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Military victory on the Asian mainland was alt Japan had in mind when, enjoying total sea and air supremacy, it captured Hankow in 1938, above. Yet, as the years dragged on, Japan never lost a battle, nor found a satisfactory way to disengage. The embodiment of Arthur Koestler’s bitter simile—i.e., Jlies that had captured thousands of square miles of flypaper—the Japanese escalated the undeclared war ever upward, in a curiously familiar pattern of frustration.
26 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1972
In many ways the American involvement in Vietnam resembles America’s earlier participation as part of the U.N. forces in Korea. But, in truth, Vietnam is far more like another undeclared war—that which was waged by Japan in China from 1937 to 1941.
The Sino/Japanese War is viewed—by all but the Japanese—as one more link in a series of Japanese aggressions that began with the ousting of Chang Hsueh- liang, warlord of Manchuria, in 1931, and ended with the Pacific War 1941-45. Still, one man’s aggression is often another man’s intervention. Before examining this point, may we discuss some of the events that occurred before Japan waged the undeclared war in China?
Japan participated in World War I from 1914 through 1918 on the side of the Allies. When, in 1918, one of those allies, the United States, made a request for assistance in extricating Czechosolvakian stragglers who were trapped in Siberia by the Bolsheviks, Japan sent an expeditionary force. An American force also had been sent to Siberia, but it was withdrawn about a year later when the original purpose was accomplished. With the departure of the Americans, the original justification vanished, but Japan’s expedition did not.
Japan’s undeclared war against the Bolsheviks, for that is what it amounted to, had its roots in enmity
on the part of the Japanese military and miscalculation on the part of the Japanese politicians. The military continued to smart from having permitted 500 Japanese civilians to be annihilated by the Bolsheviks at Nikolayevsk in 1920. And yet our politicians naively imagined that the Russians would be more friendly to anti-revolutionary partisans than to the Bolsheviks.
Siberian operations, however, were limited largely to the perimeter of the Soviet boundary and involved only a few divisions of Army troops and a squadron of small warships. The undeclared Siberian war, which lasted from 1918 to 1922, does not compare in magnitude with the Sino/Japanese War of 1937 to 1941. Yet, undeclared Siberian war earned for Japan the deep- rooted and widespread hatred of the Soviet government and people.
In 1931, the so-called Manchurian incident occurred. A Japanese garrison, legally maintained in Manchuria for protection of concessions and interests, clashed with warlord Chang Hsuehliang’s forces.
In 1933, the League of Nations criticized the Japanese act and proposed to demilitarize Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League in protest.
In 1936, Chang, at Sian in Central China, kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek at gun point, and released him after Chiang agreed upon a Kuomintang-Communist alliance for putting up a united front against the Japanese.
The Sian incident actually set the stage for the subsequent Sino-Japanese War.
In August 1956, I had the pleasure of meeting with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at Taipei. During our 45-minutc talk, he acknowledged the significance ot Sian, but added:
"It is not accurate to say that I was forced to sign the alliance. I honestly believed that I was concluding an advantageous deal. I was naive to believe that such an alliance would expedite reunification of China, then torn into many warlord territories. That was the greatest mistake in my life.”
In July 1937, a Japanese garrison of brigade strength in Peking clashed with the Chinese 39th Army in the Marco Polo Bridge incident. A ceasefire was broken twice by the Chinese, and a frontal clash of the two opposing forces occurred 19 days after the first skirmish. A month later, a Japanese Navy garrison, about 2,000 strong, engaged another Chinese Army of several divisions in Shanghai. Despite efforts to contain hostilities, the war fires spread fast.
The Japanese occupied Nanking in December 1937. Chiang fell back to Chungking, and continued to fight, with moral and material help from the British, Russian, Americans, French, and other European nations. Japan sought peace with Chiang, first through the German ambassador, then through various channels, without
The Lessons of An Undeclared War 27
success. By stages of escalation, Japan tried to bring Chiang to the table for peace talks.
The undeclared war spread to Canton in the south in 1938, then to many other places on the mainland. By the end of 1939, the Japanese Army had committed some 850,000 men to China, and half of the naval air force was operating in China. In those days, Japan did not have an independent air force. Several aircraft carriers and many cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliary warships were deployed along the coast of China and Yantgze River for blockade, escort, and transportation.
