An Inoffensive Rearmament (21 page)

On the other hand, there were compelling reasons favoring the establishment of a new Japanese force organized on the American pattern. Japan had been systematically demilitarized, and munitions makers had been purged and their factories destroyed or converted to civilian manufacture. Weapons and much of the equipment for the new Japanese force for years would necessarily have to be supplied by the United States. As these would be of American design, the combat, supply, and maintenance units of the new forces would have to be organized in a way similar to American Army units. Furthermore and most significant, in the event of joint U.S.-Japanese military operations, the advantages of having two forces identically organized and similarly equipped were obvious. The two command and staff structures, communications systems and procedures, and logistical systems could be integrated and superimposed one upon the other with minimum disarrangement. This obviously was an overriding consideration. The NPR became a little American Army.

This decision, however, created a host of new and complicated problems. One of the most difficult was the requirement for Japanese manuals, both training and technical. Much of the early instruction in the use of carbines, M-1 rifles, and machine guns was accomplished without Japanese manuals through interpreters. Since many of the interpreters knew little about firearms, their interpretation of American instructions and especially nomenclature was something marvelous to hear on retranslation. But it's impossible for a modern army to train without manuals. Individual American camp commanders accordingly did their best to provide temporary mimeographed Japanese instructions locally produced. As General Group Headquarters began to recruit officers, we were finally able to publish a few Japanese manuals at the national level.

We encountered our most serious difficulties when we began to translate American manuals on tactics into Japanese. One must keep in mind that officially we were organizing a police force. Under the circumstances, there could be no talk about soldiers, fire and movement, entrenchments, and tactical maneuvers. Police group tactics are limited to riot control. What complicated the translations was our insistence that the Japanese use no military terms in the manuals.

One day General Hayashi came to me in complete frustration. “What are we doing,” he asked, “organizing an army or police force?”

“You know the answer to that,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “We are organizing an army. You and I know that, but we can't tell our policemen that or the people. It is most difficult to describe a police attack on a bunker with artillery and flame throwers, especially when we have to disguise the words ‘bunker,' ‘artillery,' and ‘flame throwers.' That's bad enough in any language, but I've got to invent characters for the phony names we have given some of these.” Continuing with pencil and paper, he said, “Look, Colonel, this is a Chinese character for vehicle. You know we Japanese use Chinese characters. But I am supposed to call a tank a special vehicle. Tell me, Colonel, how do I change this Chinese character you see here for vehicle into a special vehicle and expect my
yobitai
to recognize it as a tank?”

“That's what they made you a general for,” I gibed, and then we both sat down and laughed until tears came to our eyes.

Language is always a difficult barrier between people, but in Japan that year it sometimes gave birth to comedy, and on occasions almost brought on tragedy. We had adequate interpreters and many of the Japanese could speak some English, so we were always able to communicate, but it was the miscommunication that caused mischief.

One day, while examining a Japanese budget that had been translated into English and which itemized costs for rehabilitation of one of the new camps, I was amazed at the unusually large sum, almost 10 percent of the entire amount, that had been set aside under the term “roofing.” Suspecting chicanery, possibly a separate deal for a roofing contractor, I called in our comptroller. When I showed him the item, he howled.

“That's a good one,” he began. “The budget was prepared by one of the ‘hundred
stuffs
' at the NPR Headquarters and was translated into English by one of their interpreters. You notice here that the item ‘roofing' is roughly 10 percent. It was added to the Japanese budget as ‘overhead.' Japanese ‘overhead' was then translated into the English term ‘roofing.'”

One day, I visited a Japanese camp on an inspection tour. During the briefing, the battalion commander told me that he had just received his company safes—five of them, one for each company—and he didn't know how he was going to get them into the barracks. He said he was further troubled because he was told American company commanders took their company safes with them into the field. He didn't see how the Japanese could do that. I was surprised since I visualized
the typical small metal box that American company commanders are issued to secure their limited papers and items of special value.

“Let me see your safes, Superintendent,” I suggested, and he took me to a platform behind headquarters. There they were, five massive upright safes weighing several tons. I later learned that the Japanese logistical section of the General Group Headquarters, in determining allowances for Japanese organizations, used our American table of organization and equipment. This table showed that each unit was issued a “company safe.” In the translation and subsequent procurement, General Group Headquarters cornered the market on safes in Japan.

We had a similar experience with absorbent cotton. When the American table of allowances was translated into Japanese tables, NPR Headquarters bought enough absorbent cotton to fill requirements for medical cotton for the force for the next 180 years. I was told that the price of absorbent cotton in Japan went up around 300 percent and the NPR later was able to sell the item at a profit.

While the absorbent cotton transaction was in full swing, Colonel Julian Dayton, a hard-boiled old infantryman, was opening a camp for three thousand Japanese troops. On the day his troops arrived, he called me on the phone. “Frank, damn you,” he began. “I have three thousand Japanese sitting in the barracks waiting for chow, but I can't feed them because your damn headquarters hasn't delivered our mess equipment. I've got the rice and fish heads but nothing to put them in.”

