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Photo 9: Word of the ‘Bataan Death March’ spread quickly across America. Propaganda
poster from the Office for Emergency Management, Office of War Information.
Domestic Operations Branch. Bureau of Special Services, 9 March 1943.

The ‘Rules of War’

“Some focus on who did what to whom,

but if you find out why it happened,
it won’t happen again, this time to you.”
– Charlie McLachlan

Throughout Charlie’s war, there were regular discussions about its causes, the
motives of both sides, and attitudes towards the opposing side. Charlie, as the
battery barber, was never short of conversation topics and the variety of customers
provided many perspectives.
Whether someone was Scottish, Cockney, American, Canadian, Australian, or
Japanese, whether they were regular army, volunteers, conscripted, or civilian, each
person brought insight through sharing their experiences.
Charlie was a newspaper man and the conversations with Archie Muir opened his
eyes to the motives and misconceptions about war. Skeptical about British motives
and their preparedness for war, he avoided joining the war effort until conscripted.
After all, to Charlie, patriotism only gets people killed and, as a new father, his role
was to support his family.
Most of those who volunteered were too young to know the horrors of the First
World War – then known as the Great War. There was nothing ‘great’ about that
Sparrow After-math

war. Many Australians thought the same as those who volunteered for the previous
war – it was an adventure to see far-flung places.
War changes people. It takes a certain mindset to fight, to kill, to capture, then to
guard an enemy. Motivating factors include information sought and unsought,
personal experiences, and preconceptions. Limiting factors include physical
capabilities, intellectual grasp, religion, morality, and laws. The commonality
between these limiting factors in conflict evolved into what became the Rules of
War.
Throughout the late 1930s, the British and American governments raised concerns
over the Japanese treatment of captured Chinese militants. After Japan’s attacks on
British, Dutch, and American ports on 7 December 1941 the Allies said that they
would hold Japanese to account for the mistreatment of prisoners of war.
The Empire of Japan, which signed but never ratified the Second Geneva
Convention of 1929,19 also did not treat prisoners of war in accordance with
international agreements that they did ratify, including provisions of the Hague
Conventions (1899 and 1907.)

Japan was an Ally during the First World War. At the siege of the German-
controlled Chinese port of Tsingtao in Kiautschou Bay, Japan took 3,900 German
soldiers to Japan.
Just under 1000 German prisoners were interned at places like the Bandō Prisoner
of War camp on the Island of Shikoku.20 When the camp closed in 1920, sixty-three
of the prisoners chose to remain in Japan.21 The German orchestra at the camp was
credited with the Japanese tradition of performing Beethoven’s Ode de Joy each
New Year.22 The camp and orchestra became the subject of a movie, The Ode de
Joy.23 In all respects, Japan observed the articles of the 1907 Hague Convention.
German prisoners of war were also held in the Omori POW Camp on a purpose-
built island in Tokyo Bay, which would become the Tokyo Headquarter Camp to
Mitsushima and Kanose Camps during the Second World War.

19
“International Humanitarian Law - State Parties / Signatories.” International Committee of the
Red Cross. 27/07/1929.
20
Schultz-Naumann, Joachim, “Unter Kaisers Flagge: Deutschlands Schutzgebiete im Pazifik und in
China einst und heute.” Universitas, 1985. p.207.
21
Johnston, Eric. “Bando POW camp: chivalry’s last bastion.” The Japan Times, 13 June 2006.
22
Brasor, Philip. “Japan makes Beethoven’s Ninth No. 1 for the holidays.” The Japan Times, 24
December 2010.
23
“The Ode de Joy” (Baruto no Gakuen). Buena Vista International Distribution, 2006.
Sparrow After-math

Photo 10: Omori Prisoner of War Camp in Tokyo Bay, August 1945.

The Japanese viewed surrender as dishonorable, yet they treated prisoners of war
during the First World War with great respect. The modern (and European-model
inspired) Sugamo Prison built in the 1920s to house political and high profile
prisoners symbolized Japanese attitudes towards incarceration during the era. The
International Military Tribunal for the Far East used the prison to house those
detained for war crimes after the Second World War.

Japan’s attitudes towards war drew parallels to its relationships with the West. It
started in 1853 with United States Commodore Matthew Perry’s ‘gunboat
diplomacy’ at the entrance to Tokyo Bay. In 1945, General Douglas MacArthur
officiated Japan’s capitulation to the West on the USS Missouri near the same spot
– the result of ‘atomic diplomacy’ the previous month.
Within a century, Japan went from being closed to foreign influence, to being
opened up by the United States, to being a United States ally fighting alongside in
several conflicts, to becoming its enemy, and finally being conquered by the United
States.
The rapid decline of Japan’s attitudes towards the West was exacerbated by the
foundations upon which its modernization was built. Commodore Perry’s volley of
exploding shells provided all the incentive to Japan’s warring factions of the
benefits of trade to consolidate their grip on power. The thirst for modern weaponry
triggered a chain of events that would ultimately demonstrate the reasons why
Japan was closed for two centuries beforehand.
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Photo 11: Commodore Perry’s flag (upper left corner) was flown from Annapolis to Tokyo for
display at the surrender ceremonies, which officially ended World War II.

* Gunboat Diplomacy

“It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war
that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

The Japanese have a long history of skepticism towards the West. For two
centuries, they took a strict isolationist stand, banning trade and contact with
empires thought to threaten Japanese culture.
In the seventeenth century, the Tokugawa Shogunate, who ruled Japan, enforced
the Sakoku (“locked country”) policy in order to remove the colonial and religious
influence of primarily Spain and Portugal, which was perceived as posing a threat
to the stability of the Shogunate and to the peace of the Japanese archipelago.
Empress Meishō heard of how the Spanish and Portuguese were settling the New
World and had great doubts that Japan could benefit from such rape and pillage
imperialism. Protestant English and Dutch traders, who spread rumours that the
Catholic colonizers were systematically spreading religion as part of plans to
culturally dominate Asia, reinforced this perception.
The English and Dutch were generally perceived as being able to separate religion
and trade, while their Iberian counterparts were looked on with suspicion. After the
Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–38, consisting of 40,000 mostly Christian peasants,
Christians were expelled or driven underground. The penalty of practicing
Christianity was death.
All contact with the outside world became strictly regulated by the Shogunate.
Dutch traders were permitted to continue commerce with Japan only by agreeing
not to engage in missionary activities. Trade with Dutch and Asian ships was
Sparrow After-math

controlled through specified ports and bans were put in place for the exportation of
the few minerals Japan did possess, such as silver and copper. Japan kept abreast
with Western technology, such as medicine, through the Dutch at its Dejima trading
post in Nagasaki Bay.
The focus on the removal of Western and Christian influence from the Japanese
archipelago as the main driver of the Sakoku maritime prohibitions – called Kaikin
(“Sea Restriction”) – is a common perception, mostly by Westerners,24 but was not
the only motivation. The gradual strengthening of the Kaikin also secured the
Tokugawa Bakufu’s domestic agenda. Controlling Japan’s foreign policy
guaranteed domestic social peace and supremacy over the other powerful lords in
the country, particularly the tozama daimyo, who used trade to build their military
strength. Directing trade predominantly through Nagasaki enabled the bakufu,
through taxes and levies, to bolster its own treasury.25
There were many attempts to break the Sakoku, ranging from Russians, French,
British, as well as the Americans. It took a flotilla of four U.S. Navy warships
(nicknamed the ‘Kurofune’ or ‘Black Ships’ due to their pitch-covered hulls) to
enter a harbour near Tokyo in 1853 and fire a volley of exploding shells to break
the deadlock. The ‘gunboat diplomacy’, led by Commodore Matthew Perry,
demanded the opening of trade to the West. Perry returned the following year with
seven warships and forced the Shogun to sign the ‘Treaty of Peace and Amity,’
known as the Convention of Kanagawa. In the same year, the British signed a
similar treaty, followed by Russia. Within five years, Japan had signed similar
treaties with other western countries.

During the Sakoku, Japan was a largely self-sufficient country with an agrarian
economy. Peace was maintained by the grip the Shogunate had through its network
of strongholds. Western technology was adapted for traditional purposes.
Although peaceful, the Japanese warrior culture was still evident. Battles were
tournament-based, fortress sieges, or raids. There weren’t large-scale engagements
across a wide battlefront.
The Japanese code of Bushidō — ‘the way of the warrior’ — was deeply
ingrained. The concept of Yamato-damashii equipped each soldier with a strict
code:
“Never be captured, never break down, and never surrender. Surrender was
dishonorable. Each soldier was trained to fight to the death and was expected
to die before suffering dishonor. Defeated Japanese leaders preferred to take
their own lives in the painful samurai ritual of seppuku (called hara kiri in
the West). Warriors who surrendered were not deemed worthy of regard or
respect.”26

24
Laver, Michael S. The Sakoku Edicts and the Politics of Tokugawa Hegemony. Cambria Press,
2011.
25
Hellyer, Robert I. Defining engagement: Japan and global contexts, 1640-1868. Harvard
University, 2009.
26
Correll, John T. The Smithsonian and the Enola Gay. U.S. Air Force Association, 15 March 1994.
Retrieved 16 July 2012.
Sparrow After-math

To consider the motives for the Kurofune, one must consider the wider context of
imperialism in the Far East and the United States’ ambitions. During the period that
Japan’s borders were closed, the Western Powers colonized vast tracts of the Far
East. India, Burma, and Malaya were in British hands, the French controlled the
Mekong catchment, the Dutch controlled from Sumatra to Guinea and Borneo, and
the Spanish colonized the Philippines. Most Western Powers had trading posts in
China.
Japan and the United States weren’t imperialists, but it was clear that to develop
as a modern nation both countries needed access to resources. Trading relationships
were fickle, much like the alliances between the Western Powers. Maintaining
access to resources required direct control, not just ownership.
The United States was built by negotiation and, if that failed, conquest. After the
war with Mexico, in 1848 the United States had a Pacific coastline after the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded California, New Mexico, and adjacent areas to the
United States. Shortly after, gold was discovered in Northern California. The
United States’ focus gradually oriented towards the Pacific and the Far East.
The growth of the United States westwards was driven somewhat by their own
Sakoku foreign policy. The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the
United States’ opinion that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere
in the Americas. The Monroe Doctrine was adopted in response to American and
British fears over Russian and French expansion into the Western Hemisphere.27
The Republicans also imposed tariffs designed to protect the infant industries that
had been created when Britain was blockading the U.S.
At the time of the Kurofune, the United States was embroiled in Civil War that
would divide the country until 1865. The economies of the north and south were
engaged in total war, where each side mobilized into a war machine.
Industrialization of the north saw the United States steel industry swell to the most
productive in the world. Railroads and telegraph efficiently transported troops and
intelligence to the front lines.

The ‘gunboat diplomacy’ of Perry and other Western Powers generated

resentment over what factions within the Shogunate considered being ‘unequal
treaties.’ Due to the treaty with the United States making them a ‘most favoured
nation’, Japan was forced to sign treaties with other Western Powers. In 1858
followed the Ansei Treaties with the United States, Great Britain, Russia,
Netherlands, and France. Edo, Kobe, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Yokohama opened to
foreign trade. Foreigners could live and trade in those ports under their own laws.
The problem was that fixed low import-export duties were subject to foreign control
– thus depriving the Japanese government control of foreign trade and protection
of Japan’s industries. The rate would drop to a low of 5 percent in the 1860s.28
The unequal treaties with Japan were unique because other unequal treaties, such
as those with China, were the result of military defeat. Japan simply was threatened
by a few exploding shells by four American warships. Resentment grew with those

27
Gilderhus, Mark T. The Monroe Doctrine: Meanings and Implications. Presidential Studies
Quarterly March 2006, Vol. 36#1. pp.5–16.
28
Auslin, Michael R. Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of
Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Sparrow After-math

who signed the treaties, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement –
the sonnō jōi (literally “Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians.”)29
What followed was a series of conflicts that generated several surprising twists.
Emperor Kōmei agreed with the sentiments of the sonnō jōi, and — breaking with
centuries of imperial tradition — began to take an active role in matters of state.
Opportunistic, he railed against the treaties and attempted to interfere with the
Shogunate’s succession plans. His efforts culminated in March 1863 with his
“Order to expel barbarians.” Because the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing
the order, the Shogunate and foreigners were attacked.

The catalyst of conflict was the Namamugi Incident. Because foreigners only had
to follow their own laws and not the Japanese, Japanese often felt insulted by
Westerners who did not observe their traditions.
A Yokohama-based British trader, Charles Lennox Richardson, was riding his
horse through Namamugi when he encountered a large armed procession of
samurai, including the daimyo of Satsuma, Shimazu Hisamitsu, heading in the
opposite direction. The Dutch trader ahead of Richardson’s party, Eugene Van
Reed, dismounted and bowed – as required by tradition. Richardson, after being
gestured to dismount several times, refused to dismount. Richardson was slashed
by a bodyguard and, while escaping, fell from his horse and was mortally wounded.
Hisamitsu gave the order for todome – the coup de grâce – to be given.
The Tokugawa government was required to pay an indemnity of one hundred
thousand British pounds for Richardson’s death. When payment was not
forthcoming, a squadron went to Satsuma’s capital, Kagoshima, to demand
reparation. The British seized several vessels as hostage against payment and were
fired upon by Satsuma forces. The British squadron retaliated by bombarding
Kagoshima.
Satsuma admired the superiority of the Royal Navy and sought a trading
relationship with Britain as a result. Later that year, they paid the £25,000
compensation demanded by the British Government, and borrowed the remainder
(and never repaying) the money from the bakufu – the shogun’s government.
On 12 June 1863, Captain David McDougal of the U.S. Navy, in a letter to the
Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, stated, “General opinion is that the
government of Japan is on the eve of revolution, the principal object of which is the
expulsion of foreigners.” Many feudal daimyos remained bitterly resentful of the
shogun’s open-door policy to foreign trade. Lord Mori Takachika expelled all
foreigners and fired on all foreign ships traveling through the 112-metre wide
Shimonoseki Strait between the main Japanese islands of Honshu and Kyushu.
The gunboat diplomacy of the Shimonoseki Campaign came at the time of the
Gettysberg and Vicksburg battles in the American Civil War. The world watched
President Abraham Lincoln’s government for any sign of weakness and indecision.
To their surprise, USS Wyoming became the first foreign warship to offensively
uphold treaty rights with Japan. The USS Wyoming, under Captain McDougal

29
Hagiwara, Kōichi. Illustrated life of Saigō Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi (図説 西郷隆盛と大
久保利通.)Kawade Shobō Shinsya, 2004.
Sparrow After-math

himself, sailed into the strait and single-handedly engaged the US-built but poorly
manned local fleet.
The British, Dutch, French, and American navies followed by bombarding and
capturing the battery at Shimonoseki. Considering Japan had only been open to
trade for a short time, the quality and abundance of the armaments captured shocked
the world.

* Western Influence

“Hence the saying:

If you know the enemy and know yourself,
you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

It is ironic that the death of Emperor Kōmei would bring a successor who would
seek help from the West to secure power. It would be the remnants of the Tokugawa
Shogunate, who opened Japan’s borders and received weapons and training from
Westerners, who would be left fighting using traditional methods.
The West found themselves in a conundrum. The British ambassador, Harry
Smith Parkes, supported the anti-Shogunate forces in a drive to establish a
legitimate, unified imperial rule in Japan, and to counter French influence with the
Shogunate. Several daimyo, including the Satsuma and Chōshū, who had strong
connections with the British, sided with the new Emperor Meiji.
After the young Emperor called for the “slaughtering of the traitorous subject
Yoshinobu,” Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned his post at the head of the Shogunate,
resulting in a power vacuum. Satsuma and Chōshū seized the Imperial Palace in
Kyoto and Emperor Meiji declared the restoration of full imperial power.
Yoshinobu changed his mind about the restoration of the Emperor and attacked
Kyoto after Edo Castle, the main Tokugawa residence, was arsoned. Shogunate
forces then attacked Satsuma’s Edo residence.
What followed was a series of engagements where Satsuma took advantage of his
modern weaponry, including pack howitzers and Gatling guns. The Shogunate took
advantage of their modern navy.
Stuck in the middle were the ministers of foreign nations, who gathered at present
day Kobe. They issued a declaration recognizing the Shogunate as the only rightful
government in Japan, which gave hope to Tokugawa Yoshinobu that foreign
nations (especially France) might consider an intervention in his favour. A few days
later, however, an imperial delegation visited the ministers, who declared that the
Shogunate was abolished, that harbours would be open in accordance with
international treaties, and that foreigners would be protected. The ministers finally
Sparrow After-math

decided to recognize the new government.30 This did not stop anti-foreign
sentiment, which included the deaths of 11 French sailors and an attack on British
Ambassador, Sir Harry Parkes.
Although foreign ministers recognized Meiji’s government, they sat on the fence
to see who would prevail. Under the influence of Parkes, foreign nations signed a
strict neutrality agreement where they would not intervene or provide military
supplies to either side until the resolution of the conflict.31
Edo fell and Shogunate forces retreated north by sea with the help of French
advisors. While most of Japan recognized the Emperor’s rule, a few northern
pockets resisted. Poorly equipped, they relied on traditional methods. The few
modern arms they did have, including two of the three Gatling guns in Japan, held
off only briefly. Retreating to the northern island of Hokkaido, they formed the Ezo
Republic (based on the United States’ model.) The last stand came in the form of a
large-scale naval battle in Hakodate Bay.
The Boshin War ended with the surrender of Ezo Republic Naval Commander
Enomoto Takeaki, who originally said he would fight to the end. Instead, his
commander in chief, Otori Keisuke, convinced Enomoto to surrender, telling him
that deciding to live through defeat was the truly courageous way: “If it’s dying you
want you can do it anytime.”32 The French advisors escaped and fled back to
France.

