Tojo: The Last Banzai

This is a very interesting book about the life of Tojo. Although it's primarily about him, there is also a lot of other interesting information related to WW II and what led up to it.

The book points out how the Japanese felt when the U.S. began its anti-immigration policies directed against the Japanese. That kind of thing helped to play into the negative image many of the Japanese had about the whites in the East.

It refers to the terrible earthquake of 1923 and how the U.S. helped greatly with supplies, bu this goodwill was more than offset by the Immigration Act of 1924.

The Chinese were also getting the Japanese angry with a boycott of Japanese goods.

There's also a lot of attention given to how the Japanese Army was not always under the control of the Japanese leadership. The Army tended, at times, to act totally independently, especially when they were relatively far away from Japan itself.

As the military got more and more control over Japan itself, propaganda which favored war and pictured whites as oppressors became more and more obvious.

Tojo's early interactions are covered, and how we was with a group that favored attacking the Soviet Union. The decision in the end, though, was to move South, and Tojo had to go along with that.

There's time spent covering how the U.S. demands on Japan, that they get out of China, etc, were met in Japan, and this caused even a greater gap to form between the two countries.

Tojo was going from position to position, and ended up as prime minister of Japan on Oct. 17, 1941. From then he began to bring more and more positions under his control until he was in charge of a wide range of things.

The people of Japan were put under great control. There was only one party allowed. Western clothing and music were banned. All forms of media were strictly censored. Women were encouraged to have more babies. This ultra-nationalism became part of the school curriculum to assure that even the youngest were 'thinking correctly.'

The book then goes into the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor and what happened. Tojo got on the radio and promised the Japanese a final victory, noting that they had never lost a war in 2600 years.

The book also talks about the war crimes trials. The Japanese were charged with causing over a million deaths due to brutality and neglect between 1931 and 1945. The prosecution had a list of 302,000 specific cases to back them up.

The book shows how this brutality was related to how the military functioned, pointing up the very small number of Japanese prisoners that were actually taken, the soldiers preferring to kill themselves or die in futile banzai attacks.

A good deal of attention is paid to the rivalry between the Japanese Army and the Navy, and how they didn't get along at all, constantly argued over who got what, and didn't really coordinate their efforts well at all. The effects of U.S. submarines on Japanese shipping are also covered.

The time near the end of the war, as Japan began to lose everything and even have to suffer the firebombing by American planes is also covered. Tojo's fall from power is discussed, along with his arrest and trial.

This is a very interesting book, more about the war, prejudice, censorship and brutality than about Tojo himself, but still very well done.

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