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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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HAVE WE FORGOTTEN HOW TO WIN A WAR? “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” Historians are not sure if Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, said those words soon after December 7, 1941. Certainly, it is plausible. Yamamoto knew the USA well, having studied at Harvard (1919-’21) and served as Japanese naval attaché in Washington, DC (1926-’28). He did not think much of the US Navy – calling it a “club of golfers and bridge players” – but he came to appreciate the nation’s enormous strength and war-making potential. Asked by Prime Minister Konoe about Japan’s chances in a war against the United States, Admiral Yamamoto said, “I will run wild for six months or a year, but after that I have utterly no confidence.” He knew Japan could not win a protracted war against the industrial and military might of the USA and the tenacity of its people. Japanese leaders expected America to fold after taking a shocking surprise blow – as Russia had done in 1904-‘05 – but Yamamoto knew better. Understanding the American character as few others did, he opposed war with the United States so strongly that he became the target of a 1939 assassination plot in Japan. Although a cabinet-level official, he was sent to sea to protect his life. Ironically, Admiral Yamamoto was twice victimized by the technical prowess of the country whose capabilities he so much feared. Having cracked the Japanese communications code, American military intelligence anticipated Yamamoto’s move against Midway in June 1942. American naval forces surprised the Japanese, sinking four of their carriers for the loss of one of their own. This ended Japanese expansion within the six months the admiral had predicted. Later, penetration of the Japanese code actually cost Admiral Yamamoto his life. Intercepted messages revealed the admiral would visit Japanese bases in the northern Solomon Islands on April 18, 1943. On the direct authority of President Roosevelt, sixteen long-range P-38 Lightning fighters were sent to intercept Yamamoto’s flight deep inside Japanese airspace. He was killed when his plane was shot down over the jungles of Bougainvillea. I mention Admiral Yamamoto because his statement and his later experiences are a metaphor for the awakening of the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack. With a roar of rage the “sleeping giant” of self-absorbed golfers and isolationists sprang to action – transformed, collectively into an avenger that crushed Japan’s armed forces and buried its people under a rain of ruin. Adolph Hitler also learned that the people he thought had “grown soft on ice cream” were a match for his vaunted Wehrmacht. An army of citizen-soldiers ended his thousand-year Reich. In a previous article I noted that only Americans now close to age 80 can remember what it was like to fight a war that ended with victory over a completely defeated enemy. Thus, I thought it might be useful to contrast and compare that time with today – when we are at war with a dangerous enemy – to answer the central question of this article. The run-up to World War II unfolded like an unevenly matched football game played to a crowd of only mildly interested spectators. Protected by our continental insularity – as we believed – Americans went about their lives with some awareness of what Japan and Germany (and the Soviet Union) were doing, but with little concern. The similarity to our 1980s-‘90s indifference to international terrorism is obvious. We thought it had nothing to do with us. Was America “different” in 1941? Were we spoiling for a fight with the Axis? The facts say No. One world war was enough for most Americans. We had lost over 100,000 men in France, 1917-’18, and some nations that borrowed money from us to fight Germany had welshed on their debts. The War to End Wars ended nothing. Sensing the electorate’s strong isolationism, FDR ran for a third term in 1940 on a promise to keep America free of all foreign entanglements. “Your boys will never fight in a foreign war,” FDR promised. Even with Germany and Japan on victorious rampages around the globe, Americans resisted the most elementary moves to military preparedness. On August 12, 1941, the House of Representatives passed a hastily revived draft proposal by a single vote. (Sound familiar?) Four months later, we were fighting the Axis. Once the war was on, however, Americans responded energetically to the “dastardly” (who but FDR would use that word?) attack. On December 8, 1941, young men formed long lines at military recruiting offices. Americans at every level of society vowed to punish Japan for the outrage of Pearl Harbor – a place most had never heard of before. The news media, Hollywood and ordinary guys rolled up their sleeves and went to war. It was the adventure of a lifetime. On the home front, America mobilized completely. Every possible industrial capability was turned to war production. Recycling became a community effort. Our local junior high school collected enough newspapers and scrap metal to pay for four fighter planes. As late as 1948 the grocer still paid 10¢ for tins of used cooking grease. We sold rags to the rag-man. Gasoline, meat and other commodities were rationed. With wages (and taxes) high, people