Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

Although the truth would not come out until years later, MacArthur’s conduct on the first day of the war had been at least as culpable as that of Kimmel or Short.

The different standards of accountability imposed in Hawaii and the Philippines have bothered historians ever since. The latter events were never formally investigated, and MacArthur never answered for errors and derelictions that seemed at least as blameworthy and certainly more avoidable than those in Hawaii.

His face, ravaged by pain, was set in lines of utter dejection, but when he looked around and saw who was approaching, the youngster’s mouth flew open in the widest and most delighted grin I have ever seen. “Gee!” he exclaimed. “The President!” So it was down the whole long line of beds in every ward. Not one of us but felt, actually felt, the wave of hope that swept the hospital as shattered men saw before them not merely the President of the United States but another human being, once struck down as they themselves were stricken, who had triumphed over physical disability by force of will and invincibility of spirit.

“What can the Combined Fleet do going out for battle now? The 60,000 tons of oil is more important.”32 The speech brought the entire room, including Sato, to the brink of tears. He had put Japan’s predicament into stark relief. The honor of the once-mighty Imperial Japanese Navy now mattered less than six tankers and the oil they carried. Even a general could see that the fleet’s diminished status was a portent of doom. “This was the saddest feeling I had ever experienced,” Sato wrote.

Venereal diseases hit the advanced pilot training squadrons especially hard. Medical authorities distributed films exhorting servicemen to practice safe sex. Bill Davis especially liked one entitled: “Flies Breed Germs, Keep Yours Closed.” In it, a doctor informs a sailor that he has contracted venereal disease. “I must have gotten it in a public toilet,” said the sailor. “That’s a hell of a place to take a date,” replied the doctor.

The Japanese had lashed Filipino civilians to the outer walls of strategic buildings, perhaps expecting them to serve as human shields. The American guns did not spare them.

It was no coincidence that the world learned of Japanese atrocities in Manila just two weeks before the start of the firebombing campaign.

It seems likely that the March 9–10 firebombing of Tokyo killed more people, at least initially, than the atomic bombings of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. If the highest death toll estimates are accurate, the Tokyo raid may have killed more people (initially) than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. It was the most devastating air raid of the war, in either Europe or the Pacific. It left more dead than any other single military action in history.

The tedious routine seemed unending. Humor provided some relief. After several consecutive days of harrowing attacks, Admiral Jocko Clark signaled his task group: “See Hebrews 13, Verse 8.” On ships throughout the group, bibles were opened and the verse read aloud: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”37

The same institutional defects that had produced Japan’s irrational decision to launch the war in 1941 now prevented a rational decision to end it. There was no real locus of responsibility or accountability in Tokyo.

In the end, as Grew put it ruefully, the United States “demanded unconditional surrender, then dropped the bomb and accepted conditional surrender.”74

The crowd moved back as the great engines fired up. The long propellers began spinning, the engines roared, and the airplanes taxied to the edges of Runways A and B. The Enola Gay, showing no running lights, started its takeoff run at 2:45. With a 5-ton atomic bomb and a full load of fuel, the strike plane required nearly the entire length of runway to get off the ground. The Great Artiste, the instrument plane, took off exactly two minutes later on Runway B, followed two minutes later by the second observer plane, Necessary Evil. The three planes banked north and began climbing.