalist government.

Throughout the period during which the Marco Polo Bridge Incident
expanded into the Sino-Japanese War, Hirota stood at the diplomatic
helm, first serving as foreign minister, then prime minister and
again as foreign minister.

After the Feb. 26 Incident, Hirota, as prime minister, made a series
of decisions that would sow the seeds of future strife.

The decisions included one to restore a system under which military
officers in active service took up the posts of war and navy ministers,
another on the policy guidelines that set the stage for the nation's
advance into Southeast Asia and another on the signing of the
Japan-Germany accord on defense co-operation that was aimed
at containing the Soviet Union

Those mainly responsible:
①Fumimaro Konoe, prime minister
②Koki Hirota, prime minister, foreign minister
③Kenji Dohihara, chief of the Special Service Agency at Mukden
④Hajime Sugiyama, war minister
⑤Akira Muto, chief of the Operations Department
　　at the Army General Staff

４．Sino-Japanese War（２）

Maneuvers to secede northern China from the Nationalist government
tipped Japan and China into full hostilities.

Those involved in the operations included Kenji Dohihara;
Takashi Sakai, chief of staff of the troops stationed in China;
and Tan Takahashi, an assistant army attache.

They worked to conclude the so-called (Yoshijiro) Umezu-He
Yingqin accord and the Dohihara-Qin Dechun accord,
by which Nationalist agencies were expelled from Hebei and
Chakhar provinces.

In November 1935, Dohihara launched a puppet autonomous
government in eastern Hebei Province.

The army maintained that China should not be regarded
as a single country.

Seishiro Itagaki, assistant chief of staff of the Kwantung Army,
argued that Japan should directly conclude ties with each region
in China.

In China, the Xian Incident in 1936 pushed China
toward the second phase of collaboration
between the Nationalists and the Communists.

In the wake of growing anti-Japanese campaigns in China,
Japan and China were facing a touch-and-go situation.

At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War, army leaders
were sharply divided between those calling for an expansion
of the war and those seeking to halt the conflict.

Kanji Ishihara, the head of the Operations Bureau of
the General Staff Office, sided with those for nonexpansion.

But Akira Muto, Ishihara's subordinate as the head of
the Operations Department, advocated the dispatch of troops
by allying himself with Shinichi Tanaka, the head of
the Military Affairs Department of the War Ministry.

Having failed to control his subordinate, Ishihara mobilized
13 army divisions until he was transferred to the Kwantung Army
as assistant chief of staff.

War Minister Hajime Sugiyama advocated expansion.
He foiled peace efforts by making the terms of peace tougher
after the fall of Nanjing, the Chinese capital at the time.

Iwane Matsui, the commander of the Central China Expeditionary
Force, exhorted top military officials on the capture of Nanjing
and directed the operation. Upon the capture of Nanjing,
a series of massacres and violence targeting prisoners of war
and civilians, called the Nanjing Incident, took place.

Such acts, which contravened military discipline, were committed
particularly by members of the units led by Kesago Nakajima,
the head of the 16th Army Division.

Some conservatives claim that the war against the United States
was a "war of self-defense" for Japan. They base their arguments
on the United States' oil embargo and the Hull note of Nov. 26,
1941, which was considered a de facto ultimatum delivered
to Japan by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull shortly before
the start of the war.

However, the U.S. pressure on Japan to suspend its military
advance in China came about, to a large extent, by Japan's
"misjudgment."

Japan in a sense drove itself over the precipice.
So, who made the misjudgment and why?

５．Tripartite Treaty

First of all, the most critical mistake was the conclusion
of the Tripartite Treaty with Germany and Italy in September 1940.

Then Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, an enthusiastic
proponent of the pact, originally planned to demand that
the United States give concessions by forming a fournation
entente by adding the Soviet Union to the tripartite pact countries.

However, the Tripartite Alliance was nothing but a military
alliance against the United States. The United States, which by
then had imposed economic sanctions against Japan, had further
hardened its attitude toward Japan.

Furthermore, around the time the treaty was concluded,
Germany abandoned its plan to invade the British homeland
and was steeling itself for war with the Soviet Union.

Hiroshi Oshima, then ambassador to Germany,
continually sent misleading information to Japan,
blindly believing Germany would win the war
against the Soviet Union.

