War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

454 Pages·1987·5.15 MB·English

by  John W. Dower

Copyright © 1986 by John W. Dower
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in
the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in
hardcover by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1986.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Dower, John W.
War without mercy.
Bibliography: pp.
1. World War, 1939–1945—Pacific Area.
2. World War, 1939-1945—Public opinion.
3. Racism. I. Title.
D767.9.D69 1986 940.53 85-43462
eISBN: 978-0-30781614-6
v3.1
For
KANA, RISA, and KEN
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
PART I: ENEMIES
1. Patterns of a Race War
2. “Know Your Enemy”
3. War Hates and War Crimes
PART II: THE WAR IN WESTERN EYES
4. Apes and Others
5. Lesser Men and Supermen
6. Primitives, Children, Madmen
7. Yellow, Red, and Black Men
Illustrations
PART III: THE WAR IN JAPANESE EYES
8. The Pure Self
9. The Demonic Other
10. “Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus”
PART IV: EPILOGUE
11. From War to Peace
Notes
Bibliography
Picture Credits
About the Author
PREFACE
Some five years ago, while drafting the opening chapter to a
projected book about the occupation of Japan that followed World War
Two, I found myself mentioning in passing the race hates and merciless
fighting that had been so conspicuous in the war in Asia and the Pacific.
One of the impressive features of the occupation, after all, was that the
defeated Japanese and victorious Allies, predominantly Americans,
worked together so amicably and constructively. War-crimes trials were
conducted after Japan’s surrender; reports of wartime atrocities
preoccupied journalists and jurists for many months; and there was
hardly a corner of Japanese society that was not subjected to critical
scrutiny. The war hates themselves, however, seemed to disappear
almost overnight–so quickly, in fact, that they are easily forgotten now.
In a world that continues to experience so much violence and racial
hatred, such a dramatic transformation from bitter enmity to genuine
cooperation is heartening, and thus the fading memories of the war pose
a paradox. It is fortunate that people on all sides can put such a terrible
conflict behind them, but dangerous to forget how easily war came
about between Japan and the Western Allies, and how extraordinarily
fierce and Manichaean it was. We can never hope to understand the
nature of World War Two in Asia, or international and interracial
conflict in general, if we fail to work constantly at correcting and re-
creating the historical memory. At a more modest level, the significance
of the occupation of Japan and postwar rapprochement between the
Japanese and their former enemies can only be appreciated against the
background of burning passions and unbridled violence that preceded
Japan’s surrender in August 1945. The importance of remembering that
visceral level of the war was what prompted my passing reference in
that old draft manuscript on the occupation.
The casual mention of race hates seemed too abrupt to stand without
elaboration, however, and my attempt to clarify what this meant marked
the genesis of the present book. What occurred next may seem
agonizingly familiar to many other historians. The passing comment was
expanded to a paragraph, which grew into a section, then became a
separate chapter, and finally emerged as a major research project in and
of itself. This book is a summing up of some of the places to which this
little “elaboration” has led–thus far. Meanwhile, the study of occupied
Japan still sits unfinished on the shelf.
This is not the tidiest way to do history, but it is satisfying–for the
problem arose naturally, more as a question than a thesis, and unfolded
in unanticipated directions. To understand how racism influenced the
conduct of the war in Asia has required going beyond the formal
documents and battle reports upon which historians normally rely and
drawing on materials such as songs, movies, cartoons, and a wide variety
of popular as well as academic writings published at the time. In some
academic circles these are not respectable sources, and they are certainly
difficult to handle. But they are invaluable for re-creating the ethos
which underlay the attitudes and actions of men and women during
these years. The greatest challenge has not been to recall the raw
emotions of the war, however, but rather to identify dynamic patterns in
the torrent of war words and graphic images–and to bring such
