The Forgotten Force - Chapter 3: 'This Abomination of Desolation'

CHAPTER 3: 'THIS ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION'

    The allied occupation of Japan was conducted by both US forces and what was known as the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), which included contingents from Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the early days of the occupation there were moves to include national forces from China and the Soviet Union, but for a variety of reasons these forces were not despatched, although, following the Soviet Union’s declaration of war in August 1945, Soviet troops moved into permanent occupation of what is known as the Northern Territories of Japan.

     US forces in the closing days of the war and in a series of bitter battles at places such as Okinawa and Iwo Jima were gaining control of the Japanese islands as a prelude to the main assault. The dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in the Japanese surrender with a cessation of hostilities effective from 15 August 1945, although there were some delays in communicating this decision to all Japanese combatants. The first US forces to come ashore on the main island of Honshu did so at Atsugi on 28 August 1945.

     Arrangements were put in hand which enabled the formal act of surrender to be received on board the US battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 by US General Douglas MacArthur. He had formerly been Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area, but with effect from 15 August 1945 he became Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and was charged by the US President to accept the surrender of Japanese forces. Lieutenant General Thomas Blamey signed the surrender document on behalf of the Australian Government. Also present in Tokyo Bay representing the Royal Australian Navy were His Majesty’s Australian Ships Ballarat, Bataan, Cessnock, Hobart,
Ipswich, Napier, Nizam, and Warramunga under Commodore J.A. Collins, CB aboard HMAS Shropshire.1

     Prior to the formal surrender a British landing force under the command of Captain H.J. Buchanan, DSO, RAN in HMAS Napier, had gone ashore on 30 August 1945 at Yokosuka Naval Dockyard. HMAS Nizam (Lieutenant Commander W.F. Cook, RAN) landed the Royal Marine Guard for the British Consulate at Yokohama on 6 September and HMAS Nepal (Lieutenant Commander C.J. Stephenson, RAN) having arrived that day assisted with the landing of senior officers who were attending the reopening, as a military HQs of the British Embassy in Tokyo.

     MacArthur’s redesignation as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and his relocation to Tokyo required changes in Australian accreditation to his HQ. Previously in May 1945 approximately 90 Australians were serving with MacArthur’s General Headquarters, South West Pacific Area, then located in Manila. However, by September 1945 a new organisation, to reflect the changed circumstances and to be known as the ‘AMF Liaison Section’, was approved to be attached to MacArthur’s new head quarters in Tokyo, which was to be known as either General Headquarters Allied Forces Pacific or General Headquarters, SCAR. This section was commanded by Brigadier W.M. Anderson, DSO and was to comprise five officers and 24 other ranks, with a further establishment of two officers and 17 other ranks for communication duties. Both establishments were later increased and Anderson and some staff arrived in Tokyo on 2 October 1945.

     Australia also contributed what was known as the ‘Australian Services Mission’ to MacArthur’s General Headquarters. Following a War Cabinet decision of 19 September 1945 this mission was ‘to proceed to Tokyo at once to make preliminary arrangements on a Service level for the despatch of an Australian force to Japan. The mission will also cooperate with UK and Dominion representatives concerned in any preliminary action that may be taken in relation to other components of the British Commonwealth Force.’ Commodore J.A. Collins, RAN, Brigadier Anderson, AMF, and Air Commodore F.R.W. Scherger, RAAF, comprised this mission and subsequently Mr B.C. Ballard and Mr J.A. Forsythe from the Department of External Affairs were attached to the mission. Arrangements were also made to provide support personnel including drivers and a senior signals officer.2

     On 28 October 1945 members of the 88th Australian High Speed Wireless Section (Captain R.J.S. McDonald) were des- patched from Morotai to Tokyo to establish a local signals centre and formally opened direct Australian communications between Tokyo and Melbourne on 30 January 1946. Later this detachment moved to Kure where it opened communications with Melbourne on 10 February.

     HMA Ships Nizam and Warramunga assisted during September 1945 with the recovery of allied personnel from prisoner of war camps and their transfer to Yokohama for attention and onward movement. Members of the 1st Australian POW Contact and Inquiry Unit landed at Nagasaki in September 1945 and made contact with the 20 to 30 Australian POW survivors located there and set in train the arrangements for their repatriation.3 All allied POWs and the ashes of their dead comrades had been cleared from the POW camps in the Hiroshima area by 13 September 1945 and further investigations were undertaken by the Australian Liaison Team No. 4, commanded by Lieutenant R.H. Millynn, MF, which in company with a similar US team, disembarked at Kure on 7 October. Millynn recovered more ashes of British POWs and Japanese records of a further 18 Australian dead, mainly from the 2/19th and 2/20th Battalions, who had died in POW camps in Hiroshima Prefecture.

     During September-October Ballarat, Hobart, Nizam, Nepal, Quickmatch and Warramunga, departed Japan in company with HMAS Arunta. They returned to Tokyo on 17 November. On 18 November Shropshire left for Sydney. For the period 6-24 December 1945, Commodore Collins, in Hobart, was Flag Officer, ‘T’ Force and the senior British Naval officer afloat, until the appointment was filled by a Royal Navy officer, Rear Admiral E.R. Archer, CBE, DSC. Wing Commander G.A. Cooper was OIC, RAAF Survey team, which was located in Tokyo, and Colonel McGowan was based in Kure to conduct the initial assessment of the situation with regard to future deployments.

     HMAS Warramunga arrived at Kure, the port destined to service the BCOF on 1 February 1946. This followed the arrival in Japan over the period 13-18 January 1946 of reconnaissance parties led by Colonel A.G. Wilson, who was the designated commander of the British Commonwealth Forces Base to be established in Kure. A RAAF team was also tasked with a detailed survey of the airfields at Iwakuni and Hiroshima with regard to their future use. An advanced HQ for the BCOF, under Brigadier W.M. Anderson, DSO, was built around elements of the Australian Liasion Section at SCAP and those flown in from the staff who had been assembled in Melbourne. (The first US troops arrived in the Kure area on 26 September 1945 with the principal formations of X US Corps disembarking into the area from 7 October 1945.)

     Meanwhile, HMA Ships Hobart and Arunta arrived in Kure. Hobart provided 350 personnel for port operations ashore from 1 February 1946 and Arunta met and escorted into Japanese waters the first major contingent of Australian troops carried on the US victory ship Stamford Victory, which arrived in Kure on 13 February 1946. A second contingent on Taos Victory, arrived in Kure on 21 February under the escort of Force ‘A’, which included HMAS Murchison (Lieutenant Commander J.McL. Adams, RAN). Murchison was to visit Hiroshima before making a round trip from Morotai to Kure and subsequently left Japan on 8 April.

     Hobart and Arunta left Japan during March and HM Hospital Ship Manunda arrived in Kure on 24 March carrying’ the main body of personnel and stores for 130 Australian General Hospital (AGH). On 13 April HMAS Quiberon arrived in Kure to be employed on duties associated with the destruction of Japanese submarines. During late May Warramunga was used to ferry personnel contributing to the Empire Day parade in Tokyo and over the three months from July to September HMAS Quadrant, Quiberon and Quickmatch undertook a range of naval duties in support of the occupation.

PUTTING THE FORCE INTO PLACE IN JAPAN

    Following the Australian Prime Minister’s announcement on 31 January 1946 that the US Government formally approved participation by British Commonwealth forces in the Occupation, HQ Morotai Force was authorised on 2 February 1946 to commence the loading of troops and stores on the Stamford Victory.4 On 5 February 1946 elements of the BCOF Advance Party, based at Morotai, emplaned forJapan, arriving there on 10 February 1946. Three days later the Stamford Victory, with 1122 troops aboard arrived at Kure, to be followed by a second convoy including the Taos Victory on 21 February and on 23 February the Pachaug Victory. In total, about 4000 Australian personnel disembarked from these convoys.

