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

by Ian W. Toll

Stalin’s perfidy in August 1945 was another chapter in a sequence of international betrayals, beginning with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Neutrality Pact of 1939, and the ruthless partition of Poland between the Nazis and Soviets. That insidious covenant had ended with Hitler’s surprise invasion of Russia in June 1941. In the same spirit, Moscow’s faithless pantomime of diplomacy with Tokyo between June and August 1945 provided cover for Stalin’s pending abrogation of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact. The Russian declaration of war, delivered to the Japanese precisely one hour before the planned attack in Manchuria, could be seen as an indirect repayment of the treachery embodied in Japan’s strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which was likewise planned and prepared under cover of diplomatic talks.

In many outlying areas, there was little more than a token occupation force, which could have been overrun quickly if recalcitrant extremists in the Japanese military had chosen to fight. A report produced by General MacArthur’s headquarters called the occupation “a great, though calculated, military gamble.”58 The Americans wagered that the emperor’s will and authority would cast a psychological spell over the Japanese people, and especially the rank and file of the army and navy, which were not yet disarmed. The gamble paid off in spectacular fashion. Across the length and breadth of the populous country, not a single shot was fired at Allied occupation troops. The shift from war to peace was jarring in its suddenness and totality. Three or four weeks earlier, the Japanese people had been preparing to meet the invaders with bamboo spears and kitchen knives. Now they bowed and grinned and welcomed the newcomers as honored guests.

During the war Leonard had hated the Japanese—hated them all—but now he found the feeling dissolving like a half-remembered dream: I’m pretty skeptical by nature, but who am I supposed to hate? Can I hate the boy who ran alongside my train window for 50 yards to pay me for a pack of cigarettes that I had sold him just before the train left the station? Can I hate the old man who took us to his home for dinner and made us accept his family heirlooms for souvenirs? Can I hate the kids that run up and throw their arms around me in the street? Or a Jap truck driver who went miles out of his way to drive me home one night? Or the little girl (about 4) who ran up to me and gave me her one and only doll for a present? My answer is that I can’t.

For the Japanese, likewise, the discovery that most Americans were instinctively decent and courteous came as a great relief. Fear had gripped the communities scheduled to receive the first advance units of occupation troops. Civilians still under the influence of wartime propaganda—or perhaps with some inkling of how Japanese forces had behaved overseas—had assumed they would suffer brutality, pillage, massacres, and rape.63 Many women and girls fled to remote mountain villages. Others stayed off the streets, hiding themselves, or disguised themselves as boys, or smeared coal on their faces in the hope of making themselves ugly. Some even carried a sharp blade, intending to take their own lives by severing a vital artery. As American soldiers first arrived in Miyagi, north of Tokyo, a group of evacuated schoolchildren hid in their dormitory and peeked through a hole they had poked in a paper screen. They did not expect to see human beings. “It occurred to us, ‘They must have horns!’ ” one recalled. “We had images of glaring demons with horns sprouting from their heads. We were disappointed, of course. No horns at all.”64 Some of the boys went out and returned in triumph with chocolate bars.

The surprise and relief felt by the Japanese, upon learning that their former enemies were largely decent and honorable, was accompanied by another sensation. With a sudden rush, ordinary Japanese understood how thoroughly deceived they had been by their own leaders. The propaganda was still ringing in their ears—they could hardly forget it—but it all seemed demented in retrospect.