Air War Over Japan 1944 -'45
Compiled From Personal Interviews Conducted
By William H. Stewart
Military Historical Cartographer
(Quoted with permission & reviewed for accuracy)
During my tenure with the Trust Territory of the Pacific Island while assigned to the Headquarters on Saipan I had the fortunate opportunity to meet several former Army Air Force officers who had flown from the Northern Marianas on bombing runs over Japan. As some recounted their stories to me I felt compelled to record their experiences for history. The following two gentlemen mentioned below gave me permission to prepare the following and both have checked my recording of their story for accuracy.
Ernest R. Bartley "Bart" returned to Saipan on August 6, 1993 after an absence of 49 years to attempt to exorcise some "old ghosts" as he put it from memories carried from the days of his youth. Thoughts and recollections of flights, fights and friends, especially those of fallen crew members of the numerous B-29's flown off Saipan. "Bart" was a 25 year old captain in the Air Force from Lincoln Nebraska who flew the third B-29 ever to land on Saipan and piloted the first mission over Japan on November 24, 1944 taking off from what would later be called Isley Field, the island's single serviceable air strip at the time. Bart was with Air Force General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold's 20th Air Force, 21st Bomber Command, 73rd Wing assigned to Saipan.
There were five Wings within the command, two assigned to Tinian, the 313th and 58th, and two on Guam, the 315th and the 509th Composite Group which was to drop the Atomic Bomb. The 509th was later assigned to Tinian. Each Wing had four Groups of three squadrons each with ten planes in each squadron of which, at any one time during the early days, only about six or seven aircraft were considered serviceable and available for mission deployment. These giants of the air would take off the runway on Saipan where the the present international airport is located and fly east out over Magicienne Bay. Shortly after day -break squadron after squadron would lift off the edge of the runway at one minute intervals and then turn in a northerly direction for the 1,272 nautical mile flight to their targets in Japan. After a flight of some six hours they would reach their check-point above Mount Fuji, Japan's most sacred mountain where Bart recalled, "you would turn right for Tokyo or left for Nagoya." Japan's fighter pilots knew very well that their beautiful snow capped volcano was a critical navigation point for the B-29 crews and it was there that the Japanese would rise in their Zeros and other fighters to attack the silver bombers from the south. The production facilities of this formidable Japanese aircraft was often the target of the B-29's. Even so, by the time the war ended the Japanese would have produced 10,449 of the improved A6M Mitsubishi fighter aircraft.
In those early months the first squadrons to take off from Saipan were, of course, the first to arrive over Fuji and sometimes, the former bomber pilot recalled, although not always, the first squadrons on the bomb run escaped the wrath of the Japanese defending interceptors since it was often the appearance of the B-29's that signaled the alert for the fighters to take-off. The first American squadrons from Saipan had time to complete their bombing mission, turn and start the long flight back to the island before the heavily armed fighters could reach their attack altitude. The squadrons taking off from Saipan in the middle of the formation were the ones that caught hell as the Japanese were already aloft and waiting for the silver beasts like angry hornets with a deadly sting. The last group of Super fortresses to leave the airfield at the southern end of Saipan were usually the luckiest as they would arrive over Japan at about the time the fighters exhausted their fuel and ammunition and had to return to their bases to refuel and rearm.
Bart recalled, "the squadrons in the middle of the take-off line had the most dreaded position and time slot as all crew members knew what was in store for them. Most of the time my squadron and later Group was assigned to the middle take-off positions and we always hoped to be either the first or the last squadron to leave on a mission, but our wing commander kept us in the middle -- this provided a measure of relief and hope for the squadrons we followed in as well as those that were flying in back of us. Their crews worried less, if that was possible under the circumstances and, in a small way, they felt slightly safer as the odds were a little more in their favor that they might escape the deadly attacks on us. I supposed those crews felt some small comfort and maybe they performed their mission with more precision and efficiently - I don't know. Our wing commander may have thought so as well and kept the same squadrons in their accustomed departure positions.
"He must have thought that it was better to have two squadrons or later Groups more or less believing they had some sort of ‘edge’ and felt safer for it than to constantly move men and planes around within the take-off period. Decisions like that are made during wartime. Anyway - we almost always had to fly in that dreadful middle position that was certain to catch the full force of the Japanese fighters and some of my men paid for it with their lives."
In the early days Ernest Bartley flew the middle position in many different aircraft among them the famous B-29 with the identification marking of "T Square 8,"Joltin Josie" which later in the war left Isley Field, failed to gain altitude and fell into Magicienne Bay. It is still there in the dark depths.
Bartley remembered the fuel capacity of the great planes and the long flight distance that required six or seven hours to reach their destination and an equal period of time to return to Saipan or Tinian. "Cruise control was always our concern. For this reason we would fly at low altitudes until nearing Japan then we would climb to 29,000 feet or so for the bomb run. On the way back we would enter a slow descent in an effort to ‘stretch’ our dwindling fuel supply. Many did not have the fuel to make it back or were so shot up that they went down in the water."
"The Japanese didn't pay too much attention to a single B-29 flying overhead, witness the fact that the Enola Gay did not encounter any resistance. It's strange that the Japanese had intelligence about some of the movements of our B-29 squadrons. I remember listening to Tokyo Rose on the radio and between her playing the recorded music of Glen Miller and other popular bands of the day she would make remarks about arrival details of the B-29 program and various U. S. Army Air Force personnel enroute to the Marianas. This type of information was Top Secret and we were absolutely forbidden to mention anything about the program in the United States or elsewhere but somehow complete orders to our air crews would get to Tokyo. No one knows how they obtained this vital information."
