In the Ruins of Empire : The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia

by Spector, Ronald

• ISBN13: 9781588367211
• ISBN10: 1588367215
• Copyright: 2008-07-08
• Publisher: Random House Inc

Summary

The New York Timessaid of Ronald H. Spector's classic account of the American struggle against the Japanese in World War II, "No future book on the Pacific War will be written without paying due tribute to Eagle Against the Sun." Now Spector has returned with a book that is even more revealing. In the Ruins of Empirechronicles the startling aftermath of this crucial twentieth-century conflict. With access to recently available firsthand accounts by Chinese, Japanese, British, and American witnesses and previously top secret U.S. intelligence records, Spector tells for the first time the fascinating story of the deadly confrontations that broke outor merely continuedin Asia after peace was proclaimed at the end of World War II. Under occupation by the victorious Allies, this part of the world was plunged into new power struggles or back into old feuds that in some ways were worse than the war itself. In the Ruins of Empire also shows how the U.S. and Soviet governments, as they secretly vied for influence in liberated lands, were soon at odds. At the time of the peace declaration, international suspicions were still strong. Joseph Stalin warned that "crazy cutthroats" might disrupt the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay. Die-hard Japanese officers plotted to seize the emperor's palace to prevent an announcement of surrender, and clandestine relief forces were sent to rescue thousands of Allied POWs to prevent their being massacred. In the Ruins of Empirepaints a vivid picture of the postwar intrigues and violence. In Manchuria, Russian "liberators" looted, raped, and killed innocent civilians, and a fratricidal rivalry continued between Chiang Kai-shek's regime and Mao's revolutionaries. Communist resistance forces in Malaya settled old scores and terrorized the indigenous population, while mujahideen holy warriors staged reprisals and terror killings against the Chinesehundreds of innocent civilians were killed on both sides. In Indochina, a nativist political movement rose up to oppose the resumption of French colonial rule; one of the factions that struggled for supremacy was the Communist Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh. Korea became a powder keg with the Russians and Americans entangled in its north and south. And in Java, as the Indonesian novelist Idrus wrote, people brutalized by years of Japanese occupation "worshipped a new God in the form of bombs, submachine guns, and mortars." Through impeccable research and provocative analysis, as well as compelling accounts of American, British, Indian, and Australian soldiers charged with overseeing the surrender and repatriation of millions of Japanese in the heart of dangerous territory, Spector casts new and startling light on this pivotal timeand sets the record straight about this contested and important period in history. From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

Chapter One "Shoot the Works!" No one expected the war to end when it did. even after the two atomic bombs and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war on August 9, the Japanese, though doomed, were expected to fight on for some considerable time. Suddenly, on August 10, the Domei News Agency broadcast a statement by the Japanese Foreign Ministry that Japan was ready to accept the surrender terms presented by the Allies in the so- called Potsdam Declaration on July 26, "provided that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler." The announcement surprised even top officials in Washington. "When the Japanese surrendered it caught the whole goddamn administrative machinery with their pants down," recalled a colonel in the Army high command.1 At the time the official notification was received via neutral embassies, Secretary of War Henry Stimson was about to leave on vacation, and the army and navy were opening another round in their continuing squabble about command arrangements for the impending invasion of Japan. One of those slated for that invasion, Marine sergeant David F. Earle, a veteran of the campaigns on Guam and Okinawa, listened with his tentmates to the radio. "Our station," he told his parents, "which secures at 2200, was back on the air with Japan's unconfirmed peace offer. It seemed almost too good to be true, beyond all realization. . . . Men shook hands, embraced and beer was drug out. Each time the commentor announced the same commentary, even though the men had heard the same thing over and over there was complete silence, as if we weren't able to hear it often enough. This morning the announcement was confirmed and now it's either accepted or not. To those who don't want to accept the terms because of the EmperorI haven't got words in my vocabulary to fit my contempt and scorn for their attitude. I know damn well that twenty-eight months out here would change their minds but fast. Anyway, we in my tent have already accepted the surrender and if the country hasn't we've decided to sue for a separate peace." Many in Washington shared Sergeant Earle's sentiments. In July, Stimson and Undersecretary of State Joseph C. Grew, former ambassador to Japan, had urged President Truman to include an explicit promise in the Potsdam Declaration that it might be possible for Japan to retain "a constitutional Monarchy under the present dynasty" following its surrender. There was strong opposition to such a guarantee, however, from many of the president's advisers, including Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, who believed that it would compromise the long-standing Allied agreement on "unconditional surrender" by the Axis powers. "Too much like appeasement," former secretary of state Cordell Hull observed. Other Americans saw no reason to retain the outmoded reactionary institutions that had encouraged Japanese militarism and aggression. The emperor had been portrayed in the American media as a symbol of Japanese fanaticism, a partner of Hitler and Mussolini. A Gallup poll published in The Washington Post at the end of June had revealed that 33 percent of Americans wanted the emperor executed, 17 percent favored a trial, 20 percent were for imprisonment or exile, and only 7 percent favored his retention, even as a figurehead. Truman was well aware of these sentiments when he hastily convened a meeting at the White House to discuss the Japanese surrender offer. Present at the meeting were Byrnes, Stimson, the president's military aides, Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal, John Snyder, a Missouri friend of Truman's who was serving as head of