An occupying airman in Tokyo

By William H. Stewart
Special to the Saipan Tribune

The following is the first of a series of eyewitness accounts and personal experiences of the Pacific war, as recorded as described by participants to William H. Stewart, military historical cartographer.

Former Saipan resident and tourism consultant Harry McCutcheon was in the occupation forces in Japan after the war. This was, of course, after the fighting when battle-hardened soldiers were being returned to the United States to receive their discharge papers, a final military paycheck and a “Ruptured Duck,” the small metal lapel pin with an American Eagle imprinted on it issued to all military personnel from a grateful nation for honorable service rendered during the war.

Harry was one of thousands of other 18 year olds called “younger brothers” by returning combat veterans. He recalls that one day he saw Gen. Douglas MacArthur leaving his headquarters in the Dai-Ichi Building in Tokyo. Several Japanese traffic police on the street blew their whistles, held up white gloved hands and stopped all traffic at the point where five streets converged at a single intersection in the city. Silver helmeted honor guards lining both sides of a long series of steps leading to street level snapped to attention without a single order and presented arms to the Supreme Commander of Japan as he ran down the steps trailed by a number of high ranking military officers, running to keep up with the Supreme Commander. As MacArthur ducked his head to enter his chauffeur-driven car it started to pull away from the curb even before the door was entirely closed. Harry remembers two American businessmen standing nearby remarking: “Who does he think he is—holding up traffic. We are busy people and have business to conduct here.” The other bystander replied, “Oh, that’s OK—there goes the United States of America.” And he was right—MacArthur WAS the United States of America as far as Japan was concerned.

Later, during his tour of duty, Harry managed an officer’s club in Tokyo and recalls the day a 16-year-old Japanese singer approached him for a job to sing at the club. Harry arranged an audition, and the young girl got the job, escorted every evening by her mother. She took the name “Peggy” after the famous American singer of the period, Peggy Lee. After completing his enlistment McCutcheon returned to the United States to resume civilian life, and the years went by. He decided to return to Japan in 1986 and before doing so contacted the singer he had befriended many years before. Over the years the vocalist had become one of Japan’s most famous top entertainers. “Mac-san” was met at the airport with a Mercedes and driven to her home to meet her husband and son, a cocktail party was given in his honor and he was wined and dined during his stay by a very grateful Peggy Hayama. Quite a testimony to a soldier who had been in an occupying army. Never in the history of warfare has an occupying force of a defeated nation been so humane as the American Army in Japan. General MacArthur had several American soldiers hung for committing major crimes against Japanese civilians.

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER IN TOKYO

Robert “Bob” Campbell, formerly employed by the Saipan branch of the Bank of Hawaii, recalled a day 37 years after the destruction of Hiroshima, while engaged as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Mormons). Nineteen-year-old Robert Campbell had arrived in Japan from the United States in 1982 and, after language courses in Japanese, was engaged in the church’s work of seeking converts to the faith and at the time was walking with a companion through a residential section of Tokyo.

Selecting houses upon which to call, he approached a typical Japanese dwelling and knocked on the door. A bent, elderly Japanese man opened the door and, squinting his weak eyes, looked at Robert and asked, “Are you an American?”

The young missionary replied, “Yes.” “Come in”, the man said, and Robert was shown a small room with paper wall partitions. “Sit”, the old man barked in a somewhat harsh and demanding tone. As Robert and his companion seated themselves he noticed two samurai swords hanging on the wall.

“I have waited many years to meet an American”, the old man said. “You are the first.”

Glancing at the sabers on the wall and judging that the Japanese was old enough to have experienced the devastation of the war, Robert was swept with apprehension as to what the man would do.

“As a result of the war I lost one son at Truk and another in Manchuria, all of my brothers and sisters were killed in the bombings, I lost my house, everything was gone.” Robert’s mind raced with the thought that the old man might seek revenge and rip the swords from the wall and attack him. Momentarily he was struck with terror all the while thinking to himself, “How can I make him understand that I had no part of the war being born almost 20 years after the conclusion of hostilities.”

The man spoke again and what he said astounded Robert: “ I want to thank the Americans for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” The statement shocked Robert to the very marrow of his bones, his mind raced with astonishment, “Why?”, he thought, and the old man continued, “If the United States had not dropped those two bombs which brought the war to an end, the Japanese people would have fought to the last man, woman and child. The Japanese population and our civilization would have been completely destroyed. The bombs finally brought us to the realization that the fighting should end.” It was a statement Robert Campbell would remember for the rest of his life. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities, where for a time, those still alive envied the dead.

(William Stewart is the author of Saipan In Flames and Ghost Fleet of the Truk Lagoon, both books documenting the Pacific conflict.)