     The primary means of transport for personnel and stores for the BCOF to and from Japan was by ship. The initial deployment of the main body, which had been concentrated at Morotai, commenced in February 1946 and utilised the services of three Victory ships: the Stamford Victory, the Taos Victory and the Pachaug Victory. These ships displaced 7000 tons, had crews of 84 and made 17 knots on the journey of 2300 miles between Morotai and Kure, a journey of four days. In addition to the Victory ships the RAN provided three armed merchant cruisers: HMAS Kanimbla, Manoora and Duntroon. Each displaced approximately 11,000 tons and converted to a configuration as Landing Ships Infantry (LSI)

     The bulk of troops moved from Labuan, where the 81st Wing RAAF had been concentrated, in a convoy led by a LSI, HMS Glengyle, three Landing Ships Tank (LST), and the Australian ship River Murrumbidgee. This convoy commenced loading on 7 March and finally departed on 24 March 1946, escorted by two corvettes, including HMAS Murchison. The convoy arrived in Kure Harbour on 1 April when personnel were disembarked for onward movement by bus and train to Bofu.

     The fighter squadrons had earlier departed on the first leg of the 3100-mile flight Labuan-Manila-Okinawa-Bofu on successive days from 28 February and were finally assembled at Bofu, the eventual home of the 81st Wing in Japan by 21 March. The first flight of 12 Mustangs, accompanied by a Catalina and a Beau fighter, in what was to be the longest ferry of RAAF aircraft (in total 120 aircraft), arrived at Iwakuni on 9 March 1946. Tragedy, however, was to strike during this transit on 18 March when three Mustangs and an escorting Mosquito aircraft (Flying Officer A. Pilkinton and Flight Sergeant G. Saywell) of 82nd Squadron disappeared in adverse flying conditions when 40 miles from Bofu. No trace of the three pilots was ever found, although the bodies of two aircrew were subsequently recovered from their wrecked aircraft at Cape Otaki on Shikoku. The reason for the disappearance was to remain a mystery.

     The bulk of the force arriving by ship in Kure Harbour did so in February and March 1946 to a scene of devastation, described by one observer as ‘this abomination of desolation’. Kure had been the principal Japanese naval shipping port since 1883 and ‘the area included the largest combined dockyard, shipbuilding yard and naval arsenal in the country’. Kure had been heavily bombed by the US Air Corps, particularly in the final months of the war. The harbour was littered with hulks, including the aircraft carrier Akagi, and the wharf and foreshore areas were a scene of burnt-out and flattened buildings, including the shell of the giant Mitsubishi factory. The business centre of the city had been destroyed by bombing.

    Moreover, for troops acclimatised to tropical conditions the initial impact of the Japanese winter, added to their sense of desolation. The temperature was close to zero in the winter months, and many of the Australians had not seen snow before.

     Upon disembarkation troops were moved to their locations. Bombardier W.J. Cameron, RAA wrote that for the men of ‘A’ Battery this meant a trip by truck around the coastal road:

'to Kaitaichi, a big flat area just above sea level, covered with large warehouses. Our sheds were empty and heated by 200 litre drum braziers. Cardboard and newspaper were much sought after for mattresses, as we were still travelling in our kit bags and the concrete floors were hard and cold. Later stretchers and more bedding arrived and other amenities, and before next winter time there were partitions and smaller rooms with oil heaters, and real hot and cold showers.'5

     Initially, these troops were fed on ‘iron rations’ and it was some time before this situation, including the problems of clearing food supplied through the docks at Kure, was sorted out. Once these troops had settled into their new quarters foot drill was begun immediately but quickly cancelled when ‘the whole unit went down with crippled heels, presumably because of the change of climate’. This meant that the amount of technical training increased and civil education classes in English and Maths were conducted.

     Troops of the 13th Australian Army Troops Company (13 AATC) disembarked from the Taos Victory on 22 February 1946. The unit then moved to a two-storey timber naval barracks at what was known as Camp Point, Kure, an area of reclaimed land constructed from earth and rock excavated from the surrounding hills in order to house, in tunnels, workshops for the manufacture of torpedoes. 13 AATC was to share the Camp Point area with the 10th Bomb Disposal Unit, the 6th Australian Welding Platoon and the Water Transport Unit.6

     Australian engineers were in constant demand in the initial stages of the occupation. The 6th Welding Platoon, for example, was engaged on the construction of warehouses, welding work and in the dismantling of Japanese submarines located at EtaJima. Engineer advance parties had ascertained that only 25 per cent of the accommodation required for troops could be refurbished and that the remaining 75 per cent would have to be built. However, the immediate priorities were the re-establishment of essential services and the provision of hospital accommodation. Both objectives were frustrated by the shortages of suitable materials, and it was not until September 1946 that all personnel had been housed in some form of temporary accommodation.

     Members of the 20th Field Ambulance were based at Kaitaichi in barracks described as ‘the most inadequate of all the made quate accommodation in the BCOF area’. As one veteran recalled:

'two blankets were better than none. By putting on an extra uniform at night, and wrapping up in groundsheet and sisalcraft and laying a great coat over all, it was possible to achieve a modicum of warmth though often the natural ventilation of a concrete floored ware house devoid of doors and windows, and lacking large areas of roofing defeated all attempts at sleep.'7

    Despite these unpromising conditions the unit established an effective medical organisation with a main dressing station at Kaitaichi and advanced dressing stations at Okayama, Fukuyama and at the camp hospital at Ebisu in Tokyo.

     The 122nd Transport Platoon disembarked at Kure on 13 Feb ruary 1946 and having drawn 40 vehicles from a US ordnance unit was immediately deployed on moving supplies from the docks area. To reach the widely dispersed units the platoon had to contend with badly damaged roads and fierce weather conditions.

     The RAAF contingent disembarked on 23 February and in greatcoats and battle order marched through the streets of Kure before taking a train to Iwakuni. This bitterly cold journey took the party through the centre of the devastated city of Hiroshima. As for other members of the force, their accommodation proved to be spartan without heating, hot water and the means to prevent the icy winds from permeating every nook and cranny. The dangers of temporary expedients to keep warm were vividly dem onstrated when a fire, in a building occupied by US personnel nearby, swept into the Australian lines and destroyed four two storey barrack blocks. The efforts by RAAF and Japanese fire crews to control the blaze were hampered when stored ammunition began to explode.

     A second aspect of the changed climatic conditions for the men of the force was demonstrated soon after their arrival. On 6 April Kure felt the tail end of a typhoon, but it was not until 29 July 1946 that the full effects of a typhoon were felt when the area was buffeted by strong winds and heavy rain, which caused damage to buildings. However, the most severe example of the region’s natural phenomena occurred on 21 December 1946 when Kure was struck by an earth tremor, which was caused by an underwater eruption west of Shikoku Island. Most of the impact of this eruption was absorbed by the island but the resultant tidal wave left over 600 people dead, over 600 injured and 1,000 houses destroyed or damaged.

COMPOSITION OF THE BCOF

The British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan (BCOF) comprised elements drawn from the armed forces of Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. At its maximum a strength, as at 1 February 1947, there were approximately 37,000 personnel involved. The Australians comprised about 33 per cent of the force, the Indians about 30 per cent, the British about 20 per cent and the New Zealanders about 17 per cent.