Californian, Iva Ikuko Toguri, also known as Tokyo Rose would direct radio messages to U. S. troops on Saipan in an attempt to demoralize them. He recalled that among the information 'Tokyo Rose' would mention during the radio programs was the designation of squadrons and group arrivals and sometimes even the aircraft tail designations and crew names. Bart Bartley recalled that when he joined Bomber Command he became aware that military intelligence was investigating how this confidential information got into her hands. She even broadcast the arrival of the P-51 fighters on Iwo Jima after that island had been secured by U.S. forces. There were instances when a group of Japanese suicide attackers tore into the pilot’s tents and dropped hand grenades into them. The group knew exactly how and where to infiltrate American lines. We had old maps of Japanese cities but they were not very good, we relied upon aerial photographs taken by our photo reconnaissance group which were excellent in discerning ground features and targets.
By the end of the war the 73rd Wing had lost 1,033 men killed in action. Several were killed on Saipan as a result of Japanese air attacks on Isley Field, (constructed in 1934 by the Japanese and named Aslito Field it was renamed Isley after USN Commander Robert H. Isley, killed on June 13, 1944 while strafing the field).The Japanese pilots were after the B-29s and would make a bombing sweep on our aircraft approaching the parked equipment from the west. They knew it was a one-way trip for them and that they would never return to their base. In a way you could say that those sorties were the first Kamikaze missions.
"You can't begin to comprehend the valor of those Marines who took Saipan so that the country might have an air base from which to launch operations to wage war against the Empire. You can imagine the furious fighting the Marines and the Army's 27th Division had to endure on Saipan's tortuous terrain. After the island had been secured we were pretty much confined to its southern end around the airfield. We were under orders not to wander around over the island but once I did visit the Marpi area and stumbled onto a cave that had been hit by Marine flame throwers - the charred remains of Japanese soldiers were still inside. This was in October, three and a half months after the fighting.
I was later transferred to Guam and remember that very soon after the Japanese surrendered two Japanese officers flew to Guam with maps marking the locations of Prisoner of War camps in Japan and elsewhere. Within forty eight hours we launched missions with our B-29's filled with medical supplies, food and clothing which were dropped at low level over the camps marked POW on the roofs of buildings. The Russians had sent two liaison officers to Guam and they had somehow obtained a copy of the Field Order that the B-29's flying these mercy missions would carry ‘full turrets’ which meant that all guns would be armed. The Russians opposed this order and the aircraft flew unarmed. Then an aircraft of the 873rd squadron flew across the China Sea on a single plane mission, wings marked as a POW flight, it was shot down by the Russians. Upon learning of this attack on an unarmed American aircraft, flying a mission of mercy General LeMay summoned the Russian Liaison Officers to his office and while awaiting their arrival we were sort of lounging around not knowing want had happened, LeMay appeared casual, calm and relaxed until the Russians were escorted in where-upon the General launched into a raging tirade against the Russians and called them every foul name he could think of, curses only the Devil himself could conceive. He told the Russians, "from now on our planes will fly armed, bring on your God-damn fighters and we will shoot them down."
Ernest Bartley's visit to Saipan was one year short of the 50th anniversary of the invasion and forty eight years to the day since the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. He visited the old airfield remembering the roar of engines long since silent and traveled to Marpi Point to see for the last time the rocky cliffs marking Saipan's northern coast. Cliffs that he had flown over so many times in 1944 and 1945 on the way to Japan and a promontory that he anxiously looked for upon his return from bombing missions.
As I sat in his room at the Summer Holiday Hotel in Garapan that rainy, wind swept Sunday afternoon in August 1993, Bart looked at me and said, I have done a lot of things in my life since the war - but nothing has ever come even close to those experiences. The war was the high point of my life.
I left the hotel and walked into the remnants of a tropical storm’s feeder bands that left twenty inches of rain on the island that day. Within minutes an earthquake shook Saipan that measured 8.1 on the Richter Scale - and I wondered what Bart thought about that - my guess is very little.
Leaving Saipan to resume his position as a Professor at the University of Florida he didn't mention if the "ghosts" of h is memory returned with him. I expect they did.
William H. Stewart
* * *
Raymond ‘Hap’ Halloran, a former Northern Marianas Army Air Force navigator aboard the B-29 “Rover Boy's Express”, 73th Wing, 499th Bomb Group, tail marking - square 27 explained the purpose of the tail designations as being large, black letters on the tail of the B-29s that Tokyo Rose was said to have mentioned during some of her broadcasts which were used to assist B 29s of a specific group to readily identify other planes of their group and this facilitated aligning the planes into the desired bombing formation prior to penetrating the mainland of Japan. It also provided for more effectiveness and, in some cases, aided in survival.
‘Hap’ was shot down on January 27, 1945 and became a Japanese POW for the remainder of the war.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1944 invasion of Saipan which coincided with the dedication of the American Memorial Park many veterans returned to the island to participate in the ceremonies. They all had stories of their experiences and all were fascinating.
At age seventy two Raymond F. ‘Hap’ Halloran was a bear of a man as he sat in my living room on his return to Saipan for the second time since the war to witness and participate in the ceremonies at the American Memorial Park.
It didn’t take long to engage this fascinating man in conversation. I had met several other veterans from the 73rd Bomb Wing and asked ‘Hap’ if he knew them. When he replied he did not, I was somewhat surprised but later understood the reason when informed that he had only been on Saipan about a month before being shot down over Tokyo and taken prisoner by the Japanese. He flew his first mission to Iwo Jima on Christmas Eve, 1944. Subsequent missions were flown to Akashi / Kobe and Nagoya before being shot down over Tokyo on his 4th mission on January 27, 1945.
