Ever since Japan embarked upon a policy of wholesale aggression in the Far East—initiated by the Manchurian adventure in 1931 and accelerated by her treacherous attack upon the United States ten years later—a favorite theme of the Japanese militarists has been that their country has never lost a war or been successfully invaded and conquered by a foreign power during the many centuries of its existence. This and similar declarations have been employed, among other things, to fan the fires of supernationalism in Japan and to give her people an exaggerated opinion of their prowess as a warrior nation. Moreover, as the United States and her allies have pressed relentlessly westward toward the main centers of our Asiatic enemy’s strength, this historical appraisal of Japan’s past has been stressed time and time again in order to assure the Japanese people of ultimate victory in the current war and to emphasize that their homeland will stand firm against any attempt at its invasion.
Not unnaturally, this matter is now of interest to the American people for, in accordance with our announced purpose to hand Germany’s Oriental partner a crushing defeat, we intend to carry the war to the Japanese Islands, and, if necessary, to police them after the fighting is over as one aspect of working out a permanent and equitable peace in the Pacific. To what extent is it actually true historically that our Asiatic opponents have compiled the enviable military record of which they boast? This question can only be answered by an objective analysis of certain phases of Japan’s past.
Fifty years ago, when our future enemy was emerging as a power of the first rank in the Far East, it was a favorite practice for Western observers—and Orientals, as well— to refer to the Japanese as “the British of the Far East.” Such a comparison was prompted by a number of related facts about the Japanese which seemed to emulate those commonly associated with their apparent counterparts in Europe: a progressive spirit, an innate commercial ability, and an adaptability to modern sea power. But, in addition to everything else, it was stated that the two countries, embracing territories of similar size, occupied strategic positions in their respective parts of the world which were comparable to each other. Just as the British Isles possessed a commanding location off Northwestern Europe, the Japanese Archipelago similarly dominated the sea approaches to an important section of the Asiatic continent. It was also pointed out that both Great Britain and Japan had been blessed traditionally with the obvious benefits of semi-isolation, including the unity of their people and the development of nationalism.
Since then, the rapid change in the complexion of international politics has almost obliterated entirely this line of reasoning. But, in their desperate propaganda efforts, the Japanese, in recalling some of these once prevalent notions, have tried to draw a comforting parallel between their historical experiences and those of their European antagonist. In this connection, they have alluded to the fact that the British Isles were invaded successfully only during comparatively remote times by the Romans, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, the Danes, and finally, by the Normans under William the Conqueror in the eleventh century.
Succeeding attempts during the modern era were miserable failures, notably that by Spain in the sixteenth century, high-lighted by the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the ill-fated expedition of Napoleon in 1805 which had Martinique as its rendezvous, and the more recent effort by the legions of Adolf Hitler. In the last mentioned instance, the rulers of Japan remind their people that their powerful Germany ally was unable, at the peak of her armed might, to cross a narrow stretch of water to attack a people who had suffered one humiliating defeat after another at the hands of the Japanese in the Far East. Is this not sufficient proof that the Japanese homeland, favored even more so by protective sea barriers, is safe from the offensive thrusts of the United States and her allies?
Thus runs the defensive reasoning of our Far Eastern enemy which, at first glance, would seem to provide serious food for thought, particularly when the Japanese boast further, and correctly, that their islands have never succumbed to the heel of a conquering foe. In reality, however, this claim of Japanese invincibility is one of the great myths of history which will be shattered once and for all by the unfolding events of World War II. Moreover, an objective analysis of the problem will demonstrate that the Japanese, because of an unusually favorable geographical position, have rarely been confronted by the danger of imminent invasion. In this sense, their previous experiences cannot properly be used as a measuring rod for the conflict of unprecedented proportions now raging in the Pacific.
For one thing, the section of Asia nearest to Japan, unlike Europe with its numerous separate and distinct nations, has always been dominated by one large power—China. It is to the history of the latter that we must turn for a partial explanation of Japan’s former security, since it is apparent that the Japanese Islands would have been hard- pressed to resist assault from the huge Chinese Empire if it had adopted policies of overseas aggression and expansion in the Far East. As a matter of record, however, the Chinese, as a people, have never been noted as exponents of maritime imperialism. Although there were occasions when they did display prowess as warriors on the battlefield, these operations were restricted to the continental lands around the Middle Kingdom. Furthermore, the Chinese were not classed as a sea power, and did not possess the necessary naval strength to try an invasion of the Japanese Islands or some other well-defended insular territory.