The BCOF, at its peak, comprised:

Naval Shore Base (HMS Commonwealth);

HQ British-Indian Division comprising 5 (UK) Infantry Brigade and 268 (India) Infantry Brigade;

Australian Brigade Group - 34 Australian Infantry Brigade;

2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force;8

HQ British Commonwealth Base comprising force and base units; and

HQ British Commonwealth Air, comprising a station HQ two RAF squadrons and one RIAF squadron, a second station HQ with one RNZAF squadron, one communications squadron and a squadron of the RAF Regiment; and 81st Wing (RAAF) of three fighter squadrons (76, 77 and 82); 5ACS and from May 1946, 381 (B) Squadron.

    The British-Indian Division, known as BRINDIV, had under command, 5 (UK) Brigade, comprising the 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, the 2nd Dorsetshire Regiment and 1st Battalion, The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders; and 268 (md) Brigade comprising 5/1st Punjabi, 1st Mahratta and 2/5th Royal Gurkha Regiment, a light cavalry regiment, one battery of the 10th Field Regiment, and one battery of the 7th Indian Field Regiment.

     34 (Aust) Brigade Group comprised 65th, 66th and 67th Australian Infantry Battalions, the 1st Australian Armoured Car Squadron, ‘A’ Field Battery RAA and the 28th Field Squadron RAE and supporting units.

     9 (NZ) Infantry Brigade (to become 2nd NZ Expeditionary Force) comprised 2nd (NZ) Divisional Cavalry Regiment, 22nd and 27th (NZ) Battalions, 25th (NZ) Battery and supporting units.

MATTERS OF COMMAND AND CONTROL

    The BCOF was commanded by an Australian, Lieutenant General J. Northcott, CB, MVO. He was Commander-in-Chief until 15 June 1946 when he was succeeded by another Australian, Lieutenant General H.C.H. Robertson, CBE, DSO. Northcott accepted responsibility for Hiroshima Prefecture from the 24th US Division from 7 March 1946, but was to depart on 24 June 1946 to become Governor of NSW.

     The C-in-C, BCOF had direct access to General MacArthur on matters of major policy related to the operational commitment of BCOF forces and was responsible to the governments of those forces within BCOF through the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Australia (JCOSA) located in Melbourne. The JCOSA comprised the Australian Chiefs of Staff and representatives of the Chiefs of Staff in the UK and NZ and the C-in-C, India. Instructions to the C-in-C, BCOF were issued by the Australian Chiefs of Staff. On matters of policy C-in-C, BCOF raised matters through JCOSA to the Australian Government as representative of the other governments involved.

     Under the MacArthur-Northcott Agreement, the BCOF was placed under the command of MacArthur, who assigned the land forces to the operational control of the Commanding General, Eighth US Army, and the air forces to operational control of Commanding General, Pacific Air Command, US Army, as exercised by the 5th US Air Force.

     The naval forces were grouped as a squadron of the British Pacific Fleet and known as Force ‘T’ and remained under the command of the British Admiralty but with operational control of the Admiral of the US Fleet.

     The initial area allocated to the BCOF covered the prefectures of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, but was subsequently increased to include the prefectures of Shimane, Tottori and Okayama on Honshu and those of Kagawa, Ehime, Kochi and Tokushima on the island of Shikoku. The total area covered by the BCOF responsibility was approximately 19,000 square miles with a pop ulation of about nine million in 1946, out of a total of some 77 million in the country.

     BCOF dispositions were as follows:

HQ BCOF, which opened initially at Kure on 20 February 1946, relocated in May 1946 to the more substantial accommodation at the former Japanese Naval College at Eta Jima, an island in Kure Bay some five miles west of Kure.

HQ British Commonwealth Base was located in Kure.

HQ BRINDIV (commanded by Major General D. Tennant Cowan) was at Okayama with an area of responsibility covering HQ 5 (UK) Brigade at Kochi and the prefectures of Kochi, Tokushima, Ehime and Kagawa on the island of Shikoku and HQ 268 (md) Brigade at Matsue on the north coast of Honshu and the prefectures of Okayama, Tottori and Shimane on Honshu.

HQ 34 Brigade, (commanded by Brigadier R.N.L. Hopkins, who was appointed on 18 April and took up his appointment on 13 May 1946 ) initially located at Kaitaichi but then at Hiro (8 July) had responsibility for Hiroshima Prefecture. The 65th Battalion was based at Fukuyama, the 66th Battalion at Hiro and the 67th Battalion at Kaitaichi.

HQ 2nd NZEF (initially commanded by Brigadier K.L. Stewart, then Brigadier L. Potter from 6 July 1946) located at Chofu, at the southern end of Honshu, had responsibility for Yamaguchi Prefecture.

HQ BCAIR (Air Office Commanding, an Australian, Air Vice Marshal C.A. Bouchier, CB, CBE, DFC) opened at Iwakuni on 1 March 1946 with stations at Miho in Shimane; and 81st Wing (RAAF) (Wing Commander G.A. Cooper, DFC from 6 February 1946) at Bofu in Yamaguchi.

HMS Commonwealth (commanded by Captain J.A. Grindle CB,RN) was located in Kure. Initially, designated Force ‘C’, the naval port party comprised a small fleet of RN vessels commanded from HMS Glenearn and including an escort, two oil tankers, a water tanker, a stores carrier, repairs and heavy lift ships, and a HMLST, plus the 10th Minesweeping Flotilla.

HQ British Commonwealth Area was established in Tokyo in May 1946 to coordinate all BCOF activities and personnel in the Tokyo-Yokohama Area and to provide administrative sup port for British Commonwealth missions in that area.

The earlier presence of US forces in the area to be taken over by the BCOF provided a useful infrastructure upon which to further develop the communications requirements of the force. The BCOF Signal Office was operational in Kure from 10 February 1946 and the British Commonwealth Sub Area Signals Office established in Tokyo from 5 April, providing communications to the various military and civilian organisations by then located in Tokyo. As the various units moved to their many locations, the necessary signals networks were put in place.

THE PRACTICALITIES OF COMMAND AND CONTROL

     General Robertson’s assumption to office as C-in-C, BCOF carried with it not only the ramifications of a very different personality to that of Northcott but maintained the Australian dominance of the command structure of the BCOF.9 Robertson had some private misgivings as to the organisational arrangements Northcott had set in place and he, Robertson, quickly reordered these. Robertson arrived in Tokyo late on 10 June 1946 and met in succession his predecessor General Northcott; Mr Macmahon Ball, the Australian Representative on the Allied Control Council for Japan (ACCJ); General MacArthur (SCAP) and his senior staff; and General Eichelberger, Commanding General, US Eighth Army. He also inspected the C-in-C’s Tokyo office located in Empire House and Ebisu Camp, which was being refurbished as the quarters for the Australian Battalion rotated for duty in the Tokyo area.

     When in Tokyo Robertson initially stayed with Alvary Gascoyne, the Head of the UK Liaison Mission, or with Macmahon Ball, but later established himself and his senior staff at the former Siamese Legation residence. As he was to spend between a third and a half of his time in Tokyo, he was travelling frequently, usually by train between Tokyo and Kure. First located at the White House in Kure, HQ BCOF was moved to the former Naval Academy on the island of Eta Jima. Robertson’s private residence was located in Kure and this meant that each day he undertook a 30-minute trip by car, ferry and car to and from his
HQ.

