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

by Ian W. Toll

Looking back from the present, when his legacy has been engraved in marble, it is difficult to sense how polarizing and controversial a figure FDR was in his own time.

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.

MacArthur should have been relieved of command

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.

MacArthur’s headquarters issued 142 press communiqués. One hundred nine mentioned only one person by name: MacArthur. Rarely were individual units singled out for praise or credit; the communiqués typically referred only to “MacArthur’s army,” or “MacArthur’s men.”19 Often it was implied that he was personally leading his forces in the field, when he was actually at his headquarters in Manila.

commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific, Eisenhower lamented: “I cannot help believing that we are disturbed by editorials and reacting to ‘public opinion’ rather than to military logic.”

Leahy was the senior American military officer of the Second World War, as determined by rank and date of original commission. He was the first admiral or general in the nation’s history to receive a fifth star.

The explicit glorification of death in battle—death as an end in itself—was a recent phenomenon in Japanese culture, as were the “no surrender” principle, massed suicide attacks, and the master race ideology of imperial bushido. None of those ideas was anchored in the samurai tradition.

The newly formed suicide air group comprised only twenty-six Zero fighters, divided into four sections. Three sections were based at Mabalacat; the fourth was on the island of Cebu, to the south. One-half of the planes were designated as escorts and observers; the others would crash-dive the enemy. Thus, this first kamikaze unit amounted to only thirteen aircraft slated for an actual suicide dive. The command staff gave a name to this corps: “Shimpu,” an archaic pronunciation of the Chinese ideographs for “god” and “wind.” An alternate vernacular pronunciation was “kamikaze,” but that term did not come into common currency until later; the original name of the suicide corps was Shimpu Tokkotai, or “Divine Wind Special Attack Force.”*

Upon these thirteen suicide planes, the Japanese high command hung great hopes. It was even thought that they might all score, perhaps sinking as many as thirteen American aircraft carriers, a blow devastating enough to repel the coming invasion of the Philippines. Thus, this new Shimpu outfit, as small as it was, hoped to make a major contribution to the impending confrontation.

there was another dimension to this first introduction of organized suicide plane tactics, which does not always receive the emphasis it deserves. The kamikaze program was at the heart of a public relations and propaganda campaign aimed at Japan...

The spectacle of young warriors immolating themselves in battle might spur the people to work harder, to sacrifice more, to band together for the climactic stage of a war for national survival. Those themes had already been introduced into the Japanese news media. After his recent suicide attack on the American fleet, Admiral Arima had been lifted up as a “hero god,” and it was suggested that Japanese civilians should be inspired by his example and do more for the war effort. There was even an implicit suggestion, in much of the editorial commentary, that civilians should be shamed by the sacrifices of their fighting forces, and must arouse themselves to work harder, eat less, and give more of themselves to the war effort. Arima’s colleague, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, went on the radio to urge Japanese workers to “attack in the field of production with the spirit of ‘bodily crash.’

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the kamikaze was a propaganda weapon aimed at the enemy.

For the nine remaining months of war to come, this was to be Japan’s guiding strategic vision: to display to the Americans the full force and fury of their Yamato spirit. A nation willing to turn its young men into guided missiles was a nation that would fight to the last man, woman, and child—and a nation willing to fight on such terms could not be conquered. If the Japanese raised the stakes high enough, the Americans would flinch. Their leaders, beholden to

American voters, lacked the stomach to fight to the point of civilizational annihilation. Perhaps the Pacific War was already lost; in private councils, among themselves, the junta’s leaders were increasingly willing to admit it. But there was a difference between defeat and surrender, between losing an overseas empire and seeing the homeland overrun by a barbarian army. The man-guided missiles were never a realistic bid for victory, but rather a talisman to ward off the horror of total defeat. Even if the official propaganda would not yet admit it, the battle for the sacred islands of Japan had already begun, and the kamikazes were its first line of defense.

THE LEYTE INVASION WAS NOT QUITE AS LARGE AS THE NORMANDY invasion four months earlier, but the fleet was obliged to cross a lot more ocean. Thirteen hundred miles lay between Hollandia, MacArthur’s major port of embarkation on northern New Guinea, and the landing beaches at Leyte Gulf. But the invasion fleet amounted to more than seven hundred ships, too many to squeeze into Hollandia—so a major portion of the force sailed from Manus, in the Admiralties, which lay another 500 miles to the east. The various elements of the great armada would rendezvous at sea along the way.

The transports carried 174,000 troops.