Out of the Boshin War emerged a different moral code, more flexible than the
strict Bushidō code. Enomoto wasn’t expected to kill himself. Reprisals were
avoided. Unifying the enemy to within the fold was paramount.
Contrast this with the Lieber Code33 – an instruction signed by President Abraham
Lincoln to the Union Forces of the United States during the American Civil War
that dictated how soldiers should conduct themselves in wartime. It was the first
expressly codified law that expressly forbade giving ‘no quarter’ to the enemy (i.e.,
killing prisoners of war), except in such cases when the survival of the unit that
held those prisoners was threatened.
The Code forbade the use of torture to extract confessions; it described the rights
and duties of prisoners of war and of capturing forces. The Code, however,
permitted reprisal (by musketry) against the enemy’s recently captured POWs; it
permitted the summary execution (by musketry) of spies, saboteurs, francs-tireurs,
and guerrilla forces, if caught in the act of carrying out their missions.

Without opposition, Emperor Meiji set about unifying his country, starting with
moving his seat of power from Kyoto to Tokyo (formerly Edo.) Instead of seeking
retribution on enemies, the clemency given was influenced by Parkes, who said,
“that severity towards Keiki [Yoshinobu] or his supporters, especially in the way
30
Polak, Christian. Soie et lumières: L’âge d’or des échanges franco-japonais (des origines aux
années 1950). Tokyo: Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie Française du Japon. Hachette Fujin
Gahōsha, 2001. p.75.
31
Ibid., p.77.
32
Ibid.
33
“The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate
Armies.” Series III, Volume 3, General Order № 100. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1899. pp.148-164.
Sparrow After-math

of personal punishment, would injure the reputation of the new government in the
opinion of European Powers.”34
Meiji took a different approach to his father’s objective to expel foreigners from
Japan. Instead, he took a more progressive policy of modernizing the country and
renegotiating the unequal treaties with foreign powers. His motto was fukoku kyōhei
– “rich country, strong army” or “enrich the country, strengthen the military.”
At Meiji’s coronation, his Charter Oath, called for planned congresses, increased
opportunities for the common people, abolishing the “evil customs of the past,” and
seeking knowledge throughout the world “to strengthen the foundations of imperial
rule.”35
Domains were replaced by prefectures, schooling became compulsory, Confucian
class distinctions were abolished, and conscription of commoners to the army
introduced. The French, who built the Shogunate Navy, continued their work to
build a large-scale Imperial Japanese Navy. The Satsuma, who wanted the retention
of the samurai class, rebelled but were defeated by the Imperial Japanese Army in
the Battle of Shiroyama in 1877.
The word “Meiji” means “enlightened rule” and the goal of the Emperor’s goal
was to combine “western advances” with the traditional, “eastern values.”36 The
leaders under Meiji sought to “promote civilization and enlightenment” through
western ethics and ideas.

To the West, Japan was seen as the last frontier. As Japan’s doors were closed for
two centuries, its citizens had not travelled abroad to witness the effects of
imperialism. So, when Emperor Meiji wanted to know how the rest of the world
functioned, he sent delegations to find out what they could to benefit his plans.
The West’s dominance of Japan was the result of Japanese ignorance of the West.
The West could follow the same formula as it had done elsewhere:
 Set up a trading post;
 Trade in arms;
 Watch the natives wage a civil war;
 The Imperialists pick the winning side; and
 The Imperialist power colonizes the people for their own protection
(and from a rival imperial power).
This formula was applied by the West in Africa, by the British in Africa, India,
and New Zealand. The Americans also did this with the Native Americans.
Japan was different. While the Western Powers were over-stretched in conflicts
elsewhere, Japan was not on their list of potential colonies. While the unequal
treaties allowed dominance of trade, Japan used the trade for their own purposes
whilst maintaining aspects of their culture. There was no ‘assimilation’ as, to the
Japanese, their homogenous race was not inferior. Whilst the Emperor was seen as

34
Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912. Columbia, 2005. p.143.
35
Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Harvard, 2002. p.338. Also n.34, p.138.
36
Hunt, Lynn, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, R. Po-chia Hsia et al.. The Making of the
West, Peoples and Cultures. Vol. C. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2009. pp.712-13.
Sparrow After-math

a living god, Emperor Meiji received Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in Tokyo, “as his
equal in point of blood.”37

Before the Meiji Restoration, several missions were sent abroad by the Bakufu in
order to learn about Western civilization, revise treaties, and delay the opening of
cities and harbours to foreign trade. A Japanese Embassy to the United States was
sent in 1860. In 1862 and 1863, embassies were sent to Europe. Japan also sent a
delegation and participated in the 1867 World Fair in Paris.
The first Meiji delegation was the 1871-73 Iwakura Mission, whose role was to
renegotiate unfair European treaties and to get information on education,
mechanics, worldview, military, and social structures. Their itinerary included a
rail journey from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., then tours of Britain, France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Bavaria,
Austria, Italy, Switzerland, then on to Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Saigon,
Hong Kong, and finally Shanghai.
During a time of rebuilding after the Civil War, there was enormous social change
with the abolition of slavery and the influx of Eastern and Western immigrants. The
Iwakura Mission would have been shocked by the disorder and division of the
fledgling power.
Arriving in San Francisco, the Japanese observed how mineral wealth could be
translated into a hastily built modern city. Traveling across the recently completed
Transcontinental Railroad, it was difficult not to notice the effects of infrastructure
on opened up territory confiscated from Native Indians who, for a time, lived in
concentration camps and then segregated to reservations.
Japan, whose economy was agrarian based, observed how Southern agrarian
industry was built off the back of black slavery. As they travelled from the Great
Lakes down the East Coast, they saw how the Civil War fueled northern industrial
expansion and how the financial infrastructure was built on trade with the West.
In Europe, the Japanese envoy observed the fractious and duplicitous nature of
diplomacy between the European nations. The appalling social problems associated
with industrial growth on cluttered populations would have concerned them greatly.
On the return voyage, the Japanese saw the effects of European Imperialism on
Africa, the Middle East, the Asian subcontinent, and the Far East.

After returning to Japan, the Iwakura Mission would have tried to explain what
they learned from Western civilization by promoting the positive aspects coupled
with warnings. With each positive, the threat to Japan would have been the fear of
falling behind and the fear of implementing industrialization to the detriment of its
society.
The rapid industrialization and modernization of Japan both allowed and required
a massive increase in production and infrastructure. Japan built industries, such as
shipyards, iron smelters, and spinning mills, which were then sold to well-
connected entrepreneurs. Consequently, domestic companies became consumers of
Western technology and applied it to produce items that would be sold cheaply on
the international market. With this, industrial zones grew enormously and there was

37
Keene, op cit., p.183.
Sparrow After-math

massive migration to industrializing centres from the countryside. Industrialization

also went hand in hand with the development of a national railway system and
modern communications.
Industrialization provided internal stability and international status. The Victorian
Industrial Revolution, however, was centred on the technology of steel and oil.
Japan did have coal, iron ore, and oil reserves but, over time, these resources would
be depleted. Japan’s hunger for steel resulted in:
 Coal production swelling from 600,000 metric tons in 1875 to 21.3
million tons in 1913;
 Steel production growing;
 Raw silk production exploding from 1,026 tons to 12,460 tons;
 A merchant fleet swelling from 26 steamships to 1,514; and
 Railways growing from 29 kilometres to 11,400 kilometres.
The problem for Japan was that it only had 90 million tons of iron ore deposits,
offshore oil reserves of almost 3 million barrels, and small deposits of copper, gold,
silver and sulphur. Steel needed trade, trade needed security, security needed steel.
Foreign diplomacy and trade was the frontline of Japan comparing and contrasting
their culture with those of its counterparts. The Japanese would have taken
considerable interest in the unstable and shifting alliances of Europe’s powers. The
British warred with the French for centuries, then the Ottoman Empire and French
were British allies during the Crimean War. The Western Powers unified to
bombard Shimonoseki. If Japan was to rely on trade for its raw materials, the fickle
Western Powers were a major concern.
With modernization, there was a modern morality to war. The Crimean War saw
modern fighting methods, unified war industries, modern medicine, and an
emerging code of conduct. Also, the justification for war and annexation of territory
came to the fore.
The world was changing and Japan was trying to change with it. The West was
seen as the leaders of change. Japan wanted to stay in step with the West in order
to be the leader of the East. Nevertheless, what sort of example did the West provide
to Japan? What did it condone, promote, how did it justify its actions? More
importantly, how did it react to others doing the same?
Japan saw Britain as a good example to compare itself with. Britain was a small
country with few natural resources off the coast of a continent. Britain used its
model of government, technology, trade, and military to form the basis of the
greatest empire the world had ever known.
At the time of Japan’s curiosity with the world, Britain was engaged in total war
in South Africa.
Britain had acquired the Cape of Good Hope in 1815 from the Dutch during the
Napoleonic Wars. After the discovery of diamonds and then gold, the British fought
the Boers to a stalemate in 1881. The Boer guerrilla campaign combined
marksmanship, tactical flexibility, and good use of ground to bog down the British.
Almost 20 years later, the lure of gold made it worth committing the vast resources
of the British Empire and incurring the huge costs required to win that war.
Sparrow After-math

The British methods to win the Second Boer War demonstrated the lengths of total
war. Total war wasn’t just the control of an entire economy to win a war, it extended
to controlling the enemy’s, including its civilian population.
To flush out guerrillas, the British made it difficult for them to hide and to feed
themselves. A ‘scorched earth’ raped the land of resources, which also deprived the
Boers of a living. The systematic destruction of crops and slaughtering of livestock,
the razing of homesteads and farms, the poisoning of wells, and salting of fields
were designed to prevent the Boers from resupplying from a home base. Many tens
of thousands of women and children were forcibly moved into the concentration
camps Kitchener initiated to:
“Flush out guerrillas in a series of systematic drives, organised like a
sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly ‘bag’ of killed, captured
and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give
sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children.... It was the
clearance of civilians—uprooting a whole nation—that would come to
dominate the last phase of the war.”38
The English term “concentration
camp” was used more widely
during the Second Boer War
(1899–1902), when the British
operated such camps in South
Africa for interning Boers. They
built a total of 45 tented camps for
Boer internees and 64 for black
Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men
captured as prisoners of war, the
British sent 25,630 overseas. The
vast majority of Boers remaining Photo 12: Lizzie Van Zyl was a child inmate of
Bloemfontein camp who died from
in the local camps were women typhoid fever during the Second
and children. Conditions were Boer War.
horrendous and epidemics killed
thousands.
Despite outcries in Britain at the appalling conditions suffered by the Boers, the
government retained power due to the military successes of the South African
campaign. To appease the protestors, a commission of inquiry was conducted.
Expecting a whitewash, the Fawcett Commission confirmed the protestors’ fears.
The report concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 24,074 were children under 16)
died of starvation, disease, and exposure in the concentration camps. In all, about
one in four of the Boer inmates, mostly children, died. To put that in context, fifty
percent of the Boer child population died in concentration camps.

Japan also looked to the United States to understand the workings of a growing
power. The first uses of concentration camps were those set up in the United States
for Cherokee and other Native Americans in the 1830s. The authorities simply

38
Pakenham, Thomas. The Boer War. New York: Random House, 1979.
Sparrow After-math

believed that if they liked particular areas of land, they could capture the Native
Americans, place them in concentration camps, and keep them there until they
figured out what to do with them. They would then find a less valuable area of land
and relocate them on reserves, much like cattle.
Although the Civil War put an end to slavery, African Americans were second-
class citizens and segregated in the South.
The Japanese also learned from the Americans that the justifications for war
needn’t be an obstacle.
American ambition – combined with deep-set racism and media propaganda –
fuelled the fire between Spain and the United States. In the minds, schoolbooks,
and scholarship of the mostly Protestant U.S. public, the Catholic Spanish Empire
was a backward, immoral union built on the backs of enslaved natives and funded
with stolen gold.39
While the Monroe Doctrine
provided an exception to
Spain in Cuba, the Cuban
independence struggle
worried American economic
interests on the island. Many
American firms pressed both
American and Spanish
politicians to restore order,
not war. Cuban autonomy
was proposed by the Spanish.
Joseph Pulitzer of the New
York World and William
Randolph Hearst of the New
York Journal, on the other
hand, recognized the potential
for great headlines and stories
that would sell copies.
Shortly after the Cuban
autonomous government took
power, a small riot erupted in
Havana, ironically by Spanish
officers offended by
persistent newspaper
criticism of their general’s
policies. The United States Photo 13: Inventing excuses for war isn’t new.
sent the USS Maine to ‘Yellow journalism’ between Hearst and
Pulitzer papers escalated the Spanish-
Havana to ensure the safety of American War.
American citizens and
interests. Other U.S. ships were moved to Quay West, off the coast of Lisbon, and
Hong Kong.

39
Kagan, Richard L. Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of
Spain. The American Historical Review 101, no.2, April 1996. pp.423–46.
Sparrow After-math

On 15 February 1898, the Maine sank in Havana Harbour after suffering a massive
explosion, killing 266 sailors. President McKinley asked Congress to appropriate
$50 million for defence, and Congress unanimously obliged. The media went into
frenzy, making all sorts of wild speculation. The momentum for war was
unstoppable – although later it was suggested that the ship sunk due to an internal
explosion, not by external causes.
The New York City papers used sensationalistic and astonishing accounts of
“atrocities” committed by the Spanish in Cuba. Their press exaggerated what was
happening and how the Spanish were treating the Cuban prisoners.40 Stories based
on truth but written with incendiary language caused emotional and often heated
responses among readers. There was a common myth that, when his illustrator
Frederic Remington said that conditions in Cuba were not bad enough to warrant
hostilities, Hearst responded: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”41
Under pressure from Congress, President McKinley found himself alone and
asked Congress for authority to send American troops to Cuba, knowing that
Congress would force a war. A joint resolution of Congress, signed by McKinley,
demanded Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and authorized the President to use much
military force to help Cuba gain independence. In response, Spain broke off
diplomatic relations and the United States blockaded Cuba. Spain then declared
war. In response, the United States declared that a state of war existed when the
blockade of Cuba had begun.42
Instead of attacking mainland Spain, or just Cuba, it targeted Spanish colonies it
wanted – including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. It was the naked
ambition of an emerging imperial power and, after the Spanish sued for peace, the
United States got what they wanted.
The excuse for attacking the Philippines was similar to Cuba: that the Americans
were simply helping the liberation of the Filipinos. Instead, the Americans took the
place of the Spanish as colonizers after the war and the Philippine-American war
ensued.
American Imperialism reared its ugly head in the Philippines. United States
attacks in the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire
villages were burned and destroyed,43 and civilians were detained in concentration
camps, called “protected zones.”44 The use of ‘water cure’ (induced drowning)
torture was widespread.45 While an estimated 34,000 Filipino soldiers lost their
lives, the Filipino population decreased by more than a million within a decade.

40
Ruiz, Vicki L. Nuestra América: Latino History as United States History. Journal of American
History, 2006. p.655.
41
Campbell, W. Joseph. Not likely sent: the Remington-Hearst “telegrams.” Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly, August 2000.
42
Trask, David F. The war with Spain in 1898. University of Nebraska Press, 1996. p.57.
43
Schirmer, Daniel B.; Shalom, Stephen Rosskamm. The Philippines Reader: A History of
Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance. South End Press, 1987. p.18.
44
Storey, Moorfield; Codman, Julian (legal counsel for the Philippine Investigating Committee.)
Secretary Root’s Record:”Marked Severities” in Philippine Warfare, 1902.
45
Ibid.
Sparrow After-math

Filipino historian E. San Juan Jr. alleges that the death of 1.4 million Filipinos
constitutes an act of genocide on the part of the United States.46
In the concentration camps, known as reconcentrados, 8,350 of the 298,000
prisoners died during a three-month period. Some camps incurred death rates as
high as 20 percent:
“One camp was two miles by one mile (3.2 by 1.6 km) in area and ‘home’
to some 8,000 Filipinos. Men were rounded up for questioning, tortured, and
summarily executed.”47
US General Franklin Bell ordered that by Christmas 1901, the entire population
of the Batangas and Laguna Provinces to gather in small areas of their towns. The
US Army burned anything left behind and shot anyone found outside the ghetto-
style concentration camps.