     Robertson was faced early on in his new command with a number of substantial difficulties. The first obvious crack in the BCOF’s integrated command structure was caused by concerns within the New Zealand contingent over the command of their personnel and the integrity of their general hospita’. Both matters were resolved satisfactorily. Next came a disagreement with Eichelberger over Robertson’s freedom of movement within Japan, but this also was resolved.10

     However, much more deep-seated and longstanding were Robertson’s difficult relationships with individual British officers. The first of these was with Major General Tennant Cowan, who commanded the British-Indian Division. Northcott had advised Robertson that Cowan had expected that he was to command an entirely British Force in Japan and then found that the Australians were to command it.11 Moreover, following Northcott’s appoint ment as Governor of NSW, Cowan, as the then next senior officer, expected to become C-in-C. There followed a number of incidents involving the distribution of rations and light globes within Cowan’s division, an associated series of incidents involving the respective status of each general and Robertson’s private views about the efficiency of Cowan’s HQ which merely strained the relationship further.12

     Much more substantial were to be Robertson’s difficulties with the two senior representatives of the British Government in Japan:Lieutenant General Gairdner, whom Northcott had described to Robertson as ‘a relic from a wartime appointment as Winston Churchill’s personal representative at MacArthur’s Headquarters’; and Gascoyne, the Head of the UK Liaison Mission. Robertson wrote that Northcott ‘regarded it as an insult to him that there should be a UK lieutenant general still in Tokyo and he took the view, which I shared with him, that if BCOF was really to represent the British Commonwealth in Japan, then it should be so, and all other service personnel from the British Commonwealth in Japan should come under the control of the BCOF organisation’.13

    Robertson’s early contacts with Gascoyne were friendly but with the passage of time it became obvious that ‘his policy was quite definitely to be in every way independent of BCOF and to restore a UK embassy in Japan’ and ‘to demand as a right that they should share in everything which BCOF had’. With the eventual build-up of the staffing of missions in Japan these demands were to become much more burdensome. The situation was further complicated in that Gascoyne had been given the personal rank of Ambassador whereas Macmahon Ball had the personal (lower) rank of Minister. Robertson was to observe, concerning Macmahon Ball that:

'His position, therefore, was rather embarrassed by the arrival of a representative from the UK with the personal rank of ambassador, and it therefore became quite obvious that, although Australia might represent the British Commonwealth on the Allied Council, UK had no intention of taking any subordinate position on the diplomatic side and had already placed a senior man in Japan to deal with UK affairs quite independently of any British Commonwealth set up.'14

Gairdner, who had been absent from Tokyo when Robertson arrived, returned and this obliged Gascoyne to ask Robertson about the vexed questions of seniority. Robertson reiterated his view that he, Robertson, was the senior British Commonwealth representative in Japan. Moreover, as the peace treaty with Japan had yet to be signed ‘no ambassadors could be accreditated to the Japanese Government’. Robertson said that ‘with regard to Gairdner, I did not recognise his position at all for there was nothing in the Far Eastern Commission decisions or in the JCOSA organisation which provided for any other representation of the British Commonwealth in Japan other than BCOF and the missions from the various countries accredited to SCAP’.15

Robertson wrote that Gascoyne informed him ‘that Gairdner regarded it otherwise and that he considered himself senior to both Gascoyne and myself and that my area was only that occu pied by the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, that I had no position or status in Tokyo at all, and that he was the official British Commonwealth representative with SCAP’. Robertson was quick to dismiss these claims, on the grounds that he was the official representative, that there were no national areas under the occupation and that he (Robertson) had direct access to the SCAP. Despite this frank exchange, the questions of relative status between the three protagonists were to continue unabated with major arguments over the flying of pennants, precedence at parades, accommodation, the use of official aircraft and other trivialities.16

THE BURDENS OF ADMINISTRATION

    A feature of the early period of the occupation was the extraordinary difficulty of administering the force. The most complete and perceptive record available is that prepared by an Australian ordnance corps officer, Captain, later to be Colonel, H.M. Pickering.

     The magnitude and complexity of the task placed upon the Australian Army particularly arose from the policy decision that the maintenance of the whole force, at its peak in August 1946 of 40,000 personnel, from four nations and three services, was an Australian responsibility. The bulk of supplies were to be drawn from Australian and New Zealand sources given that the Japanese economy was in ruins.

     The initial plan envisaged a system of maintenance organised into three phases. During the ‘Initial Phase’, until 1 August 1946, each national component was to maintain itself. During the ‘Interim Phase’, from 1 August 1946 until 31 December 1946, Australia was to assume full responsibility for the other national contingents. The ‘Long Term Phase’ commenced on 1 January 1947.

    Implementation of the plan was undertaken in the most trying of conditions short of actual combat. Although the 21st Australian Advanced Ordnance Depot (21 AAOD) was raised in Morotai as part of 34 Brigade on 3 October 1945 and preparations and training undertaken for the move to Japan, this unit like others suffered from the inroads of delay. Moreover, no ordnance corps representative was included in the initial reconnaissance parties and 21 AAOD, a key element in the establishment of an effective maintenance system, was to arrive at Kure on the Stamford Victory on 13 February along with the first major contingent of Australian personnel, vehicles and supplies.

     Following disembarkation, the unit marched 200 metres from the wharf to its new location amongst the ruins of the Kure docks area. Members of the unit then set about the concurrent tasks of settling in and establishing a base ordnance depot to receive stores, protect them and issue them. Typically, 21 AAOD also fostered the personnel of some of the multitude of service units (12th Australian Advanced Medical Stores, a detachment of the Amenities Unit, 12th Lines of Communications Unit, the Base Postal Unit and 1st Australian Salvage Unit) required to maintain a military force committed immediately to its operational duties. Immediate and effective liaison was required with the advance party of the Australian Army Service Corps, responsible for transport and the 42nd Port Operating Company responsible for the utilisation of Japanese civilian labour in the wharf area. Also an ammunition section and vehicle park section were established nearby at Hiro.

     Pickering covers in detail the problems caused by delay, untrained and inexperienced staff, inadequate preparation, shortages, the extreme physical conditions, the multinational composition of the force and the frustrations of administrative procedures. Nevertheless, his account tells also of soldiers getting on with the job, whatever the circumstances. By the end of April 1946 he was able to record:

'All ordnance units were fully functioning; the Base Vehicle Depot had received 723 vehicles [ in poor condition] with 136 vehicles issued and 182 serviced; the Base Ordnance Depot, under canvas at Hiro, had received 450 tons of ammunition; 16 Australian Mobile Laundry and Forward Decontamination Unit had arrived and estab lished itself; 10 Section Officers’ Shop was operating and that a Furniture Repair Factory had been established. Between February and 30 April 1946, a constant stream of personnel, vehicles and almost 250,000 tons of cargo had passed through the facilities established at Kure port.'17

The demands of the administration of the force were to exercise commanders at all levels. In his Valedictory Report to the JCOSA, dated 25 July 1946, the first C-in-C, BCOF, Northcott, summarised the major difficulties that had beset the force in the following terms:

'The Plan for the participation of the British Commonwealth Force in the Occupation of Japan is still being prepared by JCOSA, although the important day to day administrative sec tions are being implemented. Speedy decisions on policy matters are seldom possible when at least four Governments, their Chiefs of Staff, Treasury and other State Departments are directly concerned.

In the initial stages, the provision of integrated units was limited to Force HQ and Base HQ. The Plan lays down the policy of integration for all things common to BCOF ... but each contingent is not adequately represented ... there are differences in organisation as well as psychological variations between elements which make complete integration difficult.

My Directive was still in draft when my appointment terminated, although certain of the contents have been acted upon. On the other hand, the commander 9 NZ INF BDE has always had a separate directive from his Government which made him virtually independent in all matters except operational control.

The natural tendency of Commanders is to follow instructions issued by their own national headquarters prior to their arrival in Japan.