had money, but no new cars or refrigerators or washing machines were for sale. Very few consumer products were available during the war. Used cars appreciated throughout the ‘40s. Friends paid $900 for a 1941 Chevrolet in 1949. That eight-year-old car cost only $650 when new. Americans expressed particular anger and distrust toward the Japanese – undoubtedly, with racial overtones. On December 11, 1941, four Japanese cherry trees at the Tidal Basin in Washington were cut down in apparent retaliation for the Pearl Harbor attack. (The trees had been a gift of the Japanese people to America in 1912.) Mrs. Roosevelt joined others in deploring the vandalism and asking for increased security to protect the 3700+ trees in Washington. Some expressions of distrust went far beyond cherry trees. In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ordering 110,000 persons of Japanese descent into internment camps for the entire war. (Liberal revisionists later blamed California Governor Earl Warren for the deed, but FDR signed the order.) Internees included many citizens who eventually lost their property, due to non-payment of taxes. After decades of controversy over the event, the Congress officially apologized in 1988 and paid reparations to internees and their descendants. Although the internment was an extreme measure, it was not disharmonious with American hostility toward enemy activity inside the USA. We were definitely mad at both the Germans and the Japanese. It was not considered ugly to express hatred of the enemy and a desire to kill him. There was no appreciable anti-war movement. Both political parties fully supported FDR’s war policies. Indeed, Republicans barely opposed FDR for his historic fourth term. No mention was made of the war’s aims, conduct, leadership, cost or casualties during the 1944 campaign. With few exceptions, the war was a non-issue for the duration. There were no calls for withdrawal after reverses in the Philippines, Kasserine Pass, and the Bulge. Both on the home front and in the field Americans exhibited a gritty resolve to “finish the job”. A pullout or stoppage short of complete victory had no political support and was not advocated in the mainstream media. Journalists like Ernie Pyle – who landed with front-line units and lived with the troops – wrote movingly of the war’s human cost, but remained fully aligned with America’s purpose and conduct in fighting the Axis (1). Reporting was “all USA, all the time”. Americans got no “human interest” stories on enemy combatants or heart-wrenching reports on how individual soldiers’ deaths had made pacifists of their families back home. We lack space here to detail the many ways in which Americans’ attitudes during the Last Good War (as media youngsters like to call WWII) differ from our attitudes toward the war on international Islamic terrorism. Suffice it to say we’re a long way from 1944. Today, big media actually seem aligned against an American victory because…Well, why is that? Because they think terrorism is good and right? Because they think thugs who behead journalists and businessmen on TV are exemplary? Because they think Americans are the “nazis” of the twenty-first century? Because no cause is worth losing American lives? Because they think world peace would really be advanced by the ascendancy of ninth-century Islamo-fascism? No, I don’t think so. I believe big media’s opposition to American success in the war is political – as in Democrats vs. Republicans. Had Bill Clinton invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, the media would be cheering him on. But “W” must not be allowed to succeed. The media hate Bush. If it takes a defeat that hurts the nation to bring him down, so be it. He must be stopped. In 1944, American politicians, Hollywood actors, New York intellectuals, journalists, and the entire American people knew who the enemy was. We hated his brutality and his aims. We were committed to his complete defeat. We were willing to sacrifice personal goals and resources to help win the war. We demanded security of our borders. All of us supported our political and military leaders. None would have done or said anything he knew might hurt our men in the field. Today, each of these attitudes vital for complete victory is controversial and is opposed by some group. The social alliance that beat the Axis is splintered. I am not the first to doubt if we could have won with so many elements of American society, as we see today, aligned against victory. The war against Japan is instructive with respect to the American character – its conclusion, perhaps, most of all. The Allies had previously agreed that every Axis nation must surrender “unconditionally”. Every Allied nation promised not to negotiate a separate peace with an enemy power. It was greatly feared that the Soviet Union might do so with Germany, but as the Russian situation improved those fears faded. The Japanese presented the greatest temptation to break the surrender agreement. By mid-summer 1945, Germany had surrendered, but Japan – aided by her natural geographical advantages – fought grimly on. The American people were tired of the war. Casualties were appalling. Nearly 20,000 Americans died taking Okinawa; another 52,000 were wounded. The Japanese lost 76,000 killed, plus over 130,000 Okinawan civilians. Only a handful of Japanese surrendered. Military analysts