There are rare people who are so endowed with a sense of grace, self confidence and humanity that it is almost a religious experience to be in their presence. ‘Hap’ Halloran is one such man, an American hero. And while he will never acknowledge that fact, it is immediately apparent when the story of this modest man is known. His story - -
We came together on the fields of Kansas. Some had experienced combat in other places. These men were to be our leaders. We were kids from farms, small cities and major metropolitan areas of America, he said.
Crews were formed and crew memories exist forever. Most are happy, some are sad, but they are always deep. I remember my first glimpse of that beautiful, silver B-29 -- what a sight. Our crew and the plane, the ‘Rover Boy’s Express’ left Mather Field near Sacramento, California for Rogers Field, Hawaii, (Kalaeloa Field). As we climbed out from Mather -- the City of San Francisco was off to our left at nine o’clock low. It was a crystal clear night and the lights sparkled below. As we crossed the shoreline and headed west over the dark Pacific something happened. We all continued to look at the lights of San Francisco until they finally disappeared. The intercom went silent -- the usually talkative 'Rover Boys’ were quiet as we were headed for hostile territory. It was my feeling that during that very brief segment of our lives we made a critical -- important and lasting transition in our lives from youth to manhood. Then from Hawaii we flew west to Kwajalein and then to Saipan -- a total of about 5,300 nautical miles.
The 73rd would be the first to bomb Japan on November 24, 1944 and of all the missions flown against Japan, the Saipan based B-29s would fly the most. Twenty-two year old ‘Hap’ Halloran from Cincinnati was an aircraft navigator.
On January 27, 1945 while over Tokyo at 32,000 feet in our B-29 we were attacked by two Japanese twin engine Toru fighters - code name "Nick", closing on us fast. One got through and disabled the ‘Rover Boy’s Express’ enabling other fighters to continue to attack us, he recalled.
Suddenly we were trailing smoke and fire with a full load of bombs and half our fuel. We fell below and behind the rest of the B-29’s in our squadron. There was nothing they could do to help us, it was a sad feeling. The bomber lurched as the 20 mm cannon shells ripped through the fuselage and shot out the electrical controls and the intercom system. Before the attack, the inside of the plane was pressurized at a comfortable temperature of seventy degrees but in an instant when our nose was shot out the temperature plunged to minus fifty-eight degrees, a temperature change of one hundred twenty-seven degrees in a fraction of a second. As we bailed out through the bomb bay my feet, hands and face froze. I didn’t want to let my silk out too fast and fell free to somewhere between three and four thousand feet over Chiba Prefecture East of Tokyo as I didn’t want one of the fighters to take a pop at me while in the parachute harness and, falling without oxygen, I wanted to get out of the extreme cold and rarefied air to warmer air near the ground.
Once the chute opened three Japanese fighters headed directly for me as I hung helpless in the sky. They came in very close -- throttled back and circled me in counterclockwise direction - very close in. Two left after the initial circling. The third plane returned for a second pass -- very close in. I feared the worst. He throttled back -- was very close in just below me. I raised my hands over my head -- I was frightened. The pilot was very visible to me. Then he saluted me (1) and pulled off.
Drifting down East of Tokyo, ‘Hap’ viewed a large gathering of Japanese gathering below his chute.
I felt helpless and feared the worst. I hit very hard in a strong wind. The civilians followed the flow of my chute. They were extremely hostile and beat me with clubs, rods, rocks and many other objects. I blacked out from the beatings. I felt I would die that afternoon on enemy soil.
Japanese civilians sometimes killed American personnel. The military police arrived and wedged themselves between ‘Hap’ and the people that wanted him dead.
I later learned the military were under orders to capture some B-29 personnel for interrogation purposes. I was tied and thrown into a coal truck and taken to a briefing room at a fighter base where the beatings continued. From there I was taken to Kempei Tai, the Japanese federal torture prison adjacent to the northern perimeter of the Imperial Palace grounds in downtown Tokyo, and placed in a cold, dark horse stall. This ordeal included sixty seven days of solitary confinement, torture and two days on display locked in an animal cage at the Ueno Zoo. In April, I was transferred on a truck from my public exhibit cage in the zoo to Omori prisoner of war camp on the southwest edge of Tokyo. During the trip even though I was always blind folded, I could see the almost total devastation caused by the B-29 fire raids throughout Tokyo. At Omori there were other American prisoners and all were forbidden to speak or pass notes.
At Kempei Tai ‘Hap’ was taken from his cell for brutal beatings and pointless interrogation every day. They wanted to know about the B-29 aircraft. It was a charade, he said.
One day they showed me a large blueprint of the aircraft and I found out that they knew more about the technical aspects of the plane than I did. They would grill me about Saipan. How many Japanese prisoners were held there? I told them I didn’t know since I didn’t know the difference between a Japanese and an islander. That was the wrong answer and I would be knocked down again. I would tell them that I didn’t see any Japanese after being accused of killing Japanese as they tried to surrender when the island fell in 1944. With that answer I would be hit again. Well maybe I saw a few, I would say and then they would beat the hell out of me and say that their people would never surrender. It was a no win situation.
One day, after the transfer to Omori POW Camp we were taken outside and as the roll was taken I counted off five of my crew of 11 that had survived the loss of our aircraft. Among the thirty two prisoners at our location was Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington, the irascible Marine ace captured near Rabaul on the day he destroyed three Japanese fighters. He was already a hero to me with his twenty-eight aerial victories long before our B-29 was shot down. He had maintained a sparkle in his eyes and the look and mannerisms of a natural leader. A tough leader, he instilled confidence in us in a quiet way and I knew I would be OK as long as Pappy was there. Pappy didn’t know he had been awarded the Medal of Honor until I told him. He said,
Right now I’d trade it for a hamburger. Boyington would give the Japanese guards demonstrations of the number of Japanese planes he had shot down. Strangely, most of the guards respected and sometimes applauded him.
