Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, Volumes 1 and 2 by David Bergamini is a detailed and exhaustive study of the reign of Emperor Hirohito with especial emphasis on his role during World War II. It is certainly one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read, if not also---- at 1,386 pages of text with an additional 142 pages of glossary and notes-- one of the longest.
After several chapters on the history of Japan beginning with the year 50 A.D, Bergamini ushers us into the 20th century and examines the extent to which Emperor Hirohito orchestrated Japan’s involvement in WWII as well as Hirohito’s role in making Japan a militaristic and totalitarian society. The author also covers the post-war American occupation of Japan though less in-depth.
Bergamini’s thesis is that Emperor Hirohito was neither a figure-head emperor nor a puppet of either the Japanese navy or army. To the complete contrary, the author describes Hirohito instead a strongarm dictator with a plan. He was a totalitarian-style leader who shaped and directed Japan’s ‘Strike South’ campaign to conquer the Pacific, and, if possible, the world. Hirohito was also, according to the author, directly involved in the Pearl Harbor attack and had knowledge of many of the barbaric atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese throughout this period.
The author conducts his historical study using heretofore unavailable and/or unreleased original sources such as diaries and transcripts of meetings and conversations. These sources were only newly available in the 1960s and Bergamini documents his thesis at every point along the long and winding way from Japan of the 1920s to the defeated and ravaged post-war Japan of 1945. This book was published in 1971.
Mr. Bergamini was born in Japan and lived in both Japan and China as a child, being the son of a missionary and architect responsible for the design of hospitals, churches and other public buildings. Most remarkable, he spent the duration of the war, his teenage years, in a concentration camp in the Philippines along with his family. Mr. Bergamini eventually returned to the U.S. and went to Dartmouth College and earned other scholarly distinctions before becoming a reporter for Life magazine and the author of several books including this one. He is deceased. It’s difficult to find out much about the man despite his very unique background in the Far East. He references those years in his ‘Author to Reader’ introduction and there are a few scattered footnotes throughout the two volumes where he fleshes out a point or two with his personal observation or experience. I would very much like to know more about him.
I’m apologetic about this commentary for the simple reason that the depth of analysis I can muster up will be only as good as the depth and breadth of understanding I was able to wring out of the book. Since I was operating from a pretty shaky knowledge base to begin with, I fear my commentary may not do justice to the author’s work and for that I apologize. Let me explain.
First, my knowledge of WWII in general is fragmented and shallow; I confess to never having been a properly interested student of the War. This changed after spending an unsettling afternoon at Dachau several years ago when I finally resolved to educate myself on the subject of WWII and about more than just the concentration camps. Thus I set myself to reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer (it was in our home library). More recently, I read Mr. Shirer’s Berlin Diaries and then went back and selectively re-read The Rise and Fall. I’ve also poked around at portions of Anthony Beevor’s World War II. That about sums up my background.
Naturally my knowledge of the Pacific theater during WWII could only measure up to less than my overall knowledge of the war itself. Add to that my general ignorance of Japanese history, culture and politics and you will understand why I was often at sea while reading this book.
Speaking of culture, my minimal and superficial
knowledge of Japanese culture caused me to make wrong assumptions at times and
at other times to simply shake my head in bewilderment. My impression of Japan as a nation of docile,
hopelessly polite people with quaint customs is based solely on post-war
Japan. Reading Mr. Bergamini’s book,
with his obvious affection for the country and people of his youth was instructive.
More of an irritation to me than an ignorance of the culture was my total lack of familiarity with the language. Yes, of course, the book is written in English, but the names, the names! One after another, they would blend together and I would quickly lose track of who was who and which one was what. In contrast, I recently read a giant tome on the Renaissance and the sesquipedalian Italian names tripped off my tongue as easily as you please.