The manning position with British units, both Army and RAF has steadily deteriorated owing to heavy drains of repatriation and undue delay in sending forward the necessary reinforcements.

9 NZ INF BDE came to Japan without medical stores ... 130 AGH has a war establishment of 300 beds. There are now over 600 patients in the hospital. There has been a considerable incidence of VD among all contingents.

It is important that the supply of fresh vegetables to Japan is maintained, as Occupation forces are not permitted to obtain food from civilian sources.

The vehicles of both NZ and Australian units were generally in poor condition on arrival and due to limited workshop facilities it has been difficult to cope with this repair commitment.

The two Docks Operating Companys working under adverse weather conditions with mediocre Japanese labour, dealt with a heavy flow of shipping. The average discharge rate exceeded 3000 tons a day.

Weather between Japan and the Empire countries has interrupted mail services and on occasions mail had been jettisoned to prevent aircraft crashing.

Considerable effort have been devoted to the setting up of leave centres.

An extensive labour organisation has been established and already 18,000 Japanese labourers are being employed in connection with the repair and maintenance of buildings, roads, drainage and sewerage installations, and in the disposal of Jap anese equipment.

Dependants must be brought to Japan as early as practicable. A number of officers and NCOs have been separated from their families for long periods.

It is important that a suitable organisation for dealing with Social Welfare of the troops should be maintained throughout the Force. Many of the voluntary organisations in home countries have now been disbanded and the contacts with dependants where assistance is required is most important to morale.'18