When Matsuoka's plan to win U.S. concessions collapsed
due to the outbreak of the war between Germany
and the Soviet Union, Japan could have chosen to abolish
the Tripartite Treaty and improve relations with the United States.

However, Oshima kept on sending information
depicting the war situation as being favorable for Germany.

For instance, "The war will end in four weeks
[with victory for Germany]," he said
immediately after German-Soviet hostilities started.

Toshio Shiratori, then ambassador to Italy, proposed
"innovative diplomacy." He lacked the ability to make
levelheaded judgments on international situations
due to his pro-German, anti-U.S. attitude.

Consequently, he gave the government flawed
diplomatic advice.

The navy, because of fears of a possible war
with the United States, resisted the conclusion
of the Tripartite Alliance.

However, Koshiro Qikawa, who was the navy minister,
finally changed his mind and supported the treaty.

The army had been promoting the alliance plan
since the first cabinet of Fumimaro Konoe
and the cabinet of Kiichiro Hiranuma.

To successfully overthrow the cabinet of Mitsumasa Yonai,
who was cautious about the treaty, the army had then
War Minister Shunroku Hata submit a letter of resignation.

The army abused the system of appointing active-duty military
officers to military ministers' posts. Actively moving
behind the scenes was Akira Muto, director of the Military
Affairs Bureau at the War Ministry, among others.
The mistake comparable with the Tripartite Alliance was
the advance into southern French Indochina in July 1941.

The United States, which was wary about Japan's
south-ward push, repeatedly warned Japan.

Immediately before Japan's advance into southern French
Indochina, Japanese Ambassador to the United States
Kichisaburo Nomura was sending telegram messages
on the possibillty of an oil embargo.

The navy led the advancement into French Indochina.
Naval General Staff Chief Adm. Osami Nagano
strongly advocated advancing into southern French
Indochina To take control of oil resources
in Dutch East India militarily, it was necessary
to capture British Malaya, where British bases were located.

And for that purpose, building a base in southern French
Indochina was imperative. That was Nagano's plan.

However, it was quite evident that a war against Britain
would develop into a war against the United States
because the United States was about to enter the European theater.

Nagano's judgment was grossly affected by midcareer naval staff
who were mostly pro-Germany and anti-American.

"Even against the United States, we will be invincible,"
said Shingo Ishikawa, chief of the Second Section
of the Naval Affairs Bureau of the Navy Ministry.
He was considered a leader of such officers. Ishikawa drafted
a written opinion to urge Nagano and others to resolutely
advance into southern French Indochina

Ishikawa also erred in his assessment of the national strength
of the United States. He underevaluated the United States
in material national strength, an important factor
for judging whether Japan could go to war with the United States,
including the wear amount of vessels.

The Tripartite Alliance was led by Matsuoka and others,
while advancement to and stationing in southern French
Indochina was mainly led by Nagano and others.

Nevertheless, it was Fumimaro Konoe, then prime minister,
who made the final decisions to implement these strategies
as national policies and led this country to war against
the United States.

Those mainly responsible:
①Fumimaro Konoe, prime minister
②Yosuke Matsuoka, foreign minister
③Hiroshi Oshima, ambassador to Germany
④Toshio Shiratori, ambassador to Italy
⑤Osami Nagano, chief of Naval Generat Staff
⑥Shingo Ishikawa, chief of 2nd section of the Navy Ministry's
　　Naval Affairs Bureau

６．Tojo Erases 'Seeds for Avoiding War'

Why did Japan initiate hostilities against the United States
without rationally assessing whether it had the material
capacity to fight such a war?

Senior army officers who supported the idea of going to war
included Hajime Sugiyama, chief of the Army General Staff Office,
Deputy Chief Osamu Tsukada and Shinichi Tanaka, chief of operations
at the Army General Staff. At the midcareer level, Takushiro Hattori,
chief of the Operations Section, and Kenryo Sato, chief of
the Military Affairs Section, among others, supported the war.

In the navy, midcareer officers such as Naval Chief of Staff
Adm. Osami Nagano and Shingo Ishikawa, chief of the Second
Military Affairs Section, advocated going to war against the United States.