It is also not without significance that the various attacks upon China herself during the earlier periods came not from the Pacific, but from the area of the barbarians to the north and west of the outlying provinces where the Great Wall was constructed. These campaigns of aggression were aimed primarily at overrunning China and not the ocean countries which lay beyond. The exception to the general rule was, of course, the extraordinary achievements of the Mongols during the thirteenth century. Superbly led, these warlike nomads wrote one of the most amazing chapters in the history of military warfare by conquering the Chinese and Russian empires, India and the Near East—and by threatening to conquer western Europe as well.
Surging southward as far as the Malayan States, the Mongols, looking around for new fields of battle, had decided to invade Japan, or “Zipangu” as it was called. Kublai—successor to the original Genghis Khan—had conquered China, overthrown the Sung dynasty, and set himself up as Emperor at Peking. Korea, which lay between China proper and the Japanese Islands, likewise fell to his armies. Learning about “Zipangu” from the Koreans, Kublai Khan’s desire for additional domains prompted him to send envoys to that insular country to demand tribute from its people. Since this request was refused, he unsuccessfully attempted amphibious invasions of Japan, first in 1274, and then in 1281. Being the only people able to resist the Mongol hordes, the Japanese assigned these incidents a vaunted place in their history, often comparing them in importance with England’s destruction of the Spanish Armada 300 years later. On both occasions, however, storms helped the Japanese to disperse the attacking fleets.1
Thus the one country—China—which conceivably might have served as a spring-board for an invasion of Japan was so used only twice, and then by an alien conqueror. Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, the only other nation of Asia which played any part of significance in Japan’s military history was the small kingdom of Korea which was the size of the state of Minnesota. It was with the Koreans, rather than the Chinese, that the Japanese carried on most of their wars. As a matter of fact, the tip of Korea was originally an integral portion of the parent country of Japan. In the second century A.D., the Japanese, under the militant leadership of the Empress Jingo Kogo, extended their control over the entire Korean Peninsula. Following several hundred years of undisputed rule, the Japanese were ousted from there and the Korean state, though nominally independent, fell under the influence of the Chinese Empire. In no instance, however, did the Koreans in themselves present a threat to the Japanese Islands during this remote period. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, they, aided by the most effective navy which any nation of the Asiatic continent has ever produced, helped to thwart the ambitions of the famous Japanese shogun Hideyoshi who wished to carve out a far-flung empire on the mainland. Even then, however, the Korean fleets were engaged in defensive, and not offensive, action against their traditional enemy.
If we shift our attention to the lands directly above China and those deposited clockwise around the perimeter of the North Pacific, we find that the Japanese were similarly favored by their geographical position, that is, being protected from them by intervening bodies of water, and having little to fear from the undeveloped condition of these territories. Siberia was a huge, barren waste, sparsely settled, and inhabited by primitive tribes. In their ultimate push eastward, the Russians did not reach the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea until the opening decades of the eighteenth century. The Czars remained indifferent to the exploitation of Siberia, which was converted into a penal colony, with the main objective of Imperial Russia’s subsequent imperialism in the Far East being Manchuria and Korea—over which the war with Japan was fought in 1904-1905. The Kuriles, the Aleutians, and Alaska, which formed an insular bridge between Japan and North America, were thinly held by the natives who lived in that region.
In a move to bolster their security, the Japanese annexed the Kuriles in 1875, and both Alaska and the Aleutians, held desultorily by Russia for 150 years, were bought by the Government at Washington in 1867. It was not until the middle of the last century that the Pacific coasts of Canada and our Far West were permanently settled and developed. Before that time, this area was inhabited, as had been all of North America, by Indian tribes of a backward civilization. Even after the natural expansion of the American people carried them well along the path towards the physical occupation of the lands within the boundaries of their country, the territories of the young republic remained at a great distance from the shores of Japan. It was less than 90 years ago that the United States acquired Canton, Howland, and other small islands in the Pacific, and not until 1898 that she, through the annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines, secured overseas territories of any size in the largest of oceans.
Moreover, Japan was sheltered by a formidable water barrier with respect to any potential threat from the direction of America. For a huge bloc of landless sea, located between the 32d and 49th degrees of latitude, was placed squarely between the western coast of the United States and Japan. To be more exact, the 32d degree of latitude passed east to west from the neighborhood of what is now the San Diego Naval Station to a point near its Asiatic counterpart, Sasebo, in Kyushu, southernmost of the main Japanese Islands, and the 49th degree of latitude similarly extended from the Puget Sound area to the mid-Kuriles, thus emphasizing how American and Japanese territory have, from the beginning, faced each other across an unbroken ocean void 4,500 miles long.