abstractions to earth by demonstrating how stereotyped and often
blatantly racist thinking contributed to poor military intelligence and
planning, atrocious behavior, and the adoption of exterminationist
policies. Beyond this lay a further challenge: to explain how the
contempt and hatred of the war years could have been dissipated so
easily.
Because distorted perceptions and unrestrained violence occurred on
all sides, the Pacific War also provides an excellent opportunity to look
at racism and war comparatively–and, as the reader will discover,
historically. Eventually, the exegesis on a passing comment led to an
examination of perceptions of Self and Other in conflicts between
“white” and “colored” peoples dating back to the fifteenth century. At
the same time, it became apparent that many of the idioms of “race,” on
both the Western and the Japanese sides, are best understood in a larger
context of hierarchical and authoritarian thinking. In the war in Asia–
and in general–considerations of race and power are inseparable. As it
turned out, much that may at first glance appear to be unique in the
clash between Japan and the West in the early 1940s was, on the
contrary, familiar in practice and formulaic in the ways it was expressed.
And much of the explanation of how race hate gave way to an
inequitable but harmonious relationship between victors and vanquished
lies in appreciating the malleability of political language and imagery in
general.
In pursuing the meaning of race hate in such a variety of directions, I
have incurred many personal debts. Several are outstanding. Takako
Kishima provided invaluable assistance in assembling materials
pertaining to Japanese perceptions of themselves and others during the
war, and some of the ideas in the Japan chapters–most notably the
symbolic wartime use of the “Momotarō” folktale–emerged out of
discussions with her. Tom Engelhardt, a friend since student days,
proved the best of friends as the editor of this manuscript, for he was
severe in his critical comments and generous with his time. Several
major sections of the present text were completely revised, or written
from scratch, in response to his questions and suggestions. Herbert Bix,
who has frequently made me rethink Japanese history, called my
attention to the recently discovered secret Japanese government study
which became the basis of chapter 10. I was able to explore the world of
wartime Japanese cartoons through the generosity of Rinjirō Sodei, who
allowed me to copy his collection of wartime issues of the magazines
Manga and Osaka Puck. In the time-consuming task of tracking down
pertinent materials from the English-language media and other library
resources, I was ably assisted by Julie Bogle and Ken Munz. Yoko
Yasuhara provided me with some requested archival materials from
Washington.
Over the years, many individuals offered references, suggestions,
critical comments, and assistance of one sort or another which also left a
mark on the final manuscript. For such help I am grateful to Thomas
Archdeacon, Sonja Arntzen, David Bordwell, Paul Boyer, William Brown,
Roger Daniels, Daniel Doeppers, Susan Friedman, Mikiso Hane, Milan
Hauner, Draper Hill, J. Vernon Jensen, Sandy Kita, Stanley Kutler,
Yusheng Lin, Edward Linenthal, James Lorence, Genji Ōkubo, Eric Van
Young, Chieu Vu, and Morio Watanabe. Fred Wiemer saved me from
several errors with his careful copy editing. For clerical help, I am
indebted, again, to Julie Bogle, as well as Karen Delwiche, Catherine
Ganshert, Sandra Heitzkey, Kathleen Kisselburgh, and the office staff in
general in the Department of History in Madison. Although the end notes
reveal my academic debts, it seems appropriate to acknowledge here in
one place those authors whose work on racism or the war in Asia has
been especially suggestive. Readers who wish to place this present study
in an appropriately broader context will find much of interest in the
writings of Louis Allen, John Costello, Roger Daniels, George De Vos,
Richard Drinnon, Stephen Jay Gould, Saburō Ienaga, Akira Iriye, Stuart
Creighton Miller, Richard Minear, Ben-Ami Shillony, Ronald Spector,
Christopher Thorne, John Toland, and Hiroshi Wagatsuma.
Finally, as always, I thank my wife, Yasuko. This one, by its nature,
was harder than usual.
J.W.D.
Madison, Wisconsin
January 5, 1986
With the exception of these acknowledgments, Japanese personal names
are rendered in Japanese order throughout the text, that is, family name
followed by given name.