First Diplomatic Exchange of World War II
There were many contentious issues to be resolved leading up to the exchange of American and Axis diplomats caught in the capitals of the warring countries.
The exchange agreement was based on reciprocity and was in effect from 1942 until terminated in the following year.
Originally it involved diplomatic and other official government personnel but later included nonofficial personnel such as: businessmen, teachers, missionaries, tourists and others. The term reciprocal as interpreted by the Japanese soon became a bureaucratic nightmare for the U. S. Government which suggested the formula in the first place. From the Japanese point of view the problem arose when trying to exchange non-official persons of equivalent social status in terms of education and employment which soon became a consideration in the selection process.
The United States Declaration of Independence recognized "all men are created equal” and the traditional accepted standards of civility within a Western context as in "women and children first” from a sinking ship as opposed to the Japanese tradition of the period where women and children (and female children in particular) were considered on the lowest rung in society's hierarchy.
The Japanese were overly sensitive regarding an imbalance in "equal treatment” and could cite with suspicion the resulting unequal treatment in the 1921
The 1922 Washington Naval Conference which gave parity to American and British fleets but required the Japanese Navy to remain at 60 percent of the size of its competitors. Never mind that America needed a two ocean navy and the British even more while Japan was only a Pacific nation. For this and other reasons the Japanese were ever mindful and suspicious of "equal treatment” when proposed by the West.
Another quarrelsome issue concerned the allowable personal luggage of the evacuees aboard the exchange ship. First, there were no limitations then the Japanese felt no more luggage should be permitted than could be carried by a single person then the question arose could that include maids and servants? Could the limitation be interpreted as to permit one bag per trip to the docked vessel? The question of charges for excess baggage greater than 32 cubic feet arose by the vessel owners. In Japan a dispute arose over who should carry the luggage of the U. S. evacuees? For Japanese dock workers to carry enemy luggage may have involved loss of face.
The matter of money to be permitted each evacuee had to be resolved finally settling on $300 dollars for U. S. citizens and 1,000 yen for the Japanese which also applied to unaccompanied children under the age of 21.
As the author and researcher of this article I remember a friend who was an attorney with a law firm in New York who once mentioned to me that the day after the attack at Pearl Harbor American Express approached his firm seeking advice if the firm had to honor all the travelers checks that were outstanding throughout Asia. They did.
On June 10, 1942, in preparation for the exchange effort, Japanese women and children were driven to the train station at White Sulphur Springs West Virginia where they had been "confined” for almost six months in one of American's most beautiful resorts. Taxies shuttled back and forth from the station to the hotel transporting women and children while armed guards escorted the Japanese men from the building as they walked to board two special passenger trains waiting at the railroad station only a short distance from the Greenbrier. The senior diplomats traveled Pullman class in comfortable private sleeping compartments on a train that would take them to New York to board the chartered Swedish liner Gripsholm . The exchange vessel which would carry them half way to Japan. The other half of their voyage to Japan would be aboard the Asama Maru, the liner that would carry the Americans from Japan to the previously arranged rendezvous point on the south east coast of Africa.
Departing the United States east coast, the vessel had a huge sign painted on the sides signifying the vessel as "Diplomatic. “As it steamed toward its destination it was ablaze at night with lights to alert Allied submarine captains not to attack. The ship was bound for Lourenco Marques in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) where its passengers would be exchanged for Americans from Yokohama arriving aboard the Asama Maru and the Conte Verde, the latter vessel chartered by the Japanese from Italy and scheduled to arrive at the east African port after a stop at Shanghai.
Since the advent of hostilities the Japanese would not permit their exchange vessels to cross the Pacific. As a result, the East African port was selected as it was the closest neutral territory to Japan.
The Asama Maru, owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), (Japanese Mail Steamship Company) and launched in 1929, had large white crosses painted on its sides, hopefully to mark safe passage from marauding American submarines. The vessel was transporting 1,500 Americans who had departed the Japanese Empire and the ports of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Saigon.
The exchange vessels were to be marked with a special light pattern: green red green red and had to follow a specified route to their destination. The vessels were to proceed unescorted and unarmed. A member of the Spanish legation in Tokyo embarked on each ship as the only passenger with permission to send and receive plain language communication.
