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VOL. 4, NO. 23 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1945 FOR U.S. ARMED FORCES
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Suicide Bungled, Tojo’s Life Rests On U.S. Blood
TOKYO (AP) - Gen. Hideki Tojo, Japan's war-making Premier who launched the attack on Pearl Harbor, declared in an exclusive interview that the American visitors noew could fix the responsibility for starting the war, but that history might disagree. The shaven-headed one-time terror of Asia, now living quietly at his comfortable farm outside Tokyo, flatly refused to discuss such questions as whether he expected to be tried as a war criminal of what defense he was preparing. But he was willing to talk of many other things, in moods ranging from steely-eyed passivity to hearty laughter. A little earlier a highly-placed Japanese politician tols us that Tojo expected to be tried as a war criminal, hoped to accuse the late Pres. Roosevelt as being the world's top war criminal, and then commit hari-kiri. Of this Tojo himself sharply refused to speak. Tojo's whole attitude was expressed in this statement: "Real soldiers fight to a finish in the field. War ends when peace is declared. Each respects an enemy who fights hard and cleanly, and so MacArthur has the respect of myself as well as the Japanese people." Tojo said that we were the first Americans he had seen since Japan's surrender. Asked who was responsible for starting the war, Tojo replied: "You are the victors and you are able to name him now. But historians 500 or 1,000 years from now may judge differently." Changing the subject, Tojo said he himself narrowly escaped death on June 25 when a Superfortress fire raid ringed his house with flames. When we first saw Tojo, a solitary laborer was working under his direction. "You burned my three best pine trees," complained the man whose armies destroyed most of Asia. We were taken to Tojo's farm - about an hour's drive from the Imperial palace - through police-guarded narrow lanes leading to his house. Our political informant earlier had told us that Tojo was roundly hated by the Japanese public because he failed to commit suicide. Other sources reported that Tojo amassed a fortune of millions of yen during his premiership, most of it from the ilicit opium trade in China where high generals acted as couriers to take the drug from North China to Shanghai markets. |
ONE-TIME 'TERROR of Asia,' Hideki Tojo deserted tradition by attempting to shoot himself instead of using his hari-kiri knife.
The former premier of Japan who ordered the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor fired a bullet into his chest when he saw Army officials and correspondents
arriving to take him to Gen. MacArthur's headquarters for questioning.
All With 24 Months Out Within A Year
WASHINGTON (ANS) - The Army plans to demobilize all men with two years' service between now and September 1, 1946, chairman Andrew May of the House Military committee reported.
May said the War Department as yet has made no definite commitment on such a program, but that it hopes to release two-year men "as soon as possible."
His statement came as Sen. C. Johnson (D-Col.) asserted Army "brass hats" want voluntary recruiting to fail, "because they love the draft."
He urged repeal of the draft law and said congress must act at once to speed service releases.
Jap ‘Cannibals’ Ate Yank, Aussie Soldiers
LONDON (AP) - Japanese "cannibals" tied the hands of captured American and Australian soldiers behind them, used the helpless victims for bayonet practice while they still were alive and then sliced off human flesh for food, the Australian Government charged in an official report on Japanese atrocities.
It is clear from authentic evidence that many under-fed Japanese troops had "resorted to cannabalism," the government declared. It will be submitted to the United Nations War Crimes commission. In some cases, human flesh actually was found in Japanese mess kits or over fires. The document added that captured Japanese soldiers admitted they also had cut up and devoured some members of their own army who were killed in action.
The summary of only a portion of the Australian charges was made public by Dr. Herbert and V. Evatt, Australian Minister for external affairs, who is in London to attend the Foreign Ministers' Council meeting.
"If those responsible for these outrages are allowed to escape punishment, it will be the grossest defeat of justice and a travesty of principles for which the war has been fought," Evatt declared.
The contents of the document he said, were "such as to shock and dismay the feelings of every decent human being." He said the report was based on testimony of more than 500 civilian and military witnesses and documentary evidence.
