Ernie Pyle Theater

A day in the life of a G.I. in Tokyo during the Post-War years of the Allied occupation must have been surreal. Life bustled on wide, clean streets around the Dai Ichi Insurance Building, where the headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (GHQ) was located while the rest of Tokyo was clearing war rubble, scrambling to subsist, and figuring out how to rebuild.

As described in Post 2, the work arrival and departure times at GHQ of the great General Douglas MacArthur was considered a treat by passersby in those years of 1945 to 1951.

While MacArthur worked long hours seven days a week, it is said that he loved to watch movies. According to this eyewitness in the Armchair General bulletin board, the General watched a move every evening at his residence at the American Embassy compound. As E. H. Freeman, a member of the Honor Guard stated, he would sometimes join in the private viewing.

He was not a particularly social man. His main form of relaxation was watching movies, which he did seven days a week– then dinner around 10:00. One of the “perks” of being an Honor Guard was the fact that the first 35 men to sign the roster could see the movies as well. He sat in an over-stuffed chair in the center of three; his wife Jean to his right; Maj. Story, his pilot to his left. The first thing he did was to light a cigar. We enjoyed going to the movies at the “Big House” as we were able to get first run films. ahead of everyone else.

For the thousands of Americans supporting the effort in Tokyo, watching movies were one of the major forms of entertainment. The movie theater was only a five-minute walk away from GHQ – the old Takarazuka Theater in Yurakucho, which was taken over by GHQ and re-purposed as a theater for allied military. To make it clear, the theater was re-named The Ernie Pyle Theater, named after the famous and popular American war journalist, who died in action in a small island named Iejima, north of Okinawa.

Norman A. Kuehni wrote in Armchair General that he worked in GHQ from 1947-48, helping to publish a brief called the GHQ Daily Bulletin, which included information on the latest at the Ernie Pyle Theater.

I was a Tech 4 and our office was responsible for publishing the GHQ Daily Bulletin along with other duties. Our daily duties included a trip to the Ernie Pyle theater to acquire the current movie schedules. We often visited the Ginza when fulfilling this duty.

The sign for The Ernie Pyle Theater was no more after the Allied Occupation ended in 1952. The original Takarazuka Theater, which was built in 1934, was unfortunately demolished in 1998. The theater was re-born in 2001, another remnant of those Post-War years found only in old pictures.

New Takarazuka Theater

GHQ Dai Ichi

From August, 28 1945 to April 28, 1952, Japan was not a sovereign nation; instead it was occupied by the Allied nations of the Second World War. And the Allies base of operations during the occupation was an imposing building in its time – The Dai-Ichi Insurance Building. While much of Tokyo was destroyed by American firebombing, the Imperial Palace and the central part of Tokyo were not targeted, perhaps to spare the Emperor, perhaps to leave a habitable space for a conquering military administration.

The General Arrives at Dai Ichi Building SCAP HQ
General Douglas MacArthur entering SCAP HQ, the Dai Ichi Building

Completed in 1933, across the moat of the Imperial Palace, it must have been an impressive sight. One of the largest structures in the area at the time, GHQ’s home was a solid stone block of a building with its six-story columns, the American flag flapping from the top, clearly visible from the Imperial Palace. In this building worked the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), American commander, General Douglas MacArthur.

As wrote Russell Brines, the war correspondent and author of the 1948 book, MacArthur’s Japan, the general commanded respect.

In Tokyo, his personal and legal authority was unquestioned. His headquarters was dominated by military men, accustomed to unquestioning obedience. They echoed his moods, repeated his propaganda, tried to anticipate his wishes. His personality constantly hovered over the ornate Dai Ichi Insurance Company, and other modern buildings, where policy was made in the capital. Civilian officials who disagreed remained discreetly silent.

GHQ Presidential Office MacArthur's office
General MacArthur’s office

MacArthur’s office on the sixth floor of the Dai Ichi Insurance Building was surprisingly spartan. His desk was more like a dining table, without drawers, his table often without papers or reports. As a Dai Ichi spokesman said in explanation of the lack drawers,

MacArthur didn’t need any. He was a man who made quick decisions, not the type to pull reports out of his bureau for lengthy consideration.

MacArthur had long days in GHQ. They started around 10 am in the morning. He would then go to his residence in the American Embassy compound around 2:30 pm and return around to GHQ around 4:30. He would then continue his work until about 8:30 pm, a pattern that E. H. Freeman in this discussion board called Armchair General.com said the general did 7 days a week.

GHQ_1
Dai Ichi Building today

MacArthur was as close to a super hero as you can get in those days. Japanese and Americans alike would try to time his arrivals and departures from GHQ to catch a glimpse of him passing through the columns of the Dai Ichi Insurance Building – the Japanese bowing and the GI’s saluting. Bill Zettler wrote about his moment with the man on the discussion board:

In the fall of 1946 I was standing near the front entrance to the Dai Ichi building, camera in hand, hoping to see Mac as he came to work. I did not realize he would use the door behind me. I felt that photographing him at that distance would be impertinent, and so I stepped aside, held the camera behind me, and saluted. He returned that salute, and then I realized I was the only GI in his view, so I had received a PERSONAL salute from the General.

