An Inoffensive Rearmament Read online

  AN INOFFENSIVE

  REARMAMENT

  Frank Kowalski Jr., congressman-at-large from Connecticut, in his Washington, D.C., office, 1959 Courtesy of the Kowalski family

  This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

  Naval Institute Press

  291 Wood Road

  Annapolis, MD 21402

  © 2013 by Carol Reidy, Barry Kowalski, and Robert D. Eldridge

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kowalski, Frank, 1907–1974.

  An inoffensive rearmament : the making of the postwar Japanese Army / Col. Frank Kowalski, Robert D. Eldridge.

  1 online resource.

  Summary: “Col. Frank Kowalski served as the Chief of Staff of the American military advisory group that helped establish the National Police Reserve, the predecessor to the Japan Self-Defense Forces during its first two years of existence. His work provides a detailed account of the manning, logistics, and personalities involved in standing up—on short notice—of a force of approximately 75,000, while sharing insights about the diplomatic, political, legal, and constitutional challenges his headquarters and his Japanese counterparts faced in rearming Japan in the wake of the sudden outbreak of the Korean War. Published in Japanese in 1969, this is the first English version of this edition, and includes a biographic section about Kowalski”— Provided by publisher.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

  ISBN 978-1-61251-373-7 1. Japan—Defenses. 2. Japan—Armed Forces—History—20th century. 3. Japan—Military policy—History—20th century. 4. National security—Japan. 5. Japan—Foreign relations—United States. 6. United States—Foreign relations—Japan. I. Eldridge, Robert D. II. Title. III. Title: Making of the postwar Japanese Army.

  UA845

  355.00952'09045—dc23

  2013043763

  Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992

  212019181716151413987654321

  First printing

  CONTENTS

  Editor’s Preface

  1Grace of Heaven

  2Japan before Korea

  3Basic Plan

  4Constitution Bans War

  5Yoshida’s Views

  6Struggle for Control

  7Advisers and Operations

  8Organizational Problems

  9Leaders Fashion Armies

  10Seishin Kyōiku

  11Yobitai

  12Confusion and Conflict

  13The Imperial Military

  14Dawn of a New Era

  15Conclusion: A Critique

  Notes

  Index

  EDITOR’S PREFACE

  About the Book

  The memoir you have before you is the detailed account of the early years of the postwar Japanese military covering the years 1950 through 1952, when the National Police Reserve (Kokka Keisatsu Yobitai), or NPR, and then the National Safety Force (Kokka Hoantai), or NSF—both predecessors to today’s Japan Self-Defense Forces (Jieitai), or JSDF—were established. The author, Frank Kowalski Jr., a colonel in the United States Army, served as the deputy chief, Civil Affairs Section, General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for Allied Powers, and then chief of staff of the Military Advisory Assistance Group (MAAG) in Japan. The MAAG was tasked by General Douglas MacArthur to stand the NPR up following the issuance of a letter from MacArthur to Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida on July 8, 1950, authorizing the Japanese to establish a force of 75,000 men and expand the Maritime Safety Board by an additional 8,000.1 The manuscript was completed in 1966, eight years after Kowalski had retired from the Army and three years after he had left Capitol Hill, having served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of Congress from Connecticut.2

  Like most military men, Kowalski moved around a lot, but according to his daughter, Carol, he was careful to preserve his papers throughout his moves and travels. In fact, “he kept records on many ideas of his early on,” she recalled.3 Kowalski reiterates this himself in the preface to the Japanese version of the book, saying that he kept memos and notes of conversations and ideas of important things and events from a young age.4 He kept such good records, in fact, that his son, Barry, was able to donate a significant collection of his papers to the Library of Congress in 1990. The papers, which cover the years from 1925 to 1976 and the bulk of which focused on the period between 1948 and 1963, were processed in 1992 and made available to researchers at that point.

  It was with these records, his recollections, and his notes from the time that Kowalski wrote his original manuscript, comprising 321 typed pages and handwritten additions. The only copy the family had was one Kowalski gave to his daughter, Carol, to whom he inscribed on the manuscript’s cover, “To Carol-Helene, my daughter, who I know can write a better book.”

  Carol suggests that he began keeping copies of important materials related to the NPR in the summer of 1950, and he then continued to collect information as he followed the progress of the NSF and then the JSDF and the development of Japan’s post-1952 defense policies through various channels, connections, and the press. Katsuyama Kinjiro, who worked in Kowalski’s command as a translator and interpreter and later became a close friend, remembers Kowalski asking him about the concept of the book and getting his thoughts.5 When he actually started working on the book is unclear, but his daughter, who helped in his office in the spring of 1965, remembers Kowalski making several trips to the Japanese Embassy, then at 2520 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., probably to gather materials and to see about possible interest in the book in Japan.

  His manuscript, translated by Katsuyama,6 was published in Japanese in March 1969 by Simul Press.7 Katsuyama said later that the translation took nearly three years to complete because he had moved to the United States in 1959 and did not have all the Japanese-language materials at hand; he had to have them sent to America.8 The Japanese version of the book is still consulted by scholars forty-plus years later.