Evatt asserted that the confirmed atrocities reveal "practices of barbarity which could not have become general without direction of superior officers."
Evatt declared: "I emphasize most of all that the war crimes committed by Japanese forces in the field, while utterly wicked on the part of the actual perpetrators, are also part of a system of terrorism in which all Japanese troops and commanders particularly."
He asserted that "it is our duty to see that those who organized the system are punished and that the system itself is completely eradicated. Those at the top are in our view at least equally guilty with the actual perpetrators on the spot."
Jap Bows Himself Off Tokyo Wharf
TOKYO (ANS) - An effusive Japanese civilian bowed himself right off a dock into the water Tuesday as crowds of Japanese turned out to greet the first American ship to tie up at a Tokyo dock since before the war.
Crew members of the vessel, a small Signal Corps communications craft, fished the dunked welcomer from the bay while officers were greeted by Tokyo port officials.
JUBILANT PRISONERS, first to be freed on Jap soil, wave flags of the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands after they were released
from the Omori camp. (AP Wirephoto from U.S. Navy via Navy radio from USS Iowa in Tokyo Bay).
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MacArthur Abolishes Japan's Imperial Hqs.
TOKYO - Gen. MacArthur, striking the Japanese military a death blow, has ordered abolishment of Japanese Imperial headquarters - the organizing force behind Nippon's eight years of aggression - and threw a tight censorship over Tokyo news channels.
The Supreme Allied Commander, in a series of militant decrees, ordered that Imperial headquarters be dissolved by Saturday. This blow at the tactical organization of the Nip military establishment erased the last symbol of Japanese aggression.
MacArthur's decrees extended Allied control over the Domei news agency, Japan's main instrument of propaganda in peace and war, U.S. counter-intelligence officers, putting teeth in the order, placed Tokyo newspapers and radio stations under rigid supervision and halted all short-wave broadcasts.
The action came after criticism developed in the Allied press corps because Domei and Radio Tokyo were permitted to continue their functions unchecked while Allied troops were pouring into Japan for occupation tasks.
Despite the censorship, MacArthur decreed that there should be "an absolute minimum of restriction upon freedom of speech." The directive said the commander would suspend any newspaper, agency or radio station disseminating untrue information or creating unrest.
One of the first newspaper articles censored was a Nippon Times' story commenting that there had been "amazingly few" cases of rape by American occupation troops and that this was "an improvement over the records of former American visitors."
As the order was issued, demobilization of the Jap armed forces was well underway. Trains loaded with hundreds of unarmed soldiers and naval personnel carried demobilized men to their homes.
Meanwhile, American troops, now 100,000 strong, took control of new areas on the Jap home islands.
Three thousand Yank troops of the 27th Division occupied Odawara, 45 miles southwest of Tokyo, along with nearby Sagamishara and Zama. Other detachments entered Hiratsuka, 35 miles southwest of Tokyo.
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LONDON (Globe) - Japanese warlords are carrying out a master plan to turn their defeated armies into an instrument of revenge against the Allies.
Evidence is piling up in Washington that the Japanese militarists are determined to keep political control and defeat American designs to make the conquered nation democratic, says the London Daily Mail.
Pres. Truman and his White House advisers are daily growing more perturbed by the highly-skilled propaganda campaign that is denying that Japan lost the war. Conferences were held during the week-end by U.S. diplomatic, Army and Navy chiefs to decide what can be done to bring home the significance of the defeat on the Japanese people and to thwart the schemes of the militarists.
Pressure is being exerted on Pres. Truman to make the peace harsher for Japan, and there is a chance that Hirohito may be deposed and brought to the United States for trial.
Siam Not Enemy, But Secret Ally
WASHINGTON (ANS) - Thailand, once again to be known officially as Siam, has ended her long and perilous masquerade as a Japanese puppet State.