GHQ12

homeless in postwar japan
Hundreds of Japanese jam the Ueno railway station in Northeast Tokyo, on Oct. 26, 1945, these windy autumn nights seeking shelter. Homeless, the old and the young huddle together on thin matting and old newspapers, and try to sleep. Many are starving. Police estimate there are two of three deaths nightly from starvation. (AP Photo)

At the end of World War II, in 1945, there were 9 million Japanese left homeless, primarily due to the devastation wrought by B-29s and their bombing raids for nearly a year.

With 80% of all ships destroyed, 33% of all industrial machine tools destroyed, 25% of all trains and cars destroyed, and with the allied-ruled governing body, led by General Douglas MacArthur, imposing a rule of law that prioritized dispersing of Japanese assets to allied victors, the economy was in ruins.

Hunger and malnutrition were the norm, as Japanese managed to live off of 550 to 1,100 calories per day, about 25 to 50% the minimum required to maintain health.

The years after the end of the war was a desperate time for Japanese. Historian John Dower referred to this post-war malaise in his book, Embracing Defeat, as kyodatsu, a Japanese word for the collective depression that fell on the country. After all, when the Emperor got on the radio on August 15, 1945 to announce that the war had ended, they had not only heard the voice of a divine being for the first time, after years of being told of the need to fight to the end, they were suddenly told to stop their resistance, and to continue to live and work towards Japan’s recovery.

The immediate meaning of ‘liberation’ for most Japanese was not political but psychological. Surrender – and, by association, the Allied victory, the American army of occupation itself – liberated them from death. Month after month, they had prepared for the worst; then, abruptly, the tension was broken. In an almost literal sense, they were given back their lives. Shock bordering on stupefaction was a normal response to the emperor’s announcement, usually followed quickly by an overwhelming sense of relief. But that sense of relief all too often proved ephemeral.

Malnutrition poster 1946_Dower

From John Dower’s Embracing Defeat.

On top of all that, the post-war period saw the return of countrymen and women who served in other parts of Asia in the military or as civilians working in Japanese organizations. From October 1, 1945 to December 31, 1946, about 5.1 million repatriated back to Japan, adding to the misery of Japan that already had too few jobs and too little food for those already in the country.

An early first-hand account was written by AP journalist, Russell Brines, in his book, MacArthur’s Japan, who described a Japan unrecognizable today. Here’s how he described the repatriation of Japanese soldiers and civilians from abroad.

Men, women and children – tired and dirty – plodded off the ship, wound past the American sentry and pushed up a hill toward a weather beaten building. They stood like cattle while doctors deloused them, then walked to the railroad station. As they waited for trains, gloomy and apprehensive, commuters eyed them stiffly before hurrying away. Only relatives gave them a smile or a soft word. They soon learned the rest of Japan was too busy – or just unconcerned – to give them much thought to the cycle of fate that had deposited them like rubbish on their nation’s doorstep.

Jammed, filthy trains took them to all parts of the homeland. Some had been away as long as eight years. They returned to blowsy cities, tiny villages or drab farms; to the narrow, contained life they had left for conquest. Many found stony neighbors, silently condemning them for sharing in defeat or for failing to die, as custom decreed. Others encountered resentment from people miserly over food and patched clothing. Some located only ashes where their homes had been and only vagueness when they searched for missing relatives.

The sifting of lives continues, day by day, behind paper-curtained little homes. Men returned to find their “widows” remarried. Some wives had become streetwalkers, through necessity or restlessness. Women had lost some of their obedience and most of their patience. The fabric of prearranged, loveless marriages was too weak in many cases to survive long separation and irritable reconciliation. For the first time, women became complainants in divorce suits; including one whose husband brought back a native wife and two children from Borneo.

Jobs were scarce, money useless and the new life confusing. Those who returned swaggering, found no one willing to cringe before them, as had subject peoples. Those who came back ashamed and penitent found no pity. Only the opportunists profited, the men who had kept their eyes open to all the sharp practices they saw abroad.

Life Magazine_Emperor and Empress 3

These are fascinating pictures of Emperor Hirohito and the Empress in the summer of 1964. Taken from the September 11, 1964 issue of Life Magazine, these black and white photos reveal the Emperor to be a somewhat ordinary man, grandfatherly, academic. In fact, the couple looks like they’re having fun looking for mollusks.

The magazine even quotes the Emperor describing the “umi ushi” they found. “This is an easygoing chap, not in the least alarmed at being caught.”