Despite having some qualms about such a war,
many military and political leaders were persuaded by war proponents.

Asked by War Minister Hideki Tojo about the prospects for victory
against the United States, Navy Minister Koshiro Oikawa
replied he was not confident the United States could be defeated.

Shigetaro Shimada, Oikawa's successor as navy minister,
and Takazumi Oka, chief of the Navy Ministry's Milltary Affairs
Bureau, also did not clearly state where they stood.

Akira Muto, then the chief of the War Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau,
told Oka the army would follow the navy if it declared "the navy
does not want the war."

But Oka rejected this proposal, and a chance to avert the war was lost.

In December 1940, a year before the war started, the second cabinet
of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe started negotiations
with the United States to avoid a war.

However, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, who gambled
that concluding the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy
in September 1940 was in Japan's interests, took a different course
of action from the Konoe Cabinet and concluded the Japanese-Soviet
Neutrality Pact with Soviet leader Josef Stalin in April 1941.

Those mainly responsible:
①Hideki Tojo, prime minister, warminister
②Hajime Sugiyama, chief of the ArmyGeneral Staff
③Osami Nagano, chief of the Naval General Staff
④Shigetaro Shimada, navy minister
⑤Takazumi Oka, chief of the Navy Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau
⑥Shinichi Tanaka, chief of operations at the Army General Staff
⑦Teiichi Suzuki, president of the Cabinet Planning Board
⑧Koichi Kido, lord keeper of the privy seal

７．Japan-U.S. War

The Japan-U.S. negotiations initially started as talks between figures
in the private sector. However, Matsuoka strongly opposed
the civilian-led negotiations. The negotiations became deadlocked
because the army opposed withdrawing its troops from China,
which was one condition for peace put forward by Washington.

Konoe dismissed Matsuoka and sought to break the stalemate
through direct negotiations with U.S. President Franklin D.Roosevelt.

Konoe, however, faced strong resistance from War Minister Tojo
against any military withdrawal from China, and stepped down
from the office in October 1941, as he did in January 1939.

After the fall of the second Konoe Cabinet, Koichi Kido,
lord keeper of the privy seal, strongly pressed for Tojo to succeed
Konoe. Since the second Konoe Cabinet, Kido had been deeply
involved in choosing prime ministers.

The Tojo administration was established, but Kido's recommendation
of Tojo to be prime minister was an error of judgment.

Kido told Tojo that he had a message from the Emperor Showa
to scrap the policy of seeking war against the United States.

For a time, Tojo charted a course that sought to avert the war
with the United States. However, he was unable to stop the slide
toward war because_war advocates dominated the opinions
of the army and navy, just like in the previous cabinet.

Meanwhile, Teiichi Suzuki, the president of the Cabinet
Planning Board, which was tasked with planning the nation's
wartime economy, was also heavily responsible for Japan
going to war with the United States.

Suzuki was in a position to object, or at least raise doubts,
about Japan's capability to conduct a war from the viewpoint
of military-related supplies.

In fact, Suzuki reportedly said at the time of the Konoe Cabinet
that Japan would become unable to obtain oil even if it occupied
oil bases in Dutch Indochina because the bases likely would be
destroyed by the enemy.

However, he did an about-face during the final assessment
on the national strength-iwimediately before the war's start,
and said Japan would "be able to sustain itself with effort"
in terms of oil supply.

Convinced that opening the war "would be advantageous
for Japan in terms of maintaining and boosting the national
strength," Suzuki supported the pro-war forces.

The main responsibility for the decision to start the war
against the United States should rest with each minister
in the Tojo Cabinet, including Tojo himself as prime minister,
Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and Finance Minister
Okinori Kaya, as they were in a position to advise the Emperor.

It is known that Togo and Kaya actually tried to persuade
Cabinet ministers to try to avoid the war.

On the other hand, the navy was preparing for an operation
toward Hawaii. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of
the Combined Fleet, went ahead with the Pearl Harbor attack
that has often been described as a "gamble."

The handing of a memorandum effectively declaring war
on the United States was delayed by mistakes by the Japanese
Embassy in Washington. This caused the escalation
of anti-Japan sentiment and a growing perception
in the United States of "the dirty Japanese.