The war was escalated into French Indochina in 1940. The Japanese forces entered Haiphong in Indochina and bombed Kunming in southern China. Japan also forced the United Kingdom to close for a few months the Wo, later the "Stilwell,” Road, a main supply route to Chiang across the Burmese border.
These acts not only failed to weaken Chiang, but they antagonized countries that had once been Japan’s allies. In November 1941, the U. S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, demanded that Japan pull back all its forces from Manchuria, China, and Indochina. Japan refused, and escalated the war into the Pacific War.
In the eyes of the Japanese, the China War was substantially different from the Manchurian incident. Japanese operations in Manchuria had a definite objective of clearing it of bandits and Communist agents, then establishing a sovereign state where Manchus, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Mongolians could coexist peacefully. The Japanese operations in Manchuria received virtually unanimous support of the Japanese people, since it was in Manchuria that many Japanese had fallen in the Sino-Japancse War of 1894-1895, as well as the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Moreover, the Japanese people thought that Manchuria must become a buffer between Japan and the southward and eastward-advancing Russians.
But the China War developed without the unanimous support of the Japanese, and was escalated, without any specific goal, unless of course, one wants to call forcing an enemy to the peace table a "goal.”
In 1937, not only Japan, but also several other countries maintained treaty-based concessions in Peking and Shanghai. Japan hit back after the Chinese singled out the Japanese concessions for their targets.
American involvement in Vietnam intensified after the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964. The Chinese acts ■n Peking and Shanghai in 1937, however, could more adequately be compared to a hypothetical Cuban attack or. Guantanamo Bay.
The Marco Polo Bridge incident and the subsequent frontal clash actually split the Tokyo high command into doves and hawks. The leading dove was Major General Kanji Ishihara, operations chief at the army
general staff. Ishihara, insisted that Japan must not dissipate its strength by spreading actions into China, because Japan must prepare for its inevitable showdown with the Soviet Union. Ishihara even opposed the sending of Army reinforcements to Shanghai, where a small Navy unit was beleaguered by the Chinese.
Ishihara’s reasoning was no match for the hawks’ emotional cry that "Fellow Japanese must not be left in the lurch.” It was also taken for granted that the Japanese people would automatically rally to the flag when the guns sounded—a theory that seems to have lost some currency in 1969.
General Gen Sugiyama, the Army chief of staff who refused to side with either doves or hawks, proceeded to the Imperial Palace and pacified a worried Emperor: "Your Majesty, the entire operation in China will come to an end in two months.”
In fact, the Marco Polo Bridge incident was a repetition of many similar troubles which had cropped up in China after Japan won concessions for basing its troops in China in 1915. The first Shanghai incident of 1932, which also involved Navy troops and cost Vice Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura an eye, was as fierce as the second Shanghai incident of 1937. All the preceding conflicts, however, lasted two or three months until local peace negotiations were concluded.
What the Japanese leaders failed to appraise correctly was the significance of Chiang Kai-shek’s alliance with Mao Tse-tung, and also the fact that the series of Chinesc-Japanese conflicts gradually were building up Chinese nationalism, and arousing a widespread hostility toward the Japanese.
There were many "China hands” in the Japanese Army and Navy who had served as military advisors to various Chinese warlords between 1910 and the 1930s. The warlords, mostly corrupt political generals, did not represent anything like the will of the Chinese people. Our China hands (like America’s?) also believed that the Chinese people were traditionally individualists who would prefer any alternative to Communism, whose non-Russian activities were then believed to be dictated by Stalin’s international network, the Comintern.
Therefore, the Japanese operations were officially "punitive police actions” against corrupt warlords and Communists, not the Chinese people. Nevertheless, the subsequent development showed that the Japanese aroused the most massive hostility and helped build up Mao’s Communism.
One of the hawks’ leaders was Colonel Akira Muto —on the staff of General Ishihara—who was executed as a major war criminal in 1948. Shortly before the execution, Muto told his friends: "While I led the Chinese operation, I believed in good faith that we were
fighting Communism and corrupt, political generals. It was my greatest blunder that I failed to realize that we were unwittingly rallying Chinese nationalism . .