The American media didn’t turn

a blind eye to the atrocities. After
all, they sold newspapers. On May
5, 1902, the New York Journal
published a cartoon of the Samar
massacre where, enraged by a
guerrilla massacre of U.S. troops
on the Island of Samar, General
Jacob H. Smith retaliated by
carrying out an indiscriminate
attack upon its inhabitants. His
order “KILL EVERY ONE OVER Photo 14: “KILL EVERY ONE OVER TEN.”
TEN” became a caption. The Old New York Journal - May 5, 1902.
Glory draped an American shield
on which a vulture replaced the
bald eagle.
The Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:
“The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have
been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners
and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the
idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog....”48
Many attempts were made to cover up atrocities. Many soldiers wrote letters home
describing massacres of civilians. Investigations into atrocities involved sending
copies of letters to the superiors of authors, the superiors would demand a
retraction, and, if one was not forth-coming, they would be court-martialed.
What these letters showed was an emerging theme by Americans towards Asians.
Here is an excerpt of a New York-born soldier:

46
San Juan, E. Jr. “U.S. Genocide in the Philippines: A Case of Guilt, Shame, or Amnesia?” March
22, 2005.
47
Dumindin, Arnaldo. “The Last Holdouts: General Vicente Lukban falls, Feb. 18, 1902.”
Philippine–American War, 1899–1902. Self-published.
48
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Harper & Row, 1980.
Sparrow After-math

“The town of Titatia [sic] was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two
companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and
his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General
Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight; which was done to
a finish. About 1,000 men, women and children were reported killed. I am
probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my
gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger.”49
Corporal Sam Gillis wrote:
“We make everyone get into his house by seven p.m., and we only tell a
man once. If he refuses we shoot him. We killed over 300 natives the first
night. They tried to set the town on fire. If they fire a shot from the house
we burn the house down and every house near it, and shoot the natives, so
they are pretty quiet in town now.”50
Already, the Americans perceived their enemy, even those they colonized, as sub-
human. Desensitized by racial hatred, their cruelty escalated against their perceived
enemy.
The actions of the Americans in the Philippines shocked the West and the East
from the outset. Following the American victory in the Battle of Manila Bay in the
Spanish-American War, Manila Bay was filled with the warships of Britain,
Germany, France, and Japan.51 Japan’s presence clearly showed that it actively
defended its interests, much like the Western Powers did in Japan during the Boshin
War.

* Eastern Power

“We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted

with the designs of our neighbors.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

Japanese came face to face with the ugly side of American imperialism in Hawaii.
In 1881, King David Kalākaua visited Japan to strengthen relations between the
two nations. Kalākaua and Emperor Meiji could identify with each other; both
countries were island nations, both were nations of the Pacific, both were
monarchies, and both were under pressure from Western Powers.
Japan had barred immigration to Hawaii over fears that Japanese labourers would
be degraded, as the Chinese were. The bar was, however, dropped in 1885 and the
first 153 Japanese arrived as contract labourers for sugar cane and pineapple
plantations.

49
Miller, Stuart Creighton. Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines,
1899–1903. Yale University Press, 1982. p.88.
50
Ibid.
51
Field, James A. Jr. American Imperialism: the Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book. The American
Historical Review (American Historical Association), June 1978. Vol. 83 (3). p.659.
Sparrow After-math

Japan’s original fears were well founded. In 1887, the white elite forced a
‘Bayonet Constitution’ on the King. While Hawaiian, Americans, and Europeans
could vote, Japanese could not. In 1893, due to pressure from American Hawaiians
pushing for annexation, the King was overthrown.
Shocked by the American aggression, Japan responded with its own gunboat
diplomacy but, due to concerns that diplomacy would break down at the expense
of Japanese citizens, the Japanese withdrew its protests. Meanwhile, the British
warships present, whose Union Jack appeared on the Kingdom of Hawaii’s flag,
appeased the American aggression.
Americans living on Hawaii, scaremongering that the Japanese would restore the
Hawaiian throne, generated anti-Japanese sentiment.

As early as 1897, the United States began to regard Japan as a potential threat to
its interests in the western Pacific. By that stage, America hadn’t declared war on
Spain. The U.S. Navy, however, began to draft war plans against Japan, which were
eventually code-named “War Plan Orange.” Over time, this plan would be updated
as the U.S. and Japan gained more colonies in the Pacific.
So how did the United States go from kicking in Japan’s door to trying to fence
them in? In short, Japan demonstrated to the West that it could mix with the best of
them, form alliances with the big boys, and share the spoils. America, on the other
hand, acted like a sidelined brat left sulking on the bench.

With its borders forced open, Japan developed the fukoku kyōhei strategy to
maintain its security – both militarily and psychologically. An important objective
of the military buildup was to gain the respect of the Western Powers and achieve
equal status for Japan in the international community. Many of the social and
institutional reforms of the Meiji period were designed to remove the stigma of
backwardness and inferiority.
Regardless of how modern or strong Japan was, they were still ‘yellow.’ Japan
was concerned with being associated with China and other Asiatic countries, not
because they thought they were
inferior, but because Europeans
couldn’t and wouldn’t distinguish
Japan from the rest.
Europeans did consider
themselves some type of ‘master
race.’ Kaiser Wilhelm II coined the
phrase “Yellow Peril” and
accompanied it with an illustration
of Archangel Michael as an
allegorical Germany leading the
European powers (Britannia,
Columbia, Marianne, and Mother Photo 15: “Völker Europas, wahrt eure
Russia amongst them) against an heiligsten Güter” (Peoples of Europe,
guard your dearest goods.)
Sparrow After-math

Asiatic threat represented by a golden Buddha. This illustration hung in all ships of
the Hamburg America Line.52
Effectively, such imagery was some contrived belief that Europeans were meant
to rule the Earth and Asians were a threat. Considering the European powers had
dominated trade with the East and colonized vast tracts of it, such fears were of
their own making. If trade was such a good thing, and their presence so far away
from home was so mutually beneficial, why would they worry?

Japan went through a period of reunifying. Scattered across a vast archipelago, in

1879 the Ryukyuan kingdom, which was under the influence of the Shimazu clan
of the Satsuma, was annexed. These islands, which included Okinawa, were a string
of small islands that stretched from the Japanese mainland to Formosa, forming the
boundary of the East China Sea.
Next, Japan tried to develop trade links with its Eastern neighbours, whilst
strengthening its security. Korea was first cab off the rank. In 1876, early tension
was settled temporarily through the Japan–Korea Treaty, which opened Korean
ports to Japan. The 1885 Tianjin Convention, which removed Japanese and Chinese
troops from Korea, effectively made Korean a co-protectorate of Beijing and
Tokyo.
Relations between Beijing and Tokyo deteriorated in 1894 after a string of events
generated unstoppable momentum. First, a pro-Japanese Korean diplomat was
assassinated in Shanghai. Pro-war elements in Japan called for a punitive
expedition, which the cabinet resisted. With the assistance of several Japanese
nationalistic societies, Korea staged a peasant uprising, which was crushed by
Chinese troops.
Japan quickly responded with force and defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese
War. After nine months of fighting – where Japan mobilized its modern navy and
army in Taiwan, Manchuria, and Korea – China called a cease-fire, and the
resulting Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 secured Korean independence, Chinese
reparations to Korea, Japan gained Taiwan and its neighbouring Penghu Islands,
China lost Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, and Japan gained trade access to Yangtze
River ports.
Japan’s first war with a foreign power in over 400 years produced a decisive
victory that sent shockwaves through the Western Powers. Russia, British, and
United States interests in the Korean Peninsula were growing at the time. The
advisor to the Chinese, German General Staff officer William Lang, stated that “in
the end, there is no doubt that Japan must be utterly crushed.”53 The Imperial
Japanese Army and Navy were, however, able to inflict a string of defeats on the
Chinese through foresight, endurance, strategy, and power of organization. By
utilizing pro-Japanese calls for intervention to start the war, Japan applied the same
strategy that the United States used in Hawaii.

52
Rupert, G. G. The Yellow Peril or, the Orient versus the Occident. Union Publishing, 1911. p.9.
53
Fairbank, John King; Kwang-Ching Liu, & Twitchett, Denis Crispin, ed. Late Ch’ing, 1800-1911.
Volume 11, Part 2 of The Cambridge History of China Series (illustrated ed.). Cambridge
University Press, 1980. p.269.
Sparrow After-math

Japan gained more Chinese territory than every Western power combined. The
victory established Japan as a regional power on equal terms with the West and as
the dominant power in Asia. 54
Japan disturbed the status quo. China was humiliated, which generated internal
instability. Russia still wanted an all-season port. To the other Western Powers,
Japan’s encircling empire could effectively control all the shipping between Taiwan
to Japan.
The West focused on how Japan
defeated the Chinese. Japanese
were frustrated by the treatment of
their captured compatriots by the
Chinese. Chinese tortured and
murdered Japanese prisoners of
war held at Pyongyang and
elsewhere. In the Battle of
Lushunkou, Japanese anger boiled
over.
On 18 November 1894, the
Japanese movement down the
Liaodong Peninsula was
temporarily frustrated. When the Photo 16: A ‘sensationalist’ and ‘yellow
Japanese returned, they found that journalism’ Western newspaper’s
depiction of Japanese soldiers
their abandoned wounded troops mutilating bodies during the Port
were horribly mutilated with hands Arthur massacre.
and feet cut off. Others had been
burned alive. Arriving in an evacuated city, the Chinese left mutilated Japanese
bodies on display at the entrance to the city.
The Japanese sought reprisals against the remaining inhabitants of Port Arthur.
How many were massacred remains controversial but it is believed to be between
1,500 and 6,000.55 Many Western reporters were attached to the Japanese Second
Army. American ‘sensationalist’ and ‘yellow journalist’ James Creelman,56 writing
for Pulitzer’s New York World and Frederic Villiers, a writer and illustrator for the
London Black and White, described a wide scale and cold-blooded massacre. A
French journalist originally denied that the massacre occurred, but later admitted
that it had.
The reporting of the Port Arthur massacre took the shine off Japan’s victory.
Clearly, the Western media were hungry for anything that could damage Japan’s
public image. While no ‘Rules of War’ formerly existed for another five years, the
Japanese were determined to demonstrate Western military discipline. The reprisals
at Port Arthur were justified and consistent with the American Lieber Code. The

54
Paine, S.C.M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perception, Power, and Primacy.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003.
55
Northrop, Henry Davenport. Flowery Kingdom and The Land of Mikado or China, Japan and
Corea: Graphic Account of the War between China and Japan-Its Causes, Land and Naval Battles.
1894.
56
Knightley, Phillip. The First Casualty, from Crimea to Vietnam: the War Correspondent as Hero,
Propagandist, and Myth Maker. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. p.58.
Sparrow After-math

American media reaction, combined with the political threat to cancel renegotiation
of the unequal treaties, could only be seen as applying a double standard. Taking
into account the United States’ atrocities in the Spanish-American and Philippines-
American war over the coming years, it smeared the United States as hypocrites.

As early as 1899, the U.S.

newspapers, notably those owned
by William Randolph Hearst,57
used the phrase “Yellow Peril.”
While the U.S. committed
atrocities in the Philippines,
according to Hearst the West
should fear the Japanese.
Japan now found itself stuck
between the impending
disintegration of China and the
ambitions of Russia, Germany,
France, and the United States.
Britain, wanting to keep Russia out
of Manchuria (and focus its efforts
elsewhere), would sign a Treaty of
Photo 17: “The Yellow Terror In All His
Alliance in 1902 with Japan. Glory.” 1899 editorial cartoon.
Japan gave back the Liaodong
peninsula to China to appease protests from Germany, Russia, and France. To
Japan’s shock, Russia then secured Port Arthur and rights to the South Manchurian
Railway Company – a semiofficial Japanese company.
Around this time, Tsar Nicholas II called the First Hague Convention, which was
signed on July 29 1899 and entered into force on September 1900.58 At the same
time, the Boxer Rebellion and Philippine-American War occurred, which
somewhat demonstrated why Rules of War were required.
In 1899, the Boxers (nicknamed due to their use of traditional Chinese martial arts
instead of modern military weapons and tactics) rebelled and Japan found itself
alongside the seven Western Powers in an eight-empire alliance. Ironically, Japan
found itself opposing the Boxers, who were opposed to foreign imperialism,
Christianity, and unequal treaties.
While the Imperial Court squabbled over whether to back the Boxers, the Boxers
besieged the foreign legation quarter in Beijing, where foreigners and Christians
took refuge.
On 19 June 1900, the Empress notified the legations, diplomats, and other
foreigners to depart Beijing, escorted by the Chinese Army, within 24 hours. The
following morning, a German envoy was killed by a Manchu captain and the
foreigners refused to leave. On 21 June, the Empress declared war against all
foreign powers.

57
Foreign News: Again, Yellow Peril. Time, 11 September 1933.
58
Tuchman, Barbara. The Proud Tower. Ballantine Books, 1996. p.229.
Sparrow After-math

Almost 500 foreign civilians and

400 foreign soldiers, together with
3,000 Chinese Christians, quickly
fortified the quarter and defended the
quarter from 20 June to 14 August
1900. More than 40 percent of the
Legation guards were killed in
heated brick-by-brick, yard-by-yard
battles.
The massacre of missionaries and
over 2,000 Chinese Christians gained
Western media attention. Almost
50,000 foreign troops from the
Eight-Nation Alliance, including
20,840 Japanese and 18 warships (by
far the largest contingent), flowed
into China. Japan was actively
involved with the Seymour and
Gaselee Expeditions, capturing
Tianjin under the command of
Japanese Colonel Kuriya. From
Photo 18: “China - the cake of kings and… of
there, a 20,000 force marched 120km emperors.” French political cartoon
to Beijing to relieve the Legation from 1898. Japan now found itself at
Quarter. the Imperialist’s table, carefully
The Chinese called an armistice contemplating which pieces to take
while the Western powers
when the 20,000 allied force landed maneuvered.
in China to relieve the siege. As the
foreign army approached, Chinese launched their heaviest fusillade on the Legation
Quarter but then melted away. The Japanese secured the Beitang (Northern
Catholic Cathedral), where 43 French and Italian soldiers, 33 foreign priests and
nuns, and 3,200 Catholics were holed up.
The United States only played a limited role in the Boxer Rebellion, which they
called the China Relief Expedition. They were engaged in the Philippines-
American War. Russia focused its forces instead on invading Manchuria right under
the nose of Japan.
In response to Chinese harassing Russians and institutions, such as the Chinese
Eastern Railway, and the subsequent bombarding of a Russian border town, the
Russians massacred several thousand Chinese and Manchus in the town. The
Russians then deployed 200,000 troops into the area. After Russian owned railway
bridges and telegraph lines were destroyed, the Russians invaded Manchuria.
Reprisals were common on both sides with many atrocities committed.
The Eight-Nation Alliance occupied Beijing for a year. During that time, one
would have thought it was an excellent opportunity for the Japanese to learn from
their Western partners. So, what did they learn?
In the immediate aftermath of the siege, an “orgy of looting” by soldiers, civilians,
and missionaries of all nationalities took place. Each nationality accused the others
of being the worst looters. Americans filled entire railway cars, British held
Sparrow After-math

auctions “in the most orderly manner,” and the Beitang was a “salesroom for stolen
property.”59
To avoid being raped and mutilated by Alliance troops, The Daily Telegraph
journalist E. J. Dillon stated that thousands of Chinese women committed suicide.
One witness recalled that, “The conduct of the Russian soldiers is atrocious, the
French are not much better, and the Japanese are looting and burning without
mercy.”60 In another witness account, “The Russian soldiers are ravishing the
women and committing horrible atrocities.” A French commander dismissed the
rapes, attributing them to “gallantry of the French soldier.”
It was reported that Japanese troops were astonished by other Alliance troops
raping civilians. Japanese officers brought along Japanese prostitutes to stop their
troops from raping Chinese civilians.61

Photo 19: Troops of the Eight-Nations Alliance of 1900. Left to right: Britain, United
States, Australian colonial, British India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary,
Italy, and Japan. (Russia is absent.)