Life Magazine_Emperor and Empress 1

Americans who saw this set of pictures in Life Magazine were probably surprised to see a totally different Emperor Hirohito. Perhaps their memory of him was a leader who sent suicide dive bombers to attack Pearl Harbor, or drove soldiers to kill themselves in the name of the Emperor rather than be captured by Allied forces. But to see the Emperor at all in the 1960s was due to efforts by the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP), the entity that governed Japan in the post-war years, as well as members of the Japanese government.

After World War II, in the immediate aftermath of Japan’s defeat at the hands of overwhelming American military firepower, one would think there would be too much concern over what to eat, where to sleep, and how they will cope the next day for people to care about the Emperor, and whether the imperial family as an institution should be maintained.

And yet, support for continuing the imperial throne was strong, a survey in October, 1945 revealing “widespread enthusiasm or deep awe and veneration comparable to that of the war years,” according to John Dower in his seminal book, Embracing Defeat. While forceful calls for the dethronement of Emperor Hirohito and elimination of the imperial system in Japan were common in America and other allied nations, the head of SCAP, General Douglas MacArthur, agreed that it was important to keep the emperor in place.

Life Magazine_Emperor and Empress 2

Dower quoted a memo from Brigadier General Bonner Fellers to MacArthur about the reasons why the Emperor should remain as a symbol of Japan, emphasizing the fact that the Emperor, by going on the radio and announcing Japan’s defeat and need to lay down arms, “hundreds of thousands of American casualties were avoided and the war terminated far ahead of schedule.” in the case of trying the Emperor for war crimes, Fellers argued that “the governmental structure would collapse and a general uprising would be inevitable.”

SCAP was therefore insistent that Hirohito remain as Emperor, and not be tried for war crimes. In place of a deity as the head of Japan, SCAP sought to “humanize” the Emperor. A big part of those efforts were sending the Emperor on tours across the nation to meet the people in 1946. SCAP made sure pictures were taken and film was shot to document the Emperor walking amidst his people, a scenario unthinkable during and before the war years.

Life Magazine_Then Crown Prince Akihito Crown Princess Michiko and Current Crown Prince
Then Crown Prince Akihito Crown Princess Michiko and Current Crown Prince

 

Paul Maruyama and Roy
The author and Olympian, Paul Maruyama, and me.

Paul Maruyama is an Olympian, a member of the judo team, representing the USA at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Paul Maruyama is also an author, and the story he has to tell is personal…and incredible.

This is the story of the approximately 1.5 million Japanese who were essentially abandoned in the northern part of China, then called Manchuria, after the Pacific War. Overrun by the military of the Soviet Union, which had just declared war on Japan, Japanese military men and civilians alike were rounded up and sent to labor camps in the Soviet Union, while women and children were left in highly insecure and unsafe circumstances, including robbery and rape.

Seiyo Uchino and Yoshino Kimura

Maruyama wrote about this time in history because his father actually played a major role in ensuring safe passage of the 1.5 million Japanese in China back to Japan. In his book, Escape from Manchuria, Maruyama tells the incredible story of how his father, Kunio Maruyama, and his friends, Hachiro Shinpo and Masamichi Musashi worked together to get to Tokyo and meet General Douglas MacArthur, and convince him to send military ships to China and repatriate their countrymen.

When producers from NHK, the giant government broadcaster, read the Japanese version of Paul Maruyama’s book, they recognized the incredible human drama amidst the geo-political churn of post-war China and Japan, and decided to produce a two-part dramatization of those events.

On consecutive Saturdays of March 24 and 31 of 2018, NHK will broadcast their dramatized version of “Escape from Manchuria.” The Japanese title of the drama is “Doko ni mo Nai Kuni,” which I suppose can be loosely translated to “A Country that is Nowhere.”

Taizo Harada and Misako Renbutsu

In addition to filming in China, NHK has invested in talent, recruiting some of the biggest names in Japanese television and film. Seiyo Uchino (内野聖陽) will play Paul’s father, Kunio Maruyama, while Yoshino Kimura (木村佳乃) will portray Paul’s mother, Mary Maruyama. Other well known actors like Taizo Harada (原田泰造), Misako Renbutsu (蓮佛美沙子), Shinnosukke Matsushima (満島真之介), Tsurutaro Kataoka (片岡鶴太郎), and Kenichi Hagiwara (萩原健一) fill out the all-star cast.

Prior to a recent trip to Japan, Maruyama made a sortie to Shanghai, China, where he was able to observe filming on a studio lot. A street was re-created to look like a Japanese community in Shenyang, complete with store front signs in Japanese and Chinese, filled with despairing Japanese citizens, and aggressive Russian soldiers. Maruyama, who was in Manchuria with his family at the age of six, took on the scene with wonder and pride, filled with emotion.

“When I see this set and the recreation of streets of Manchuria, the actors, all the extras, the staff, here because of a book I wrote, it’s kind of overwhelming. But I’m happy because we’re able to tell a part of Japanese history that is not well known.”

Shinnosuke Matsushima Tsurutaro Kataoka Kenichi Hagiwara