In December 1937, the Japanese Army succeeded in persuading Wang Keh-ming, an anti-Communist Chinese statesman who disagreed with Chiang Kai-shek and exiled himself to Hong Kong, to come to Peking and organize an anti-Communist regime. Eventually Japan signed a treaty with this regime, and at Wang’s request kept Japanese forces in North China to police the area and prevent infiltration by Communist and Kuomin- tang guerrillas.
In 1938, Wang Ching-wei (no kin of Wang Keh- ming), one of the key members of Chiang Kai-shek’s government, fled Chungking on his own accord, seeking political asylum in Japan. Wang Ching-wei eventually established his own provisional government, which moved to Nanking in 1940. Treaties with Japan, similar to those signed at Peking, were concluded with Wang Ching-wei.
Legally, the Japanese forces thus functioned as allies of the two Wang governments. Of course, Chiang and his friends did not agree.
Although they were surrounded by less scrupulous subordinates, both Wangs were less corrupt than Ngo Dinh Diem, who was brought to Saigon by the Americans after the Geneva agreements were signed in 1948.
Japan provided as much aid and assistance as she could to the governments and people. Later, of course, there was some truth to the charge that the Japanese exploited the Chinese; for Japan’s heavy shipping losses in the Pacific War prevented her from delivering aid supplies to China.
Japan never declared war against China until 1941 when Japan entered into total war. Even after Ishihara resigned, Japan continued to seek peace with Chiang Kai-shek. Even after Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye issued a statement to "ignore Chiang” in 1940, secret peace negotiations went on-again-off-again until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.
Japan was desperately seeking a chance for honorable disengagement in China. Perhaps the main reason Japan failed to reach a peace accord with Chiang was buried deep in the Japanese psyche. Never having been defeated by an enemy throughout its history, Japan’s peace proposals were made on what amounted to a victor-to- vanquished level.
The United States, which is involved in Vietnam, is a nation with its undefeated record intact—if one doesn’t count the "draw” in the Korean War. The Japanese can appreciate America’s initial reluctance to view Hanoi as a worthy opponent.
Still, a nation with an unblemished record is apt to
be overconfident and to live by its own "official truth,” not the real truth.
I do not imply that the Americans are censoring press reports, as the Japanese did. It is, however, difficult to evaluate properly statements made by American leaders in the past several years. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara’s statements, as sampled below, were no different from statements made by Japanese leaders during the China War. In May 1962, he said, "There is no plan for introducing combat forces in South Vietnam;” in October 1963, he predicted an "end to the major part of the U. S. military task by the end of 1965;” in October 1966, he saw "no reason to expect any significant increase in the level or tempo of operation in South Vietnam, nor do I see any reason to believe that deployments of U. S. forces to that country will change significantly in the future;” and, in July 1967, his optimism was almost boundless as he guessed that ", . . more progress had been made in the war in the last nine months than in the previous six years.”
It is not fair to focus our attention only on Mr. McNamara, as it would not be fair to single out statements by Sugiyama. In fairness, for example, it was not Secretary McNamara who lauded Ngo Dinh Diem as "the Winston Churchill of South Asia.”
The United States certainly has reasons not to declare war against North Vietnam, just as Japan had reasons not to declare war against Chungking. But non-declaration of war often embarrasses civilians and confuses servicemen.
President Lyndon B. Johnson quoted a letter from a woman in the Midwest at a news conference in July 1965: "Dear Mr. President: In my humble way I am writing to you about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II. Our country was at war, but now, this 1 time, it is just something that I don’t understand. Why?”
Lack of a declared state of war also poses problems for career officers. A war declaration would define, among others, the enemy, allies, and neutrals. Conversely, the absence of a declaration tends to make officers skeptical of many things, particularly because some of them envision a bigger war following the non-declared war. Needless to say, skepticism is always an undesirable attitude for a serviceman. For a draftee especially, prolonged skepticism can only result in a lowered morale.
I took part in the China war as a naval aviator. The naval air force, which was shouldering the main burden of air actions in China, certainly achieved a lot, compared with the Army Air Force, but both air arms sustained damages in the same proportion.
Naval officers resented being assigned daily to attack-
The Lessons of An Undeclared War 29
ing some small enemy positions, bridges or rolling stock after having been intensely trained in standard naval actions such as attacking capital ships. Counting their mounting casualties and aircraft losses, these men began to wonder whether it wouldn’t be wiser to conserve personnel and aircraft rather than knocking themselves out by attacking such targets.
