Waiting

Japan might still be able to resist long and fiercely. But across the world's biggest ocean the U.S. was bodily moving its fighting manpower and an unprecedented mass of weapons for the kill. Vast areas of industrial Japan were in ruins from bombing. A more & more hermetic blockade from sea and air was closing in. In Okinawa the U.S. forces were only 325 miles from the home archipelago. From Siberia fell the lengthening shadow of Russia. Cried Premier Kantaro Suzuki: Japan's crisis "is the greatest since the Mongolian invasion."*

Fishponds & Rice Paddies. In this mood Japan prepared feverishly for the U.S. invasion. Boasted Radio Tokyo: Kamikaze (suicide) corps bases had been installed throughout the main islands. They were armed with secret weapons in quantities that almost equaled "the total number of tanks and guns used in the European war." A regional defense system had been readied; the invaders would have to reduce resistance district by district. The food supply was being safeguarded. The capital's flattened industrial areas, cried Radio Tokyo, were being converted into fishponds and rice paddies. Strategic industry was being transferred to Manchuria.

Home Minister Genki Abe called upon the People's Volunteer Corps to abandon "all thoughts of self and life." Sugar King, Aiichiro Fujiyama announced that: "Japan's big business is not in any way interested in anything short of a total victory." Tokyo's motor transport was drafted for defense. Writers were enlisted for home-front propaganda. Cried Radio Tokyo: "The sooner the enemy comes, the better for us, for our battle array is complete."

*In the 13th Century, Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, conqueror of Burma and grandson of Genghis Khan, organized an invasion of Japan, lost most of his fleet and his army in the attempt.

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