Although atrocities by foreign troops were common, German troops in particular

were criticized for their enthusiasm in carrying out Kaiser Wilhelm II’s impromptu
speech before they departed:

59
Chamberlin, Wilbur J. letter to his wife (11 December 1900), in Ordered to China: Letters of
Wilbur J. Chamberlin: Written from China While Under Commission from the New York Sun
During the Boxer Uprising of 1900 and the International Complications Which Followed. New
York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1903. p.191.
60
Preston, Diana. The boxer rebellion: the dramatic story of China’s war on foreigners that shook
the world in the summer of 1900. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000. p.284.
61
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley; Walthall, Anne; Palais, James. East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and
Political History. Cengage Learning, 2008. p.301.
Sparrow After-math

“Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be

given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is
forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made
a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in
history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way
in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a
German.”62
Although the German force arrived too late to take part in the fighting, they
undertook several punitive expeditions in the countryside. Not to be outdone, the
Japanese were noted for their skill in beheading Boxers or people suspected of
being Boxers. General Chaffee commented, “It is safe to say that where one real
Boxer has been killed... fifty harmless coolies or laborers on the farms, including
not a few women and children, have been slain.”63
Clearly, what occurred brought into question the morality of the ‘civilised’
powers, and demonstrated why the Boxers were against foreigners. A foreign
journalist, George Lynch, said, “There are things that I must not write, and that may
not be printed in England, which would seem to show that this Western civilization
of ours is merely a veneer over savagery.”64

The Russian positioning in Port Arthur – and subsequently in Manchuria –

demonstrated to Japan that, if they didn’t act decisively, another Western power
would manipulate their interests. Russia, whose original intention was to secure
their railway, instead settled in. When they assured the other powers that it would
vacate the area after the crisis, by 1903 they had not established a timetable for
withdrawal and instead strengthened their position.
The Russians stalled negotiations with Japan over their interests in Manchuria and
Korea. Japan knew that the Russian Fleet was unprepared and the Trans-Siberian
Railway and its connection to the Manchurian Railway were near completion.
Japan struck first by attacking the Russian Fleet at Port Arthur and three hours
later issued a declaration of war. When the Tsar was shocked that Japan would
attack before a formal declaration of war, Japan pointed to Russia’s 1809 attack on
Sweden without a declaration of war. The Qing Empire favoured the Japanese
position and even offered military aid, but Japan declined it.
As Japan attacked Port Arthur, it provided cover for Japanese troops to land near
Incheon in Korea. From there, Japan occupied the rest of Korea and was poised to
cross into Russian-occupied Manchuria.

62
Wilhelm II. “Hun Speech.” (July 27 1900.) German History in Documents and Images (GHDI.)
63
Thompson, Larry Clinton. William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris, and
the Ideal Missionary. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. p.204.
64
Preston, op cit.
Sparrow After-math

Knowing that Russian

reinforcements were yet to arrive
from the West, Japan acted swiftly.
Suffering heavy losses against
entrenched Russian positions, the
Japanese drove the Russians back
towards Port Arthur. The Japanese
then blockaded Port Arthur by sea
and land. Japanese artillery fired
shells into the harbour. Starved of
supplies and suffering heavy
casualties, Port Arthur fell to the
Japanese.
Without a port and short of
supplies, the Russian Fleet fled to
Vladivostok. In the first naval long-
Photo 20: France: “Keep It Up Russia, you’re
range gunnery duels and clash of winning.” Russia: “Well, if this is
steel battleship fleets on the high winning, what will he do to me if I
seas, the Japanese routed the Russian lose?”(Britain in Japan’s corner,
fleet in the Battle of the Yellow Sea. France in Russia’s.) Brooklyn Eagle,
February 2, 1904.
The Japanese then proceeded to
force the Russians north out of Manchuria, first at Sandepu, and then at Mukden.
In a battle involving half a million troops, the Russians fled after fearing being
encircled and lost 90,000 troops.
The Russian Baltic Fleet arrived too late to relieve Port Arthur so it took the
shortest route to Vladivostock – the Tsushima Straits between Japan and Korea.
Trying to sneak through the strait at night, the trailing hospital ships (who kept their
lights on in compliance with the Rules of War) gave away their position. The
Russian fleet was virtually annihilated – losing eight battleships, numerous smaller
vessels, and more than 5,000 men – while the Japanese lost three torpedo boats and
116 men. The Japanese army occupied the entire chain of the Sakhalin Islands to
force the Russians to sue for peace.
Japan’s victory against Russia was the first against a Western power since
Genghis Khan. Japan’s prestige grew greatly as a world power. Britain extended its
Alliance with Japan. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s back-channel diplomacy
to mediate the Treaty of Portsmouth earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. The Tsar
faced revolution.
Japan was weak on the diplomatic front. Although Japan won the war decisively,
their treaty negotiation skills were manipulated by the United States, who was
meant to be a mediator. The United States, who purchased Alaska and the Aleutian
Islands off Russia in 1867, had a good relationship with Russia as they did not have
any competing interests. The U.S. did, however, have competing interests with
Japan in China, Korea, and the Far East in general.
Sparrow After-math

Russia refused to make any

concessions in the name of peace and
took advantage of Japan’s apparent
need to end the war and willingness to
compromise.65 Riots erupted in Japan
due to the lack of territorial gains and
monetary reparations. Japan was
pressured by the United States to
retain only half of the Sakhalin Island.

After Japan’s victory, several new

Rules of War were developed. In the
Second Geneva Convention of 1906,
rules gave protection and care for
shipwrecked soldiers in armed
conflict. In the Second Hague
Convention of 1907, it would become
international law to declare war before
hostilities.
In the annex to the Laws and Photo 21: Uncle Sam to Japan: “Hold on son!
Customs of War on Land, there was a Don’t strike him while he’s down.”
chapter detailing the rules protecting Just for Love of Fair Play. Los
prisoners of war. Joining the club of Angeles Times. August 24, 1904.
world powers, Japan would ratify
these Rules of War.

Now that Japan started to show strength, the Western Powers painted Japan with
skepticism. While the British publicly recognized Japanese interest in Korea
through their alliance, the Russians acknowledged Japan’s “paramount political,
military, and economic interest” in Korea, the United States signed the secret Taft-
Katsura Agreement with Japan, which recognized U.S. interests in the Philippines
in exchange for Japan’s interests in Korea. Meanwhile, anti-Japanese sentiment in
the United States grew.
In 1893, the San Francisco Board of Education attempted to introduce segregation
for Japanese American children. They withdrew the measure following protests by
the Japanese government. In 1906, however, they successfully implemented
segregation for Asian students in public schools.
While Japan expanded its empire throughout the Far East, Korea was only a
protectorate. Japan had already fought two wars over Korea and the threat of China,
Russia, and other Western Powers irked Japan. Under pressure from Japan’s
Minister of War, Japan effectively annexed Korea when Korea signed the Japan-
Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910. Shortly after, Japan started a policy of
‘Japanization’ of the peninsula, including banning the use of written Korean in
education and publications.

65
White, J. A. Portsmouth 1905: Peace or Truce? Journal of Peace Research, 1969. Vol. 6(4.)
p.362.
Sparrow After-math

The annexation of Korea was different to how the Japanese treated other colonies,
such as Taiwan. In Taiwan, the Japanese gained Taiwan after China ceded it to
them. Japan took a British ‘carrot
and stick’ approach to colonial
governance. In Korea, for the first
time t hey acted like a Western
power and seized territory as part of
its e mpire. It was bold, it was
measured, and it impressed the
West.

To gain its place in the eyes of the

West, Japan lost self-control. After
Emperor Meiji died, a constitutional
crisis emerged as the Emperor-
appointed cabinet ministers
struggled against the elected Diet.
The Meiji Constitution, which
came into force in 1890, was based Photo 22: “So Obliging.” For some time,
on the Prusso-German model but Japan used Korea as a bridge to its
replaced European constitutional interests in Manchuria. Brooklyn
practice and Christianity with Eagle, February 17, 1904.
kokutai (“national polity.”) Meiji’s
66

Constitutional Study Mission rejected the United States Constitution as “too

liberal,” the British system as being too unwieldy and granting too much power to
Parliament, and the French and Spanish models tended towards despotism.
The Emperor had power over foreign affairs through his cabinet of ministers of
state. The Emperor, acting under the advice of former senior statesmen, also
appointed the judiciary and the Supreme Command of the Military (who organized
the military draft.)
Asia’s first parliament, called the Diet, passed domestic-related laws and
comprised of a direct male suffrage-elected lower House of Representatives and an
Emperor-appointed upper House of Peers (much like Britain’s House of Commons
and House of Lords.) All laws required Emperor Assent. Civil rights and civil
liberties were guaranteed, though in many cases they were limited by law.
Under Meiji, the Constitution worked well as there was little disagreement with
Japan’s direction. Under the new Emperor Taishō, however, the ambiguities of the
Constitution surfaced as the cabinet wanted to expand the military while the
government coffers were struggling.
The final years of Emperor Meiji’s rule saw increased government spending,
notably for overseas investments and defence, with little credit or reserves available
to cover it. When Prime Minister Saionji Kinmochi, who was appointed Prime
Minister by Emperor Meiji, attempted to cut defence spending, Army Minister
Uehara Yusaku resigned in protest. The Constitution required that the Army
Minister be an active-duty general. No eligible general of the Imperial

66
Beasley, William G. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. p.79-80.
Sparrow After-math

Photo 23: The Second Japanese Diet Hall (1891-1925), site of Asia’s first representative
Parliament.

Army was willing to serve. Unable to form a cabinet, Saionji was thus forced to
resign.
Taishō appointed Katsura Tarō, a former army general who was unpopular with
the public, as Prime Minister. When the navy wanted to fund new battleships, the
navy threatened to withhold the appointment of a Navy Minister. Katsuro went
directly to the Emperor, who issued an edict that the navy must provide a minister.
The opposition political parties in the Diet, concerned about Katsuro’s
commitment to constitutional government, joined forces with journalists and
businessmen. Katsuro responded by suspending the Diet on three occasions. After
popular protest and rioting in Tokyo, the Diet responded with a vote of no-
confidence in Katsuro. Katsuro resigned and was replaced by Yamamoto
Gonnohyōe, ironically a former navy admiral.
Clearly, the Achilles heel of the Meiji Constitution was the vetoing power of the
military ministers in government decisions. This dominance over the civilian
government would later steer Japan to self-destruction.

Germany’s Kaiser, who had the same constitutional powers as Japan’s, led his
empire down a self-destructive path in the First World War. Japan obviously didn’t
notice this irony as Japan swiftly declared war on Germany and seized its territories
in China, the Mariana, Caroline, Palau, and Marshall Islands.
The Japanese would also capture many Germans in China, hold them on the
Japanese mainland in specially built camps, and treat them according to the Rules
of War.
Sparrow After-math

The Japanese reached the pinnacle of their relationship with the West. After they
conducted the first naval-launched air raids against German positions in Shandong,
they assisted the British suppression of Indian troops in Singapore, and assisted the
British Navy in escort and rescue operations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Later, the Treaty of Versailles would recognize Japan’s territorial gains due to
Japan’s assistance in the war effort.
While the West’s resources were stretched in Europe and Russia faced revolution,
Japan tried to achieve hegemony in China by presenting Twenty-One Demands to
China. The demands fell into five groups:
 Group 1 recognized Japan’s acquisitions in Shandong Province from
Germany, and expanded sphere of influence over railways, coasts, and
major cities;
 Group 2 recognized similar rights in Japan’s South Manchuria Railway
Zone, extending the leasehold into the twenty-first century, and
expanding the sphere of influence in Manchuria to include rights of
settlement and extraterritoriality and appointment of financial and
administrative officials;
 Group 3 gave Japan control of the Hanyepoing mining and
metallurgical complex (already deep in debt to Japan);
 Group 4 barred China from giving any further coastal or island
concessions to foreign powers, except for Japan; and
 Group 5 demanded Japanese advisors appointed to the Chinese central
government, administrators to the Chinese police force, and Japanese
Buddhist preachers to conduct missionary work in China.
Under Group 5, China would effectively be a protectorate of Japan. The other
groups confirmed the status quo. After stalling by China, widespread anti-Japanese
sentiment and international condemnation (especially from the United States),
Japan dropped the fifth group of demands. Not wanting a war with Japan, China
appeased the amended “Thirteen Demands.” For Japan, the ‘agreement’ was far
more negative than positive. While Japan gained little that it already had, its
overbearing and bullying diplomacy did not impress the British or the Americans.
Sparrow After-math

Photo 24: “Emperor of Japan and his British and American well-wishers.” Russia cartoon
from 1905.

* Isolation

“By nature, men are nearly alike;

by practice, they get to be wide apart.”
– Confucius

Japan struggled with foreign diplomacy and often relied on its alliance with
Britain for guidance. From the ruins of Europe came a new type of diplomacy that,
while meant to unify the powers, led to Japan’s isolation: multilateralism.
As Japan discovered when it opened its borders, providing favorable status to one
trading partner exposed Japan to other powers seeking similar terms. Conversely,
aligning oneself excluded other opportunities. One needed to be careful with whom
to associate.
Towards the end of 1918, Japan found itself in two peculiar situations. First, Japan
was in a wartime boom, supplying war materials to its European allies. Japan went
from a debtor to a creditor nation for the first time. Exports quadrupled from 1913
to 1918.
Japan supplied European nations in 1918 in a similar way to the United States
armed Britain in the 1940s. The problem was; where would those war industries
focus their production during peacetime?
The second peculiar situation Japan found itself in was sending forces, alongside
the United States, to Siberia to bolster the anti-communist White Movement Army
against the Bolshevik Red Army.
Sparrow After-math

Japan initially refused to send troops to Siberia. After the U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson asked for 7,000 Japanese troops – and a heated debate in the Diet – Prime
Minister Terauchi agreed to send 12,000 troops so long as they were under Japanese
command rather than under an international coalition.
The growth of Japan’s military industrial complex swelled to such an extent that
the massive capital influx led to rapid inflation. The government also bought
existing rice stocks to support the troops in Siberia. The sudden increase in food
prices triggered unprecedented rice riots in August 1918. By mid-September 1918,
over 623 disturbances occurred in 38 cities, 153 towns, and 177 villages with over
2 million participants. Some 25,000 people were arrested – of whom 8200 were
convicted of various crimes, with punishments ranging from minor fines to the
death penalty.67 Taking responsibility for the collapse in public order, Prime
Minister Terauchi and his cabinet resigned.
The political instability of Japan did not assist its relations with the West. So many
short-term administrations would have left the West wondering whether the
agreements with one Japanese administration would be honoured by the next.
Domestically, ‘taking responsibility’ by resigning just passed the problem to the
next administration who, more likely than not, was less experienced than the one it
replaced. Over time, politicians were lining up to be the next group to hold power.
The continuity problem played into the hands of those who held their positions –
notably the military members of the cabinet. The Army continued to occupy Siberia
even after other Allied forces withdrew in 1920. After intense diplomatic pressure
by the United States and Great Britain – and facing increasing domestic opposition
due to the economic and human cost – the administration of Prime Minister Kato
Tomosaburo withdrew the Japanese forces in October 1922.

At the Paris Peace Conference in

1919, which led to the Treaty of
Versailles, Japan sat alongside the
‘Big Four’ (France, Britain, The
United States, and Italy) and
gained a permanent seat on the
League of Nations Council (along
with France, Britain, and Italy.)
The United States Senate never
ratified the Treaty of Versailles
due to their opposition to Article
X, which would require the United
States to defend a League of
Nations member if attacked. The Photo 25: Although U.S. President Woodrow
United States was weary of being Wilson was the architect of the League of
Nations, the United States never joined.
dragged into another war. Punch magazine, 10 December 1920.
Although Japan was recognized
as a world power, Japan sought the

67
MacPherson, WJ. The Economic Development of Japan 1868–1941. Cambridge University Press,
1995.
Sparrow After-math

inclusion of a ‘racial equality clause’ in the Covenant of the League of Nations.

