Thursday, July 19, 2012

"hewn down, and cast into the fire" - How the Emperor was Secured

The National Diet Building Street, Tokyo

How the Emperor was Secured

After the Japanese-American War (the main part of WWII for Japan), a big issue rose in Japan and the US as well as other parties of the Pacific theater of WWII, including the UK, China, the Soviet Union, Australia, etc.

Supreme commander of the occupation forces General MacArthur got prepared for the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals.  He ordered arrest of scores of Japanese generals, admirals, and politicians who had played major roles in the Empire of Japan when it launched wars in China and the Pacific region.

The biggest concern was whether or not Showa Emperor would be arrested, indicted, and, in the worst case, punished by allied forces that now occupied whole Japan, since he had been the emperor of the Empire of Japan since 1926.  The emperor of Japan presided over both the Imperial Government and the Imperial military while the two authorities were functionally separated by the Imperial Constitution.

Briefly speaking, the result was that the Emperor was not persecuted by the allied forces that occupied Japan after WWII.  His responsibility for the wars was not pursued.  Rather the Emperor met more than 10 times with General MacArthur in person to cement a kind of friendship till the General left Japan forever in 1951.

When the war ended, the US Government led by President Truman was not determined to execute or exempt the Emperor, since it was unclear how much the Emperor had been involved in the decision by the Empire of Japan to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941.  But, the US Government eventually decided not to call the Emperor to account.

It was General MacArthur that advised Washington that it was dangerous to bring a charge against the Emperor to simply inflict vengeance on the old enemy, the Empire of Japan.  If the Emperor had been taken to the Tokyo Tribunal, millions of Japanese would have been offended.  Some nationalists or ex-Imperial military officers might have started to attack US generals, officers and other personnel who now occupied Japan.  A larger-scale sabotage or guerrilla war might erupt in post-war Japan under military occupation mainly by the US Army and Navy.  It was not acceptable while the US and the Soviet Union were going to enter the era of the Cold War.    


General MacArthur further wrote a letter to Washington, explaining that the Emperor had not taken the initiative in planning and ordering the Pearl Harbor Attack.  He just reluctantly accepted the war plan having been prepared by the Imperial Government.  This letter worked so well that the US Government accepted MacArthur's policy not to prosecute Showa Emperor.


But why could MacArthur understand the situation around the Emperor so well?  How could MacArthur understand uniqueness of Japan and the Japanese people so well?  It is because he had a military secretary, a brigade general, who knew Japan so well, though MacArthur himself had once visited Tokyo before WWII while he was stationed in the Philippines.


It is Bonner Frank Fellers (1896–1973) who helped MacArthur understand well Japan and Japanese.  Fellers advised the General that occupation of Japan could be very successful if the Emperor became cooperative with the General Head Quarters of the occupation forces.  Besides, Fellers obtained a testimony that the Emperor had not been willing to support the war plan against the US.  


After the war and when the Tokyo Tribunal was scheduled, the Emperor decided to speak candidly to his aids in the Imperial Palace, expressing how he acted, thought and felt during the Japanese-Chinese War and the Japanese American War.  This monologue was conducted following advise from his aids for the purpose to present a proof that the Emperor was not responsible for the Pearl Harbor Attack.  Accordingly, his aids made a record of the Emperor's monologue.  It was translated into English and given to Fellers who found that the Emperor had not been proactive in carrying out the Pearl Harbor Attack, though he would not stop it.  Anyway, based on this personal testimony by the Emperor, Fellers could strongly support General MacArthur who then wrote the decisive letter to Washington.


However, it is now also understood that General MacArthur from the beginning had no intention to bring the Emperor to the Tokyo Tribunal, in order to make his occupation of Japan successful. 


More interestingly, Fellers had some Japanese friends before WWII or the Pearl Harbor Attack.  He had visited Japan a few times before the war.  From those Japanese friends he came to know author Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850 – 1904) who wrote many novels about Japan.  So, Fellers' knowledge about Japan was fairly deep.

In 1890, Hearn went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent, which was quickly terminated. It was in Japan, however, that he found a home and his greatest inspiration. Through the goodwill of Basil Hall Chamberlain, Hearn gained a teaching position during the summer of 1890 at the Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue, a town in western Japan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and his old residence are still two of Matsue's most popular tourist attractions. During his fifteen-month stay in Matsue, Hearn married Koizumi Setsu, the daughter of a local samurai family. He became a naturalized Japanese, assuming the name Koizumi Yakumo, in 1896 after accepting a teaching position in Tokyo.

During late 1891, Hearn obtained another teaching position in Kumamoto, Kyūshū, at the Fifth Higher Middle School, where he spent the next three years and completed his book Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894). In October 1894, he secured a journalism job with the English-language newspaper Kobe Chronicle, and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, a job he had until 1903. In 1904, he was a professor at Waseda University. On 26 September 1904, he died of heart failure at the age of 54 years. His grave is at the Zōshigaya Cemetery in Toshima, Tokyo.

Put simply, Showa Emperor (usually called Emperor Hirohito in English) was secured by General MacArthur, his military secretary Bonner Fellers, and Fellers' favorite author Lafcadio Hearn. 
   
(Emperor Hirohito is called Showa Emperor in Japan as his reign was during the Showa period in the Japanese calendar.)

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Mat 7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.