After a while we were marched daily into Omori where we cleared broken timber and ash heaps from homes and factories destroyed by fire. From the ground in Tokyo I thought constantly of Saipan. As an early prisoner of war I had no knowledge of Tinian, Guam, Iwo Jima and the progress of Pacific war. While in prison I heard, saw and felt many B-29 missions over Tokyo and the Tokyo - Yokohama corridor, I remember well the terrifying early morning darkness of March 10th. Early that day B-29’s initiated a monstrous low level fire bomb attack on Tokyo. Over 100,000 people were killed during that raid. In the air and on the ground the flames, smoke, noise, fire storm winds and screams were beyond comprehension -- fear was ever present and I prayed for myself and the safe return of the B-29 crews to Saipan. They gave me hope for freedom. At Omori I was with thirty-one other B-29 prisoners of war and we had been told by one Mr. Kano, the superintendent of our camp, that in the event of an invasion all POWs would be executed immediately. We were never given any medical assistance.
In late August after the war had ended the B-29s came in low over our prison camp with bomb bays open dropping food, clothing and medical supplies, they were wonderful -- they were beautiful. They had come back for us. On August 29th I was placed aboard the hospital ship Benevolence in Tokyo Bay anchored adjacent to the battleship Missouri. I was too weak to climb the ship’s ladder and had to be lifted aboard along with others in a cargo net. On September 1st -- the day before the signing of the Peace Treaty aboard the Missouri in Tokyo Bay Admiral Halsey visited me in my room aboard the hospital ship.
I was still aboard on September 2nd when the surrender ceremonies were taking place aboard the Missouri. Planes of all types from the Pacific Theater came in low in trailing procession up Tokyo bay -- what an event! Then came the best of all -- some five hundred B-29s flying in low formation. The sights and sounds of those magnificent B-29s was overpowering.
Precisely to the day, forty four years later ‘Hap’ Halloran flew the return trip from Tokyo to Saipan that he was unable to complete on January 27, 1945. He was completing the return leg of the ‘Rover Boy’s Express’ mission V Square 27 to Tokyo Target 357, which was the
Musashino Nakajima aircraft engine facility. This time, however, his return flight was made in the comfort of a DC 10 in only three hours. ‘Hap’ recalled,ÓIwo Jima was quiet and all alone as we passed just to the east. I thought of the many B-29s that used Iwo Jima on troubled southbound flights back to Saipan. We circled Saipan from the northwest along the invasion beaches. The turquoise waters and white sand beaches deny the 1944 invasion, but the sunken silhouettes of U. S. military landing craft and tanks of our invasion forces bring the reality of the past to life again. The beach area at Obyan brought back pleasant memories as we entered our final landing approach pattern. It was good to be back exactly 44 years to the day since I left on that fateful mission. My thoughts returned to my crew members of the ‘Rover Boy’s Express’ who died in the air or on the ground that fateful day in Tokyo on January 27, 1945.
After much research and many telephone calls I traveled to Tokyo in May 1984, I had to exorcise the nightmares of almost forty years. With assistance from the American Embassy in Tokyo and the 5th Air Force Intelligence section I met and shook hands in friendship with Kaneyuki Kobayashi, a former guard at Omori Prison and Saburo Sakai, who at that time was the leading living Japanese fighter air ace. Mr. Sakai and I became friends, and before his death in 2001 at his request I became mentor to his daughter Michiko.
It was Mr. Sakai who helped me locate Isamu Kashiide (2), the Japanese pilot that disabled the ‘Rover Boy’s Express’. I was able to find the pilot since Japan had relative few twin engine planes in the early B-29 days and the downing of a B-29 was a event rare enough to attract attention. A meeting with him would complete my circle of life.
Living quietly in the small town of Kashiwazaki - shi situated on the Sea of Japan was a man who could help ‘Hap’ delve deeper into the enigma of war.
The passing of time had healed most of the memories of war. We were both doing what we were trained and directed to do when our paths crossed at high altitude over Tokyo that fateful day so long ago. On the day I was shot down I learned that there were more Japanese attacks on B-29s that day than at any other time in the war, three hundred fighters made nine hundred attacks on our B-29s.
Kashiide met ‘Hap’ at a hotel and after a shy, nervous beginning, the conversation picked up and ‘Hap’ said,
That was a great shot or a lucky hit you made on V square 27. You blew out the entire electrical system on your first hit - but you must know we were aiming immense fire power from our guns to knock you down. Such is aerial warfare. Later at dinner the two veterans drank a toast to peace, friendship and understanding. They met again the next day for lunch and discussed golf, family and other normal subjects that friends discuss. ‘Hap’ returned to the United States and the years of nightmares of disappeared.
I remained close friends with Saburo Saki and his family. He visited me and we played golf together at my club in Palo Alto, California. Time heals everything - - - almost.
(1)
Many years later while working with Japanese historians and researchers I learned this incident was known to many Japanese flyers. By pursuing the matter in great detail I was able to locate and visit Hideichi Kaiho (confirmed as the pilot who saluted me). I visited him in 2000 and 2002 at his home. He was bedridden but our reunion was a wonderful occasion. I was scheduled for a third visit on June 24, 2004, however he died one day before. I was invited to his Pre Funeral in Tokyo on June 24,2004 -- his son opened the casket for my final viewing of this gentleman flyer -- the one who saluted me when I was helpless in my chute 59 years earlier. I prayed as I stood at his casket and recalled those long ago days. I saluted him as I walked away from his casket.
(2)
Isamu Kashiide died in May 2003. I visited with his son in Tokyo in June 2004. He will be coming to my home in California to visit in near future.