CHAPTER 3: 'THIS ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION'
contents I ch 1 I ch 2 I ch 3 I ch 4 I ch 5 I ch 6 I ch 7 I ch 8 I ch 9 I ch 10
Putting the Force into Place in Japan
Composition of the BCOF
Matters of Command and Control
The Practicalities of Command and Control
The Burdens of Administration
Footnotes
The allied occupation of Japan was conducted by both US forces and what was known as the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), which included contingents from Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the early days of the occupation there were moves to include national forces from China and the Soviet Union, but for a variety of reasons these forces were not despatched, although, following the Soviet Union’s declaration of war in August 1945, Soviet troops moved into permanent occupation of what is known as the Northern Territories of Japan. US forces in the closing days of the war and in a series of bitter battles at places such as Okinawa and Iwo Jima were gaining control of the Japanese islands as a prelude to the main assault. The dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in the Japanese surrender with a cessation of hostilities effective from 15 August 1945, although there were some delays in communicating this decision to all Japanese combatants. The first US forces to come ashore on the main island of Honshu did so at Atsugi on 28 August 1945. Arrangements were put in hand which enabled the formal act of surrender to be received on board the US battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 by US General Douglas MacArthur. He had formerly been Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area, but with effect from 15 August 1945 he became Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and was charged by the US President to accept the surrender of Japanese forces. Lieutenant General Thomas Blamey signed the surrender document on behalf of the Australian Government. Also present in Tokyo Bay representing the Royal Australian Navy were His Majesty’s Australian Ships Ballarat, Bataan, Cessnock, Hobart, Ipswich, Napier, Nizam, and Warramunga under Commodore J.A. Collins, CB aboard HMAS Shropshire.1 Prior to the formal surrender a British landing force under the command of Captain H.J. Buchanan, DSO, RAN in HMAS Napier, had gone ashore on 30 August 1945 at Yokosuka Naval Dockyard. HMAS Nizam (Lieutenant Commander W.F. Cook, RAN) landed the Royal Marine Guard for the British Consulate at Yokohama on 6 September and HMAS Nepal (Lieutenant Commander C.J. Stephenson, RAN) having arrived that day assisted with the landing of senior officers who were attending the reopening, as a military HQs of the British Embassy in Tokyo. MacArthur’s redesignation as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and his relocation to Tokyo required changes in Australian accreditation to his HQ. Previously in May 1945 approximately 90 Australians were serving with MacArthur’s General Headquarters, South West Pacific Area, then located in Manila. However, by September 1945 a new organisation, to reflect the changed circumstances and to be known as the ‘AMF Liaison Section’, was approved to be attached to MacArthur’s new head quarters in Tokyo, which was to be known as either General Headquarters Allied Forces Pacific or General Headquarters, SCAR. This section was commanded by Brigadier W.M. Anderson, DSO and was to comprise five officers and 24 other ranks, with a further establishment of two officers and 17 other ranks for communication duties. Both establishments were later increased and Anderson and some staff arrived in Tokyo on 2 October 1945. Australia also contributed what was known as the ‘Australian Services Mission’ to MacArthur’s General Headquarters. Following a War Cabinet decision of 19 September 1945 this mission was ‘to proceed to Tokyo at once to make preliminary arrangements on a Service level for the despatch of an Australian force to Japan. The mission will also cooperate with UK and Dominion representatives concerned in any preliminary action that may be taken in relation to other components of the British Commonwealth Force.’ Commodore J.A. Collins, RAN, Brigadier Anderson, AMF, and Air Commodore F.R.W. Scherger, RAAF, comprised this mission and subsequently Mr B.C. Ballard and Mr J.A. Forsythe from the Department of External Affairs were attached to the mission. Arrangements were also made to provide support personnel including drivers and a senior signals officer.2 On 28 October 1945 members of the 88th Australian High Speed Wireless Section (Captain R.J.S. McDonald) were des- patched from Morotai to Tokyo to establish a local signals centre and formally opened direct Australian communications between Tokyo and Melbourne on 30 January 1946. Later this detachment moved to Kure where it opened communications with Melbourne on 10 February. HMA Ships Nizam and Warramunga assisted during September 1945 with the recovery of allied personnel from prisoner of war camps and their transfer to Yokohama for attention and onward movement. Members of the 1st Australian POW Contact and Inquiry Unit landed at Nagasaki in September 1945 and made contact with the 20 to 30 Australian POW survivors located there and set in train the arrangements for their repatriation.3 All allied POWs and the ashes of their dead comrades had been cleared from the POW camps in the Hiroshima area by 13 September 1945 and further investigations were undertaken by the Australian Liaison Team No. 4, commanded by Lieutenant R.H. Millynn, MF, which in company with a similar US team, disembarked at Kure on 7 October. Millynn recovered more ashes of British POWs and Japanese records of a further 18 Australian dead, mainly from the 2/19th and 2/20th Battalions, who had died in POW camps in Hiroshima Prefecture. During September-October Ballarat, Hobart, Nizam, Nepal, Quickmatch and Warramunga, departed Japan in company with HMAS Arunta. They returned to Tokyo on 17 November. On 18 November Shropshire left for Sydney. For the period 6-24 December 1945, Commodore Collins, in Hobart, was Flag Officer, ‘T’ Force and the senior British Naval officer afloat, until the appointment was filled by a Royal Navy officer, Rear Admiral E.R. Archer, CBE, DSC. Wing Commander G.A. Cooper was OIC, RAAF Survey team, which was located in Tokyo, and Colonel McGowan was based in Kure to conduct the initial assessment of the situation with regard to future deployments. HMAS Warramunga arrived at Kure, the port destined to service the BCOF on 1 February 1946. This followed the arrival in Japan over the period 13-18 January 1946 of reconnaissance parties led by Colonel A.G. Wilson, who was the designated commander of the British Commonwealth Forces Base to be established in Kure. A RAAF team was also tasked with a detailed survey of the airfields at Iwakuni and Hiroshima with regard to their future use. An advanced HQ for the BCOF, under Brigadier W.M. Anderson, DSO, was built around elements of the Australian Liasion Section at SCAP and those flown in from the staff who had been assembled in Melbourne. (The first US troops arrived in the Kure area on 26 September 1945 with the principal formations of X US Corps disembarking into the area from 7 October 1945.) Meanwhile, HMA Ships Hobart and Arunta arrived in Kure. Hobart provided 350 personnel for port operations ashore from 1 February 1946 and Arunta met and escorted into Japanese waters the first major contingent of Australian troops carried on the US victory ship Stamford Victory, which arrived in Kure on 13 February 1946. A second contingent on Taos Victory, arrived in Kure on 21 February under the escort of Force ‘A’, which included HMAS Murchison (Lieutenant Commander J.McL. Adams, RAN). Murchison was to visit Hiroshima before making a round trip from Morotai to Kure and subsequently left Japan on 8 April. Hobart and Arunta left Japan during March and HM Hospital Ship Manunda arrived in Kure on 24 March carrying’ the main body of personnel and stores for 130 Australian General Hospital (AGH). On 13 April HMAS Quiberon arrived in Kure to be employed on duties associated with the destruction of Japanese submarines. During late May Warramunga was used to ferry personnel contributing to the Empire Day parade in Tokyo and over the three months from July to September HMAS Quadrant, Quiberon and Quickmatch undertook a range of naval duties in support of the occupation. PUTTING THE FORCE INTO PLACE IN JAPAN Following the Australian Prime Minister’s announcement on 31 January 1946 that the US Government formally approved participation by British Commonwealth forces in the Occupation, HQ Morotai Force was authorised on 2 February 1946 to commence the loading of troops and stores on the Stamford Victory.4 On 5 February 1946 elements of the BCOF Advance Party, based at Morotai, emplaned forJapan, arriving there on 10 February 1946. Three days later the Stamford Victory, with 1122 troops aboard arrived at Kure, to be followed by a second convoy including the Taos Victory on 21 February and on 23 February the Pachaug Victory. In total, about 4000 Australian personnel disembarked from these convoys. The primary means of transport for personnel and stores for the BCOF to and from Japan was by ship. The initial deployment of the main body, which had been concentrated at Morotai, commenced in February 1946 and utilised the services of three Victory ships: the Stamford Victory, the Taos Victory and the Pachaug Victory. These ships displaced 7000 tons, had crews of 84 and made 17 knots on the journey of 2300 miles between Morotai and Kure, a journey of four days. In addition to the Victory ships the RAN provided three armed merchant cruisers: HMAS Kanimbla, Manoora and Duntroon. Each displaced approximately 11,000 tons and converted to a configuration as Landing Ships Infantry (LSI) The bulk of troops moved from Labuan, where the 81st Wing RAAF had been concentrated, in a convoy led by a LSI, HMS Glengyle, three Landing Ships Tank (LST), and the Australian ship River Murrumbidgee. This convoy commenced loading on 7 March and finally departed on 24 March 1946, escorted by two corvettes, including HMAS Murchison. The convoy arrived in Kure Harbour on 1 April when personnel were disembarked for onward movement by bus and train to Bofu. The fighter squadrons had earlier departed on the first leg of the 3100-mile flight Labuan-Manila-Okinawa-Bofu on successive days from 28 February and were finally assembled at Bofu, the eventual home of the 81st Wing in Japan by 21 March. The first flight of 12 Mustangs, accompanied by a Catalina and a Beau fighter, in what was to be the longest ferry of RAAF aircraft (in total 120 aircraft), arrived at Iwakuni on 9 March 1946. Tragedy, however, was to strike during this transit on 18 March when three Mustangs and an escorting Mosquito aircraft (Flying Officer A. Pilkinton and Flight Sergeant G. Saywell) of 82nd Squadron disappeared in adverse flying conditions when 40 miles from Bofu. No trace of the three pilots was ever found, although the bodies of two aircrew were