The Japanese were equally well-protected in a southeastern direction. Aside from a few tiny isles off the mainland, the closest insular territories were the Bonins and the Volcanos, some 500 to 700 miles away, which were barren, uninhabited, and not large enough to serve as bases for a concerted assault upon Japan. Here, too, the Japanese, ever alert to the problem of their security, occupied these minute archipelagoes not long after they resumed intercourse with the outside world. Farther to the southeast were the islands of Micronesia—destined to become the familiar area of the Japanese mandate—which possessed little strategic importance with reference to our future enemy’s homeland antecedent to the modern era. Spread over an expanse of ocean over 3,000 miles long and 1,500 miles wide, these pieces of land, including the smallest reefs and tiny atolls, numbered 1,400 altogether and totaled some 1,336 square miles in area, thus, by comparison, being slightly greater than Masbate (1,225 square miles), the eleventh largest member of the Philippine Archipelago. Subsequently, when Germany’s possession of them constituted a factor of significance in the broader outline of Japan’s security, they were also acquired by the Asiatics at the end of World War I.
Directly south of Japan, the historical situation was much the same. The Luchus, representing a projection of the lower reaches of the Japanese Archipelago, were annexed by Japan in 1871, followed by the acquisition of Formosa, which was to become a springboard for her aggression in the surrounding region. Farther south, the large insular groups of Malaysia never produced an imperialistic power capable of challenging the Japanese in their homeland. Later, when the Philippines, the gateway to the Southwest Pacific, passed into Occidental hands, a progressively weakening Spain, which was the sovereign nation there, was not powerful enough to carry on an armed struggle with her northern neighbor.
Once we have these facts clearly in mind, it becomes self-evident that Japan’s traditional security was, more than anything else, the inheritance of a favorable geographical position. This deduction is borne out by an examination of Japanese military history. But, before we plunge further into this phase of the problem, it might be well, for the sake of comparison, to review swiftly some salient features of Great Britain’s past. Unlike the normally peaceful relationship between Japan and the adjacent section of Asia during comparatively recent times, the British lived near a land mass which spawned aggressive powers and whose existence offered a series of potential threats to their tight little isles. War was an accepted instrument of national policy among the peoples of the Old World, and against France, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Russia, and other countries of continental Europe, Great Britain fought a number of major wars in the last 400 years. In each instance, there was always the possibility, however remote, that the fighting might spread to the British homeland itself. But not once during this long period did an enemy ever succeed in placing troops ashore there.
The corresponding experiences of Japan were radically different. Aside from the early acts of aggression against the Koreans, and the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, the Japanese did not fight a single major war during the first 1,500 years of the Christian era. Even in the case of the Koreans, the latter forced the Japanese from their country, and prevented them from obtaining a second foothold there. Between 1500 and 1894, a span of nearly four centuries, when Great Britain, Japan’s alleged counterpart in Europe, participated in one armed struggle after another, the Japanese engaged in hut one conflict of major proportions. Even in this isolated test of strength, they experienced difficulty in obtaining ultimate victory. The war to which reference is made was Hideyoshi’s attempted invasion of Korea in 1592-98.
Successful in transporting an expedition of unprecedented size to the peninsular territory, the Japanese war lord nearly met sudden disaster in the undertaking because he had underestimated the striking power of the combined Chinese and Korean naval forces which opposed him. Under the able Admiral Yi, the defending warships not only defeated but nearly annihilated the shogun’s squadrons. The Japanese, being able to rein force their battered fleet, managed to keep open the lines of communication between the home base and the continental battle- front. Continuing to encounter stern resistance on both land and sea, the invading armies subsequently withdrew to Japan without having accomplished their objective, i.e., the conquest of Korea and China.
This chain of associated events prompted Admiral Chester W. Nimitz recently to impress war correspondents at Pearl Harbor with its implications regarding the current conflict in the Pacific. At one of his news conferences, the Admiral read the following communique to a tense and expectant audience:
Powerful Allied naval forces have attacked a portion of the Japanese fleet lying at anchor near the entrance to Fusan harbor on the southeast coast of Korea. Twenty-six of approximately 80 ships in the harbor were set afire and the remainder dispersed.
In a later engagement, more than 70 Japanese vessels, including warships and transports, were encountered by the Allied fleet and sunk. The devastating blow has isolated enemy armies in Korea and cut them off from their home bases.
The commanding officer of our Pacific Fleet then went on to explain, “This communique, incidentally, is dated June, 1592.”2 Despite the disappointment of the correspondents in learning that the Admiral’s statement did not refer to an American victory, his recapitulation of the defeat which the Koreans and their Chinese allies had dealt the Japanese Navy was well-taken. Coming at a time when we were preparing to assault Japan’s inner defenses, it demonstrated the fact that our Asiatic enemy has not been invincible in the past and that she can be attacked successfully in her home waters.