But, the army in China began to request more and more Navy aircraft for a wide variety of missions, and gradually a trend developed. Navy fliers were falling into two groups—one taking it easy on Army-assigned missions, and the other making the maximum efforts on each assignment, thereby often paying a high price.
Those who took it easy and "conserved strength” during the China War became victims of their long accustomed habit. When the Pacific War broke out,
those who had taken it easy had forgotten how to take ‘t hard. When these men were assigned to "worthy assignments,” it was they themselves who often proved unworthy. They were deficient in both diving and marksmanship. Another group did pretty well against big moving targets on the ocean. But the number of such crack pilots shrank rapidly.
I have heard that some American pilots in Vietnam expressed similar skepticism about their assignments of hitting seemingly negligible targets in a primitive land.
I also heard that skepticism is being voiced about the tactics of keeping large aircraft carriers operating in Vietnam waters.
A big difference between the Sino/Japanese War and American involvement in Vietnam is that Americans are free to express opposition to the involvement, whereas the growing totalitarian trend of the Japanese government in the 1930s stifled public criticism. Any dissension in the high command and/or the government was zealously silenced simply by classifying it secret. The draftees were told to fight for the cause of peace-with- freedom in East Asia. Under Spartan discipline, draftees were not permitted under any circumstances to voice their skepticism or dissatisfaction. The pent-up angers of introverts or extroverts were unfortunately released upon the Chinese people, who were demonstrably unfriendly and critical of foreign invaders.
My personal friend, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, who was deputy chief of staff at the Army Peking
30 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1972
Command in the China War and who later served as G-2 at the General Staff during the Pacific War, stated:
"Morale and discipline of the Japanese Army were unimpeachable when Japan fought China in 1894- 1895 and Russia in 1904-1905. Prisoners of war were so well treated, many expressed a wish to stay in Japan permanently. Strange as it may sound, reports on Japanese misconduct and misbehavior never reached me during the China War and the Pacific War. Therefore my shock was great when all those unfortunate stories were made public by the Allies after the war. I am reluctant to accept all the 'official truth’ at the face value. But I cannot refute it.”
Man is fallible. In an undeclared war, there are always chances of misidentifying targets and attacking something which one must not. The Japanese attacked American and British ships by mistake in the China War. And, it is reported that Americans have attacked Russian and Chinese ships by mistake in the Vietnam War.
Throughout the conflict, the Japanese government repeatedly affirmed its opposition to escalation, but had to oblige requests of frontline commanders for reinforcements—in piecemeal fashion.
In the Vietnam war, local American commanders’ views have not always concurred with those of Washington. Nevertheless, reinforcements have been thrown in by degrees in what was also continuing escalation.
Air and sea supremacy have long been termed as the key to victory. The United States today holds an unchallengeable air and sea supremacy in Vietnam, but fails to crush the enemy. Japan enjoyed a similar air and sea supremacy in China, but failed to vanquish Chiang Kai-shek.
During the China War, the Japanese Navy blockaded the entire coast of China, but could not lay a finger on non-Chinese vessels known to be carrying supplies to Chiang. Why? Because Japan did not declare war against China. Ships of many nations freely entered Chinese ports and delivered weapons and material for Japan’s enemy, until Japan seized practically all Chinese ports.
The Seventh Fleet of the U. S. today patrols the entire coast of Vietnam, but cannot stop supplies en route from many nations to Hanoi.
Japanese airplanes bombed Chungking, but failed to cut supplies by overland routes. American airplanes bomb Hanoi and overland routes. Yet, supplies continue to flow into Hanoi. Why? Because the United States does not declare war against Hanoi.
In a declared war, the enemy’s strength and potentialities are restricted, but not in an undeclared war. In other words, Japan’s opponents in the China War were Chiang, Mao, and half of the world. Likewise, America now seems to be fighting Ho’s heirs and half of the world.
And, in an undeclared war, there is always a potential additional enemy. By killing one enemy soldier, one can create two new enemy soldiers.
The official American version is that the Americans are fighting Communism; not nationalism. This is one of the rigidities and I may not bring myself to an argument on that level.
But, the Japanese, too, thought they were fighting Communism and corrupt political generals in the China War. In effect, however, they were antagonizing the whole Chinese nation and providing a single outlet for pent-up hostilities.