Interestingly, in 1912 It was a NYK vessel that delivered the first cargo of trans-Pacific cherry tree saplings a gift from the City of Tokyo's Mayor Yukio Ozaki to Washington, D. C.
In Japan the cherry blossom is cherished as a symbol of the transience of life and its fleeting moments of happiness as the blossoms do not wilt on the tree but fall to the ground in full flower.
The exchange ship Conte Verde traveled from Shanghai to Singapore, thence together with the Asama Maru both vessels steamed to Lourenco Marques arriving on July 23, 1942.
Enroute to its destination at Lourenco Marques the Gripsholm stopped at Rio de Janeiro for 417 Japanese to board. A member of the Japanese Embassy staff carried a cloth covered portrait of the Emperor and the Japanese bowed as it passed while being carried to a safe place aboard ship.
Upon arriving at the east African port on July 24 the Japanese disembarked from the Gripsholm and walked to the gangway for embarking aboard the Asama Maru. The transfer of passengers from one ship to another took about four hours.
The exchange vessel Gripsholm with its newly boarded American passengers from Japan and elsewhere in Asia cast off. The vessel docked at Jersey City on August 25, 1942.
The Asama Maru with the Japanese diplomats arrived at Singapore on August 2, 1942 enroute to Tokyo.
Long after its duty as an "exchange ship” on November 1, 1944, the 16,975 ton transport liner Asama Maru was sunk by the U. S. submarine S S Atule. The attack occurred 100 nautical miles south of the island of Pratas situated between Hong Kong and Luzon.
Japan's early "victory disease” afflicted Tokyo's military leaders as it was a disease whose symptoms were a combination of hubris, haste, strategic myopia and a fatal overextension of resources.
On October 27, 1942 on the occasion of a Navy Day Dinner address in Washington not a full year after Pearl Harbor and barely six months after the Doolittle raid on Tokyo and the Japanese defeat at Midway the former American Ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew said: "The Japanese navy, without a declaration of war, exploited the tactical advantage of initiative and surprise. They had their day, but now they are learning to their sorrow that initiative and surprise when war is on are no Japanese monopoly. The glories of our victories and those of our Allies already achieved will ring down through the ages in the annuals of military and naval history. “
In retrospect, it is difficult to comprehend how Japan's leadership managed to rationalize their way around basic economic facts when they contemplated making war on the U. S.
After all, these were not stupid men. Indeed, internal Imperial Navy studies conducted early in 1941 showed the superior capability in American naval shipbuilding which would far outstrip that of Japan.
Author Paul Kennedy in his book,"The Rise and Fall of Great Powers” presented a breakdown of total global war making potential in 1937 as a percent which looks something like this:
Never-the-less, the Japanese embarked on what can only be described as a suicidal venture, against an overwhelmingly large foe.
Imperial Japan's greatest mistake was not just disregarding the economic muscle which lay partially dormant on the other side of the Pacific. In actuality, their chief error lay in misreading the will of the American people. When the American giant awoke, it did not lapse into despair as a result of the defeats that Japan had inflicted upon it in the early months of the war.
Rather, it awoke in a rage, and applied every ounce of its tremendous strength with a cold, methodical fury against its foe. The grim price Japan paid 1. 8 million military casualties, the complete annihilation of its military, a half million or so civilians killed, and the utter destruction of practically every major urban area within the Home Islands bears mute testimony to the folly of its militarist leaders.
Japan had been so devastated that upon surrender when MacArthur arrived he ordered 50 automobiles for members of his staff only to discover that 50 motor cars did not exist in the entire Tokyo–Yokohama area.
At the end, much of Japan's ground forces stationed throughout the Pacific Islands had been by-passed, demoralized and left to disintegrate in the heat and humidity of the tropics. At one point there were instances where ox carts had to be used to deliver aircraft to the air force. Japan's once great navy had drowned, with only cobwebs tied to the bollards along harbor piers absent the rope moorings of warships. The Imperial Japanese Navy losses included: 11 battleships; 15 aircraft carriers; 5 escort carriers; 36 Cruisers; 12 training cruisers; 133 destroyers; 129 submarines and innumerable auxiliary vessels (tankers, troop ships, etc. ) and 2,346 merchant ships.
All that occurred over the 44 months after Pearl Harbor. Japan's losses would average more than 60 vessels per month.
The attack on Pearl Harbor changed the world nothing would ever again be the same and that included the Northern Marianas.