In the best of scenarios, the two warring factions agree to meet in the open away from cities, away from civilians, and decide the end result without involving the innocents. Scenes from “Braveheart” come to mind. But even then the winning army goes on to lay siege to the castle while ransacking towns and villages. Whatever the victor’s intent, war has its own purpose and passion. Revenge and retribution seem more powerful than reconciliation. And some things can not be unseen or forgotten by war fighters or witnesses.

The goal of this post is to make the reader aware of one element that was a critical factor in the decision whether (and how) to invade the Japanese home islands in the autumn of 1945 and spring of 1946. But also to let us remember it is individuals who fought the wars in our name and in many cases faced unspeakable evil. They carry the scars of combat – images and memories that challenge their humanity. Catholic just war teaching acknowledges the moral weight is most often borne by those who carry arms. While the national leaders may determine that a war is just, the individual soldier carries the burden of action, decision, and consequence.The dual responsibility of the war fighter — obedience and moral discernment — can place the war fighter in situations of profound moral tension and leave them with life-long memories. The cost of war is carried beyond the battlefield: moral injury, post-traumatic stress, and a deep spiritual dislocation. The battlefield lingers in memory and emotion long after the fighting ends.

Such was the case of the U.S. Marines who witnessed needless civilian deaths on the island of Saipan. While civilians caught in the cross fire is perhaps an inevitability of modern warfare, the intentional blurring of the difference between soldier and civilian by an enemy crosses a line of moral behavior and essential humanity. The disregard of civilian lives by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) before the June 1944 invasion of Saipan is well documented. The scope of civilian deaths at the hands and instigation of the IJA staggers the imagination. 

Civilian deaths caused by Japanese military actions from 1936 to 1945 

To be sure it is difficult to account precisely due to incomplete records, wide geographic scope, and ongoing historical debate. However, historical estimates, based on scholarship, war crimes tribunals, and national archives, provide the following approximate figures:

The above information is provided, not as a means of establishing the basis for punishing the Nation of Japan as punitively as possible nor to justify a wholesale invasion of Japan’s home islands. The post-war tribunals addressed the war crimes and those responsible. But it is presented to reveal the mindset, practice and history of field-level commanders in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), especially those operating in the far-flung corners of the Japanese empire. 

Among the “junior officers” there was a history of rebellion, assasination, and “taking the initiative” in ways unimaginable in the allied armed forces. It is believed (not proven) that junior officers were most responsible for the July 1937 escalation of armed forces involvement from the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge that is considered the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. 

Another  glaring example is the forging of orders given to Major General Tomitarō Horii to cross the virtually impassable Owen Stanley Range via the Kokoda Track to attack Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. The attempt resulted in ~5,000 deaths from combat, disease, exposure, or starvation. Among them were scores of forced laborers from Korea and China.

A concern of the Allied Leaders in July 1945 was the reaction of the IJA outside the home islands in the event of invasion of their homeland. Would there be retaliatory strikes against local civilian populations in Japanese occupied territories? Also, in the event of Japanese surrender, would the IJA surrender arms inside and outside of Japan? Mutinies initiating within the ranks of the IJA had been well documented.

Civilian non-combatant deaths did not become a point of US military experience until the invasion of Saipan in June 1944. The experience of Saipan not only greatly clouded the question of whether “civilian non-combants” were a separate and distinguishable group, but also left indelible marks on the US Marine witnesses. The experience of the invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa added to and amplified the Saipan experience. All this justifiably raised the issue of what were the expectations in an invasion of the main home islands as regards “civilians.” 

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Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archives.