KJ
Reviews
Trajectories
of War
Field Of Spears: The Last Mission of the Jordan Crew
Gregory Hadley, Paulownia Press, 160pp
Published more than sixty years since the end of World War II, this
painstakingly-researched account of the downing of an American B-29
by anti-aircraft fire over Niigata City in July 1945 has a distinctly
Rashomon-like quality, incorporating multiple viewpoints, both
American and Japanese, in giving a detailed account “with respect
and compassion for the people on both sides of this conflict.”
Even today, the facts are sensitive and still contentious — “Those
who have the least to say about such events are sometimes those who
have the most to tell.”
Of the bomber’s 11-man crew, five among the survivors were still
alive in 2002 when Prof. Hadley, a Niigata resident, commenced his research.
Personal anecdotes trace the crew’s progress through training
and deployment, moving across the Pacific as the war unfolded. Their
progress is intercut, Grapes of Wrath style, with wider-context
background on the historical events and strategic decisions that shaped
their experience — and finely-detailed local history centered
on their final target, Niigata, on Japan’s northern coast, revealing
Japan’s trajectory from Meiji period zaibatsu “managerial
familism” through imperialist “national family” (kazoku
kokka) and proud Showa militarism to exhausted desperation, facing
the inevitability of defeat. (In one nearby farming area “over
500 students from one graduating class... had been sent to the South
Pacific in early 1944. By 1945, all were reported to have been killed
or missing in action.” By this time “except for research
institutes, schools had all been closed by the government in order to
mobilize all but the youngest children to work as laborers for the war
effort and to prepare for the final decisive battle for the home islands.”)
The “Jordan Crew” (so named for its pilot, Captain Gordon
Jordan), participated in the devastating low-level firebombing raid
on Tokyo in March 1945, in which 100,000 people — mostly civilians
— died. The crew’s impressions “depended largely upon
their educational background and the degree to which they had personalized
the attack on Pearl Harbor or internalized the reports of atrocities
committed by the Japanese army.” “For Spero [the tail gunner],
the March 9 mission was described as ‘...boy, that’s the
most beautiful fire I ever seen... all of Tokyo was burning.’
Garin [the navigator], whose schooling had allowed him to become classmates
with the daughter of a Japanese diplomat who had been recalled to Tokyo
just before the war, looked at the same inferno below, steeled his resolve,
and hoped that his friend was still alive.”
By mid-July 1945 the crew had completed 32 of the 35 raids required
to fulfill their “missions quota” and return home. They
had been assigned to “Operation Starvation” — laying
mines as part of the highly effective Allied shipping blockade. Niigata’s
port was an important link with Manchuria, but the city itself (like
Kyoto) had been left untouched as a possible future nuclear target.
In the early hours of July 20th, as the crew completed their low bombing
run over the port and turned for home, searchlights from a recently-installed
radar-controlled anti-aircraft emplacement locked onto their “Superfortress.”
Seconds later, the aircraft was hit.
“At
the moment Jordan’s plane began to burn in the sky, an extraordinary
transaction took place. What before had been for the citizens of Niigata
an unassailable icon of death had now become a blazing symbol of hope.
For the Jordan Crew, however, what had only moments before been for
them a stronghold of American superiority now was rapidly becoming
a brittle, burning deathtrap.”
The
co-pilot, who chose to “ride the plane down,” and three
other crewmen died — several of them almost certainly 
lynched
by angry villagers armed with farming implements (a common occurrence
elsewhere in Japan following the fire-bombings). This was also “the
first and only time for women, who were being trained to fight with
bamboo spears as part of Japan’s final defense against the anticipated
Allied invasion, actually to use their primitive weapons against armed
American soldiers.” Crewmembers who surrendered without trying
to defend themselves fared better, or at least were rescued from those
thirsting for revenge by the intervention of Japanese soldiers. (Allied
fliers were suspected of knowing valuable details of the anticipated
invasion).
Normal prisoner-of-war (POW) rules however were ignored —
“the
status of captured B-29 airmen had been changed to that of a hokaku
beihei ... meaning an American soldier who has violated the expected
rules of engagement, and therefore has forfeited any rights or privileges
as a regular POW.”
Interrogations
were brutal, and living conditions horrific. The crew’s seven
survivors were held for three weeks at the Tokyo headquarters of the
kempei-tai (military police, feared by Japanese and prisoners
alike) — “leaving a lifetime of psychological scars on each
of them.”
Meanwhile, the war continued. On August 1st, ten days after their capture,
Nagaoka, 35km south of Niigata, was bombed; 1,400 people died. On August
6th and 9th, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed. Over fifty captive
US airmen were beheaded in immediate reprisal; Jordan and his remaining
crew were fortunate to be transferred five days later to the Omori POW
camp in Tokyo Bay, which was liberated on August 29th.
Hadley presents neither saints nor demons. “There are no heroes
in this story — only survivors. If there are any villains, these
would be the decision makers on both sides of the war. They were the
ones who had whipped their tribes into a frenzy, who had inflamed the
ignorance of simple country folk with racist rhetoric and then threw
them together into a dark, muddy field late at night.”
His epilogue not only brings the story up to date, but examines connections
with present-day issues, strongly criticizing recent shifts towards
conservatism in Japan’s education system and the consolidation
of the Self-Defense Agency into a Ministry:
“I
believe that Japan’s ability to maintain a pacifist stance during
the violence of the latter half of the 20th century was a sign of
great strength. By renouncing war, Japan was an inspiring symbol of
what a ‘normal country’ should truly be. It seems to me
that those countries which habitually abandon peaceful dialogue in
favor of military action are the aberration. These societies’
inability to break the futile cycle of violence that has cursed humanity
for millennia is a sign of their weakness, not strength.”
Field
of Spears is a valuable addition to the historical record, deserving
a place next to such works as War Without Mercy by John Dower,
and Perilous Memories, edited by Fujitani, White & Yoneyama.
On my shelf it stands close by There’s No Future in It —
my father’s personal account of WW II pilot training, completion
of a full “tour” of operations, and subsequent test piloting
of Lancaster bombers in England. Preservation of war memories is essential,
if we are ever to achieve a world where war itself is no longer tolerated.
—Ken Rodgers
Published in KJ #72,
June 2009, P. 84. Copyright
held by author
See
also this related article from Metropolis (PDF
download, 8.4MB)
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