“Settle down, Julian,” I said. “Our G-4 insists you should have the mess kits and other gear there now. He said it was shipped by train and the Japanese should have the train there now on your siding. Look around, will you.”

Suddenly Julian broke with, “Wait a minute, Frank. I've just been told that there are four carloads of something on our tracks. Hang on, I'll call you back.” Fifteen minutes later when I raised the phone, Julian was coming through the wire. “You dumb son of a bitch. You know what you sent me? Four carloads of absorbent cotton.”

Months later, when I saw Julian at an NPR cocktail we downed a goodly number of scotch and sodas laughing about that shipment of cotton.

CHAPTER NINE

LEADERS FASHION ARMIES

Gradually NPR Headquarters (the civilian echelon) and the General Group (the uniformed headquarters) began to fill up with senior government officials. As I reviewed the background and experiences of these new members of the Japanese defense establishment, I noted that all but one of the top appointees were graduates of the Law Department of Tōkyō Imperial University, now the University of Tōkyō. The lone exception was Mitoru Eguchi, who became deputy director general of the NPR and as such was the number two civilian official. Eguchi was a graduate of the Kyōto Imperial University, now Kyōto University. As so many others have observed, the men of Tōkyō University and to a lesser degree those of Kyōto University govern Japan.

I also noted as I had previously observed in military government, that Japanese executives all enjoyed what appeared to be carefully planned diversified assignments and career experiences. I was told that upon graduation from university, selected young individuals were initially assigned and subsequently moved from one government assignment to another with a view of developing them for high-level positions in the national and local governments. Before the occupation, when all the key officials in the national prefectural and city governments were directly appointed by the Imperial administration in Tōkyō, it was understandable how selected officials could be shifted in the direction of the central government from one prefecture to another, from the prefectures into Tōkyō, or from Imperial Bureaus to prefectural assignments. What amazed me when I served in
military government, after we introduced election of governors and other local officials, was to find the chief of the Labor Bureau of Shimane Prefecture, for example, suddenly appear as a chief of the Economic Bureau in Kyōto Prefecture. These shifts I found were being made all over Japan. The governors may have been elected by the people of the prefectures after 1947, but I suspect that their labor commissioners and other officials were being assigned to them by someone somewhere in a central agency controlling such matters in Tōkyō. I do not mean to be critical of the system; it has much to be recommended, and I only mention this situation to illustrate that democracy has many facets. We, of course, view local autonomy as a system in which the people of that area elect and control the officials who govern them. There are other views. Accordingly, if we hope to police the world, as some desire, it is important that we realize that often what seems alien and unworkable to us serves others most adequately in their environment and society.

State Minister Takeo Ōhashi, who came from an illustrious Japanese family and who was serving as the attorney general of Japan, was assigned, in addition to his legal duties, responsibility for the National Police Reserve in the cabinet and became the spokesman for the government on defense matters. Initially, State Minister Ōhashi supervised NPR activities in a detached manner from his office in the cabinet, but gradually his visits to NPR Headquarters became more frequent and his influence increasingly more apparent. By early 1952, he was participating actively with American advisers and former Imperial generals close at hand in arranging for the development and equipment of the future military forces of Japan. In the meantime, Mr. Masuhara, as the director general, had direct responsibility for planning, organizing, and training the NPR.

Both Mr. Masuhara and Mr. Eguchi, as the civilian heads of the force, spent much of their time, as do our own secretaries of defense, appearing before committees of the Diet answering questions. Experienced government officials, their answers addressed to resolving the ambiguities of the NPR, would have qualified either one for the high political tightrope walk in any parliament of the world.

In accordance with our American concept of civilian control over the military, we encouraged the chief of the General Group Headquarters, General Keizō Hayashi, and his deputy, General Yujirō Izeki, a former official of the Foreign Ministry, to stay away from the Diet and Japanese politicians. This created some confusion and at one point caused a severe rift between General Hayashi and Mr.
Masuhara. The director general's office, however, was learning rapidly, and the men in uniform were subordinated to the civilian echelon, particularly on political matters.

General Izeki, who spoke English fluently and handled his scotch adroitly, as a Foreign Ministry official should, was a favorite with Americans. In his relations with the advisers, he assumed a relaxed, indifferent attitude. He remained in uniform for only about a year before he returned to his career as chief of the International Cooperation Bureau (Kokusai Kyōryokukyoku). In the year that he served with the NPR, his major contribution, as far as I was concerned, was to provide a high-level liaison between American and Japanese headquarters. Whenever difficulties or misunderstandings arose, General Izeki would come to me in a frank, forthright talk and present the Japanese position in clear and understandable English terms. I have often speculated what a wonderful world this would be if humanity could communicate in one tongue.