29 March 2008

Admirals of the Fleet


Fleet Admiral the Marquis Togo Heihachiro, Yokosuka

I have met a Nobel Laureate before. He accepted an appointment in his office to talk about potential work on a research contract with my firm. He was a nice guy; Chinese American and very modest, considering what he had achieved. I did not have a lot in common with him, except a shared passion for ending American dependence on overseas oil.

It did happen that he was in a position to actually do something about it, since he was running the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and I was concerned with being able to cover my expense account in a failing company, but he was kind none-the-less.

Another Laureate with whom I share something is Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 winner of the Prize for literature. We agree that some of the Japanese military were war criminals, and both of us face legal action.

Actually, his is resolved. The Osaka District Court threw out a liable damage suit against him that amounted to a good chunk of his prize money that had been filed by an elderly Imperial soldier and the survivors of another.

The issue at hand was whether the Japanese military had encouraged the mass suicide of civilians in the face of the advancing American forces. The solders claimed there was no evidence that they had done any such thing, and hence their honor had been besmirched in the writings of Oe-sama.

The plaintiffs went further. They also sought to suppress the essays published long ago as “Okinawa Notes,” which contained the matter-of-fact description of Japanese troops handing out hand grenades to civilians to preempt their rape and torture at the hand of the Americans.

The anniversary of the US invasion of the island in 1945 is this coming Tuesday, and commenced eighty-two days of fighting.

13,000 Americans died in the campaign, and an unknown though much larger number of Japanese troops perished. The real victims in the struggle were the Okinawans, of course. Some estimates put their casualties at more than a hundred thousand, or around twenty percent of the total population of the island.

The Judge in Osaka said the Japanese Army had been deeply involved in the mass suicides, which came as no surprise to anyone. There is a commanding view of the ocean from the heights near Itoman, and since the victory, it has always been known to the Americans as “Suicide Cliffs.”

There is a monument to the students who threw themselves off to their deaths, along with hundreds of women, some with babes in arms. No one ever claimed the idea had come to them spontaneously.

The suit against Oe-sama had become a political football for the right revanchists, who are always creeping out of the woodwork. The Chinese watch them carefully each time they try to excise some reference to militarism from the textbooks, or the Class A war criminals are honored along with the decent Joes at the Yasukuni Shrine.

The right-wingers have been there all along, since he defeat was the bitterest pill imaginable, and the real pacification of Japan was derailed by the departure of MacArthur the Shogun, and the need for a strong Japan as a bulwark against the puppet Communist Koreans, surrogates of the Chinese Reds and the Soviets.

So, in the interest of clarity, which God knows is about the last thing I traffic in, the battleship Mikasa is more than a piece of steel. It is a political metaphor. It brings together Chester Nimitz, the retired Fleet Admiral, and architect of the victory over the Japanese, and the grown-up who did not have the hubris of his great military rival Doug MacArthur, the Last Shogun.

My pal Mac is one of the last people around who knew Fleet Admial Nimitz in person, which makes all this a one-dgree of separation story.

Unlike MacArthur, who craved the trappings of power, Nimitz came back from the Pacific war to do a two-year hitch as Chief of Naval Operations. His biggest task was dismantling the biggest fleet that had ever existed, and he told President Truman that when he was done with it, he was retiring.

The five-star rank he held was curious thing, though. The Generals of the Army and Admirals of the Fleet that were created in WW II never had an expiration date, and remained on active duty with an active military aide to the day that they died.

Admiral Nimitz took and interest in a number of good works from his home at Quarters One on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay.

He arbitrated the unsuccessful plebiscite on the division of Jammu and Kashmir between newly independent India and Pakistan, for one thing. Magnanimous in victory, he was deposed for Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz at his trial at Nuremberg. The last Fuhrer and architect of Germany's terrifying campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic was accused of crimes against humanity.

In fairness, the Nimitz policy of submarine warfare against the Empire of Japan was identical in practice, and the phlegmatic Texan said so on the record.

One of the last high-profile public projects that the Admiral took on was the restoration of the Club Mikasa.

The former flagship of Admiral Togo's fleet at the epic battle of the Tsushima Straits was a rust-streaked wreck, inside and out. The masts and armament were long gone, a sop to the angry Russians in the aftermath of the war.

Club Mikasa had been a profitable endeavor during the Korean conflict, when Yokosuka harbor bustled with naval activity. By 1955, though, with the war contained, there were not so many Americans to entertain, and the Occupation was over.

The Club failed, though the big enclosure remained on the proud deck of the land-locked ship. There was considerable interest on the part of certain segments of the community about restoring the ship as a monument. It was tentative at first, since these were still the baby steps of a new, though increasingly prosperous democracy. Would a nation-wide campaign to raise money to refurbish the battleship be viewed as a return to militarism?

What would the Americans think and do?

Based on his treatment of the German U-boat chief, Admiral Nimitz was approached as to his feelings on the matter.

They were positive. A strong Japan being necessary to US power in the Pacific, it was an excellent tool for the restoration not only of an old ship, but about the establishment of the Self Defense Forces, something that would have been unthinkable in the early days of the Occupation.