projected a million American casualties in any invasion of the Japanese home islands – a prospect that horrified every American leader. Predictions of enemy dead ran into the millions. Japanese diplomats had made overtures for a negotiated peace to end the fighting. Although the pressure to negotiate with Japan was enormous, the president did not do so. Instead, to preserve the Allied surrender protocol and avoid the casualties expected for invading Japan, President Truman decided to use the atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, a 15 kiloton uranium bomb destroyed Hiroshima, killing nearly 100,000 people. Refusing to believe a single weapon could have done this, Japan’s rulers did not respond. On August 9, 1945, a second bomb destroyed Nagasaki, with similar loss of life. Again, Japanese leaders remained mute. But this time the Emperor insisted that Japan must surrender to avoid destruction of the entire country. Although the atomic-bombing of Japan has become retrospectively controversial among latter-day pacifists and young people ignorant of the war-dynamics in 1945, the action had the full support of the American people at the time. Millions of men (my father among them) preparing to invade Japan were grateful to be relieved of the fearful task. So were their families. The war was finally over. The destruction ceased. The killing stopped. Defeated Axis countries were disarmed and occupied by Allied troops. Germany was partitioned into four zones occupied by the Soviet, American, British and French forces. Although the West could not prevent East Germany’s partition as a separate country under Soviet control, they did help West Germany to grow into one of the west’s strongest and most valuable allies. Japan was occupied by American troops with General Douglas MacArthur as military governor. His wise insistence that Emperor Hirohito be retained earned him the gratitude of the Japanese people and smoothed the occupation of Japan and her transition into a staunch ally of the West. Have we forgotten how to win a war? In the military sense, I think not. We still have fine soldiers, good leaders and excellent equipment. Our volunteer forces are quick, determined and able. They learn from their mistakes. Personal initiative is rewarded at every level. But on the decisive Home Front we seem to have lost or forgotten many of our old war-making skills and attitudes. Americans seem less willing to sacrifice resources, personal comfort, and – perhaps most important of all – themselves to help their country prevail. Part of the reason for this, perhaps, is that our all-volunteer army has compartmentalized the war. Professional soldiers – not the GI citizen-soldier of WWII – are handling the fighting. The rest of the country can be indifferent because few of their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers are over there. “Sometimes I even forget there’s a war on,” said a young woman I spoke with recently. Additionally, our leaders have not done a good enough job of showing us that the enemy is dangerous and that we must defeat him. Only recently, under pressure from political opponents, has the president begun to make (and re-make) the case for defeating Islamo-fascist terrorism. The hour is late, but his efforts might be critical to our success. Even this rhetorical campaign might not cause Americans to shift into their WWII “warrior” mode, however. Problems of will tend to be inside a people. My fear is that Americans’ problem with fighting a war is deep inside. Lately we have had fun jesting about France: They’ve never gotten over Napoleon. They haven’t done anything, militarily, since 1916. They can’t even stop young Muslim hoods from burning cars and raising hell in Paris. They eat too much cheese. Yadda, yadda, yadda… OK, OK. The French have some problems. But before we do too much laughing at them, we might want to take the measure of ourselves. What are we willing to do? For how long? And at what cost? Right now, we’re having trouble retaining the national will to lick an enemy whose primary weapon seems to be kids blowing themselves up in hotels and marketplaces. If we can’t hang on to beat these guys, can we beat anyone? Finally – for God’s sake! – what is this hatred of George W. Bush about? Some of my relatives used to say they “hated” FDR. They thought he had wrecked the country. (They didn’t like his dog, Fallah, either.) But all of them were patriots who fought in WWII or else supported it. None would have dreamed of working for an American defeat as a way of bringing FDR down. That we have people among us today who would gladly see America hurt or defeated just so the president and his party will be politically injured tells me something is seriously wrong with us. Until we can carve this rot out of the body politic, I don’t think we’ll be winning too many wars. God bless our troops and our leaders. God bless America. Confusion and death to our enemies. ******* (1) Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ernie Pyle, who wrote about ordinary GIs from numerous fronts of World War II, was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the Pacific Island of Shima on April 18, 1945, while serving as a correspondent with the 77th Infantry Division. He is buried in the United States Military Cemetery at the Punchbowl, Oahu, Hawaii.
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