While Japan sought racial equality, such a clause had wider ramifications for the
Western-dominated norms of the day, which involved the colonial subjugation of
non-white peoples.
While Woodrow Wilson realized the Treaty already faced problems to get through
the Senate, he knew that, if there was any hope of getting through, it required the
support of the pro-segregation Southern Democrats. Fortunately for Wilson, who
was chairing the commission, the Australian delegation put pressure on Britain to
reject the proposal so Wilson overturned the proposal. Japan, France, Italy, Brazil,
China, Greece, Serbia, and Czechoslovakia (the majority) all voted in favour of the
amendment while the British Empire, United States, Portugal, and Romania did not
register a vote.
Australia wanted to maintain its ‘White Australia Policy.’ Australian Prime
Minister Billy Hughes clarified his opposition and announced at a meeting that:
“Ninety-five out of one hundred Australians rejected the very idea of
equality.”68
After the defeat of the proposed amendment, Japanese delegation head Nobuaki
Makino announced at a press conference:
“We are not too proud to fight but we are too proud to accept a place of
admitted inferiority in dealing with one or more of the associated nations.
We want nothing but simple justice.”69
Japan would never forget the behaviour of Britain or the United States at the Peace
Conference. The Japanese media fully covered the progress of the conference,
leading to an alienation of Japanese public opinion towards the United States of
America, leading to nationalistic policies. In the United States, the American
deliberate inaction fueled racial riots.70 A racial equality clause would later appear
on the United Nations Charter.
Technically, as the United States rejected the Treaty of Versailles, it had to
negotiate individual treaties with other countries. Due to this, although the United
States followed a path of isolationism, they interfered with many of Japan’s
diplomatic arrangements in the Far East.
The United States, China, France, and Russia were opposed to the Anglo-Japanese
alliance signed in 1902. It was the sole reason why France didn’t come to the aid
of Russia in the war with Japan. The alliance was seen by the four countries as a
major obstacle at the Paris Peace Conference. Britain and Japan released a joint
statement, stating the alliance treaty “is not entirely consistent with the letter of the
Covenant (of the League of Nations), which both Governments earnestly desire to
respect.”71

68
Lauren, Paul Gordon. Power And Prejudice: The Politics And Diplomacy Of Racial
Discrimination. Westview Press, 1988. p.90.
69
Ibid.
70
Ibid., p.99.
71
Text of the statement in League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 1, p.24.
Sparrow After-math

Japan benefited considerably from the cultural exchanges provided by the Anglo-
Japanese Alliance. Academics, scientists, doctors, military officers, diplomats, and
members of the Imperial Family received a Western education. Emperors Meiji and
Showa (Hirohito) were Orders of the Garter and attended British coronations.
Crown Prince Chichibu, for
example, attended Eton and Oxford.
Upon his return, he introduced the
sport of rugby union to Japan.
The demise of the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance came about due to the
concerns of Britain’s colonies in the
Pacific. Canada was concerned that
a conflict could develop between the
United States and Japan and didn’t
want the Commonwealth to be
drawn into the conflict. Australia,
on the other hand, was concerned
that it couldn’t hold off a Japanese
naval advance and sought a
continuance of the alliance as the
United States isolationism would
provide little protection.72
The 1921 Imperial Conference of
British Commonwealth leaders Photo 26: Crown Prince Chichibu.
sought to determine a unified
international policy. The delegates looked towards the United States to find a
suitable solution. The United States position was predictable: the Alliance created
a Japanese dominated market in the Pacific and could close China off from
American trade.73
Canadian opposition to the Alliance was also fuelled by scaremongering in North
America that the Alliance treaty included anti-American clauses.74 The press, along
with Canadian Prime Minister Meighan’s hysteria that Japan would attack
Commonwealth assets in China, led to the deferring of the alliance.75

72
Brebner, J. B. Canada, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Washington Conference. Political
Science Quarterly 1935, vol.50, n.o.1. p.52.
73
Spinks, Charles N. The Termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Pacific Historical Review
1937. Vol.6, n.o.4. p.324.
74
Ibid., p.326.
75
Nish, Ian H. Alliance in Decline: A Study in Anglo-Japanese Relations 1908-23. London: The
Athlone Press, 1972. p.334.
Sparrow After-math

It was the Commonwealth, not

Britain, who wanted to sacrifice its
alliance with Japan in favour of
goodwill with the United States.
Trying to avoid Japan running into
the arms of Germany and Russia,
the Commonwealth delegates
convinced America to invite Japan,
along with other Pacific powers, to
the Washington Naval Conference
for talks regarding Pacific and Far
East policies, specifically naval
disarmament. Already with a
deepening mistrust of Britain, Japan
attended. Fearing that Britain no
longer wanted what was best for
Japan, they also wanted to avoid a
war with the United States.76
Effectively, by the United States
conducting the Washington Naval Photo 27: “Only a Fleabite.” Australia’s The
Conference outside the auspices of Bulletin portrays Japan’s reaction
to Australia spending a pittance to
the League of Nations, it form a navy. 1 August 1907.
undermined the League. It was the
first ever disarmament conference. Knowing that Europe was weak after a long
war, it would also slow Japan’s growth. The Four-Power Treaty – signed by Britain,
France, The United States and Japan – while agreeing to maintain the status quo in
the Pacific in terms of territory, it terminated the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902.
The two other treaties signed at the conference were the Five-Power Treaty
(including Italy), which was designed to avert a naval arms race after the war, and
the Nine-Power Treaty (the nine colonial powers with trading posts in China),
which affirmed the sovereignty of China and the Open Door Policy.
All three treaties signed at the conference were designed by the United States to
isolate Japan’s strategic alliances, halt Japanese military growth, and weaken its
ability to expand territorially. As soon as Japan was a world power, it was
immediately bullied by racist powers. The distrust between the Commonwealth and
Japan, as well as the manner in which the Anglo-Japanese Alliance concluded, are
credited by many scholars as being leading causes to Japan’s involvement in World
War Two.77

During this period, Emperor Taishō’s health was failing and there were fears that
decisions were manipulated by the head of his household. Taishō suffered from a
mental illness for most of his reign since the death of Meiji in 1912. Taishō’s heir,
Hirohito, who was eleven years of age when his father became emperor, was fast-
tracked to take his father’s place.
76
Ibid.
77
Kennedy, Malcolm D. The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan. Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1969. p.56.
Sparrow After-math

Hirohito was an army and naval

officer at age thirteen and a special
institute – the Tōgū-
gogakumonsho – was created to
educate him. In 1920, he became a
major in the army and lieutenant
commander in the navy. He then
took a six-month tour of Europe,
becoming the first crown prince to
travel abroad.
During Hirohito’s tim e in the
United Kingdom, he received
many honours, including
knighthoods and an honorary
general in the British Army. Later,
these would be promoted to Photo 28: Crown Prince Hirohito meeting British
Prime Minister Lloyd George, 1921.
Knight’s Garter and field marshal.
In 1941, these titles would be
revoked.
Upon his return to Japan at the age of twenty, Hirohito became the Regent of
Japan (Sesshō) on 29 November 1921, in place of his ailing father. He would
become Emperor in 25 December 1926, after his father died.

The Washington Treaties could not have come at a worse time. Japan’s light
industry had secured a share in the world market. Its military industrial complex
was sustained by the need to update the military with modern advances. In the post-
war era, however, exports dropped and Japan returned to a debtor-nation. On 1
September 1923, the Great Kantō earthquake devastated Tokyo, killing 105,385
people.
While Japan sunk into recession and struggled to rebuild, the United States
torpedoed U.S. Japanese relations in 1924 with the Japanese Exclusion Act, which
blocked Japanese immigration to the United States. The reaction at all levels in
Japan was sustained hostility. Effectively, the United States was painting itself as a
racist enemy acting against Japan’s very survival.
The Taishō Democracy two-party, universal male suffrage system was also only
in its infancy. With an electorate increased from 3.3 million to 12.5 million, it now
had to endure economic, social, and political pressures.
Ten days before the passage of universal male suffrage, the conservative right
forced the passage of the Peace Preservation Act, which seriously curtailed
individual freedom. The Act, which was meant to outlaw communist movements,
effectively outlawed and crushed any left wing proposal that could be portrayed as
a threat to the state.
As the Taishō period came to an end in 1926, the incoming Shōwa period –
literally “period of enlightened peace/harmony” – was anything but. The young
Hirohito inherited an economy and society facing collapse.
From 1928 to 1932, the economic collapse brought a new hardship to the people
of Japan. Silk and rice prices plummeted and exports decreased 50%.
Sparrow After-math

Unemployment in both the cities and the countryside skyrocketed and social
agitation came to a head.
As the left was vigorously put down by the state, a new nationalism emerged.
Buoyed by a romantic concept of Bushidō, the Shōwa Restoration movement
wanted to replace the existing political order dominated by corrupt politicians and
capitalists, with one which (in their eyes) would fulfill the original goals of the
Meiji Restoration of direct Imperial rule via military proxies. To young military
officers, it meant a return to a military Shogunate where the Emperor would re-
assume direct political power.
During the following decade, A New York Times correspondent called Japan a
country ruled by “government by assassination.”78 Prime Minister Hamaguchi
Osachi was shot on 14 November 1930 by an ultranationalist and died the following
year. While this was the act of a sole assassin, it would be the first of many
coordinated coup and assassination attempts.

Japan’s economic troubles cannot be blamed for the rise in nationalism. The Great
Depression did not strongly affect Japan, compared to other countries. While
Japan’s economy shrunk by eight percent between 1929-31, Japan was the first to
implement what would become Keynesian economic policies. First, Japan’s
Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo implemented a large-scale fiscal stimulus
package of deficit spending, mostly to purchase munitions for the armed forces.
Secondly, he devalued the currency, undercutting British textile prices in export
markets. The Bank of Japan sterilized the deficit spending to minimize inflationary
pressures.
Japan was out of the Depression by 1933. The problem was how the ‘stimulus
deficit spending’ was disbursed.
Japan could have stimulated its economy a variety of ways. Instead, it stockpiled
a huge cache of ammunition and weapons. The incentive to look for ways to clear
the stockpiles must have been too much to bear for the military. In 1931, it reached
breaking point when Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi tried, but was unable, to
impose fiscal restraint on the military.
On 18 September 1931 at Mukden in Manchuria, Imperial Japanese Army
colonels of the Kwantung Army staged an explosion on the Japan-controlled South
Manchurian Railway and blamed it on the Chinese. Following a ‘retaliatory’
response on the Chinese garrison, the Japanese invaded and occupied Manchuria.
Inukai tried, again unsuccessfully, to rein in the military’s designs for China. After
Chinese protests, the League of Nations appointed Britain’s Earl of Lytton to head
a commission into the Mukden Incident in December 1931.
Again, the Japanese military looked for incidents, this time in Shanghai on 28
January 1932, to justify military intervention there. Five Japanese Buddhist monks
- members of a nationalist sect - were beaten by agitated Chinese civilians near the
Sanyou Factory, killing one and seriously wounding two.79 A group then burnt
down the factory. It is unknown whether the arson was conducted by Japanese
agents or by Chinese in response to the Police’s aggressive anti-riot tactics in the

78
Byas, Hugh. Government by Assassination. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1942.
79
Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict, 1853 to 1952. NY: McGraw, 1986. p.98.
Sparrow After-math

aftermath of the monks’ beating. The upsurge of anti-Japanese and anti-imperialist

protests in the city led to Japanese air (from aircraft carriers) and sea forces
bombarding the city and 100,000 troops defending Japanese concessions and
citizens.
Shanghai was an international city. The United States, Britain, and France tried to
negotiate a ceasefire. Japan demanded that the Chinese Army retreat twenty
kilometres from the border of the Shanghai Concessions. China refused and the
Japanese landed a division behind Chinese lines, forcing a Chinese retreat from the
city on 2 March.
On 4 March, the League of Nations passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire.
After negotiation, on 5 May Shanghai became a demilitarized zone, except for a
‘few’ Japanese units and a small Chinese police force.
Shortly after, in Tokyo on 15 May 1932, eleven young naval officers, aided by
Army cadets, and right-wing civilian elements stormed the Prime Minister’s
residence and shot Inukai. Inukai’s last words were, “Hanaseba wakaru” (“If I
could speak, you would understand.”) His killers replied, “Mondō muyō”
(“Dialogue is useless.”)
The assassination plot originally included killing visiting actor Charlie Chaplin to
facilitate war with the United States. Instead, the plot also attacked two leading
politicians, the Mitsubishi Bank headquarters in Tokyo, and several electrical
substations. Besides the death of the Prime Minister, the attempted coup d’état
came to nothing. The eleven murderers took a taxi to the police headquarters and
surrendered to the Kempei-Tai. After being court-martialed – and a petition of
350,000 signatures in blood – the sentences were extremely light.
The Lytton Commission Report was released in September 1932. During the time
it took to prepare the report, Japan had already secured its control of Manchuria and
set up the puppet state of Manchukuo, led by the former Emperor of China, Pu Yi.
The report went to great strains to recognize Japan’s legitimate interests in
Manchuria but could not accept that the operations of the Imperial Japanese Army
following the Mukden incident could be regarded as legitimate self-defence. The
report also concluded that the new state could not have been formed without the
presence of Japanese troops; that it had no general Chinese support; and that it was
not part of a genuine and spontaneous independent movement.
In short, the Lytton Report declared Japan to be the aggressor and demanded
Manchuria be returned to the Chinese. Before the report could be voted on by the
Assembly, however, Japan announced its intention to push further into China.
The report was passed 42–1 in the Assembly in 1933 – Japan being the only vote
against the report. When a motion was raised to condemn Japan as an aggressor in
February 1933, the Japanese delegation, led by ambassador Yosuke Matsuoka,
walked out. Japan then gave formal notice of its withdrawal from the League of
Nations on 27 March 1933.
According to the League of Nations Covenant, the League should have responded
by enacting economic sanctions or declaring war. It did neither. Non-League
members, such as the United States, could continue trade with Japan. Other powers
were disinterested in declaring war.
Sparrow After-math

Japan could now enjoy the same freedom from the League of Nations as the
United States. The problem was, it also became isolated80 and at the helm was the
military.

Photo 29: “The Doormat” by British cartoonist David Low, 1933.

By 1934, Finance Minister Takahashi realized that the economy was in danger of
overheating and, to avoid inflation, he moved to reduce the deficit spending that
went towards armament and munitions. This resulted in strong and swift opposition
from nationalists, especially those in the army. Instead of reducing deficit spending
on the military, the government introduced price controls and rationing to reduce
inflation.
The deficit spending doubled Japan’s industrial production during the 1930s.
Japan was dominated by light industries, especially textiles, but before the end of
the decade it had been replaced by heavy industries, such as shipping and aviation.
These heavy industries weren’t for export, however, but for the military.
The government was rocked by scandal and the Teijin Incident, which related to
discounted shares in a textile firm, led to Prime Minister Saitō Makoto dissolving
government in 1934. While those charged were cleared of all charges, the public
perception was that there was extensive corruption at high levels. Indirectly, the
Teijin Incident contributed to an increase in violent, terrorist attacks by secret
societies against leading figures in government and finance.
The imbalance of the industrial boom, including extreme rural poverty and
perceptions of political corruption, led to the February 26 Incident in 1936 where
1,483 Army troops attempted a coup d’état. Of the six political targets, Takahashi,
Saitō Makoto and the Inspector-General of Military Education, Watanabe Jōtarō,

80
Harries, Meirion. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. Random
House, 1994. p.163.
Sparrow After-math

were assassinated. Other targets, including Prime Minister Okada Keisuke and
Grand Chamberlain Admiral Suzuki Kantarō, escaped.
While the rebels occupied Tokyo, the leaders of the rebellion asked the head of
the Army to talk to the Emperor to demand the establishment of a Shōwa
Restoration. The Emperor was enraged and demanded that the rebels be crushed
for killing his loyal supporters. The Emperor refused to order them to commit
suicide because their “terrible atrocities” were contrary to Bushidō.81 Loyal troops
then surrounded the rebels and persuaded them to surrender. Some leaders
committed suicide after returning to their units. The others were tried in a military
court, 18 of which were
executed and countless
others imprisoned.
Between 1921 and 1944
there were no fewer than 64
incidents of political
violence. The assassination
of moderate Prime Minister
Inukai Tsuyoshi in 1932
marked the end of civilian
control of the military. The
February 26 Incident in 1936
sent shockwaves through the
civilian bureaucrats in the
Japanese government,
making them wary of the Photo 30: The third regiment of the insurgents
marching towards the Diet (background left)
military’s growing during the February 26 attempted coup
dominance of the d’état. The Imperial Palace is to the left.
government.
If junior military officers could assassinate senior politicians, who would be brave
enough to stand in the way of senior military figures?
The answer, it turned out, would be no one. Even the Emperor, who appointed the
Supreme Command and Cabinet, feared for his safety. In 1932, he escaped an
assassination attempt when a Korean independence activist threw a grenade at him
in Tokyo. Near the end of the war, senior military tried to overthrow him when he
tried to end the war.
The entire Japanese economy was geared towards war. The citizens were
suppressed by a police state under the Peace Preservation Act. If the economy
seemed threatened, the military would find a solution – which often involved more
arms and more conquest.
On 5 August 1937, following a string of incidents in China where atrocities were
committed against captured Japanese, Hirohito ratified a directive where the
constraints of the Hague Conventions were explicitly removed from Chinese
prisoners.82 This came at a time when the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo
was reluctant to escalate the conflict into full-scale war.
81
Brendon, Piers. The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. pp.452-4.
82
Akira Fujiwara. “Nitchû Sensô n.i Okeru Horyo Gyakusatsu.” Kikan Sensô Sekinin Kenkyû 9,
1995. p.22.
Sparrow After-math

