After it was dyed red
With the blood of warriors.
—Hiromichi Yahara, June 23, 1945
The American era of warfare began in a tunnel. Late into the evening of May 3, 1945, three officers huddled around a map-strewn table in the stifling heat of a Japanese command cave buried safely below the ancient Okinawan fortress of Shuri Castle. The two lieutenant generals—Itsura Ushijima, the commander of the Japanese 32nd Army, and Isamu Cho, his chief of staff—argued tactics. It was an argument in the Japanese fashion: monosyllabic, measured, and interrupted occasionally by the guttural outbursts of General Cho. The question before them was limited to one narrow set of options: should the Japanese attack soon, before U.S. forces overwhelmed them, or should they remain burrowed in their caves, bunkers, and tunnels and continue to defend?1
The third officer at the table was Colonel Hiromichi Yahara. He was a tall, quiet officer, deeply cerebral and intellectually gifted, a man with a mild, patrician manner. Yahara’s service had been spent mainly as a staff officer and instructor at the Imperial War College. He knew his enemy, because he had lived in the United States as an attaché. But his impressions, amplified after the last five weeks of fighting Americans there on Okinawa, were considerably different from those of his boss. General Cho was an arrogant, impetuous, cruel, and stupid man—typical of a generation of generals brought up in the prewar atmosphere of court politics and savage international aggression.
On occasion Yahara would interject a few words to elevate the discussion. While his seniors argued tactics, Yahara thought strategy. He had lectured them frequently on the unique opportunities that their inevitable sacrifice on Okinawa would signify for Japan. He knew that the battle for Okinawa was actually the opening battle for the Japanese homeland. He considered it a bloody prologue of what was inevitably about to happen on the beaches of Japan’s main islands of Honshu and Kyushu. He spoke frankly about how Japan should fight on in the face of a succession of tragic defeats. The United States controlled the air and sea absolutely. By invading the Marshall Islands the previous year, Americans had penetrated the final strategic perimeter of the empire and placed the home islands within range of the cruel killing power of U.S. B-29 bombers. He understood that a land assault on the home islands supported by the overwhelming firepower of naval artillery and carrier strike aircraft would follow immediately after the United States captured Okinawa.
The hard part of these discussions was the context. Four years before, Japan’s strategy had been to preserve victory. Now it was to manage defeat. The question that Yahara pondered with his staff was how to translate the looming yet necessary sacrifices of a losing land battle into some form of redemptive advantage for Japan. In typical Japanese fashion, Yahara sought to lessen the shame of what was to come by referring to his concept as an “offensive retreat.” His intent was straightforward: kill Americans with such efficiency that they would reconsider the wisdom of invading Japan. Perhaps if his Soldiers could kill enough Americans, an armistice similar to the Versailles treaty that had ended World War I might be negotiated with the United States. Perhaps even the emperor’s place as the “son of heaven” might be respected and preserved.
Like any competent staff officer, Yahara based his strategy on the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. He knew Americans well from personal associations during his time in the States. His superior intuition allowed him to filter out the prejudices of his samurai brethren to form a realistic appreciation of the fighting qualities of U.S. forces. Clearly U.S. matériel strength was far beyond anything the Japanese Imperial Staff could have imagined before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Once the battle for Okinawa began in earnest, Yahara discovered that the Americans were harder to kill than anyone had supposed. With a good pair of binoculars, he could watch U.S. Soldiers and Marines moving back and forth between the beach to forward foxholes with relative impunity. He concluded that the only efficient place to kill them was in close, at about one thousand yards, with small arms, mortars, and grenades. Yahara and his field commanders also noted that the fighting efficiency of Americans diminished as they moved toward the line of contact. The closer the Japanese infantry could hold the enemy “in its embrace,” the greater chance that it could kill Americans. From the beachhead to the infantry battalion rear area, U.S. Soldiers and Marines were very well trained and motivated. But their infantrymen’s performance seemed to fall apart as they closed to small-arms range, the last hundred yards—often less than fifty yards.
Yahara knew that the only remaining American vulnerability was public opinion. Prior to assuming their duties on Okinawa, Ushijima and Yahara had served together as senior leaders at the war college at Zama. From their studies they had concluded that the American public was increasingly concerned about the human cost of the Pacific War. The press exposed the horrors of the Pacific campaign, beginning with pictures of dead Americans on the beaches of Buna in 1942 and continuing through the bloody battles of Tarawa, Peleliu, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and the Philippines. American patience had waned even further in the winter of 1945 after the war in Europe appeared to be substantially won. Opportunities to influence American opinion were amplified by a new openness by the Truman administration, which allowed vivid pictures and written imagry of the Pacific battlefields to be revealed to the American people. The public began to protest the cost of a war against a hated but clearly secondary foe. Why, it was asked, were so many men dying so horribly for bits of rock and coral?
YAHARA’S LONG SHADOW: WAR IN THE AMERICAN ERA
Unlike Ushijima and Cho, Yahara did not die on Okinawa. By the third week in June the once-powerful Japanese forces had been reduced to small huddles of cave-bound Soldiers preparing for ritual suicide. On the 23rd, Ushijima gathered his two colleagues in a small command cave perched just above the cliffs that defined the connection between the absolute end of the island and the emerald-green sea to the south. Yahara watched with resignation as Ushijima and Cho changed into white kimonos and exchanged poetic remembrances of their homeland and past campaigns. In this surreal setting, Yahara noted, he was excluded from the ritual. Ushijima bent forward and spoke in hushed tunes as he gave last instructions to his brilliant and faithful staff officer: “Colonel, the Homeland must be defended next. You have shown us both how Japan must prepare to defend the Emperor. Leave us before it’s too late and return to Japan.”
The next three days would haunt Yahara for the remainder of his life. Even an officer with such great intellectual gifts believed that in such circumstances continuing to live was a cowardly act. His shame increased unbearably when the U.S. Army captured him only three days after his escape from the funereal cave of Ushijima and Cho. His dead seniors had expected him to convey the secrets learned fighting the Americans back to the defenders of the Japanese home islands. Both had been convinced that in spite of their overwhelming firepower, the Americans could be defeated if only enough of them died.
U.S. command knew it as well. Deep in the bowels of the National Archives rests a set of yellowed papers—only recently declassified—that is the operational plan for the invasion of Japan.2 Operation Downfall was finalized in Washington as the battle for Okinawa reached its bloody zenith. The preliminary invasion, Operation Olympic, was scheduled to begin on October 25, with an invasion of the Japanese southern island of Kyushu. The invasion would include almost 1.5 million men, thousands of aircraft and ships—the greatest armada the world had ever seen. However, confidence in the Olympic plan continued to wane as stories about Japanese fighting effectiveness began to circulate among the Pacific planning staffs. Only after the war would the Americans learn about the enormously complex defense of the home islands the Japanese had planned.
More than fourteen Japanese divisions as well as seven independent and two tank brigades awaited the invasion. This force was composed of the hard core of Japan’s army, well equipped and fed and anxious to die for the homeland. Today a visitor can still walk along the beach defenses on Kyushu: thousands of concrete bunkers and artillery positions. U.S. command learned later that the Japanese had been able to collect more than 14,000 aircraft to support the defense. Clearly, Adm. William Leahy’s prediction of 250,000 American dead on Kyushu alone was understated. Okinawa and the strategic genius of men like Yahara had put paid to the optimistic plans of U.S. forces. Yahara’s ideas would kill many, many more. Fortunately, for millions of GIs (including my father) Yahara’s