subsequently recovered from their wrecked aircraft at Cape Otaki on Shikoku. The reason for the disappearance was to remain a mystery. The bulk of the force arriving by ship in Kure Harbour did so in February and March 1946 to a scene of devastation, described by one observer as ‘this abomination of desolation’. Kure had been the principal Japanese naval shipping port since 1883 and ‘the area included the largest combined dockyard, shipbuilding yard and naval arsenal in the country’. Kure had been heavily bombed by the US Air Corps, particularly in the final months of the war. The harbour was littered with hulks, including the aircraft carrier Akagi, and the wharf and foreshore areas were a scene of burnt-out and flattened buildings, including the shell of the giant Mitsubishi factory. The business centre of the city had been destroyed by bombing. Moreover, for troops acclimatised to tropical conditions the initial impact of the Japanese winter, added to their sense of desolation. The temperature was close to zero in the winter months, and many of the Australians had not seen snow before. Upon disembarkation troops were moved to their locations. Bombardier W.J. Cameron, RAA wrote that for the men of ‘A’ Battery this meant a trip by truck around the coastal road: 'to Kaitaichi, a big flat area just above sea level, covered with large warehouses. Our sheds were empty and heated by 200 litre drum braziers. Cardboard and newspaper were much sought after for mattresses, as we were still travelling in our kit bags and the concrete floors were hard and cold. Later stretchers and more bedding arrived and other amenities, and before next winter time there were partitions and smaller rooms with oil heaters, and real hot and cold showers.'5 Initially, these troops were fed on ‘iron rations’ and it was some time before this situation, including the problems of clearing food supplied through the docks at Kure, was sorted out. Once these troops had settled into their new quarters foot drill was begun immediately but quickly cancelled when ‘the whole unit went down with crippled heels, presumably because of the change of climate’. This meant that the amount of technical training increased and civil education classes in English and Maths were conducted. Troops of the 13th Australian Army Troops Company (13 AATC) disembarked from the Taos Victory on 22 February 1946. The unit then moved to a two-storey timber naval barracks at what was known as Camp Point, Kure, an area of reclaimed land constructed from earth and rock excavated from the surrounding hills in order to house, in tunnels, workshops for the manufacture of torpedoes. 13 AATC was to share the Camp Point area with the 10th Bomb Disposal Unit, the 6th Australian Welding Platoon and the Water Transport Unit.6 Australian engineers were in constant demand in the initial stages of the occupation. The 6th Welding Platoon, for example, was engaged on the construction of warehouses, welding work and in the dismantling of Japanese submarines located at EtaJima. Engineer advance parties had ascertained that only 25 per cent of the accommodation required for troops could be refurbished and that the remaining 75 per cent would have to be built. However, the immediate priorities were the re-establishment of essential services and the provision of hospital accommodation. Both objectives were frustrated by the shortages of suitable materials, and it was not until September 1946 that all personnel had been housed in some form of temporary accommodation. Members of the 20th Field Ambulance were based at Kaitaichi in barracks described as ‘the most inadequate of all the made quate accommodation in the BCOF area’. As one veteran recalled: 'two blankets were better than none. By putting on an extra uniform at night, and wrapping up in groundsheet and sisalcraft and laying a great coat over all, it was possible to achieve a modicum of warmth though often the natural ventilation of a concrete floored ware house devoid of doors and windows, and lacking large areas of roofing defeated all attempts at sleep.'7 Despite these unpromising conditions the unit established an effective medical organisation with a main dressing station at Kaitaichi and advanced dressing stations at Okayama, Fukuyama and at the camp hospital at Ebisu in Tokyo. The 122nd Transport Platoon disembarked at Kure on 13 Feb ruary 1946 and having drawn 40 vehicles from a US ordnance unit was immediately deployed on moving supplies from the docks area. To reach the widely dispersed units the platoon had to contend with badly damaged roads and fierce weather conditions. The RAAF contingent disembarked on 23 February and in greatcoats and battle order marched through the streets of Kure before taking a train to Iwakuni. This bitterly cold journey took the party through the centre of the devastated city of Hiroshima. As for other members of the force, their accommodation proved to be spartan without heating, hot water and the means to prevent the icy winds from permeating every nook and cranny. The dangers of temporary expedients to keep warm were vividly dem onstrated when a fire, in a building occupied by US personnel nearby, swept into the Australian lines and destroyed four two storey barrack blocks. The efforts by RAAF and Japanese fire crews to control the blaze were hampered when stored ammunition began to explode. A second aspect of the changed climatic conditions for the men of the force was demonstrated soon after their arrival. On 6 April Kure felt the tail end of a typhoon, but it was not until 29 July 1946 that the full effects of a typhoon were felt when the area was buffeted by strong winds and heavy rain, which caused damage to buildings. However, the most severe example of the region’s natural phenomena occurred on 21 December 1946 when Kure was struck by an earth tremor, which was caused by an underwater eruption west of Shikoku Island. Most of the impact of this eruption was absorbed by the island but the resultant tidal wave left over 600 people dead, over 600 injured and 1,000 houses destroyed or damaged. COMPOSITION OF THE BCOF The British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan (BCOF) comprised elements drawn from the armed forces of Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. At its maximum a strength, as at 1 February 1947, there were approximately 37,000 personnel involved. The Australians comprised about 33 per cent of the force, the Indians about 30 per cent, the British about 20 per cent and the New Zealanders about 17 per cent. The BCOF, at its peak, comprised: HQBCOF; Naval Shore Base (HMS Commonwealth); HQ British-Indian Division comprising 5 (UK) Infantry Brigade and 268 (India) Infantry Brigade; Australian Brigade Group - 34 Australian Infantry Brigade; 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force;8 HQ British Commonwealth Base comprising force and base units; and HQ British Commonwealth Air, comprising a station HQ two RAF squadrons and one RIAF squadron, a second station HQ with one RNZAF squadron, one communications squadron and a squadron of the RAF Regiment; and 81st Wing (RAAF) of three fighter squadrons (76, 77 and 82); 5ACS and from May 1946, 381 (B) Squadron. The British-Indian Division, known as BRINDIV, had under command, 5 (UK) Brigade, comprising the 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, the 2nd Dorsetshire Regiment and 1st Battalion, The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders; and 268 (md) Brigade comprising 5/1st Punjabi, 1st Mahratta and 2/5th Royal Gurkha Regiment, a light cavalry regiment, one battery of the 10th Field Regiment, and one battery of the 7th Indian Field Regiment. 34 (Aust) Brigade Group comprised 65th, 66th and 67th Australian Infantry Battalions, the 1st Australian Armoured Car Squadron, ‘A’ Field Battery RAA and the 28th Field Squadron RAE and supporting units. 9 (NZ) Infantry Brigade (to become 2nd NZ Expeditionary Force) comprised 2nd (NZ) Divisional Cavalry Regiment, 22nd and 27th (NZ) Battalions, 25th (NZ) Battery and supporting units. MATTERS OF COMMAND AND CONTROL The BCOF was commanded by an Australian, Lieutenant General J. Northcott, CB, MVO. He was Commander-in-Chief until 15 June 1946 when he was succeeded by another Australian, Lieutenant General H.C.H. Robertson, CBE, DSO. Northcott accepted responsibility for Hiroshima Prefecture from the 24th US Division from 7 March 1946, but was to depart on 24 June 1946 to become Governor of NSW. The C-in-C, BCOF had direct access to General MacArthur on matters of major policy related to the operational commitment of BCOF forces and was responsible to the governments of those forces within BCOF through the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Australia (JCOSA) located in Melbourne. The JCOSA comprised the Australian Chiefs of Staff and representatives of the Chiefs of Staff in the UK and NZ and the C-in-C, India. Instructions to the C-in-C, BCOF were issued by the Australian Chiefs of Staff. On matters of policy C-in-C, BCOF raised matters through JCOSA to the Australian Government as representative of the other governments involved. Under the MacArthur-Northcott Agreement, the BCOF was placed under the command of MacArthur, who assigned the land forces to the operational control of the Commanding General, Eighth US Army, and the air forces to operational control of Commanding General, Pacific Air Command, US Army, as exercised by the 5th US Air Force. The naval forces were grouped as a squadron of the British Pacific Fleet and known as Force ‘T’ and remained under the command of the British Admiralty but with operational control of the Admiral of the US Fleet. The initial area allocated to the BCOF covered the prefectures of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, but was subsequently increased to include the prefectures of Shimane, Tottori and Okayama on Honshu and those of Kagawa, Ehime, Kochi and Tokushima on the island of Shikoku. The total area covered by the BCOF responsibility was approximately 19,000 square miles with a pop ulation of about nine million in 1946, out of a total of some 77 million in the country. BCOF dispositions were as follows: HQ BCOF, which opened initially at Kure on 20 February 1946, relocated in May 1946 to the more substantial accommodation at the former Japanese Naval College at Eta Jima, an island in Kure Bay some five miles west of Kure. HQ British Commonwealth Base was located in Kure. HQ BRINDIV (commanded by Major General D. Tennant Cowan) was at Okayama with an area of responsibility covering HQ 5 (UK) Brigade at Kochi and the prefectures of Kochi, Tokushima, Ehime and Kagawa on the island of Shikoku and HQ 268 (md) Brigade at Matsue on the north coast of Honshu and the prefectures of Okayama, Tottori and Shimane on Honshu. HQ 34 Brigade, (commanded by Brigadier R.N.L. Hopkins, who was appointed on 18 April and took up his appointment on 13 May 1946 ) initially located at Kaitaichi but then at Hiro (8 July) had responsibility for Hiroshima Prefecture. The 65th Battalion was based at Fukuyama, the 66th Battalion at