  It is unclear if Kowalski, who died in 1974, intended to publish the book in English, as no full version of the manuscript resides among the donated papers at the Library of Congress.9 He did leave among the papers, however, an incomplete version of the first several chapters and a detailed table of contents, including notations about the approximate number of words and an overview of each of the chapters. There was no cover letter attached, so it is uncertain if it was meant as a submission to an American publisher.

  Having referenced in my own research over the years the Japanese version of the book, which was reissued by Chuo Koron Shinsha in 1999 as the eighth volume in its series on the occupation period,10 I thought there would be great value in getting the memoir published in English. Since Kowalski had made the effort to write his memoir in the first place, I believed he would have wanted it published in English too, and so I approached the family after several years spent looking for them. Even though his family’s recollection is that he seemed to focus on a Japanese audience, as mentioned above, they felt he would have wanted the memoir to be published in English as well and blessed my efforts to seek an English-language publisher. Fortunately, the Naval Institute Press, with whom I had published the English translation of the Iwo Jima–related memoir of Major Yoshitaka Horie (who served on the staff of General Kuribayashi Tadamichi)
,11 expressed a strong interest in publishing the volume, for which I am particularly grateful. I especially would like to express my gratitude to the Kowalski family as well for supporting this project and for the wealth of background information they provided, some of which is used below in a short introduction of the late Colonel Kowalski. I would also like to thank the staff of the Library of Congress, who assisted me over the years during my research trips and in making contact with the family. Finally, thanks go to Courtney Dowse for assistance in typing the manuscript in a quick, efficient, and positively bright manner. An intelligent and mature young lady, she has a promising future in whatever career she chooses to dedicate herself.

  The original book is divided into seventeen chapters. Because more than forty years have elapsed since it was written, I decided not to include two chapters (15 and 17, titled “Power and Potential” and “A Cooperative Security” respectively) that were in the original manuscript. These chapters discuss the events following 1952 to the mid-1960s and U.S. policy in the region, which takes away from the main focus of the book, which is the period of the early 1950s. I have included this editor’s preface to provide background on the book and about the life and times of Kowalski.

  In editing this book, I came to realize and better appreciate the valuable contributions Kowalski made to his mission at the time, in addition to producing this account. Kowalski provides details about the manning, logistics, and personalities involved in standing up, on short notice, a force of approximately 75,000. He also provides insights into the diplomatic, political, legal, and constitutional challenges his Headquarters and his Japanese counterparts faced in navigating this new course for Japan in the wake of the sudden outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950. In light of these limitations, the path for rearmament had to be slow and “inoffensive” while psychologically and materially contributing to Japan’s internal defense. Kowalski’s account is balanced, a blend of both criticism and praise, of all of those involved, including himself. Kowalski, who later served in Congress, was a highly intelligent Army officer who had served in local military governments in western Japan. He was expecting to be deployed to Korea in the summer of 1950 when he was tapped for a secret mission to create a new Japanese army while having to call it a police reserve. An honorable man, he was pained by the subterfuge he and his government, working hand in hand with the Japanese government, had to play in order to establish this needed organization, which was seen as going against the “antiwar” article of the postwar constitution. Kowalski believed that many things were mishandled, but he also viewed the “quiet and reasonable approach” of the rearmament program as successful in allowing the NPR to “adequately and effectively” provide for the urgent defense needs of not only Japan, but also the United States, which had a quarter million dependents left to fend for themselves in Japan in 1950.

  Kowalski noted that there has always been a tension in the postwar U.S.-Japan relationship over Japan’s not doing enough to contribute to the bilateral alliance and international security. This book will not end that debate, but it does provide greater context and historical understanding of what factors existed at the time. This is a particularly important topic to Japan watchers and alliance managers as Japan is re-examining its defense posture today, both for its own needs as well as to strengthen its still complicated relationship with the United States, its only alliance partner.

  This book is also important for those in the U.S. military, whether they are involved in Japan or not, or equally important, if they are involved in the training of foreign militaries (or nation building, for that matter). While Kowalski’s focus is not the reconstruction of Japan as a whole after World War II, he does talk about the importance of building of a professional military within a democracy in which the dignity of the individual soldier is upheld and the principles of civilian control are maintained.

  Kowalski’s memoir begins with chapter 1, “Grace of Heaven.” In it, he discusses the destruction that befell Japan as a result of World War II and the role of the occupation forces in the early postwar years on the eve of the Korean War. He names the chapter after the reported comments by the then prime minister, Shigeru Yoshida, who felt not only that the war in the nearby Korean Peninsula would help Japan’s economic recovery, but that it was a “God-given opportunity for an accelerated peace treaty and eventual independence for the nation.” But Japan was also a “military vacuum” as a result of occupation forces departing for Korea, which forced General Douglas MacArthur, as supreme commander for the Allied powers, to order the rearmament of Japan, “contrary to international agreements at Potsdam,” Kowalski writes, “in violation of instructions from the Far Eastern Commission, in contradiction of the noble aspirations of the Japanese Constitution, and with little help from his own government.”