Shortly after the directive was signed, however, the Kuomintang sensed that the
Japanese aggression had reached “breaking point.” Chiang Kai-shek quickly
mobilized the army and air force under his direct command and attacked the
Japanese Marines in Shanghai. In response, it took three months, 200,000 Japanese
troops, and higher than expected casualties to capture the city.
The Kuomintang did attack the Japanese at Shanghai, which started the conflict.
The Japanese did suffer 92,640 casualties. None were taken prisoner. Of the
600,000 Chinese troops, 333,500 were killed or injured. Chiang Kai-shek lost more
than 60 percent of his elite German-trained troops and more than a third of his
officers.
What followed the Battle of Shanghai is the most controversial event of the war,
the Battle of Nanking. The Japanese mobilized 240,000 troops to capture the
Kuomintang capital. The Japanese lost 6,000 in the battle compared to 10,000
Chinese soldiers. Only 7,000 of Kai-shek’s elite forces were left after the defence
of Nanking.
In anticipation of the attack on Nanking, General Iwane Matsui issued the
following orders:
“Nanking is the capital of China and the capture thereof is an international
affair; therefore, careful study should be made so as to exhibit the honor and
glory of Japan and augment the trust of the Chinese people, and that the
battle in the vicinity of Shanghai is aimed at the subjugation of the Chinese
Army, therefore protect and patronize Chinese officials and people, as afar
as possible; the Army should always bear in mind not to involve foreign
residents and armies in trouble and maintain close liaison with foreign
authorities in order to avoid misunderstandings.”
Hirohito did not have any objection to the invasion of China in 1937, which was
recommended to him by his chiefs of staff and Prime Minister Konoe.83 On 2
December, Hirohito nominated one of his uncles, Prince Asaka, to command the
invasion. Despite Kai-shek’s heavy losses at Shanghai, he decided to defend the
city. As he retreated, he implemented a “scorched-earth” strategy of jianbi qingye
“to leave nothing behind after their evacuation.”84 On 7 December 1937,
correspondent Frank Tillman Durdin sent the following special dispatch to The New
York Times:
“Between Tangshan and Nanking barricades were ready along the highway
every mile or so, and nearer the capital there raged huge fires set by the
Chinese in the course of clearing the countryside of buildings that might
protect the invaders from gunfire. In one valley a whole village was ablaze.”
Nanking was a strategic military objective. On 15 August, Matsui remarked to
War Minister Hajime Sugiyama that:

83
Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi. Emperor Hirohito on Localized Aggression in China. Sino-Japanese
Studies, 1991. vol.4 (1). pp.4–27.
84
Higashinakano Shudo, Kobayashi Susumu & Fukunaga Shainjiro. Analyzing the “Photographic
Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre. Tokyo, Japan: Soshisha, 2005. p.183.
Sparrow After-math

“There’s no solution except to break the power of Chiang Kai-shek by

capturing Nanking. That is what I must do.”
As the Chinese retreated from the walled city, the Chinese troops looted shops for
food and other supplies, cast away their arms, and shed their uniforms in the street.
Some soldiers donned civilian clothes, sometimes by robbing civilians of their
garments, and others ran away in their underwear. As Durdin reported, “Streets
became covered with guns, grenades, swords, knapsacks, coats, shoes, and
helmets.”85
A Nanking Safety Zone was a demilitarized zone set up by Westerners, 3.86km2
in area. The Japanese did respect the zone but Chinese, including soldiers dressed
in civilian clothing, crammed the zone. The Japanese entered the zone to sort the
Westerners from the Chinese in an orderly manner.
Durdin wrote that the loss of the city:
“was the most overwhelming defeat suffered by the Chinese and one of the
most tragic debacles in the history of modern warfare. In attempting to
defend Nanking, the Chinese allowed themselves to be surrounded and then
systematically slaughtered...”
What followed shocked the West. Several Western reporters witnessed what was
to become the Rape of Nanking. Durbin Wrote:
“…The helpless Chinese troops, disarmed for the most part and ready to
surrender, were systematically rounded up and executed.”

Chicago Daily News reporter Archibald Steele wrote:

“Plainclothes suspects were shot one by one while their condemned
fellows sat stolidly by, awaiting their turn.”86
There were numerous reports of Japanese massacring Chinese soldiers by
bayonetting, beheading, and even burying them alive. Many were machine gunned
at the Yangtze River bank.
Atrocities weren’t just committed against soldiers. Durbin wrote:
“Wholesale looting, the violation of women, the murder of civilians, the
eviction of Chinese from their homes, mass executions of war prisoners and
the impressing of able-bodied men turned Nanking into a city of terror.”87
Durdin and Steele were evacuated on 15 December to Shanghai on the USS Oahu.
From there, they telegraphed their reports.
The Japanese massacred as many as 300,000 Chinese. The actions of the Japanese
at Nanking were unprecedented in character, in scale, and justification. Previously,
the Japanese could point to some precedent, such as the actions of an enemy or ally.
Nanking was different.

85
Durdin, Frank. All Captives Slain. New York Times, 18 December 1937.
86
Steel, Archibald. War’s Death Drama Pictured by Reporter. Chicago Daily News, 17 December
1937.
87
Durdin, op cit.
Sparrow After-math

Nanking was the result of a breakdown in command. As witnessed by the

attempted coup d’états in Tokyo, many young officers disobeyed orders and
pursued their own agenda. There were also conflicting orders from General Mitsui
and Prince Asaka. Orders from Tokyo were ignored.
On 7 December, Tokyo Army Headquarters issued a command to all troops
advising that, because occupying a foreign capital was an unprecedented event for
the Japanese military, all soldiers who commit “any illegal acts”, “dishonor the
Japanese Army”, “loot”, or “cause a fire to break out, even because of their
carelessness” would be severely punished. Prince Asaka, however, signed the order
for Japanese soldiers in Nanking to “kill all captives.”88 Foreign Minister Hirota
Koki had warned the Army many times to take action.
On 18 December 1937, General Iwane Matsui became dismayed as he began to
comprehend the full extent of the rape, murder, and looting in the city. He
reportedly told one of his civilian aides:
“I now realize that we have unknowingly wrought a most grievous effect
on this city. When I think of the feelings and sentiments of many of my
Chinese friends who have fled from Nanking and of the future of the two
countries, I cannot but feel depressed. I am very lonely and can never get in
a mood to rejoice about this victory.”
He even let a tinge of regret flavor the statement he released to the press that
morning:
“I personally feel sorry for the tragedies to the people, but the Army must
continue unless China repents. Now, in the winter, the season gives time to
reflect. I offer my sympathy, with deep emotion, to a million innocent
people.”
On New Year’s Day, Matsui was still upset about the behavior of the Japanese
soldiers at Nanking. Over a toast, he confided to a Japanese diplomat:
“My men have done something very wrong and extremely regrettable.”89
Shortly after, Matsui and Prince Asaka were recalled to Japan. After the war,
Asaka was granted immunity but Matsui was executed as a Class A war criminal
in Sugamo Prison.
What possessed the Japanese to commit such an atrocity on such an unprecedented
scale? Some have suggested that the atrocities were motivated by racial prejudices,
where Japanese soldiers were taught to think of captured Chinese as not worthy of
mercy.90 Jonathan Spence suggests:
”There is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found.
The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been
fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than
anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women

88
Bergamini, David. Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc,
1971. pp.23–24.
89
Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust. Basic Books, 1997. pp.51–52.
90
Kushner, Barak. The Thought War. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. p.131
Sparrow After-math

were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still

undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless
of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims.”91
The Rape of Nanking is different from the Port Arthur Massacre or the Boxer
Rebellion aftermath. Years in China, in isolation from any oversight from the West,
the Japanese soldier evolved in some type of Lord of the Flies92scenario. They
seemed to have cast away what they learned and developed their own path.

The events that led to 7 December 1941 are a string of contradictions in Japan’s
chain of command, and conflicting signals from the West. In the momentum of
criticism to Japan’s activities in China, Japan looked for alliances that instead
escalated its chances of war with the West.
While America continued its ‘isolationism’, Britain and France continued their
appeasement of Nazi Germany. Frustrated by the isolationists in Congress, on 5
October 1937 President Roosevelt called for an international “quarantine of the
aggressor nations” (without mentioning Japan by name) as an alternative to the
political climate of American neutrality and non-intervention that was prevalent at
the time.
The United States, however, was still supplying Japan. More than 80 percent of
Japan’s oil came from the United States. In July 1939, the U.S. government
extended a trade agreement with Japan for six months, and then fully restored it.
Under the agreement, Japan purchased:
 Trucks for the Kwantung Army,93
 Machine tools for aircraft factories,
 Strategic materials including –
 steel and scrap iron up to 16 October 1940,
 petrol and petroleum products up to 26 June 1941, and
 various other much-needed supplies.
At the same time, while Japan effectively ignored the Nine-Powers Treaty,
negotiations between Japanese Foreign Minister Arita Khatira and the British
Ambassador in Tokyo, Robert Craigie, led to an agreement where Great Britain
recognized Japanese conquests in China.
Meanwhile, Germany, Soviet Union, and other countries were helping the fight
against Japan. Germany helped modernize the Chinese army in return for raw
materials. The Soviet Union supplied bombers, fighters, supplies, and advisors,
including the future ‘Hero of Stalingrad’ Vasily Chuikov. Australia banned exports
of iron ore in 1938.
International diplomacy proved to be farcical. While the United States branded
Japan an aggressor and treaty breaker, Japan could scoff them off as hypocrites.

91
Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China, W.W. Norton and Company, 1999. p.424.
92
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Faber and Faber, 1954.
93
US Congress. Investigation of Concentracion of Economic Power. Hearings before the Temporary
National Economic Committee. 76th Congress, 2nd Session, Pt.21. Washington, 1940, p.11241.
Sparrow After-math

As part of the United States effort to bypass the League of Nations, they convinced
many countries in 1928 to sign the Kellogg–Briand Pact,94 which aimed to
“condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies” and
sought peaceful means to resolve
disputes. The pact, however, was
not worth the paper it was written
on. It did not prevent U.S.
intervention in Central America,
the Japanese invasion of Manchuria
in 1931, the Italian invasion of
Abyssinia in 1935, the Soviet
invasion of Finland in 1939, and the
German and Soviet Union
invasions of Poland.
Japan watched on as Nazi
Germany systematically breached Photo 31: “Japan the Treaty Breaker.”
Cartoon from 1940.
each clause of the Treaty of
Versailles, then invaded
Czechoslovakia while the West appeased. While the West was preoccupied
pursuing a pointless diplomatic path in Europe, Japan sought its own path for Asia
separate to the failed diplomacy of the West.

In the absence of any coherent or consistent diplomacy for the region, Japan
developed their own. It was based on a simple formula meant to win over the Far
East.
It is apparent that Japan had a longer memory than the West. Japan noticed a
pattern of behaviour in the West, which, over time, molded into three
characteristics:
 White supremacy over Asians;
 Asian resources are to be controlled for the benefit of the West; and
 ‘Do as we say, not as we do.’

94
Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/kbpact.htm.
Sparrow After-math

Japan remembered the rejection of

the racial equality clause by the
British. Together with subsequent
events, to Japan it was apparent that
the imperialist powers wanted Asians
to be subjugated to white rule. Also,
the behaviour of the imperialist
powers in China demonstrated that
the West only wanted to dominate
trade for their own benefit, not Asia’s.
What annoyed Japan was the West’s
bullying double standards. Japan
meticulously applied strategies the
West applied in other parts of the
world, yet were condemned for
applying them.
In response, Japan developed its
own Monroe Doctrine and they called
it the ‘Greater East Asia Co-
Prosperity Sphere’ concept, which
represented the desire to create a self-
sufficient “bloc of Asian nations led
by the Japanese and free of Western Photo 32: “Asia for the Asians!” 1942 poster.
Powers.”95
Japan made no secret of its intentions. It was announced in a radio address entitled
“The International Situation and Japan’s Position” by Foreign Minister Hachirō
Arita on 29 June 1940.96
Japan manipulated concepts such as Hakkō ichiu (i.e. “all the world under one
roof”) to promote racial harmony and Japan as a leader and liberator against
Western imperialism. There is no disguising the fact that Japan exploited these
colonial sentiments for their own economic and political benefit.97 The policy was
diplomatically sound, but was undone by the brutality of the war machine, which
the policy was meant to benefit.
Whether it was by chance or by design, several opportunities presented
themselves in 1939 that would open the door to Japan, which believed it could
achieve its Monroe Doctrine.
First, in mid-1939, the bored, restless, and almost autonomous Kwantung Army
fought a border dispute with Mongolia and Soviet Union. Known as the Battles of
Khalkhin Gol (a river) to the Soviets and Mongols, the Japanese believed the river
to be the border between Manchukuo and the two other countries. The Soviets and
Mongols, however, believed the border to include the town of Nomonhan, which
was 16 kilometres east of the river.

95
Gordon, William. “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” Wesleyan University, March 2000.
96
De Bary, William Theodore. Sources of East Asian Tradition: The modern period. Columbia
University Press, 2008. p.622.
97
McClain, James L. Japan: A Modern History. W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. p.495.
Sparrow After-math

Known to the Japanese as the Nomonhan Incident, the Japanese attacked Mongol
cavalry grazing in the disputed area and then occupied the area with a regiment of
troops. The Soviets and Mongols responded by surrounding the Japanese regiment
and destroying it.
As both sides accumulated forces in the area, Russian General Georgy Zhukov
took command of the Russian forces - now equipped with 500 tanks - greatly
outnumbering the Japanese. The Kwantung Army attacked first, without getting
permission from Tokyo. While the Japanese won the first engagement, Tokyo
promptly ordered the air force not to attack Soviet bases to avoid escalation.
After a few minor skirmishes, and the continuing buildup across the border, Tokyo
gave the order to “expel the invaders.”
The Japanese tried a two-prong attack. Zhukov’s tanks then almost encircled the
Japanese. With both sides’ supply lines stretched, the battleground to a stalemate.
Both sides regrouped. Zhukov wanted a swift victory so he could refocus on
events in Europe. After a massive fighter/bomber attack on Japanese positions,
50,000 Soviet and Mongol forces stormed the east bank supported by massed
artillery. They achieved a classic double envelopment of Japanese forces. Japanese
counterattacks to relieve the encircled troops failed. When the encircled troops
refused to surrender, they were bombed and shelled. By the end of August, the
Japanese forces on the Soviet side of the border were destroyed. The Japanese
commander in the field refused to surrender, but the Foreign Minister circumvented
him with a ceasefire signed in Moscow.
The ceasefire resulted in a non-aggression pact with the Soviets, meaning that
Japan could focus its forces elsewhere. Stalin, who signed a non-aggression pact
with Germany on 24 August, could invade Poland on 17 September.
The second opportunity to present itself was the German invasion of the
Netherlands and France in May 1940. As Nazi Germany set up Vichy France to
govern French-Indochina, Japan was concerned by arms and fuel movements
through that colony to China via the Sino-Vietnamese Railway. Japan pressured the
Vichy government to close the railway, but the French did not agree. Faced with an
invasion threat, Vichy French yielded and signed an accord, which granted Japan
rights to move supplies, transit no more than 25,000 troops, and station up to 6,000
troops in Indochina. Japan swiftly
breeched the agreement by crossing
the border in three places, and
attacking from aircraft carriers in
the Gulf of Tonkin. On 26
September, after five days of
fighting, Japan controlled the
territory.
The following day, Japan signed a
military alliance with Germany and
Italy, known as the Tripartite Pact,
making Japan an Axis Power. This
alliance, which recognized their Photo 33: How the United States media saw the
distant spheres of influence, lacked Tripartite Pact.
synergy and was driven by mutual
Sparrow After-math

self-interest. From the Japanese perspective, it was a radical measure to spite the
United States’ Export Control Act passed in July 1940, which cut (but did not stop
completely98) oil, iron, and steel exports to Japan. In reality, it only unified
opposition to the Axis powers.
The curious Article 3 of the pact stated:
Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid
lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political,
economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked
by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-
Chinese conflict.
The unnamed ‘Power at present not involved’ was a thinly disguised reference to
the United States – subtlety that was not lost.
The closer relationship with Germany did produce two breakthroughs for Japan.
First, General Yamashita learned many military techniques from Germans during a
six-month trip in 1941. He inspected the Maginot Line, the German Atlantic
defences, and flew in a raid over Britain. When he returned home in mid-1941, he
was accompanied by more than 250 German aviation technicians, engineers and
instructors. Shortly after, Japan’s air force was among the most powerful in the
world.99 Yamashita would later lead the Japanese capture of Malaya and Singapore.
Secondly, Germany shared its gathered intelligence with Japan. In November
1940, the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis boarded the British cargo ship SS
Automedon, capturing fifteen bags of Top Secret mail for the British Far East
Command. The intelligence included naval intelligence reports containing the latest
assessment of the Japanese Empire’s military strength in the Far East, along with
details of Royal Air Force units, naval strength, and notes on Singapore’s defences.
It declared that Britain was too weak to risk war with Japan.
The relationship was very one-sided. Japan was reluctant to open a front with the
Soviets. Also, because the Americans had cracked Japan’s codes, Japan revealed
German strategy and strengths. Japan effectively used its alliance with Germany to
bolster negotiations with the United States.
The problem with the Tripartite Pact was that Germany occupied the Netherlands.
Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch government escaped to London. Although the
Netherlands were neutral, if the Dutch collaborated with Germany, Japan could
invade the Dutch East Indies.
The Dutch East Indies were the third largest oil producer at the time. Aruba and
Curaçao produced high-quality refined products and Dutch Guiana had large
bauxite mines. Queen Wilhelmina, who Churchill described as “the only man in the
Dutch government,” sacked her Prime Minister (who wanted to side with Germany)
and replaced him with a Prime Minister who would work with Churchill and
Roosevelt on ways to smooth the path for an American entry into the war.

