Know the Enemy

In the U.S. is a man who has had an inside view of Japan at war. As an Argentine commercial attache, 33-year-old Ramon Muniz Lavalle was in Hong Kong when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He went to Tokyo just before Bataan fell. From the streets of the Japanese capital, he saw Doolittle's raiders swoop low over the housetops a year ago (see p. 30). Japanese officials received him and confided in him as a representative of a "cooperating" nation. But Lavalle himself was not neutral: he was against the Japs, against the Axis. After ten wartime months in Japan, he left for the U.S., sorrowfully convinced that his own country was "the eyes and ears of the Japanese Government in the Western Hemisphere." He quit his job, is working temporarily with OWL Last week in Manhattan he told a story which can help the U.S. to know its unknown enemy. He said:

Jap Solidarity. The national slogan of Japan, proclaimed last year, at the time of the first Solomons battle, is "A Hundred Year War." The Japanese people unquestioningly accept this prospect of incessant struggle to hold what they have won. They are solidly behind the Emperor and Premier Hideki Tojo, a strong, able and extremely popular man who is a powerful symbol of Japanese unity. Within the country, there is no opposition worthy of the name: the Allies must rely solely on their military power to crush the military power of Japan.

Japanese solidarity has been strengthened in every conceivable way. The Government has brought the Emperor and the Empress out of their sacred palace and had them mix with the people, inspecting hospitals, factories, troops, schools. The Emperor always appears in uniform, the Empress in dowdy, old-fashioned black robes that sweep the ground as she walks. Premier Tojo also helps by keeping himself in the public eye. Ordinary Japanese do not hear of Jap defeats. They hear only of victory, and they are very sure that Japan is winning the war.

Jap Fear. One fear is always with the Japanese Government and people: that Russia will attack them. No one in Japan has any illusions about the nation's vulnerability to bombing from Russia's Siberian bases. This fear increased late last year, when the Russians drove back the Germans and the North African campaign turned against the Axis. The Japanese think and talk of war with Russia only in terms of Russian attack; the idea that Japan might be so rash as to attack the Soviet Union is never seriously considered by the Japanese people.

The Japanese fear raids from Russia far more than repeated bombings by the U.S. ; the Doolittle raid awoke them to the fact that their cities could be bombed, but they believe that it was a flash in the pan, and that the U.S. has no bases from which to make sustained raids on Japan.

The first shock of the Doolittle raid was tremendous, but the effect soon passed and the Tokyo Government turned the aftermath to good account in Japan. Anti aircraft defenses were reorganized, and a great campaign was launched to stimulate public air raid precautions. The Govern ment even distributed copies of LIFE maps of Japan, to remind the Japanese that the enemy knew where to strike.

Yet the Government, by other phases of its home propaganda, partly defeated its own purposes. For example, the people were told that the reorganized military defenses were so strong that enemy planes could never again penetrate to the centers of Japanese cities. Accepting this, the people themselves have made only haphazard preparations against air attack, and the civilian air-raid precaution system is poorly organized and equipped. Foxholes in back yards are the only shelters; fire-fighting equipment is old and inadequate. The people know all this, but they remain confident that their leaders can keep the war at a distance -- if Russia can be kept from attacking them.

Japs and Germans. The Japanese people have only jealous hatred for their German allies, contempt for the Italians, great admiration for the Red Army. The Tripartite Pact binding Germany, Italy and Japan is soft-pedaled in the press. German defeats are glossed over, but only because the Government does not want to emphasize Allied strength.

Life Goes On. To the ordinary Japanese citizen, long accustomed to hardships, war has brought no great change. Japanese baseball fans crowd the stadiums to watch league games. An artificial boom has brought prosperity: there are no unemployed; wages and salaries are high by Japanese standards.

How to Beat Them. According to Ramon Lavalle, the first requisite for defeating the Japanese is: never under estimate them. Last week he told the North American Newspaper Alliance: "We will have to go in and beat Japan to her knees. Those Japs will never surrender. The only peace they will recognize is peace under their own terms. We will have to sink their shipping, bomb their cities and then invade their land. That is the only way to win."

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