An Occupying Airman in Tokyo
The Emperor of Japan made a radio broadcast in August 1945 to the nation which was the first time the citizens had ever heard their “Sun God” speak.
He told them to surrender. It was later explained to Harry McCutcheon, a young American airman serving in the occupation forces that when the Emperor told the Japanese population to “surrender completely” the command wasn’t directed exclusively to the Japanese armed forces but was directed personally to all of the Emperor’s subjects throughout the home islands and Asia.
McCutcheon was from Detroit and had been assigned to Haneda Airfield which was Tokyo International Airport. He was in a field maintenance squadron of the U.S. Military Air Transport Wing consisting of C-54s, C-46’s, C-47s and at one point serviced the giant C-124. There were three levels of maintenance at that time where defective parts would be removed and replaced with new parts.
The field had 18 shops, every thing from a "prop shop" to dope and fabric for the airlons on the flaps of the C-47 along with electrical and Instrument repair and replacement, metal working, etc.
Harry recalls working in the hangar where the engine changes were performed by a mix of American mechanics of all enlisted grades. The American officers usually possessed aviation engineering degrees. Japanese mechanics also
worked there who were small in stature and worked on the scaffolding stands with
one toe zorries. The Americans and Japanese would compete to see which team could change an engine the fastest.
Harry recalled the day a “tug” entered the hangar towing a B-29. When the Japanese mechanics saw that airplane they immediately quit working and their foreman escorted them outside the hangar onto the street. Harry’s commander said, "McCutcheon go over to civilian personnel and bring back the Japanese mechanic’s records and an interpreter.”
After returning with an interpreter it was learned that the Japanese mechanics refused to work on the B-29. In checking their personnel records it was discovered that most were former officers in the Japanese Air Force.
Some had been fighter pilots, others were Navy veterans and all had held ranks of either Major or Lt. Colonel. Many were also aeronautical engineers doing the same work as American mechanics. Young American troops would yell at them, “Hurry up Papa son”; “Huba Huba!” and had no idea there were yelling at former Japanese officers.
McCutcheon remembered the American officer in charge ordered the tug to remove the B-29 from the hangar and afterward the Japanese foreman ordered
everyone back to work and the day went on without further incident.
In those days most of the Japanese lived in and around Haneda.The entire area had been fire bombed during General LeMay's raids of May, 1945 when more than 500 B-29's attacked the Kawasaki industrial area -- site of Japan's eighth largest city situated between Tokyo and Yokohama.
McCutcheon arrived in Japan in 1950, five years after the war had ended and recalls that people were still living in holes in the ground. Most of the damaged factories had been removed and the metal in the area salvaged for scrap but still some girders still stood burned and bent as lone sentinels of what once was a thriving industrial war time facility and a prime target.
During this period the U.S. Air Force B-29 aircraft were based at Tachikawa.The aircraft creating the incident mentioned above had lost an engine and decided to land at Haneda.
Harry remembered, “the Japanese got along fine with American airmen and senior NCO's and never used their training and knowledge to talk down to our guys. We always got along with each other. Some Japanese on the base invited Americans to their homes and entertained them.
“But they would not work on a B-29. and we never knew they had been officers in the Japanese Air Force. Later when they were asked where they had fought and it was always ‘in China’ and never against the Americans.”
From June 1950 until the end of fighting in Korea the Japanese working on the U.S. air base with McCutcheon, both men and women, would line up to donate blood for American troops fighting in Korea.
Harry recalls from the end of the war in 1945 until about 1956 “you could walk anywhere at anytime of the day of night all over Tokyo and be safe. I think the first GI robbed wasn't until 1956.”
“During my period of service during the occupation I never felt any hostility or detected any hatred with my close Japanese friends. I was there for six years, I'm still in touch with many (2009). I never felt any bad feelings toward Americans from the Japanese with whom I was acquainted even though many had lost loved ones during the war. They seem to have been able to put it all behind them and start rebuilding.
Harry was one of thousands of other 18 year olds called “younger brothers” by returning combat veterans. He recalls that one day he saw General Douglas MacArthur leaving his headquarters in the Dai-Ichi Building in Tokyo. Several Japanese traffic police on the street blew their whistles, held up white gloved hands and stopped all traffic at the point where five streets converged at a single intersection in the city. Silver helmeted honor guards lining both sides of a long series of steps leading to street level snapped to attention without a single order and presented arms to the Supreme Commander of Japan as he ran down the steps trailed by a number of high ranking military officers, running to keep up with the Supreme Commander. As MacArthur ducked his head to enter his chauffeur-driven car it started to pull away from the curb even before the door was entirely closed. Harry remembers two American businessmen standing nearby remarking:
“Who does he think he is-holding up traffic. We are busy people and have business to conduct here.”
The other bystander replied, “Oh, that’s OK - there goes the United States of America.” And he was right - MacArthur WAS the United States of America as far as Japan was concerned.
Later, during his tour of duty, Harry managed an officer’s club in Tokyo and recalls the day a 16-year-old Japanese singer approached him for a job to sing at the club. Harry arranged an audition, and the young girl got the job, escorted every evening by her mother. She took the name “Peggy” after the famous American singer of the period, Peggy Lee.
After completing his enlistment McCutcheon returned to the United States to resume civilian life, and the years went by. He decided to return to Japan in 1986 and before doing so contacted the singer he had befriended many years before. Over the years the vocalist had become one of Japan’s most famous top entertainers. “Mac-san” was met at the airport with a Mercedes and driven to her home to meet her husband and son, a cocktail reception was given in his honor and he was wined and dined during his stay by a very grateful Peggy Hayama.