98
Maechling, Charles. Pearl Harbor: The First Energy War. History Today, vol 50, Dec. 2000.
99
World: Is Hitler Running Japan? TIME, 2 March 1942.
Sparrow After-math

With the Dutch on their side, the United States, Britain, and Australia tried to curb
Japanese militarism by stopping the supply of iron ore, steel, and oil to Japan –
which Japan referred to as the ‘ABCD encirclement.’100
The inclusion of the Dutch would have been a double blow to Japan. First, Japan
had a longer and stronger trading relationship with the Dutch as it was the only
Western nation allowed to trade with Japan during its Sakoku. Secondly, with oil
imports from the U.S. halted, Japan would have imported oil from the previously
neutral Dutch.
Foreseeing a breakdown in U.S. relations, by July 1940 Japan stockpiled 54
million barrels of oil. Those sanctions were too weak and only cut Japan’s reliance
on U.S. oil from 80 to 60 percent. The full ABCD embargo imposed in July 1941
stopped oil shipments and froze Japanese assets in the U.S.101 Japan only had a
further 4.5 million barrels of oil on its way from the Dutch East Indies.
Using the United States’
blockade of Cuba in 1898 as a
precedent, many Japanese saw
the ABCD embargoes as an
act of war and pushed for a
retaliatory response. The
Emperor took a more balanced
and active role to choose the
most appropriate course.
On 31 July, the navy
informed the Emperor that
Japan’s oil stockpiles would
be completely depleted in two
years. Prime Minister Kanoe,
who had been counting on the
navy to restrain the Army’s
aggressive designs, instead
argued that if war with the
United States was inevitable,
it should start right away.
The Japanese Imperial
General Headquarters had
already begun planning for a
war with the Western Powers
in the months before the Photo 34: The Rise of Asia Japanese propaganda
embargo came into place. poster, 1941. Here, Japan breaks the
Kanoe also pushed for peace imperialist chain of the ABCD (America,
Britain, China, Dutch) encirclement
in April and May. strangling Japan and Asia.

100
“Kokushi Daijiten” (“Historical Dictionary”), 1980: “It was not an official term, but a term of
incitement used by the Japanese media, under the guidance of the military, in order to stir up the
Japanese people’s sense of crisis...” Cited by Christopher Barnard, “Language, Ideology and
Japanese History Textbooks.” London & New York, Routledge Curzon, 2003. p.85.
101
Maechling, op cit.
Sparrow After-math

With backing from the Navy, the Emperor, and a reluctant Army, Kanoe pushed
for one last attempt to avert war. Roosevelt played along, knowing that the wasted
time would give the U.S. more time to stock its arsenal and rush supplies to Britain
and the Soviets.
On 4 September 1941, the Japanese Cabinet met to consider war plans against
“United States, England, and Holland” prepared by Imperial General Headquarters,
and decided that:
Our Empire, for the purpose of self-defence and self-preservation, will
complete preparations for war ... [and is] ... resolved to go to war with the
United States, Great Britain, and the French if necessary. Our Empire will
concurrently take all possible diplomatic measures vis-à-vis the United
States and Great Britain, and thereby endeavor to obtain our objectives ... In
the event that there is no prospect of our demands being met by the first ten
days of October through the diplomatic negotiations mentioned above, we
will immediately decide to commence hostilities against the United States,
Britain and the French.
The ‘objectives’ to be obtained were clearly defined:
 A free hand to continue the conquest of China and Southeast Asia;
 No increase in US or British military forces in the region; and
 Cooperation by the West “in the acquisition of goods needed by our
Empire.”
The following day, Kanoe informally submitted a draft of the decision to the
Emperor, just one day before the Imperial Conference. That evening, the Emperor
met with the Army Chief of Staff General Sugiyama, Chief of the Navy Admiral
Nagano, and Kanoe. The Emperor asked Sugiyama about the chances of success
with the West. As Sugiyama answered confidently, the Emperor scolded him:
“At the time of the China incident, the army told me that we could make
Chiang surrender after three months but you still can’t beat him even today!
Sugiyama, you were minister at the time.
China is a vast area with many ways in and ways out, and we met
unexpectedly big difficulties.
You say the interior of China is huge; isn’t the Pacific Ocean even bigger
than China? Didn’t I caution you each time about those matters? Sugiyama,
are you lying to me?”102
The Emperor then announced his intention to break with tradition at the Imperial
Conference.
Nagano, a former Navy Minister and vastly experienced, later told a trusted
colleague, “I have never seen the Emperor reprimand us in such a manner, his face
turning red and raising his voice.”
The next day, the policy was formally proposed at the Imperial Conference. The
Privy Council President, Hara, observed that the plan seemed to put military action

102
Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
pp.411,745.
Sparrow After-math

ahead of diplomacy and, standing in for the Emperor, asked if that was the case.
The Navy Minister made a reply along the lines that Konoe had stated in his private
conference. Then there was silence. No other figure, including Konoe, attempted to
answer the question.
At this point, the Emperor astonished all present by addressing the conference
personally, which left his advisors “struck with awe,” according to Kanoe. The
Emperor stated that Hara’s question was an important one, and that it was
“regrettable” that none of the senior leaders had addressed it.
The Emperor then recited a tanka poem written by his grandfather, Emperor Meiji,
several times:
In this world of ours,
Across the four seas,
Everywhere we are all brothers,
Why is it that waves and wind,
Should rise and rage so turbulently?103

The Emperor stated that he had often reflected on this verse, which represented
the Emperor Meiji’s desire for peace – a desire that he shared.
Recovering from their shock, the ministers hastened to express their profound
wish to explore all possible peaceful avenues. Navy Chief of Staff Nagano rose to
defend the policy, assuring the Emperor that the consensus document was not a
decision to go to war and that priority would be given to negotiations.
Kanoe was given until mid-October to produce a diplomatic solution. The
minimum demands included:
 A halt to the economic and oil embargoes;
 Withdrawal of political and economic support for the Chinese
Nationalist government;
 Agreement to keep Western military forces in the Pacific at their
current level; and
 Non-interference in Japan’s attempts to bring “peace” to China.
In other words, The United States had to accept Japanese hegemony over China,
Manchuria, and French Indochina, and Japanese military primacy in an even
broader swath of the East.
Throughout September and October, the Army Imperial Headquarters kept
continuous communications with the Imperial Household with minute details of the
plans for the advance in Southeast Asia.104 In the second and third weeks of
October, Sugiyama presented reports.
Meanwhile, Kanoe found himself increasingly isolated. He made one last
desperate attempt to avoid war by arranging a secret conference with the U.S.
Ambassador, Joseph Grew. Kanoe told Grew that he was prepared to travel to meet
Roosevelt on a moment’s notice and that a ship was waiting prepared. Kanoe was

103
This poem was written at the end of the Japanese–Russian war and was admired by the US
President Theodore Roosevelt.
104
Wetzler, Peter. Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar
Japan. University of Hawaii Press, 1998. pp.52-54.
Sparrow After-math

convinced that the United States and

Japan could reach agreement. Grew,
impressed with Kanoe’s sincerity,
cabled back to the State Department.
The State Department replied that,
unless there were detailed negotiations
that would be affirmed at a summit, an
open-ended summit was a waste of
time. Kanoe was out of time.
Kanoe tried to stall as long as possible
while the Navy and Army continued
their preparations. Because of the oil
embargo, Japan had to act soon or it Photo 35: A visibly distressed Kanoe in mid-
would be conceding defeat through October 1941. He resigned shortly
afterwards.
delay.
At the 14 October cabinet meeting, frustration boiled over. Army Minister Hideki
Tōjō stated that the deadline had passed and negotiations had failed.
Kanoe and his allies suggested that if the Army would agree, in principle, to a
gradual withdrawal from China, a negotiated settlement could be reached with the
United States. General Tōjō responded heatedly:
“To yield to the American demand and withdraw our troops would wipe
out all the fruits of the China War, endanger Manchukuo, and jeopardize the
governing of Korea. To accept troop withdrawal in name only would not
benefit Japan either!
“Withdrawal would mean retreat. It would depress morale. A demoralized
Army would be as worthless as no Army.
“Our troops in China are the “heart of the matter!” Having made one
concession after another, why should Japan now yield the “heart?” “If we
concede this, what is diplomacy? It is surrender … a stain on the history of
our empire!”105
Admiral Nagano summed up his service’s ambivalent attitude during this period
by observing:
“The government has decided that if there is no war, the fate of the nation
is sealed. Even if there is a war, the country may be ruined. Nevertheless, a
nation that does not fight in this plight has lost its spirit and is doomed.”106
Konoe resigned on 16 October 1941, one day after recommending Prince
Naruhiko Higashikuni to the Emperor as his successor. He explained to his chief
cabinet secretary:
Of course His Majesty is a pacifist, and there is no doubt he wished to
avoid war. When I told him that to initiate war was a mistake, he agreed.
But the next day, he would tell me: “You were worried about it yesterday,

105
Oka, Yoshitake. Konoe Fumimaro: a political biography. Madison Books, 1983. p.187.
106
Morley, James William. Japan’s foreign policy, 1868-1941: a research guide. Columbia
University Press, 1974. p.98.
Sparrow After-math

but you do not have to worry so much.” Thus, gradually, he began to lean
toward war. And the next time I met him, he leaned even more toward. In
short, I felt the Emperor was telling me: my prime minister does not
understand military matters, I know much more. In short, the Emperor had
absorbed the view of the army and navy high commands.107
Two days later, Hirohito chose General Tōjō as Prime Minister despite the wish
of the Navy and the Army, who would have preferred Prince Higashikuni. No one
now stood between Japan and the events of 7 December 1941.

Japan learned its military strategy and tactics from the West. It used Western
battles as precedents for its own actions. Japan followed a predictable formula of
declaring war moments before an attack, gain an upper hand, and then set terms for
peace.
The attacks of the 7 December 1941 were no different. Japan sent strict
instructions to its Washington Ambassador to deliver a note to the US Secretary of
State at precisely half an hour before the attacks commenced at Pearl Harbour and
Manila. The Ambassador arrived 55 minutes late.
The Americans (who intercepted the diplomatic cable) were expecting the
meeting and declaration of war. They didn’t, however, expect the attack on Pearl
Harbour. Churchill, however, received an intercepted Japanese naval code, which
deciphered that Pearl Harbour would be attacked, but withheld this information
from Roosevelt and the Americans.
The key objective of the attacks of 7 December 1941 was twofold. First, the
“Southern Plan” would seize economic resources in Malaya and the Dutch East
Indies under the control of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Secondly, due
to the ‘close relationship’ between Britain and the United States, an “Eastern Plan”
would attack the United States before they became involved. Some have suggested
that Japan’s belief that the United States would enter the war to come to Britain and
Holland’s aid is ‘misguided.’108,109 What is known is that Churchill got his wish
when Pearl Harbour was attacked.

107
Fujiwara, Akira. Shōwa Tennō n.o Jū-go Nen Sensō (Shōwa Emperor’s Fifteen-year War). Aoki
Shoten, 1991. p.126, citing Kenji Tomita’s diary.
108
Wilmott, H. P. Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied strategies, February to June 1942. US
Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1983.
109
Evans, David C. & Peattie, Mark R. Kaigun Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial
Japanese Navy, 1887-1941. Naval Institute Press, 1997.
Sparrow After-math

Japan’s Eastern Plan required:

 Initial attacks on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor with carrier-based
aircraft of the Combined Fleet;
 Seizure of the Philippines; and
 Cutting the U.S. lines of communication by seizing Guam and Wake.
The Southern Plan called for:
 Attacking Malaya and Hong Kong;
 Following with attacks against
 the Bismarck Archipelago,
 Java, and
 Sumatra; and
 Isolating Australia and New Zealand.
Following completion of these objectives, the Japanese strategy was to turn to
defence while hoping for a negotiated peace.110
The problem for Japan was that the United States did not accept any terms offered
by Japan. The United States would only accept unconditional surrender.
Japan believed that it could negotiate terms with the United States. It tried using
intermediaries such as the Russians, Swiss, and Swedish throughout the war. The
United States wouldn’t have a bar of it.
The term ‘unconditional surrender’ had a short history by the time the Allied
Powers made the demand at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. A form
of it had previously been applied to Napoleon Bonaparte when he was declared an
outlaw after his escape from exile in Elba. After then, the only time it was actually
demanded was by General Grant in the American Civil War.
Announcing that only unconditional surrender is acceptable puts psychological
pressure on a weaker adversary. The problem with such a demand is that it
antagonizes an enemy and exacerbates conflict.
At the Casablanca Conference, it was Roosevelt who sprung the term on the Allies
and the media. Churchill, Stalin, and most of the senior U.S. officials disapproved
of the demand against the Axis powers as it would prolong the war and act as a
propaganda tool by the Axis to encourage further resistance.
One possible reason for the demand was that Roosevelt was concerned by the
criminality of the Axis leadership. A party who accepted unconditional surrender
was still protected by international law. Conversely, they were still liable for war
crimes under international law.
Effectively, as Douglas MacArthur argued, much of the loss of life in the war
could have been avoided if the unconditional surrender demand was not made. It
only antagonized Japan’s military leaders.
The final surrender of Japan was conditional. It was conditional that the Emperor
remain the head of state. The United States only revised its terms when they feared
that Japan would surrender to the Soviets. Ironically, the Japanese accepted the
revised terms because they did not want to surrender to the Soviets.

110
Wilmott, op cit.
Sparrow After-math

Photo 36: “Waiting for the Signal From Home.” Dr. Seuss joined the war effort.

* Culture Clash

“Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger;
that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy,
they must have their rewards.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

Of those interviewed for this book, non-Americans said that Japan entered the war
to rid the Far East of Imperialism in order to trade with its neighbours. To the
Americans, “The Japs started it.”
As demonstrated by Japan’s spectacular successes through 1941-1942, Japan had
done their homework on their enemy. They had spies on the ground well in advance
of the 7 December 1941 attacks, were aware of the deep seeded hatred the Asians
had for their imperial powers, and were also aware of the atrocities committed
against them by their colonizers.
The Japanese also had a very pigeon-holed view of Western culture. The guards
at Mitsushima shared stories about ‘Cowboys and Indians’ and the similarities
between the British and Japanese.
Attitudes towards an enemy isn’t random. It is a process manipulated by several
factors. In total war, preparing an army psychologically is as important as preparing
them physically. A soldier needs to believe that their cause is right, that their enemy
is inferior, that they can and will win. Citizens need to be motivated to hate and/or
fear their enemy, to support their leaders, and to contribute towards the war effort.
Total war is a total government, total economy, total population exercise.
Politicians, media, word of mouth – all information streams influence the way
people gather information, interpret it, form opinions, and act based on it.
During the first half of the twentieth century, information streams were dominated
by a few. What sold newspapers was shocking revelations, something new that was
different from the status quo. Over time, ‘news’ formed a pattern that shifted the
status quo. Politicians utilized the release of information in campaigns to position
themselves to benefit. They would identify a problem, make people feel it is
important, proportion blame (acting on prejudice), offer a solution, and call people
Sparrow After-math

to action. In marketing, this is called the AIDA model – attention, interest, desire,
and action.
During the Great Depression, there was mass unemployment, high inflation,
political and social unrest. In Germany, the people lost faith in their institutions’
ability to steer the country to recovery. The Treaty of Versailles was humiliating to
Germans. Hyper-inflation was debilitating, poverty disheartening, and communism
reverberating. National socialists seized on a unifying prejudice. The leading
figures in the banks and communist parties were Jewish. Oppressed for centuries,
they had a distinct culture. They were identifiable. They could be targeted.
The Nazi Party prepared a propaganda campaign to unify a broad cross-section of
society using a campaign of hatred against the Jewish. They identified some similar
physical characteristics of Jewish people and portrayed those exaggerated features
to give the appearance of evil, conniving, and an inferior subhuman species.
The Nazis drummed up hatred, unified a response, and perceived an enemy as
inferior, which desensitized people to commit cruel acts.
The Nazi propaganda machine extended the theme of the ‘Conspiring Jew’ from
causing Germany’s problems, to causing wars, to conspiring with the enemy.