Mao once said, "One can never win a war against a whole people. But one fighting with the people’s support will emerge finally victorious. A regular army fighting guerrillas must defend everywhere, and as a consequence offers soft spots everywhere, yielding initiatives to the guerrillas.”
Throughout the China War, Japan never lost a major engagement, and advanced by shattering numerically overwhelming opponents. What inevitably occurred was that the major strategic points held by the Japanese became isolated enclaves surrounded by human seas of hostile guerrillas.
'l'he Body Count
| CHINESE | JAPANESE |
1937 | 125,130 | 51,230 |
1938 | 249,213 | 88,978 |
1939 | 169,652 | 82,019 |
1940 | 339,530 | 68,327 |
1941 | 144,915 | 36,207 |
1942 | 87,719 | 27,841 |
1943 | 43,225 | 31,905 |
1944 | 102,917 | 50,185 |
1945 | 57,655 | 47,051 |
Total | 1,319,956 | 483,706 |
The figures above are the Chinese government’s count of war dead over the eight-year period, 1937 to 1943,
The Japanese government does not dispute the count of Chinese dead, hut lists only 404,600 Japanese dead during the same period, of which more than 90% — 385,200—were Army troops, and 19,400 were naval personnel.
The United States is a country that won independence by ousting colonial rulers. But it has now been
a long time since Americans have had the experience of living under foreign colonial rule.
The Japanese also lacked such experience when they waged the China War. It was extremely difficult, well nigh impossible, for the Japanese to appreciate fully the feelings and aspirations of the Chinese people, who had lived under foreign domination for many years.
The Vietnamese lived for about two thousand years under foreign colonization. Their aspirations for independence from foreign domination are deeper and greater than any American can imagine. It is unfortunate if Americans underestimate the nationalism of the Vietnamese—of North or South.
More unfortunate is the fact that the American involvement in Vietnam now appears to many Asians, not merely Vietnamese, but a war between the Caucasians (even if some Asians and Negroes are on the American side) and the people of Asia.
Not many Asians, particularly in Southeast Asia, have pleasant memories about their former white masters. In their eyes, all Caucasians are alike. Moreover, political generals, now being supported by the Americans, were largely colonial officers of the French Army. If many Vietnamese, North or South, regard the Americans as basically the same as Frenchmen, it should not be too surprising.
President Johnson, over television and radio on 29 September 1967, stated: "The United States is willing immediately to stop aerial and naval bombardment of North Vietnam, when this will lead promptly to productive discussion . . . [Hanoi] cannot understand our democracy."
The Lessons of An Undeclared War 31
The Japanese thought they were fighting Communism and corrupt Chinese warlords, hut what they really were doing was antagonizing—and unifying—the Chinese people.
Nor is Hanoi likely to try' to understand either the Americans or their democracy, so long as any Caucasian sounds more like an irate manager of a tea plantation than the head of an equal government.
The Japanese failed to win the hearts of many Asians when they supplied them with power, money, food, and other aid,—but failed to treat them as equals.
The Americans in Southeast Asia can and should profit from the Japanese experience and, while fighting the enemy fiercely, should unfailingly treat their friends respectfully.
The United States will eventually have three alternatives in seeking an honorable disengagement from Vietnam. One is to withdraw unilaterally as the Americans did from Siberia early in this century. The second is to seek a Korean-type compromise. The third is to push an endless escalation into a global war, as Japan did in the China War.
The Korean-type solution must be the most desirable of the three. I am afraid, however, that this solution will be very hard to get. For, as we learned in China, and you are learning in Southeast Asia, the worst thing about an undeclared war is that, the longer the war lasts, the more difficult becomes the task of obtaining an honorable settlement.
Lieutenant General Okumiya entered the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1927, was commissioned an ensign in 1932, and joined the Naval Air Corps in 1933. He served as an Air Staff officer in various carrier divisions and at Imperial General Headquarters during World War II. In 1934, he entered the Air Self-Defense Force as Chief of J-2, Joint Staff Council Secretariat. Among his assignments over the following ten years were command of the 2nd Flying and the 2nd Technical Schools, and commander of the 3rd Tactical Wing and the AACS and Weather Wing. Co-author of three books, Midway, Zero! and The Zero Fighter, he retired in 1964.