The Mikasa project wound up as part of a stick-in-the-eye to the Soviets, and an important initiative to establish a new relationship with Japan. They were no longer an adversary, or a vassal state. Mikasa was the very symbol of the New Japan joined with the heritage of the old.

I first walked the steel decks of Mikasa in 1979. From the bridge where Admiral Togo stood, confronting the Czar's fleet I could look across the narrow strip of water to the new Navy Exchange arcade that had replaced the Occupation-era warehouses. The ship looked as good as new, and I was curious to know how it had been done.

Everything of military value has been stripped from the ship under the terms of the surrender- the Japanese were zealous in the enforcement of the no-guns rules, much to the discomfort of the Americans, since it included strict prohibition on swords, which were the central icon in Samurai culture.

The customs inspectors at Narita airport took a particular interest in hassling arriving naval officers about their ceremonial swords, which were part of our official uniform and also quite illegal under Japanese law.

The war-like material to restore Mikasa had to be authentic, and there was a limited number of places where turn-of-the century naval weapons might be found. Admiral Nimitz was instrumental in helping out.

Latin America is an attic full of the hand-me-down weapons of war. The ex-USS Phoenix, last active major combatant that had survived the attack at Pearl Harbor was re-christened the General Belgrano of the Argentine Navy, and survived until sunk by HMS Conqueror with three Mk 48 torpedoes in the Falklands War.

The Chileans had a ship called the Almirante Latorre which was nearing the end of its useful life. It was named for Vice Admiral Juan Jose Latorre Benavente, the hero of a Pacific War against Peru.

I defy you to identify any of the particulars on that conflict without a Google search, though the Chileans have always been renowned in the ranks of the smaller fleets. There have been a total of four ships named in honor of the Admiral Latorre, each succeeding bearer of the distinguished name smaller.

The one in service now is a Jacob van Heemskerck-class Frigate, formerly of her serene Netherland Majesty's navy. The next doubtless will be a corvette, and the one beyond that a probably Chris-craft run-about.

Ships are expensive things to maintain.

Latorre was ordered by the by the Chilean Navy from the yard of Armstrong-Whitworth in 1911, part of the burgeoning world weapons market that helped keep British industry strong. By the time she was nearing completion though, the guns of Autumn 1914 were firing, and she was pre-empted by the Royal Navy for duty against the Kaiser's High Seas Fleet.

Latorre was commissioned as HMS Canada, and participated in the only great fleet engagement of the war in the waters off Jutland. After the war, Latorre was delivered to Chile at a sharp discount after refitting. Latorre was well maintained in Chilean service, and after the outbreak of World War II, the US Navy even sniffed around, seeking mobilization resources against the Japanese.

With the exception of the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Caroline, she was the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland afloat, or at least she was until she was identified as having just the right sort of armament to be grafted onto the hulk of the Mikasa.

She arrived in Japan for scrapping in 1958, her guns transferred to Yokosuka, and she ceased to exist in 1959, being turned into a few thousand Datsun motorcars.

Some of the steel might have gone into the statue of Admiral Togo, which was restored as well. Mikasa Park was formally dedicated in May of 1961, on the anniversary of the battle of the Tsushima Stratis. The battleship and the extraordinary fountains that surround it are well worth a visit the next time you are in Yokosuka.

They say that English-speaking guides are in scarce supply these days, though I did not notice their absence when I was there, years ago.

When I was on Midway, home ported across the harbor, the "Far East Network" (FEN) of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service still had the most powerful AM transmitter in Asia, before the tower was knocked down by typhoon Kip. The Japanese did not let us put it up again, shunting English language to local FM transmissions near the bases. The Top 40 review on the weekends, and the DJ Casey Kasem's count-down to the number one hit in America was a big deal there.

Japanese kids who you did not know would approach you on the street to ask your opinion of the justice of the music market.

The Grandstand at the ruined racecourse at Nagishi Heights was still a PX, the Club Alliance still stood near the CFAY gate as a locker-club wre the troops could keep a bottle and civilian clothes. The Sanno R&R Hotel in Tokyo was still just the Sanno, not the new one, and the sign at the subway still said; "Welcome home UN Forces."

One by one the symbols of the occupation have disappeared, consigned to the ash-heap of memory. Some of them are still there, of course, but it helps to know what you are looking for.

I visited SCAP GHQ that same year, though it was again the Dai Ichi Insurance company, and there was talk of adding a tall new tower to the formal boxy building. A tour was available to those interested in the history of the place, and though there was only some broken English involved, a young woman graciously showed me General MacArthur's office.

There are two prints on the walls from his time, small ones and undistinguished. His leather office chair remains, though there is no desk. I sat in it without incident. Reciting lines she had memorized, the pert young woman informed me that the office was used only one day per year, and I left wondering what ritual might be performed there.

Operating in the waters around Japan, we were always alert for the deployment of major Russian combatants from their warm-water port at Vladivostok. The exits available to them from the Sea of Japan are either north, through the La Perouse or Tsugaru straits. That is naturally inconvenient by way of distance.

The most straightforward way for the Russians to leave for their base- our former one- at Cam Ranh Bay in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was via the great passage to the south, around the island of Tsushima.

It never failed that their major combatants would pause, going dead in the water, and drop a wreath to those who died at the hands of Admiral Togo, and the sailors of the IJN Mikasa.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicosoctra.com