MacArthur jokingly referred to “my three K’s”—his troika of senior naval, air, and ground commanders, who all happened to have surnames beginning with that letter. Kinkaid led the Seventh Fleet, colloquially known as “MacArthur’s navy.” Lieutenant General George C. Kenney of the USAAF had served as Southwest Pacific air commander since July 1942. The Sixth Army, the principal ground force for the

Leyte operation, was commanded by Lieutenant General Walter Krueger. Covering air support for the first stage of the invasion would be provided by the Third Fleet. Halsey would remain in Nimitz’s chain of command, as he (and Spruance) had in prior joint operations. The Joint Chiefs did not attempt to decide how the commands would mesh, merely instructing Nimitz and MacArthur to “arrange for coordination of mutual support.”

the invasion of the Philippines was only beginning, and the fast carriers of the Third Fleet had a leading part to play. For the first time, MacArthur’s ground forces would wage a sustained campaign beyond the radius of USAAF fighter protection.

On Leyte, it was hoped that the Americans could capture and quickly upgrade Tacloban Airfield, so that it could receive Kenney’s interceptors as soon as possible. But until that happened, Halsey’s aviators would need to do most of the work of beating back the Japanese air response. When Halsey queried MacArthur on October 21, asking for an estimate of when Task Force 38 could pull back to Ulithi, the SWPA commander responded firmly: “Basic plan for this operation in which for the first time I have moved beyond my own land-based air cover was predicated upon full support by 3rd Fleet. . . . I consider that your mission to cover this operation is essential and paramount.”

Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet was far from defenseless, and could do much of the work of protecting itself against any

enemy thrust. The shore bombardment and fire support group included six battleships of the older and slower classes—among them several leviathans damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor—and an ample number of cruisers and destroyers. This force was designated Task Group 77.2, and commanded by Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf, a veteran of several previous amphibious operations. Kinkaid’s fleet also included sixteen small escort carriers, whose planes would be deployed mainly in the role of bombing and strafing ground targets on the invasion beaches, and flying protective cover over the amphibious fleet. This was Task Group 77.4, commanded by Rear Admiral Thomas Sprague. His flotilla of small, slow flattops and their screening destroyers was divided into three sections, remembered in history by their radio call-signs: Taffy 1, Taffy 2, and Taffy 3.

Another Signal Corps crew was preparing a radio broadcast unit and mounting up a transmitter. MacArthur and Osmeña sat together on a fallen palm log. On a tree nearby, the American and Filipino commonwealth flags fluttered side by side. The crew let them know the broadcast team was ready. After a short delay, MacArthur took up a handheld microphone. A soft rain began falling as he spoke. The broadcast was carried live in the United States, an extraordinary feat at the time; it was also broadcast throughout the Philippines via the mobile transmitter, although it seems that very few Filipinos heard that initial broadcast. As was his usual practice, MacArthur employed the first-person singular pronoun to refer to the forces under his command. “People of the Philippines,” he declared: “I have returned! By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.” He instructed the Filipino people to rise up and strike the enemy, and “Rally to me!”13

The speech was met with eye-rolling among many of the troops under his command, who saw it as another instance of MacArthuresque grandstanding. Hadn’t they all returned? But there was no arguing with the electrifying effect on the Filipino people. Even if they did not hear the speech on the radio, most soon learned of it from leaflets or word of mouth. The following day, on the steps of the State Capitol in Tacloban, MacArthur would preside over a more formal ceremony with President Osmeña—a symbolic transfer of sovereignty back to the Philippines. He had not cleared this declaration with the U.S. State Department or the Department of the Interior, which held commonwealth authority over the Philippines. MacArthur was making his own U.S. foreign policy in Asia—not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.

On the Japanese ships, buglers sounded general quarters and men hurried to their stations. The Japanese cursed their lack of air protection, but at least their ships had been reinforced with dozens of new antiaircraft batteries. The Yamato and Musashi each mounted about 150 individual AA weapons; collectively, the guns of each ship could throw up 12,000 shells per minute. The smaller battlewagons had about 120 AA guns, the cruisers 90, the destroyers between 30 and 40. In Lingga Roads they had trained intensively to improve their aim and rate of fire. New sanshikidan shotgun-type “beehive” antiaircraft shells had been designed for the 18.1-inch main batteries of the two superships. As the U.S. planes descended and started their attack runs, Kurita distributed a message to all ships: “Enemy attackers are approaching. Trust in the gods and give it your best.”27 Bill Ellis said it was the greatest

Kamikazes were both a tactical and a propaganda expedient. The militarist junta was alarmed by the public’s waning spirits and its rising doubts about the veracity of domestic war reporting. Faith in ultimate victory must somehow be restored. The suicide air corps and other novelties—such as the oka, kaiten, and intercontinental balloon bombs—were analogous to the “miracle weapons” (wunderwaffe) advertised by the Nazis during the same period. To a certain extent, all were propaganda gambits aimed at shoring up the Axis regimes’ deteriorating credibility and consolidating their grip on power.