The Office of Strategic Services told how Thailand acted as a secret partner of the United Nations and supplied information against the Japanese. The OSS said that Regent Luang Pradit was actually leader of the resistance against Japan, and that Thailand was one of our few direct sources of intelligence on the Japs.
Through the medium of the OSS and its British counterpart, Luang Pradit was in constant wireless communication with the U.S. State Department, with the British government and with the Allied military command in India-Burma.
OSS said its trained agents worked secretly under the noses of the Japs. Men and supplies went into the country by submarine, flying boat and by parachute. Planes flew to secret airfields, and overland routes from China were used.
Twelve jungle guerilla camps were established by OSS, in preparation for a general revolt, many months before the end of the war. Several OSS officers lived in the heart of Bangkok, maintaining radio communication with an OSS base in Ceylon so that the Allies knew every Jap movement.
CAPERING GI's illustrate one way to say "It's good to be home" as they hang from portholes of the liner Queen Elizabeth as the big ship docked
in New York with nearly 15,000 service personnel from Europe.
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Prisoners Freed From Jap
Prisons Demand Hard Peace
WASHINGTON (ANS) - Demands for rough treatment and strict punishment of the Japanese came from liberated American prisoners now enroute home, who told new stories of mistreatment.
Ten freed prisoners told the United Press they hoped for a tough peace because "that's the only way they'll learn anything."
One freed prisoner said "the Japanese are brutal mostly because they're stupid. The officers kick the lower boys around, and they think that's the way the world is run. They just don't know any better."
At Guam, Col. Richard T. King, Jr., who parachuted into Tokyo from a disabled Superfortress, said he lost 70 pounds in eight months of imprisonment and was stoned and beaten by Jap civilians and soldiers.
Adm. Thomas C. Kincaid, aboard his Seventh Fleet flagship, revealed that the Japanese guards at a camp in Formosa literally worked to death two Americans who had tried to escape. Yanks liberated by Seventh Fleet rescue team said the prisoners were forced to work under incredible conditions and were beaten daily.
Most of the prisoners brought to the Seventh Fleet were living skeletons. Some too ill to be moved were left in Formosa and many probably will die despite medical care by rescue teams.
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CHUNGKING (AP) - The reason why the Japanese seized full control of French Indo-China last March was disclosed by a French officer just arrived in Chungking from Hanoi.
He revealed that the French in Indo-China had been under direct orders from Gen. Charles de Gaulle since October, 1941, and several thousand French soldiers and sailors had prepared for possible Allied landings, which they planned to assist by sabotage behind the Japanese lines.
The Japanese knew of the link between Paris and Indo-China, the officer said, but did nothing about it until early in March when three British planes which had been flying equipment to the French fell into their hands. Then they formally occupied Indo-China, placing all French officials in internment and French military and naval forces in prisoner-of-war camps.
The officer said about 8,000 soldiers and sailors outwitted the Japanese however, and managed to get away. Whenever they could, they engaged Japanese troops. Eventually, he said, about 5,000 French troops managed to reach China, while those remaining in Indo-China were known to have continued fighting the Japanese.
Floods Hurt Chungking More Than Japan Did
CHUNGKING (UP) - Thousands of men, women and children, despite the fact that peace prevails, are dwelling today in Chungking's famous air raid shelters hewn from solid hillside roack because China's oldest enemy, floods, have made them homeless.
While the city's three-day celebration greeting victory over the Japanese was under way, the Yangste river rose to more than 70 feet, forcing an estimated 100,000 to flee from their homes.
The flood waters now have subsided, leaving misery, destruction and death equal to anything China's mortal enemy, the Japanese, ever inflicted on the city's populace. It was the worst flood in more than 10 years, according to old residents.
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Nagasaki Destruction Is Worse Than Hiroshima's
NAGASAKI (AP) - More than half of Nagasaki was wiped off the map with one explosion from an atomic bomb a month ago, the first Americans to enter tis city of devastation found.