Quite a testimony to a soldier who had been in an occupying army. Never in the history of warfare has an occupying force of a defeated nation been so humane as the American Army in Japan. While General MacArthur had several American soldiers hung on Okinawa for committing major crimes against Japanese civilians he would have certainly been proud of my friend Harry McCutcheon as a example of American civility toward a defeated former adversary.
American soldiers were not permitted to enter any bar or night club marked ”Off Limits” and could not stay in a Japanese home after 11 P.M. They were discouraged from eating local food in Japanese restaurants when prepared by local cooks unless approved by military health authorities. This was a sanitary precaution as some local produce was cultivated using “night soil.” The restricted policy also eliminated any charge of exploitation by either party. Most importantly, however, Americans were expected to provide for their own food and take nothing from the food-short Japanese people.
To assault or molest a Japanese could result in the American being sentenced to a maximum of 5 years in prison. A G.I. robbed a tea house of 500 yen
($1.30) and was dishonorably discharge and sentenced to 10 years hard labor.
Harry McCutcheon remembers, “We were the victors and could do no wrong as long as you didn’t commit a crime. General MacArthur ran a very tight ship.
“There was an 11:30 p.m. curfew and you had to be off the street. If you got caught by the Military Police on the street after curfew they would pick you up and you would have to spend the night in an open cell in the jail and they would send a ‘Harry is a bad boy’ note to your first sergeant.”
Moral of the story -- lesson to be taught -- victors though they may be
-- American soldiers were not above being punished if they broke rules and the law. This was not lost on the ever observant Japanese. It was not until the Peace Treaty was signed that a Japanese law enforcement officer could arrest an American soldier for some illegal action.
For more information visit Mr. Toshiaki Haginoya's web page "B-29 Air raid on Japanese Cities" at http:// history.independence.co.jp/ww2/eng/phtop.html
When President Harry S Truman dismissed General MacArthur and the former Supreme Commander prepared to return to the United States, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution of gratitude, and Hirohito visited him at the embassy in person, the first time an Emperor had ever visited a foreigner with no standing according to the Mainichi newspaper -- "MacArthur's dismissal was the greatest shock to the Japanese since the end of the war. He dealt with the Japanese people not as a conqueror but a great reformer. He was a noble political missionary. What he gave the Japanese was not material aid and democratic reform alone, but a new way of life, the freedom and dignity of the individual." ... The Mainichi article continued, "We shall continue to love and trust him as one of the Americans who best understood Japan's position."
MacArthur left Japan on April 16, 1951. That morning 250,000 Japanese lined the street at 6:30 A.M. to say goodbye to their respected former Supreme Commander of Allied Powers, General "Makassar". Signs said "We Love You, MacArthur", "With Deep Regret", "Sayonara", and "We are Grateful to the General."
In the world's long history of military occupations, there has never been a people who corresponded with such intensity with their foreign rulers -- as did the Japanese with MacArthur.
Why did this phenomenon occur?
Author Sodei Rinjiro, MacArthur's Japanese biographer, observes,"To begin with, as devastating and traumatic as the Japanese defeat was, the end of the war represented a new beginning. In Japan the occupying forces were identified as a "liberation army."
The emotion of being freed from Japanese militarism, including the discrediting of the former leadership as well as relief of a war whose final months were marked by massive destruction and civilian causalities, engendered feelings of affinity and trust toward the occupying forces.
When the oppressive burden of "thought control" imposed by the military and secret police was completely banned -- the people were suddenly free to express themselves -- and many seized the opportunity.
Over 500,000 letters were written to MacArthur between 1945 and 1952. The vast majority of the correspondence expressed unreserved support for the occupation and its goals, coupled with a thorough repudiation of the Japanese war effort and its military and political leaders.
From all over Japan, men and women, old and young, everyone from farmers and housewives to former soldiers and members of the Communist party unburdened themselves to their foreign rulers.
No Japanese leader, at war's end offered any real vision for creating a new Japan out of the ruins of the old. It became MacArthur's destiny to do this, and he possessed the absolute authority to wed his words to action.
As the Cold War intensified, U.S. occupation policy underwent a partial "reverse course" and shifted from reform to the reconstruction of Japan as an economic and military ally.
As Professor Sodei tells, us the letters enable us to listen to individuals and in the process draw us into private worlds that grand theories can never capture in intensity.
The letters lay open the bare bone, deep war weariness that made post war Japanese receptive to change
An Unexpected Encounter In Tokyo
Robert “Bob” Campbell, formerly employed by the Saipan branch of the Bank of Hawaii, recalled a day 37 years after the destruction of Hiroshima, while engaged as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Mormons). Nineteen-year-old Robert Campbell had arrived in Japan from the United States in 1982 and, after language courses in Japanese, was engaged in the church's work of seeking converts to the faith and at the time was walking with a companion through a residential section of Tokyo.
Selecting houses upon which to call, he approached a typical Japanese dwelling and knocked on the door. A bent, elderly Japanese man opened the door and, squinting his weak eyes, looked at Robert and asked, “Are you an American?”
The young missionary replied, “Yes.” “Come in”, the man said, and Robert was shown a small room with paper wall partitions. “Sit”, the old man barked in a somewhat harsh and demanding tone. As Robert and his companion seated themselves he noticed two samurai swords hanging on the wall.
“I have waited many years to meet an American”, the old man said. “You are the first.”
Glancing at the sabers on the wall and judging that the Japanese was old enough to have experienced the devastation of the war, Robert was swept with apprehension as to what the man would do.
“As a result of the war I lost one son at Truk and another in Manchuria, all of my brothers and sisters were killed in the bombings, I lost my house, everything was gone.” Robert’s mind raced with the thought that the old man might seek revenge and rip the swords from the wall and attack him. Momentarily he was struck with terror all the while thinking to himself, “How can I make him understand that I had no part of the war being born almost 20 years after the conclusion of hostilities.”
