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MacArthur Gets Tough, Cracks Down On Japan
Informs Nippon She Is Not An Equal Of Allies TOKYO - Gen. MacArthur got tough with Japan this week. The Supreme Allied commander bluntly informed Japan that she was not an equal of the Allies in any way, and would have to quit acting like one. Assuring American and Australian critics of his occupation program that he had no intention of applying the surrender terms in "a kid glove fashion," MacArthur stiffened his attitude toward "a defeated enemy which has not yet demonstrated its right to a place among civilized nations" and cracked down on Japs who refuse to admit defeat. Underscoring his warning by quick actions, MacArthur closed the Jap Domei news agency for 24 hours, allowing it to resume with only a limited domestic service and under 100 percent U.S. censorship. Domei's suspension, ordered because of "distortions and bad faith" in it's service, came a few hours after a series of news transmissions in which Domei charged American occupation troops with rape and looting, and Soviet troops with varied atrocites in Manchuria, Korea and Sakhalin. MANHUNT OVER When Domei was permitted to resume its domestic service, but not its overseas service, MacArthur directed that the stark facts of Japanese atrocities committed all the way from the Philippines to New Guinea be told in detail to the Japanese people through the press. The manhunt for men responsible for those atrocities was nearly over, meanwhile. Arrests, surrenders, suicides and illness accounted for virtually every member of Hideki Tojo's Pearl Harbor cabinet. One of the top men sought, Shigenori Togo, foreign minister who carried on sly negotiations while Japan's carriers were moving to attack Pearl Harbor, was found ill at his Tokyo home. Tokyo police announced that Nobosuke Kishi, Tojo's commerce minister, was en route to the capital from his southwestern Hinshi home to surrender. This left only Vice Adm. Ken Terashima among those not accounted for on MacArthur's "wanted" list of Tojo's former cabinet ministers. All but a few of the top saber-rattling militarists were in custody, including Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma, held accountable for Bataan's Death March; Jose Laurel, puppet president of the Philippines; Lt. Gen. Shigenori Kuroda, who succeeded Homma as Philippines commander; Dr. S. T. Tokuka, accused of conducting experiments which resulted in the death of Allied prisoners; Col. Kingoro Hasimoto, the man generally blamed for ordering the bombing of the American gunboat Penay in the Yangtze River in 1937. Recent suicides included Kinihiko Hashida, former education minister in Tojo's cabinet; Lt. Gen. Chikahiko Koizumi, welfare minister; and Field Marshal Gen. Syugiyama of the Kwangtung Army, who was not on MacArthur's list but who decided to eliminate himself when Imperial headquarters was dissolved. Gen. Teichi Yoshimoto of the northeastern Japan districts army did a good job of it, committing hara-kiri with a sword and then shooting himself with a pistol. SMOOTH SAILING Meanwhile, the most strategic centers of all four Jap home islands were marked for occupation by October in a stepped-up schedule testifying to the smooth spread of U.S. military power across the fallen nation. So smoothly was the occupation going that Eighth Army commander Lt. Gen. Robert Eichelberger expressed the hope that the occupation of Japan may be finished within a year. Eichelberger pointed out that when an insular country like Japan has lost its land, sea and air power and is without raw materials, it cannot be much of a threat to peace. MacArthur meanwhile answered critics of his so-called "easy peace" program by saying they had an "erroneous concept of what is occuring." "No one," said the supreme commander, "need have any doubt about the prompt, complete and entire implementation of the terms of surrender." "It is well understandable that in the face of the atrocities committed by the enemy, that there should be impatience. However, it should be tempered by the fact that security and military expediency still require the exercise of some restraint. "The surrender terms are not soft, and they will not be applied in a kid glove fashion." Stilwell's Son Joins Navy SAN DIEGO (ANS) - Benjamin Watson Stilwell, 18-year-old son of Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, arrived at the Naval training center here to become a sailor, shattering a family tradition. "I'm the first member of the family to wear a sailor suit," Ben said, "and I don't know how the Stilwells are going to like it." He admitted that neither his father nor his mother knew he planned to enter the Navy. "I've a pretty fair idea of Army life," he explained, "and I guess I just wanted to see how the other half lives." Joseph W. Stilwell, Jr., Ben's brother, is an infantry Lt. Colonel. |
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