Prime Minister Tojo smiled with genuine pleasure. The war was going well for Japan. “Admiral, I am pleased to inform you that final permission to seize Hawaii has been granted.”
“Thank you,” Admiral Yamamoto responded warily. He wondered just how much the prime minister and head of the army had known of his plans to go ahead, with or without permission.
Had permission been refused, the attack would have been categorized as a raid, or a reconnaissance in force, and, assuming its success, the existence of a Japanese base on Molokai would have been a means of exerting pressure on Tojo’s government to take the obvious step of attacking Oahu.
“The 38th Division suffered about fifteen hundred casualties in taking Hong Kong,” Tojo said. “A small number. These will be replaced, and the division will be ready to depart China in a matter of days. The other regiments that will fill it out are already at ports and ready to embark. I trust you have found enough transports to support this operation?”
Yamamoto smiled. “Just barely, Prime Minister. Quarters will be cramped and living conditions miserable, but that will only serve to make the soldiers more fierce.”
Tojo laughed. The idea of a commanding officer being concerned about the comfort of his soldiers was ludicrous. Japanese soldiers were trained with extreme harshness and expected to live in conditions of privation that would cause lesser men to collapse.
“Admiral, I have addressed your concerns about civilians with General Tadoyashi. To the extent that it is possible, there will be no repeat of what occurred in Hong Kong. I agree that it would be counterproductive for there to be wholesale massacres and rapes of those people whom we would wish to utilize as hostages, or even allies. It could be a political and diplomatic disaster.”
Yamamoto was relieved. Although the bulk of the terror in Hong Kong had been directed at the indigenous and despised Chinese population, it would be too easy for the troops of the 38th to run amok. Anything resembling a massacre would polarize resentment and make the conquest and occupation more difficult.
“However,” Tojo continued, “there is always the possibility of incidents occurring during the heat of battle, and the army always has permission to utilize terror against the military population to induce surrender.”
This time Yamamoto’s concurrence was more reluctant. Tadoyashi’s troops had butchered British prisoners, then raped and murdered the female military nurses they’d captured and threatened the entire garrison with death if they didn’t surrender. The horrified, outnumbered, and outgunned British had immediately pulled down the Union Jack. After that had come the reign of terror against the civilian population.
“I can only trust in the army’s best efforts,” the admiral said warily.
“Indeed,” Tojo responded. “On another matter, it now appears that we could have given you one of the better trained divisions from the Siberian border. Our embassy in Moscow is quite convinced that the Soviets will make no move toward Manchukuo. They are far too involved in their counterthrust against the Nazis to entertain any thought of opening a second front against us.”
Yamamoto shrugged it off. “No matter. Between what the army is providing and the brigade of marines under Admiral Iwabachi, the forces will be more than sufficient.”
“Very good. And Iwabachi will be the military governor of Hawaii?”
“Yes.”
“Again a good decision. Iwabachi is a very stern man who will maintain tight discipline and brook no interference from the Americans under his control. There will be a kempetei field detachment under Colonel Omori to support him.”
The kempetei were the Japanese version of a secret police. They had wide jurisdiction and powers, and Yamamoto acknowledged that Admiral Iwabachi would be controlled in significant matters by Omori. It was not unusual. The governor would govern the islands, while police and security matters fell under the jurisdiction of the kempetei.
“Does Colonel Omori speak English?” Yamamoto asked.
“Fluently. Even more important, he understands the need to pacify the three races that exist in Hawaii. The white Americans will be tightly controlled, while the native Hawaiians will be given every opportunity to support us. The Japanese in Hawaii will be expected to be loyal to us from the first moment.”
When Yamamoto raised an eyebrow in a silent query, Tojo continued. “We acknowledge and respect that many Japanese in Hawaii have been away from pure Japanese culture for years, even generations, and that some of them might have to be reeducated. We are confident that, with Colonel Omori’s wise assistance, the overwhelming majority of the Japanese in Hawaii will see the wisdom of rediscovering the worth of being Japanese.”
The meeting ended. When Yamamoto had departed, Tojo yawned. He was tired and under a great deal of strain. Yamamoto was a brave and wise man, and one he greatly respected. Tojo, of course, had his own spies in the navy’s camp and was well aware of the continuing plans for a landing on Molokai. If it succeeded, then more glory would come to Japan and the government headed by Hideki Tojo.
If it failed, then it was on Yamamoto’s head, and it would be Yamamoto, along with the rest of the naval coterie, who would lose face.
Tojo chuckled. There were those who thought the lack of cooperation between the army and navy a deplorable state of affairs. But that was not true. Divide and conquer was a fundamental rule of war, whether the enemies were foreign or domestic.
Tojo was confident the attacks on Hawaii would succeed. Along with Yamamoto and others, he shared concern over what the future might bring to Japan. In a brief while, the Philippines would fall, and they would be followed by the myriad of islands of the southern Pacific. Australia might be intimidated and coerced into a surrender, or at least a peace treaty that would be most favorable to Japan. The future of Japan was bright.
The stink of the Philippine jungle was almost as bad as the stench of defeat. The crew of the submarine Monkfish thought they could smell both jungle rot and defeat as she cruised slowly eastward from the doomed Philippines. They were incorrect, of course; the fetid land smell was overwhelmed by the combined odors of diesel, sweat, and urine as the cramped sub progressed underwater. The odor of defeat, however, was pervasive.
Only a few weeks earlier, the naval base near Manila had been home to more than a score of American submarines. It had been the largest concentration of submarines anywhere, and it had been presumed that the subs, along with General MacArthur’s American-Philippine army, would be able to take on anything the Japs had thrown at them.
It hadn’t worked out that way.
First, the American army’s air arm in the Philippines had been wiped out a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, despite having had warning of the attacks on Pearl several hours earlier. For reasons that might forever be unknown, the news had paralyzed the American command, and they did nothing. Thus, when the Japanese planes finally did attack, they found a situation much like that at Pearl. The vast majority of American planes had been destroyed on the ground, where the Jap fighters had found them parked in neat rows.
This total aerial superiority enabled the Japanese to attack other American army and naval facilities with impunity. It also meant that the numerous subsequent Japanese landings on the Philippines were largely unopposed.
Admiral Thomas C. Hart, the senior naval officer and commander of the United States Asiatic Fleet, had been appalled. The Japanese army quickly pushed the small American army and the larger, but poorly trained, Philippine army backward.
MacArthur’s defenses had proven to be without substance. Manila would fall shortly and the American presence on Luzon now mainly consisted of the peninsula of Bataan and the fortified island of Corregidor.
Earlier, Admiral Hart had evacuated all major surface ships from Philippine waters, and only the subs and their support craft had remained. Now, even they had departed, and it was conceded that the Philippines were doomed unless a relief force came from the United States. While some believed that an American fleet was always just over the horizon, the clearer thinkers realized that the islands were going to be conquered by the Japanese.
Commander Frank Griddle despised himself for being in the position of retreating and for being so relieved that he would not be in the Philippines when the Japs did march through. He thought of himself as a reasonably brave man, but he wanted no part of a Jap occupation and prison camp.
The Monkfish was an unfamiliar sub to Griddle. He commanded because her regular captain had been felled