Further examination of Japan’s history subsequent to her ill-conceived invasion of Korea substantiates the thesis presented by Admiral Nimitz. A little over three decades later, the Japanese severed relations with the outside world, adopted a policy of continued seclusion, and became known everywhere as the Hermit Kingdom. It was not until 1853 that she reversed this attitude and once again resumed intercourse with foreign countries. Why was it true, when China and other lands of East Asia succumbed to the armed might of the Western powers, that she did not suffer a similar fate during the intervening period of 225 years? Was it because, as she now boasts, the Japanese Islands have always been invulnerable to invasion?
The answer again is largely a matter of geography. Coinciding with Japan’s decision to isolate herself from foreigners, the imperialistic nations of the Occident were in the process of spreading their influence throughout the entire region of the Western Pacific. But, in this development, the Japanese were ignored for obvious reasons. At the outset, the rich spice trade of the Indies was the chief attraction in East Asia for the competing powers. When the latter’s commercial and political interests broadened in scope to include central and southern China, the focal point of activity still remained far to the south, at a comfortable distance from the Japanese. In this connection, the Europeans never saw fit to make a determined effort to reopen Japan for the simple reason that there were not sufficient inducements in natural wealth and commerce within and about the Hermit Kingdom to warrant the attempt. Reclining in apparent security considerably to the north of the regularly established ocean routes across the Pacific, the Japanese were thus allowed, for the time being, to keep aloof from the rest of the world.
When a serious move was finally made to force Japan’s abandonment of her self-imposed seclusion, the action was singularly successful. In 1853, the appearance of Commodore Perry’s squadron off Yokohama, thousands of miles and many days’ sailing from the United States, showed the Japanese that the waters which surrounded their islands could no longer be counted upon to serve as a protective barrier between them and the external world. Against their wishes, the Asiatics had no alternative but to meet the demands of the resolute American naval officer. Although we ordinarily do not regard it as such, this was definitely a case where the Japanese were compelled to yield to a foreign power on their own soil.
It was also during this turbulent period that the United States Navy won a decisive triumph over our future enemy in Japan’s territorial waters. In the early summer of 1863, a small American mail steamer was fired upon by Japanese shore batteries and armed merchantmen in the Strait of Shimonoseki. Our Minister to Japan promptly dispatched an American warship to investigate the unprovoked assault. In the surface engagement which followed, it virtually destroyed the four vessels responsible for the original attack. This was the first such defeat suffered by the Japanese in their inland seas.
Hardly had another year passed when the Japanese were again humbled in their homeland. Despite their pledge to cast aside the hermit’s cloak, the Asiatics did not take the change of events gracefully. A number of British nationals and other foreigners were murdered and internal foment spread throughout the country. There was talk of Japan’s closing the treaty ports and declaring war upon the intruders. Particularly defiant were the leaders of the Choshu clan who were to play a leading part in the founding of Japan’s modern navy. Hostile in their attitude, they denied to peaceful commerce the use of the Strait of Shimonoseki which their lands adjoined and dominated.
Thereupon, the diplomatic representatives of the Western powers decided that the time had come for more positive action. An Allied fleet, consisting of nine British, four Dutch, and three French warships, and one specially chartered American steamer, sailed from Yokohama in August, 1864, to take punitive measures against the belligerent Japanese. After silencing all the opposing shore batteries, this mixed naval force then sent squads of men ashore to dismantle the guns. Convinced that further resistance was futile, the Japanese adopted a more friendly policy.
Realizing more than ever before that favorable geographical conditions could not be relied upon to guarantee the security of their homeland, the Asiatics hastened to improve their strategic position through the acquisition of the Kuriles, the Luchus, and other outlying islands. Even though subsequent events tended to obliviate their earlier humiliation at the hands of the Occidental powers, a careful perusal of the four wars of modern vintage in which Japan had participated prior to December 7, 1941, does not lend much encouragement to her claims of invincibility in the present conflict. While it was true that she had developed a strong army and navy, none of her opponents was capable of giving her a real test of strength.
Since the fateful day of Pearl Harbor, we Americans have proved more than a match for the predatory Asiatics. Gaining one victory after another in the Pacific, we are rapidly approaching Japan’s inner defenses. As we draw closer to the enemy’s homeland, it should be emphasized that the Japanese propaganda regarding the alleged invulnerability of their islands to attack is nothing more than a product of desperation. Not only does their history fail to support this claim, but the underlying principle of warfare still prevails that no country, insular or otherwise, is capable of resisting invasion if the assaulting forces possess the required superiority in men and material. This we have.
1. Recently, Japanese propagandists, in claiming that their country was invulnerable to invasion, referred to the providential intervention of the typhoons in their struggles with the Mongols. New York Times, October 1, 1944.
2. Washington Star, October 10, 1944.