The man spoke again and what he said astounded Robert: “ I want to thank the Americans for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” The statement shocked Robert to the very marrow of his bones, his mind raced with astonishment, “Why?”, he thought, and the old man continued, “If the United States had not dropped those two bombs which brought the war to an end, the Japanese people would have fought to the last man, woman and child. The Japanese population and our civilization would have been completely destroyed. The bombs finally brought us to the realization that the fighting should end.” It was a statement Robert Campbell would remember for the rest of his life. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities, where for a time, those still alive envied the dead.
Tibbets Teturns to the Marianas and recalls meeting the leader of the Pearl Harbor Attack
It had been 59 years since Paul Tibbets, pilot of the atomic bomb carrying B-29 Enola Gay, had been in the Northern Marianas. The occasion of the return of the 88 year old retired Brigadier General was to participate in the ceremonies commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the 1944 American invasion of Saipan and Tinian. He was to be the keynote speaker at the ceremonies scheduled to be held on the beautifully manicured grounds of the American Memorial Park in Garapan. The invasion had secured the islands and permitted the subsequent construction of airfields located 1,270 nautical miles south east of Japan and within flying range for the operation of the new B-29 aircraft.
First used for regular bombing runs, one of the airfields on Tinian was later used to launch the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
That attack and the following atomic raid on Nagasaki on August 9 hastened the end of the Pacific War. Japan surrendered six days later on August 15, 1945.
Now, almost 60 years later on a bright Saipan morning, still cool from the usual pre-dawn, tropical shower, Paul Tibbets had agreed to an interview.
The rain had settled the dust on the graded road leading to the meeting location as I watched the arrival of a highly polished, white, stretch Cadillac limousine -- courtesy of the opulent Japanese owned Nikko Hotel situated not too far from the Marpi Cliffs and the site of mass suicides during the waning days of the battle for Saipan in July, 1944.
Accompanying the General to Saipan were two of his B-29 crew who had made the fateful flight from Tinian with him in the early morning hours of August
6, 1945.
When I first learned that General Tibbets had agreed to return to the Northern Marianas for the first time since the war years -- my initial thought was one of his personal security considering that there might be some fanatic in Asia or elsewhere harboring a hatred that might lead to an assassination attempt and thus achieve the notoriety for doing so. I had reviewed microfilm from the National Archives which included copies of rancorous mail he had received including several from those of the Hindu faith.
Several months prior to his visit I mentioned my concern to the authorities and they had apparently already considered the possibility and planned to assign a police escort. As it turned out there were no problems and he received a hearty and warm welcome from island residents. He later remarked that he was quite pleased with the reception and stated that one reason he agreed to return was because he wanted to show the local people that he was “not a devil.”
He was thin and short in stature and accompanied by Theodore J. “Dutch” Van Kirk, the navigator and Morris Jeppson, the weapons officer whose task it was to arm the atomic bomb in flight.
The General, dressed in civilian clothes wore a hearing aid with a small microphone attached into which one had to speak. I imagined that his hearing was impaired as a result of years in proximity to roaring aircraft engines.
Tibbets’ manner of speech was clear, brisk and stern. Here was a man at eighty-eight years of age who was still very much accustomed to having his orders obeyed and executed without hesitation or question. He was probably the most supremely confident man I had ever met. There was never any doubt that he was anything but an Air Force General.
As we talked I got the impression that he was a bit irritated, if not defensive, at several questions that were posed.
In preparation for the interview and to hopefully avoid asking any stupid questions on my part I read his book, “The Tibbets Story” prior to the interview.
I was well aware that copious material consisting of many books and articles had been written about the event and that it had been well covered by historians. My interest was a bit different as I was curious to learn of any contingency plans that might have been developed in the event some unanticipated event had occurred during the mission.
Anyway, my intentions were well meaning if not as well appreciated as I later came to realize.
The first question I asked was:
“General, were there any special instructions, as to jettisoning the bomb
-- or if need be was it even possible given the manner in which it was secured in the aircraft -- in the event you encountered difficulty on takeoff or climb out from Tinian and were unable to return to an airfield? If so, was any thought given the possibility of jettisoning it in the Saipan lagoon which might have made recovery possible?”
“The answer is ‘No’ to the above. If there had to be a jettison it would have been my prerogative to do it because I am the airplane commander.”
“Sir, were there any orders in the event the Enola Gay was damaged by fighters or flak over Japan while the weapon was still aboard and you had the option to either bail out or take the aircraft down for a crash landing? Was this possibility ever considered?”
“No, because I knew damn well we weren’t going to do it. We had an airplane that could fly above fighters -- no fighter could get near us. Their anti-aircraft was not good above 25,000 feet.”
It was at this point that I felt the full wrath of a general as he looked at me with utter disdain and with the confidence I have rarely observed in my life from anyone.
He scowled and said --
“Fail ? We were not going to fail. The possibility of failure was not ever considered. Impossible to fail.”
I realized at that very moment that generals are different from the rest of us.
“Sir, was there any particular reason, or justification, that Tinian was selected as the airfield rather than, say Guam or even Saipan?”
“I don’t know who made that selection -- but I know it was made. The one thing that was brought up as justification was -- they were going to move the Seebees out. They had a camp there all ready for new inhabitants to occupy.
They wanted my outfit to be able to get that because of the very fact we had so many things to do they didn’t want us building our own houses.”
“General Tibbets, while in training for this mission at what point did you come to realize what you would ultimately asked to do?”
“I got acquainted with the Los Alamos people and Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer, (scientific director of the Manhattan project to construct the atomic bomb).