This mass-junking of perfectly serviceable warplanes occurred at the height of the war, when the Japanese were falling well short of aircraft production targets and struggling to keep their assembly lines in operation at all.

consisting of two army corps of two divisions each—I Corps under

bombardment

put

The Meiji emperor’s “Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors,” issued in 1882, was Japan’s official code of ethics for military personnel. It was one of two founding documents of Imperial Japan. (The other was the “Imperial Rescript on Education,” 1890). It does not go too far to say that the two Meiji rescripts were tantamount to scripture in World War II–era Japan, and the “Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors” was held to be the singular basis of all Japanese military authority. Every man in uniform was required to memorize and recite it. The most famous line, often quoted in Western histories, is: “Duty is heavier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather.” More noteworthy, however, is the following passage, included in the Rescript’s third article:

To be incited by mere impetuosity to violent action cannot be called true valor. The soldier and the sailor should have sound discrimination of right and wrong, cultivate self-possession, and form their plans with deliberation. Never to despise an inferior enemy or fear a superior, but to do one’s duty as soldier or sailor—this is true valor. Those who thus appreciate true valor should in their daily intercourse set gentleness first and aim to win the love and esteem of others. If you affect valor and act with violence, the world will in the end detest you and look upon you as wild beasts. Of this you should take heed.

During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), civilians in the combat zone feared the Russians more than the Japanese, and the Japanese met exemplary standards in their treatment of Russian prisoners of war—a fact confirmed by International Red Cross observers. Thereafter, within the span of a single generation, for reasons that are still puzzled over and debated by scholars, Japan’s military culture took an abrupt turn toward the barbarous. By the early 1930s, the behavior of Japanese troops was attracting international notoriety, and the trend only grew worse through the end of the Second World War. Meiji’s warning thus became prophecy. In throwing away their lives like so many feathers, Iwabuchi’s forces in Manila unshouldered the burden of a mountain. Forsaking the “true valor” prescribed

in the rescript, possessing no sound discrimination between right and wrong, the soldiers and sailors abandoned themselves to feral violence against defenseless innocents. And in the end, as Hirohito’s grandfather had foretold, the world came to detest them and to look upon them as wild beasts. As one surviving witness to the Manila atrocities commented afterward, “They were like mad, wild dogs. They were not even human beings—they acted like animals.”

On February 28, elements of the Eighth Army landed on Palawan Island, quickly driving the Japanese into inaccessible mountains. A landing on Mindanao followed on April 17, followed by smaller landings on Panay, Cebu, Negros, and smaller islands to the south. Casualties were minimal, as Japanese forces generally retreated into mountainous terrain and then wasted away for lack of provisions and support. Surviving Japanese troops dispersed into the backcountry, roaming around in small bands like jungle hoboes, gradually starving or succumbing to tropical diseases. Native guerillas hunted the stragglers, often torturing them to death and mutilating their corpses. Discipline collapsed. Enlisted soldiers turned against their officers. Men fought over food, even to the point of murder and cannibalism. Takamaro Nishihara recalled that a fellow soldier, dying of disease, invited him to prolong his life by

eating his buttocks. The starving Nishihara exclaimed that he could never do such a thing, “but I couldn’t take my eyes off the flesh on his rear.”

In the end, the Japanese lost the great bulk of their forces on Luzon, with only token resistance remaining at the end of the war. Two hundred thousand Japanese troops died on Luzon; just 9,000 were taken prisoner prior to Tokyo’s surrender in August 1945. Only about 40,000 Japanese troops who fought on the island eventually returned to their homeland after the war. Overall, according to Japanese government statistics, the army suffered cumulative losses of 368,700 dead in the Philippines.63 American forces

had destroyed nine of Japan’s elite army divisions and reduced another six to a condition in which they could no longer fight effectively. The campaign had caused, directly or indirectly, the destruction of more than 3,000 Japanese airplanes, and had forced the Japanese to adopt kamikaze suicide tactics as their main aerial tactic for the remainder of the war. American combat losses amounted to about 47,000, of whom 10,380 were killed—but casualties to causes other than combat, especially to diseases, ran to 90,400 American servicemen.