８．Tojo, Koiso ignore Defeats

The Japanese forces continued poorly thought-out operations
in the war with the United States.

Why did Japan overlook crucial turning points of war situations?

The first major turning point was the Battle of Midway
in June 1942. In the battle, Japan lost four major aircraft carriers
and much of its air power, resulting in the loss of both air
and naval supremacy in the Pacific Ocean in one sweep.

Top navy officials including Shigeru Fukutome, chief of
the Operation Department of the Naval General Staff,
were unable to foresee the deployment of enemy aircraft carriers.

Proud of the victory in the attack on Pearl Harbor,
the navy obviously underestimated the strength of the U.S. forces.

Furthermore, Japan began an operation to regain Guadalcanal
Island (August 1942-February 1943) but wrongly predicted
when a major U.S. counteroffensive would likely be launched.

Hajime Sugiyama, chief of the Army General Staff, made
the mistake of sending troops in several small deployments.

Shinichi Tanaka, chief of operations at the Army General Staft
yelled at Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, "You idiot!"
when Tojo rejected his request for more vessels to be sent
to ensure the operation's success.

Deprived of air and naval superiority in the Pacific,
Japan had tremendous difficulty providing supplies
such as food, weapons and ammunition through sea transportation.

It was becoming obvious that Japan could not continue the war
against the United States.

As he distrusted the supreme command, Tojo decided
to concurrently serve as chief of Army General Staff
in February 1944, breaking the longstanding rule of the army.

Tojo also appointed Naval Minister Shigetaro Shimada
to chief of the Naval General Staff.

In July 1944, Saipan and other Mariana Islands were taken over
by the enemy, puncturing the "Absolute National Defense Zone"
of Japan-areas deemed indispensable for Japan's mainiand defense
and continuation of the war.

The government had ordered that these areas should be defended
at all cost.

The news of these defeats greatly shocked the public.

The war guidance unit of the War Ministry at the Imperial General
Headquarters (Daihonei) concluded:
"The empire has no prospect of regaining its previous strength
and it will likely decline gradually.

Thus, we should seek an end to the war immediately."

Finally, the momentum to oust the Tojo goverment
became irresistible and the cabinet resigned en masse later
that month.

Three years before, when asked by the Emperor about the prospects
in the event of war against the United States, Suglyama,
then serving as the chief of the Army General Staff,
replied that Japan would "end the war" in about three months.

Such a questionable opinion was not held by Sugiyama alone.
Kenryo Sato, chief of Military Affairs Bureau at the War Ministry,
Osami Nagano, chief of the Naval General Staff, and Takazumi Oka,
chief of the Navy Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau, who all had
supported the Tojo regime, favored "carrying on with the war,"
even after the Japanese forces had lost all prospect of turning
the tide and winning the war.

If the successor to the Tojo Cabinet had embraced the view
of the war guidance unit, it would have been a prime opportunity
to end the war.

However, Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso failed to initiate
earnest discussions aimed at ending the war.

Koiso believed that Japan needed to win a battle against
the United States in the Philippines to gain leverage
in any peace negotiations.

Koiso decided to carry out operations to counter U.S. advances
toward Japan and to engage them in battles on Japanese soil later.

Koiso established the Supreme War Council of war leaders.

Its Aug. 19, 1944, meeting was attended by Yoshijiro Umezu,
chief of the Army General Staff; former War Minister
Hajime Sugiyama; and Koshiro Oikawa, chief of the Naval General Staff,
among others.

The participants, undaunted by the deteriorating situation,
said, "We should continue to prosecute the war"
and "We should overcome the important situation."

In October 1944, the Japanese forces were decimated
in ground and naval battles on the Philippines' Leyte Island,
losing the bulk of their remaining air and naval capabilities.

In January 1945, the Army and Navy departments of
the Imperial Headquarters decided to prepare for final battles
on Okmawa and the mainland.

At this point, Japan spurned a chance to avert the tragedy
of Iwojima island, where 28,000 died, and the Battle of Okinawa,
where 188,000 Japanese lost their lives.