As with my ignorance of the culture and history of Japan, my lack of familiarity with the geography of the region didn’t do me any favors either. Fortunately, the maps on the inside covers of both volumes were there to help. They were not exceedingly detailed maps, but I was able to orient myself enough to then consult an atlas for, say, Lake Khasan or Port Arthur or the route of the Siberian railway. Rather humbling also was the matter in Volume 2 of having to constantly flip back and forth from text to map to find familiar place names such as Corregidor, the Bataan peninsula, Iwo Jima and Midway! I was even slow with the island names of the Dutch East Indies and there again depended on the map.
As if all this weren’t enough to lower my self-esteem, the general history of the neighboring countries, especially China and Russia, is so lightly imprinted upon me that I was at a distinct disadvantage regarding Russo-Sino wars and the struggles of China during the times of Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai Shek and Mao.
With these humiliating handicaps, I devised a plan for reading the book in order to keep from drowning completely and putting the book aside entirely. About 2/3 of the way through the first volume I decided to read for big ideas and not to spend so much time on the details of every coup, palace intrigue, policy and conspiratorial plot. I came up as best I could with a list of some of the ideas that seemed most important and I would read with an eye for those.
One big idea was to read with the background question in mind. Does this policy/plot/decision show that Hirohito was master-minding Japan’s foreign affairs? Was this event/decision to Hirohito’s advantage or disadvantage? Does this turn of affairs give evidence that he was pulling the strings?
Another big idea was to place events in the context of one of the two general foreign affairs approaches of the Japanese. There was the Strike North policy which was to stave off Russia and the Strike South policy which was to embark on the subjugation and conquering of basically all of Asia north to Manchuria, east into China, Burma, as far as possible into India, the Southeast Asian peninsula, the Dutch Indies, and then head to Hawaii and the western coast of the United States.
A third big idea was the Samurai culture/traditionalists of Japan vs. the more jingoistic martial types, including Hirohito, who wanted to conquer the world. There was also the organ policy vs. its counterpart (had difficulty with that one).
What I learned from this book remains to be seen. Or heard. I doubt if I could converse fluently on the war in the Pacific or if I could even name five significant decisions that Hirohito made concerning the war. On the other hand, I certainly have a far more informed big picture and for each of those empty knowledge cups I listed above, I have filled them with a few ounces of information thereby reducing my overall deficit on the subject by a considerable amount. At least I now have a running start when I attempt this book again. I also have two follow-up books that may help me to further digest and reflect on what I read here.
Lastly I have to admit that I felt an alienation from and an impatience toward the culture and people of Japan after reading this book. Hirohito himself gave me the creeps. I couldn’t stand anything about him. He seemed cunning and calculating, a smug, humorless, self-absorbed man. There was not a single Japanese male in the book who struck me otherwise. General MacArthur came across as a loveable teddy bear compared to those guys! Japan is a world of puffed-up macho men. As for the women, they are enslaved. They are chattel. They live in degradation. I’m so thankful to God that I’m not a Japanese female. Furthermore, the duplicity in that culture, the posturing, the ever-present mask, how does anyone ever feel real? When they’re not dissembling, they act child-like. Maybe it’s all the same thing. The value the culture assigns to the human person is just about zero. They think nothing of inviting one another to commit suicide. It is not insignificant I think that Christianity was so consistently and widely persecuted in Japan. To this day, less than one percent of the population of Japan is Christian.
Reading this book was a valuable exercise. Mr. Bergamini convinced me beyond any reasonable doubt that Emperor Hirohito bore full responsibility for the actions of Japan in WWII. He should have been tried and sentenced for his war crimes. I believe it was Australia that was particularly adamant on that subject but they were overruled. After reading this book, I’m of a mind that the United States treated Hirohito far too kindly. That said though, did we really need to rub Japan’s nose in their defeat and preach to them about the deception perpetrated by their emperor and the perils of worshiping him? After all, it’s the people of Japan who have to live with themselves, not us.
One would think that at least the women might finally wake up to the bondage under which they labor. Just an afterthought.
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