  Chapter 2, “Japan before Korea,” looks at the degree of domestic instability, including communist activities in Japan, before looking at the apparently successful efforts to combat it. Ironically, this success left the United States overly confident and militarily unready when the North Koreans attacked the South.

  Chapter 3, originally titled “Initial Rearmament Plan,” was renamed “Basic Plan” by Kowalski as he finished his manuscript to reflect the formal name of the document. In any case, both titles would be correct—it was the basic plan for the initial rearmament of Japan. This chapter examines the basic plan that was developed in conjunction with the decision to direct Japan to organize a national police reserve force of 75,000 to preserve security in Japan after U.S. forces departed to fight on the Korean Peninsula. Kowalski describes his personal involvement in the plan as well as the professional and ideological rivalries that existed within the General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for Allied Powers, or GHQ SCAP, over this plan and the rearmament process in general, including which offices and individuals would be involved.

  Chapter 4, “Constitution Bans War,” discusses the prohibition, including the various phrases considered in the drafting of the postwar constitution, against possessing a military that went into effect in May 1947 and the efforts to justify the establishment of the NPR in light of the constitutional ban on the use of force to settle disputes.

  Chapter 5, “Yoshida’s Views,” introduces the opinions of Shigeru Yoshida, Japan’s long-serving prime minister during these years, on the establishment of the NPR and its political leadership. His views greatly informed the cabinet and Kowalski’s Advisory Group as it worked to create the NPR. Yoshida and his government expressed strong concerns about the influence of militarists in the country. He possessed a “genuine horror of the military” and opposed the dispatch of the NPR to Korea.

  Chapter 6, “Struggle for Control,” discusses the struggle in GHQ SCAP and within the Japanese government over the question of using former Imperial Japanese Army officers in the NPR. General Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur’s intelligence chief, played a major role in trying to control the appointments of key Japanese. The chapter introduces how the struggle spread to former militarists.

  Chapter 7, “Advisers and Operations,” discusses American organizational problems and includes Kowalski’s personal experiences and anecdotes. The United States, according to Kowalski, not only organized but commanded and controlled the new Japanese army. This was particularly true in the hectic first days, weeks, and months.

  Chapter 8, “Organizational Problems,” examines American efforts to teach Japanese officials the theory and practice of U.S. civilian control over the military as the NPR was being established. Kowalski discusses the relationship he had with Keikichi Masuhara, a former prefectural governor, who was appointed the first director general of the NPR, the “dignified” de facto first minister of defense of postwar Japan.

  Chapter 9, “Leaders Fashion Armies,” discusses the problems of leadership, who the leaders were, and their thinking and behavior. It concludes that neat uniforms, saluting, articulate officers, sharp commands, and even modernness do not necessarily
make a fighting force. Nevertheless, Kowalski was proud of the Japanese civilian leaders, the U.S. advisers, and the leadership at the company and battalion levels. They learned, listened, and rapidly acquired basic military knowledge and skills. Kowalski found that the challenge was to make the NPR into a modern military and maintain the traditional fighting qualities of the Imperial soldier without militarizing the force ideologically like the prewar Imperial Army had been.

  Chapter 10, “Seishin Kyōiku,” introduces the Japanese style of military education called “seishin kyōiku”—spirit, heart, guts. Seishin kyōiku was considered the essence of the fighting Japanese soldier. Japanese civilian leaders felt that the men in the NPR lacked this strong sense of dedication and mission, seeing, as General Hayashi, chief of the General Group, said, “no spirit in their eyes.” The challenge for them became to blend the Japanese ethics found in bushidō, or way of the samurai, with the “new, still unfamiliar, precepts of democracy” and civilian control.

  Chapter 11, “Yobitai,” discusses the yobitai, the new Japanese soldier, his thinking and behavior, and the views of the people and the press concerning the new soldiers. Because the NPR was organized in “pseudo-secrecy,” finding a name acceptable to the Japanese for the soldiers, many of whom believed they were becoming police reservists, was a problem. In addition, owing to this initial secrecy, the NPR had difficulty identifying with the people, and this started a decades-long effort to win the hearts and minds of the public. This chapter cites stories both positive and negative concerning public opinion toward the NPR. Kowalski also describes his efforts to impress upon the NPR leadership that they could not tolerate the force’s members acting in a high-handed manner toward Japan’s citizens in a democracy, as these actions would affect public opinion toward the NPR.

  Chapter 12, “Confusion and Conflict,” describes the ambiguous nature of the NPR in its formative days. Though it was armed with artillery, tanks, and aircraft, the prime minister refused to acknowledge in Diet interpellations that the NPR was an army. Other cabinet members took a similar line, which caused the opposition parties to raise more questions. Kowalski notes that criticism was heard from both the Left and the extreme Right about the way rearmament was proceeding. For example, the Left objected to the reported pressure the U.S. government was placing on Japan to rearm, while the Right challenged the U.S. dominance in organizing, training, and equipping the forces. Kowalski cites a variety of public opinion surveys regarding the degree of rearmament necessary, and he ends the chapter with an anecdote about Yoshida’s strong desire not to strengthen the NPR beyond 110,000 until well after the end of the Korean War for fear of being drawn into that or other conflicts in East Asia.