Those mainly responsible:
①Hideki Tojo, prime minister, war minister
②Kuniaki Koiso, prime minister
③Osami Nagano, chief of the Naval General Staff
④Hajime Suglyama, chief of the Army General Staff
⑤Shigetaro Shimada, navy minister
⑥Kenryo Sato, chief of the War Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau
⑦Takazumi Oka, chief of the Navy Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau
⑧Shigeru Fukutome, chief of operations at the Naval Genera

９．Anami, Umezu Press ahead with War
　　Final Battle on Mainland

The administration of Kuniaki Koiso, who succeeded Hideki Tojo
as prime minister, started as a kind of "coalition cabinet" led
by Koiso and Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai.

However, their lack of leadership and ability had been often exposed,
so it was almost impossible to expect them to show
the strong leadership needed to terminate the war.

Espousing the slogan "All 100 million to be armed to fight,
" the cabinet sent many soldiers to their deaths.

It resigned en masse in April 1945, paving the way Okinawa
Prefecture to become a battlefield.

During that time, Naval General Staff Chief Koshiro Qikawa
approved kamikaze suicide attack and a suicidal mission of
the battleship Yamato to Okinawa, while Sadatoshi Tomioka,
chief of the Naval General Staff's Operations Section, also
insisted that the military should send as many soldiers as possible
to the Okinawa front.

Japan suffered appalling casualties in the Battle of Okinawa.
With the Soviet Union joining the war and the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nation was being devastated by
the Allied Powers.

Despite this, some military leaders insisted that they wanted
to find a way out of a hopeless situation through the final
battle on the mainland.

At an Imperial Council meeting (Gozenkaigi, a conference in the
presence of the Emperor) that started late at night on Aug. 9,
Yonai agreed to Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo's proposal
to accept the Potsdam Declaration on the one condition that
the national polity be maintained.

However, War Minister Korechika Ananu opposed this.
"I believe it is appropriate to push toward a final battle
on the mainland with determination to find a way
out of an impossible situation," he was quoted as saying
in "Shusen Oboegaki" (Minutes around the War's End, 1948),
by navy Rear Adm. Sokichi Takagi.

Army General Staff Chief Yoshijiro Umezu and
his counterpart in the Navy, Soemu Toyoda, also voiced
their resolve for a final battle on the mainland.

They said they could not determine if defeat was inevitable,
though they could not be absolutely assured of victory.

Naval General Staff Vice Chief Takijiro Onishi, who was
one of the most hard-line officers in the navy,
called Anami out from a meeting he was attending.

Onishi told him Yonai was unreliable because
he wanted to end the fighting. Onishi asked Anami
to make efforts to keep the nation engaged in the war.

The Imperial Headquarters (Daihonei) was planning
to deploy 3.15 million soldiers and 1.5 million sailors
to handle a possible invasion of the mainland
by the U.S. forces.

Daihonei thought it best to mobilize the whole people
to repel the U.S. forces for as long as they could,
inflict heavy casualties on the landing forces and seek
more favorable conditions in negotiations for peace.

Masao Yoshizumi became chief of the War Ministry's
Military Affairs Bureau in a personnel reshuffle
in preparation for the mainland battle.

"Is there any chance we could win the war?"

Yoshizumi asked the Army General Staff's Operations Section
chief Shuichi Miyazaki.

"There's none," Miyazaki replied.

As the officer responsible for war operations clearly stated
there was no prospect for victory in the war,
the general public was forced to train to fight U.S. soldiers
with bamboo spears.

On Aug. 10, when Japan decided to accept the Potsdam
Declaration, Army General Staff Vice Chief Torashiro Kawabe,
who had been insisting on fighting the battle on the mainland,
wrote in his diary: " I only feel, ' I don't want to surrender.
I don't want to admit I was defeated, even if I was killed."'

The following day, he wrote that such traits as "self-confidence,
self-admiration, narcissism, self-satisfaction" among military
officers had "invited today's tragedy."

Anami and Kawabe devoted themselves to mollifying military officers
after Japan's decision to surrender. Anami killed himself on Aug. 15.

Those mainly responsible:
①Kuniaki Koiso, prime minister
②Koshiro Oikawa, Naval General Staff chief
③Yashijiro Umezu, Army Generai Staff chief
④Soemu Toyoda, Naval General Staff chief
⑤Korechika Anami, war minister

以上

Labels: japanese politics