Now it is clear what the War Department meant when it said the second atomic bomb, which struck Nagasaki, made the one dropped on Hiroshima obsolete. The havoc wrought here is far greater than at Hiroshima.
In this city of 250,000 population, nothing remains save debris of the municipal area three miles long and two miles wide. Eighteen thousand buildings even vanished from the earth, and every one of the 32,000 that remain has been damaged.
It has been a month since that day of destruction, yet smoke still rises from the ruins and the smell of death is heavy over the city.
Nagasaki officials estimated 26,000 persons perished, 40,000 were injured and claimed that an average of 10 to 20 victims were still dying each day. They expect the death toll to reach 40,000.
I only started working for you yesterday!" |
In Washington
WASHINGTON (ANS) - The Congressional Medal of Honor, thenation's highest award for valor, was presented to Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright in a surprise ceremony Monday on the Corregidor hero's return to Washington after three years of Jap imprisonment.
The presentation, made by pres. Truman, was the highlight of a day of acclimation for the man who symbolizes the nation's greatest humiliation and its greatest triumph.
Wainwright, who has been nominated for full general, told Congress and the nation that America must never again become so weak that it invites another Corregidor.
He declared that the United States must, first, be prepared so that never again will American soldiers "be forced senselessly to suffer torment and starvation;" and second, be firm with those "truculent men," the Japanese.
The first to greet the tall, thin hero was his wife Kitty. They embraced, Wainwright giving his wife a long kiss. From then on, the general belonged to the people.
One hundred and fifty thousand jammed the mall near the Washington monument to hear him speak. Other thousands lined the flag-bedecked streets to watch him pass.
Wainwright, addressing both houses of Congress in separate sessions, told legislators they would be given complete information on Japanese prison camps.
LARGEST JAP SUB IN AMERICAN HANDS - With an American prize crew aboard, the Japanese submarine 1-400, described as 5,500 tonner and largest in the world,
enters Sagami Bay. The sub surrendered at sea to a U.S. destroyer. (AP Wirephoto)
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GIs In Hanoi Had Luxury
HQ. 10TH AIR FORCE, CHINA - American GIs stationed in the French Indo-China capital of Hanoi as "guests" of the Japanese before the formal surrender lived the life of Riley, according to 10th Air Force men who delivered supplies there before V-J Day.
The Yank visitors were impressed with the beauty, cleanliness and French-influence of the city, almost untouched by war. Lunch was served in the Hotel Metropole, and the amazed air corps men ate six-course dinners including steak and fresh pineapple.
Sgt. Leif Eide of Minneapolis, Minn., summed up the life of GIs in Hanoi.
"Damn me," he said, "this is the way to fight a war."
Soldiers of the American Army military mission in Hanoi, through agreement with the Japs, were quartered on the estate of Georges Gautier, former secretary-general of Indo-China; at the Hotel Metropole, and at the airfield, he said.
Two to a room, they had double beds with mattresses six inches thick.
"And food!" said the sergeant. "We have steak at least once a day, six and seven course meals, ice cold beer, rum and gin and, believe it or not, breakfast in bed if we want it, plus room service."
The CHINA LANTERN is the newspaper for the United States Forces in the China Theatre and is published three times weekly by Lt. Lester H. Geiss, Editor-in-Chief, for military personnel only. Lt. Harry D. Purcell, Managing Editor; Lt. Maurice Pernod, Production Chief. Pfc. Richard P. Wilson, Reporter. Editorial offices: Hqrs., SOS China Theater, Kunming, China, and Hqrs., SOS, Calcutta, India. Printed by Ajit Kumar Sinha at the "Amrita Bazar Patrika" Press, Calcutta. Unless specifically stated, news and features appearing in the China Lantern do not necessarily represent the views of the War Department; the Commanding General, USF, CT, or any other official source.
SEPTEMBER 13, 1945
Original issue of The China Lantern from the collection of Oliver Titchenal, USMC, Tientsin, China
Copyright © 2017 Carl Warren Weidenburner
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