He briefed me that they were making an atom bomb. That’s all he said. I didn’t care about the details as they didn’t make any difference to me, but when it got to the point when talking about the equivalency of a 20,000 tons of TNT, I started thinking that I had never seen even one pound of TNT explode, let alone 20,000 tons! So I ask Dr. Oppenheimer a very simple question -- how do we get away from the blast?”
“He replied, ‘it’s very easy to get away -- you get tangent to the ever increasing shock wave.’
“Well, I said fine,I have had some physics, I’ve had trigonometry -- what is tangency?”
He said: ‘159 degrees either direction. You will put yourself the greatest distance from the bomb.’
“Well, of course, we had only seconds -- we had to be high enough, my airplane was stripped -- we could fly 30,000 feet without even thinking about it. The other B-29’s couldn’t do that. -- but when he made that comment, I decided to take an air plane of my own -- just to practice. I had to turn that air plane at 30,000 feet in 42 seconds maximum time. To get ballistics, we dropped bombs and from that we learned the average time to fall, so we felt 40 seconds to 42 seconds was our envelope and I practiced, the other pilots practiced the same thing. We could do it. “
“I just dropped the nose -- I had to keep up air speed and couldn’t be changing throttle or anything -- just drop the nose to gain a little bit of extra speed to compensate for making a tight turn.”
When asked his reaction to the detonation of the bomb, Tibbets said, he knew it was a success as he felt it in his teeth. He recalled:
“When I was a kid if you went to the dentist with a cavity it was cleaned out and then packed with cotton and some kind of metal. The dentist tapped and pounded it in until it became solid and stayed. The effect was noticeable when trying to eat ice cream. I got electrolysis in my mouth. That’s what happened -- I got electrolysis in my teeth and knew it had detonated.”
“General Tibbets on your flight from Tinian if a mechanical problem had occurred would you have been prepared to land at, say, Iwo Jima or Chichi Jima?”
“You are bringing in ‘if’s’ -- if anything had gone wrong with that airplane by the time we got to Iwo Jima -- or just passed Iwo Jima -- we would have turned around and gone into Iwo Jima. They would have another airplane sitting there -- we would download the bomb and reload. We practiced that -- we could do it in one hour’s time and we’d be on our way again. I was no different from any aircraft commander -- I had the authority to do what was necessary to protect the crew and the airplane.”
General Tibbets recalled that after the second bomb fell on Nagasaki and the war came to a conclusion on August 14, with the formal surrender on September 2, 1945, there were thousands of airplanes taking MacArthur’s people to Japan in preparation for the occupation which ultimately would last until 1952.
Tibbets Meets Mitsuo Fuchida - Leader of the Pearl Harbor Attack
General Tibbets then took the discussion in another direction and said:
"I think it must have been 1965 or '70, I was at McDill Air Force Base, Florida commanding an air division when the Japanese and United States governments agreed to send a cadre of men from Japan to the United States on tour to see how we used the materials that we were giving them -- airplanes -- and all kinds of material we were giving them.”
“My instructions to my division were -- you will have your staff officers and wives throw a cocktail party followed by dinner. But, mix it up -- you are not going to have the men on one side of the room and the women on the other side. We want those people to feel that they are welcome and that we’re friendly.”
“I issued those instructions and we got a cocktail party going -- and to be sure that things were being carried out right -- I got over on one side of the room and had a can of beer in my hand, my back against the wall where I could see everybody. Two of the four Japanese wore blue and two wore khaki.”
"One of the Japanese approached me and stuck out his hand and he said, ‘I’m Fuchida, shall we talk about it?’ I didn’t know who Fuchida was."
"He quickly sensed that and he said, ‘Oh man, I led the attack on Pearl Harbor.’” (1)
“I said, ‘Damn -- well you sure fooled us.”
“He said, ‘What the hell do you think you did to us?’
“He was a Harvard graduate and said, ‘You did the right thing -- the Japanese understand better what you did and why you did it better than Americans ever will. "
An interesting comment by Fuchida which requires some interpretation for the western mentality. He refers to the fact that had the bombs not finally and completely convinced the Japanese of the utter futility of continuing the war, the nation would have continued a fanatical fight to the last man, woman and child perhaps until the society itself was extinguished. Events leading up to the surrender provided ample evidence of such dedication as this national determination has been confirmed by this writer during interviews with other sources
Over the intervening years, Saipan and Tinian changed greatly since the days of the B-29 raids on Japan and would no doubt have otherwise probably been unrecognizable had the three former visiting Air Force veterans not been aware they were once again in the Northern Marianas -- far more beautiful and hospitable than when they left almost 60 years earlier.
I'm certain they noticed and savored the freshness of early morning sunrises, the tranquility of evening’s flaming sunsets and the ever changing hues of the lagoon from emerald green to cobalt blue.
The islands have always been little worlds all their own in a vast universe of water. When approaching them for the first time they loom out of the sea like a mirage, a lush, green intruder, surrounded by a vast expanse of blue sky and water.
With the world at peace at the time of their visit and the winds of war washed away on the waves of time, the empty horizon, visible in all directions at all times clears the mind and lifts the spirit in a comforting manner like no other vista and it all ends each day with a soothing, blazing sunset. I’m certain that General Tibbets noticed the beauty of islands that will forever have the somber distinction of being linked with the dawn of the atomic age.
(1) The study of the Pearl Harbor attack centered around staff officer Minoru Genda who was appointed commander of the airmen on the aircraft carrier Akagi (Red Castle) . In charge of the overall command, Captain Mitsuo Fuchida
(1921 - 1976) of “Tora!Tora!Tora! fame who was a staff officer of the Third Aircraft Carrier Fleet and had enjoyed a close friendship of staff officer Genda.