Photo 37: Examples of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. Nazis developed Jewish stereotypic
appearances to portray them as subhuman. These Der Stürmer posters’ captions read
“The Eternal Jew”, “Jews- make wars longer, start wars”, and “Behind the enemy
powers: the Jew.”

Race was always a factor between the Occident and the Orient. Subjugation was
the goal of the Imperialist West. Strength by the Orient was seen as a threat to
Occidental interests.
Racism wasn’t just perceived. Discrimination was law. Immigration laws, the
League of Nations Covenant, trade agreements, and civil laws segregated and
persecuted Asians. The media invented the ‘Yellow Peril’ and acted on racist fears.
It was this racism that generated Japan’s considerable resentment of the West. Once
the West entered the war with Japan, the racism would intensify.
Sparrow After-math

“Between two countries at war there was always a danger

that one or other of the combatants would seek to turn
public opinion in his favour by resort to a propaganda in
which incidents, inseparable alas from all hostilities, were
magnified and distorted for the express purpose of
inflaming prejudice and passion and obscuring the real
issues of the conflict!”
– Sir Charles Addis at Chatham House,
November 10, 1938.

There is little difference between the racism in the propaganda of the United States
and Nazi Germany. Both followed the same motivating influences, both portrayed
the enemy as subhuman, both encouraged a desensitized and violent retribution. In
both cases, the government set the tone; the media pushed the barrier, and the public
acted on the fear and hatred generated.
Nazi Germany copied many of
the United States’ eugenics
policies, including racial
screening of immigration and
euthanasia or sterilization of
‘genetically inferior’ groups such
as criminals, homosexuals, ill,
disabled, and mentally insane. 111
In the US, a 1911 Carnegie
Institute report supported the
establishment of local gas
chambers.
There was a unique difference
between how the United States
portrayed the Nazis and the
Japanese. The Nazis were
portrayed as the ‘Hun’ – a strong
and ghostly monster. Often the
caricatures had Hitler’s
moustache, a muscular physique
or a chiseled jaw. The Japanese,
on the other hand, were myopic
with round glasses, had large
Photo 38: While United States portrayed
protruding teeth like a rodent, a Nazis as strong and aggressive,
body like a primate, and a snarl Japanese were portrayed as
like vermin. myopic primate vermin.

111
Black, Edwin. “Eugenics and the Nazis - the California connection.” San Francisco Chronicle,
November 9, 2003.
Sparrow After-math

“Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an

artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an
incessant propaganda of fear.”
– Douglas MacArthur

Racism was a motivating tool for not just soldiers but also civilians. It was used
to increase production and to encourage sales of war bonds to fund the war effort.
Effectively, people were investing in pest control.
Racism generated an exacerbating cycle. Japan’s society was more homogenous,
unified, and closer-knit. The worse the racism got in the United States, the more
hostile Japan became. Japan’s hostility towards the Americans was the culmination
of the American’s condescending xenophobia towards it.

Photo 39: American and Australian propaganda responded to Japan’s desire to ‘liberate
the Far East of Western Imperialism’ by referring to Japan as the ‘Empire of
Japan’, then stirred up fears of ‘Yellow Peril’ xenophobia by portraying the
Japanese as myopic primate vermin.
Sparrow After-math

“As a member of President Roosevelt’s administration,

I saw the United States Army give way to mass hysteria over the Japanese...
Crowded into cars like cattle, these hapless people were hurried away to hastily
constructed and thoroughly inadequate concentration camps,
with soldiers with nervous muskets on guard, in the great American desert.
We gave the fancy name of ‘relocation centers’ to these dust bowls,
but they were concentration camps nonetheless.”
– Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior,
Washington Evening Star,
September 23, 1946

The racist hysteria reached

new extremes after the events
of 7 December 1941. On 19
February 1942, President
Roosevelt issued Executive
Order 9066, which
authorized the internment of
people of Japanese ethnicity
who lived near the Pacific
Coast of the United States in
‘War Relocation Camps.’
Even Roosevelt, Eisenhower,
and senior U.S. officials
called them concentration
camps, because that is what
they were. 112 Photo 40: First-graders at the Weill public school
The internment was in San Francisco pledging allegiance to
inconsistently applied. While the United States flag. A month later,
those of Japanese ancestry would be
all Japanese Americans ‘relocated’ to concentration camps.
living on the West Coast
were interned (112,000), less
than 1,800 of the 150,000-plus living in Hawaii were interned. Of those interned,
more than 80,000 were born in the United States holding American citizenship.
Those who were 1/16 Japanese could be placed in internment camps.
The Executive Order gave power to military leaders to designate “military areas”
at their discretion, “from which any or all persons may be excluded.” These
“exclusion zones,” applied to anyone the military commanders might choose. The
area would eventually cover over one-third of the country.

Ethnic Japanese in the United States were not alone. Similar camps sprung up in
Canada and many from South America were interned in U.S. camps. The measures
were racially motivated, rather than a military necessity. The military leader in

112
Smithsonian Institution. A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans & the U.S. Constitution:
Internment: Permanent Camps. 1990-2001. Retrieved July 18, 2007.
Sparrow After-math

charge of the ‘relocation’ was a particularly nasty bigot. General John L. DeWitt,
who said that “A Jap’s a Jap,” testified to Congress:
“I don’t want any of them [persons of Japanese ancestry] here. They are a
dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty... It makes no
difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese.
American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty... But we must
worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.”113
By February, Earl Warren, the Attorney General of California, had begun his
efforts to persuade the federal government to remove all people of Japanese
heritage from the West Coast. By 3 May 1942, DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion
Order No. 34, ordering all people of Japanese ancestry, whether citizens or non-
citizens, who were still living in “Military Area No. 1” to report to assembly
centers, where they would live until being moved to permanent “Relocation
Centers.”
The exclusion orders were popular amongst the white farmers of the West Coast
who resented the competition from Japanese-American farmers. The media fuelled
the resentment:
“We’re charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We
do. It’s a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the
brown men. They came into this valley to work, and they stayed to take
over... If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we’d never miss them in two
weeks, because the white farmers can take over and produce everything the
Jap grows. And we do not want them back when the war ends, either.”114
Racism was government sanctioned. A report prepared at Roosevelt’s request
sought to link Japanese Americans with espionage in order to justify the internment
program. One columnist reflected the growing public sentiment fueled by the
Roberts Commission Report:
“I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a
point deep in the interior. I don’t mean a nice part of the interior either. Herd
‘em up, pack ‘em off and give ‘em the inside room in the badlands...
Personally, I hate the Japanese. And that goes for all of them.”115
Those interned suffered both financially and physically. Deserted suburbs were
looted, luggage was stolen from government storage facilities, and farms were
either sold cheaply or abused in their absence. As they weren’t told where they
would be held, their clothing was insufficient for sub-zero degree Fahrenheit
winters (minus eighteen degrees Celsius).
In 1944, even the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion
orders and internment. Later, in 1988, the U.S. government gave $20,000

113
Testimony of John L. DeWitt, April 13, 1943, House Naval Affairs Subcommittee to Investigate
Congested Areas, Part 3, pp.739–40.
114
Austin E. Anson, managing secretary of the Salinas Vegetable Grower-Shipper Association,
quoted in the Saturday Evening Post, in May 9, 1942.
115
Neiwert, David. The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. Paradigm
Publishers,2009. p.195 quoting Columnist Henry MɔLemore.
Sparrow After-math

compensation to each surviving detainee. On 7 December 1991, President George

H.W. Bush issued the following formal apology:
“In remembering, it is important to come to grips with the past. No nation
can fully understand itself or find its place in the world if it does not look
with clear eyes at all the glories and disgraces of its past. We in the United
States acknowledge such an injustice in our history. The internment of
Americans of Japanese ancestry was a great injustice, and it will never be
repeated.”

Photo 41: “A view of the Granada Center looking west from the water tower.” Amache,
Colorado. November 30, 1942.
(Courtesy of National Archives)
Sparrow After-math

“There is a point when coincidence

becomes a deliberate pattern.”
– Charlie McLachlan

Charlie McLachlan had the unique experience of detainment in five prisoner of

war camps and three hellships. He met prisoners of British, Australian, Dutch,
American, Canadian, New Zealand, Indian, and Asian extractions. Guards were
either frontline troops, Korean, injured former troops, or civilian. From his many
interactions, patterns formed.
Charlie’s first experiences of the Japanese were on Timor. Previously, the
Yokozuka Special Landing Forces fought in China, Hong Kong, and Ambon. In
Ambon, they massacred Australians at Laha. The Yokozuka troops were the
Japanese equivalent of marines and paratroopers. They were fanatical and refused
to surrender or be captured. They committed atrocities against many captured
Australians before capitulation.
The other Japanese troops on Timor were regular infantry. They were a mixed
bag. Clearly, their orders in relation to captured forces had changed since the Fall
of Singapore days before. They also respected Sparrow Force for their bravery and
compassion at the capitulation by treating injured Japanese troops.
The conditions at Usapa Besar were a resort atmosphere. Sparrow Force built their
own accommodation and received sufficient food and recreation. Punishment for
infractions, however, were harsh but in accordance with Hague and Geneva
Conventions.
The Japanese were surprised by the attitudes of Sparrow Force. At the end of their
campaign, the troops now guarded their captives. On Ambon, they simply rounded
up their captives and slaughtered them without a second thought. On Timor, they
got to know the British, Dutch, and Australians.
The Japanese clearly tried to treat Allied forces differently from the Chinese and
other enemies previously engaged. They tried to keep to the Rules of War. On
Timor, Leggatt received complaints from Japanese officers about the bayoneting of
captured soldiers at Usua Ridge. Leggatt promptly responded, citing the execution
of prisoners in Babau and Usua.
This exchange clearly identifies that the Japanese did have rules of engagement
determined on a case-by-case basis.
The Japanese were trained to believe that their enemy was imperialist, racist, and
greedy dogs not worthy of mercy. Instead of generating purely hatred, there was a
fear generated of being captured.
Japanese propaganda didn’t resort to the depths that the Americans or Australians
but instead manipulated perceptions of leaders, such as Roosevelt, as a conniving
aggressor. The Japanese fought their propaganda on concepts rather than stigmas.
Japan didn’t need to lie, the truth was the most effective weapon against the West.
Japanese knew that the West was racist. As news of the Japanese American
internment in the desert spread, Japanese fears were confirmed.
Sparrow After-math

Charlie noticed a strange series of

coincidences evolving relating to the
Japanese treatment of prisoners of
war. The Japanese appeared to treat
their captives similarly to how their
captives treated those they
colonized.
The Japanese had a vast spy
network throughout the Far East.
Timor was no different. The troops
who invaded each colony were
selected and briefed with
information relating to why they
were liberating each colony. In
Malaya, the Japanese knew of the
massacre of Indian soldiers by the
British during the First World War.
The Japanese Navy were sent to help
the British deal with the revolt. Once Photo 42: Japan portrayed Roosevelt as an
Singapore fell, many Sikhs swapped imperialist aggressor, in response
to trade embargoes that starved
sides and brutally guarded the Japan of oil, steel, and iron ore.
British POWs.
The Americans received similar treatment to how the Americans treated the
Filipinos. The Americans were marched into the jungle on the Bataan ‘Death
March’, transported in cattle trains, and thrown into concentration camps.
The ‘White-Australian’ Government were racist and the Japanese knew this.
Many Australian prisoners of war received severe treatment due to the Japanese
hatred of Australian white supremacy. At Singapore, many Australians were sent
to work in the harshest slave labour environments, such as the Burma Railway.
Charlie was told by the Japanese guards many favourable stories of the British.
At one time, Britain was Japan’s closest ally and many in Japan believed that
Britain betrayed them due to being manipulated by America. In reality, it was the
reverse as Churchill conjured America into the war.
As contact increased between the Japanese and the Allies, the Japanese Command
resorted to more extreme measures to motivate resistance. Combining hatred and
fear, Hirohito, as divine Emperor, feared the defection of Japanese civilians
surprised by generous U.S. treatment. He authorized the commander of Saipan to
promise civilians who died there an equal spiritual status in the afterlife with those
of soldiers perishing in combat.116 Over 10,000 took up the Emperor’s offer, many
jumping from cliffs.

116
Bergamini, op cit., pp.1012–1014.
Sparrow After-math

Frontline Japanese didn’t need

propaganda to generate fear of
their enemy. The Australians and
Americans subjected the
Japanese to extraordinary
brutality. Many Japanese were
summarily executed rather than
escorted as captives. Many
Allies mutilated corpses and kept
body parts as trophies. The
media circulated photographs of
the ‘trophies,’ which ended up in
the hands of the Japanese. Photo 43: American soldiers would mutilate
Japanese corpses, boil skulls, and keep
Disrespect for the dead is one of them as trophies.
the worst sins in Japanese (Australian War Memorial, AWM_072837)
culture.
Japanese were also racist. Japan was stuck between their perceived status as the
top Asian race, and at the bottom of the West’s race hierarchy. This
elitism/inferiority complex exacerbated Japanese treatment of their captives.
The Japanese prided their navy along British Royal Navy traditions. Japan’s army
was based on German and French military theory. Of those interviewed, it was clear
that the Japanese Navy was elitist whereas the Army was the domain of the lower
echelons of society.
Of all those interviewed, all said that the Korean guards were the nastiest – most
likely the result of their resentment of their status amongst the Japanese. Korean
soldiers were regarded as one of the lowest echelons and – based on the hierarchical
corporal punishment culture within the army – would be on the tail end of beatings.
Only prisoners of war were considered lower, which often meant they were the only
people that Koreans could beat.
Many interpreters in prisoner of war camps were Western educated. They either
‘answered the call’ or happened to be in Japanese-controlled territory when the war
broke out. These interpreters were unpopular amongst the army fold and were either
given behind the scenes intelligence roles or (‘the lowest of the low’) roles guarding
captured prisoners of war.
Japan’s successful drive through the Far East produced some unexpected results
for Japan. In many ways, Japan was unprepared to be burdened with so many
prisoners of war.
Due to the sheer number of Western prisoners of war, Japan conceded that a
change of approach was necessary. Although Japan did not ratify the 1929 Geneva
Convention, in 1942 it did promise to abide by its terms as well as the Hague
Convention of 1907. Its front line soldiers, however, had little if no education of
what to do with captured enemy combatants. Soldiers were trained to be fanatically
aggressive.
As the war progressed, many Japanese felt the West were hypocrites. Japanese
guards would highlight contradictions between the West’s previous conduct and
the West’s complaints regarding Japanese conduct. The British and U.S. Army had
their own corporal punishment disciplinary system, including group punishments.
Sparrow After-math

The British invaded South Africa for its mineral wealth. The United States cleared
Indians off their territory. The British held the Boers in concentration camps. The
United States did imprison Japanese who were American citizens in concentration
camps. The United States did bomb civilian targets. Japan was simply doing what
the Imperialists did. Suddenly, if Japan does it, it is not OK?

“There is no instance of a nation

benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

As Charlie noted, Japan got its way in the end. Independence movements sprung
up throughout the Far East and the Western Powers gradually relinquished colonial
rule. Japan was able to trade with its neighbours and became the world’s second
largest economy within thirty years. Japan achieved this with an isolationist
military and a tweaked constitution that gave the Diet control over foreign and
domestic affairs.
Japanese land reform and labour unions contributed to a consumer-oriented
industrial democracy. While MacArthur steered Japan into a peaceful society,
Eisenhower oversaw a permanent war economy in an arms race with the Soviet
Bloc. During the Cold War, the United States formed alliances with militarist
regimes in the Middle and Far East, and Central and South America.
Japan’s economy initially flourished during the Korean War. In September 1951,
the Treaty of Peace with Japan ended the occupation and restored full sovereignty
in 1952. All Japanese war criminals were then released.
In many ways, the United States and Japan swapped roles. The United States
became a war economy with a government run by assassination while Japan
became isolationist.
Meanwhile, during the Cold War, communism killed many more than during the
Pacific War. Stalin purges amounted to 799,455 executions, around 1.7 million
deaths in the Gulags, and 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement.117 No
fewer than 15 million but as many as 20 million perished from famines and state
cruelty.118 In China, around 6 million died during the Civil War119 and 49-78 million
was killed during the Cultural Revolution.120 As many as 1.6 million North Korea
citizens were killed between 1948 and 1994.
In other territory previously occupied by Japan, independence movements killed
more citizens than the Japanese did during World War II.

117
Wheatcroft, Stephen G. “Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and
Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word.” Europe-Asia Studies 51 (2): 315–345. 1999.
118
Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-
507132-8. 1991.
119
Lynch, Michael. The Chinese Civil War 1945-49. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1841766713.
2010. p.91.
120
Jung Chang. Mao: the Unknown Story. Anchor, 2005.