Hiro and the 67th Battalion at Kaitaichi. HQ 2nd NZEF (initially commanded by Brigadier K.L. Stewart, then Brigadier L. Potter from 6 July 1946) located at Chofu, at the southern end of Honshu, had responsibility for Yamaguchi Prefecture. HQ BCAIR (Air Office Commanding, an Australian, Air Vice Marshal C.A. Bouchier, CB, CBE, DFC) opened at Iwakuni on 1 March 1946 with stations at Miho in Shimane; and 81st Wing (RAAF) (Wing Commander G.A. Cooper, DFC from 6 February 1946) at Bofu in Yamaguchi. HMS Commonwealth (commanded by Captain J.A. Grindle CB,RN) was located in Kure. Initially, designated Force ‘C’, the naval port party comprised a small fleet of RN vessels commanded from HMS Glenearn and including an escort, two oil tankers, a water tanker, a stores carrier, repairs and heavy lift ships, and a HMLST, plus the 10th Minesweeping Flotilla. HQ British Commonwealth Area was established in Tokyo in May 1946 to coordinate all BCOF activities and personnel in the Tokyo-Yokohama Area and to provide administrative sup port for British Commonwealth missions in that area. The earlier presence of US forces in the area to be taken over by the BCOF provided a useful infrastructure upon which to further develop the communications requirements of the force. The BCOF Signal Office was operational in Kure from 10 February 1946 and the British Commonwealth Sub Area Signals Office established in Tokyo from 5 April, providing communications to the various military and civilian organisations by then located in Tokyo. As the various units moved to their many locations, the necessary signals networks were put in place. THE PRACTICALITIES OF COMMAND AND CONTROL General Robertson’s assumption to office as C-in-C, BCOF carried with it not only the ramifications of a very different personality to that of Northcott but maintained the Australian dominance of the command structure of the BCOF.9 Robertson had some private misgivings as to the organisational arrangements Northcott had set in place and he, Robertson, quickly reordered these. Robertson arrived in Tokyo late on 10 June 1946 and met in succession his predecessor General Northcott; Mr Macmahon Ball, the Australian Representative on the Allied Control Council for Japan (ACCJ); General MacArthur (SCAP) and his senior staff; and General Eichelberger, Commanding General, US Eighth Army. He also inspected the C-in-C’s Tokyo office located in Empire House and Ebisu Camp, which was being refurbished as the quarters for the Australian Battalion rotated for duty in the Tokyo area. When in Tokyo Robertson initially stayed with Alvary Gascoyne, the Head of the UK Liaison Mission, or with Macmahon Ball, but later established himself and his senior staff at the former Siamese Legation residence. As he was to spend between a third and a half of his time in Tokyo, he was travelling frequently, usually by train between Tokyo and Kure. First located at the White House in Kure, HQ BCOF was moved to the former Naval Academy on the island of Eta Jima. Robertson’s private residence was located in Kure and this meant that each day he undertook a 30-minute trip by car, ferry and car to and from his HQ. Robertson was faced early on in his new command with a number of substantial difficulties. The first obvious crack in the BCOF’s integrated command structure was caused by concerns within the New Zealand contingent over the command of their personnel and the integrity of their general hospita’. Both matters were resolved satisfactorily. Next came a disagreement with Eichelberger over Robertson’s freedom of movement within Japan, but this also was resolved.10 However, much more deep-seated and longstanding were Robertson’s difficult relationships with individual British officers. The first of these was with Major General Tennant Cowan, who commanded the British-Indian Division. Northcott had advised Robertson that Cowan had expected that he was to command an entirely British Force in Japan and then found that the Australians were to command it.11 Moreover, following Northcott’s appoint ment as Governor of NSW, Cowan, as the then next senior officer, expected to become C-in-C. There followed a number of incidents involving the distribution of rations and light globes within Cowan’s division, an associated series of incidents involving the respective status of each general and Robertson’s private views about the efficiency of Cowan’s HQ which merely strained the relationship further.12 Much more substantial were to be Robertson’s difficulties with the two senior representatives of the British Government in Japan:Lieutenant General Gairdner, whom Northcott had described to Robertson as ‘a relic from a wartime appointment as Winston Churchill’s personal representative at MacArthur’s Headquarters’; and Gascoyne, the Head of the UK Liaison Mission. Robertson wrote that Northcott ‘regarded it as an insult to him that there should be a UK lieutenant general still in Tokyo and he took the view, which I shared with him, that if BCOF was really to represent the British Commonwealth in Japan, then it should be so, and all other service personnel from the British Commonwealth in Japan should come under the control of the BCOF organisation’.13 Robertson’s early contacts with Gascoyne were friendly but with the passage of time it became obvious that ‘his policy was quite definitely to be in every way independent of BCOF and to restore a UK embassy in Japan’ and ‘to demand as a right that they should share in everything which BCOF had’. With the eventual build-up of the staffing of missions in Japan these demands were to become much more burdensome. The situation was further complicated in that Gascoyne had been given the personal rank of Ambassador whereas Macmahon Ball had the personal (lower) rank of Minister. Robertson was to observe, concerning Macmahon Ball that: 'His position, therefore, was rather embarrassed by the arrival of a representative from the UK with the personal rank of ambassador, and it therefore became quite obvious that, although Australia might represent the British Commonwealth on the Allied Council, UK had no intention of taking any subordinate position on the diplomatic side and had already placed a senior man in Japan to deal with UK affairs quite independently of any British Commonwealth set up.'14 Gairdner, who had been absent from Tokyo when Robertson arrived, returned and this obliged Gascoyne to ask Robertson about the vexed questions of seniority. Robertson reiterated his view that he, Robertson, was the senior British Commonwealth representative in Japan. Moreover, as the peace treaty with Japan had yet to be signed ‘no ambassadors could be accreditated to the Japanese Government’. Robertson said that ‘with regard to Gairdner, I did not recognise his position at all for there was nothing in the Far Eastern Commission decisions or in the JCOSA organisation which provided for any other representation of the British Commonwealth in Japan other than BCOF and the missions from the various countries accredited to SCAP’.15 Robertson wrote that Gascoyne informed him ‘that Gairdner regarded it otherwise and that he considered himself senior to both Gascoyne and myself and that my area was only that occu pied by the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, that I had no position or status in Tokyo at all, and that he was the official British Commonwealth representative with SCAP’. Robertson was quick to dismiss these claims, on the grounds that he was the official representative, that there were no national areas under the occupation and that he (Robertson) had direct access to the SCAP. Despite this frank exchange, the questions of relative status between the three protagonists were to continue unabated with major arguments over the flying of pennants, precedence at parades, accommodation, the use of official aircraft and other trivialities.16 THE BURDENS OF ADMINISTRATION A feature of the early period of the occupation was the extraordinary difficulty of administering the force. The most complete and perceptive record available is that prepared by an Australian ordnance corps officer, Captain, later to be Colonel, H.M. Pickering. The magnitude and complexity of the task placed upon the Australian Army particularly arose from the policy decision that the maintenance of the whole force, at its peak in August 1946 of 40,000 personnel, from four nations and three services, was an Australian responsibility. The bulk of supplies were to be drawn from Australian and New Zealand sources given that the Japanese economy was in ruins. The initial plan envisaged a system of maintenance organised into three phases. During the ‘Initial Phase’, until 1 August 1946, each national component was to maintain itself. During the ‘Interim Phase’, from 1 August 1946 until 31 December 1946, Australia was to assume full responsibility for the other national contingents. The ‘Long Term Phase’ commenced on 1 January 1947. Implementation of the plan was undertaken in the most trying of conditions short of actual combat. Although the 21st Australian Advanced Ordnance Depot (21 AAOD) was raised in Morotai as part of 34 Brigade on 3 October 1945 and preparations and training undertaken for the move to Japan, this unit like others suffered from the inroads of delay. Moreover, no ordnance corps representative was included in the initial reconnaissance parties and 21 AAOD, a key element in the establishment of an effective maintenance system, was to arrive at Kure on the Stamford Victory on 13 February along with the first major contingent of Australian personnel, vehicles and supplies. Following disembarkation, the unit marched 200 metres from the wharf to its new location amongst the ruins of the Kure docks area. Members of the unit then set about the concurrent tasks of settling in and establishing a base ordnance depot to receive stores, protect them and issue them. Typically, 21 AAOD also fostered the personnel of some of the multitude of service units (12th Australian Advanced Medical Stores, a detachment of the Amenities Unit, 12th Lines of Communications Unit, the Base Postal Unit and 1st Australian Salvage Unit) required to maintain a military force committed immediately to its operational duties. Immediate and effective liaison was required with the advance party of the Australian Army Service Corps, responsible for transport and the 42nd Port Operating Company responsible for the utilisation of Japanese civilian labour in the wharf area. Also an ammunition section and vehicle park section were established nearby at Hiro. Pickering covers in detail the problems caused by delay, untrained and inexperienced staff, inadequate preparation, shortages, the extreme physical conditions, the multinational composition of the force and the frustrations of administrative procedures. Nevertheless, his account tells also of soldiers getting on with the job, whatever the circumstances. By the end of April 1946 he was able to record: 'All ordnance units were fully functioning; the Base Vehicle Depot had received 723 vehicles [ in poor condition] with 136 vehicles issued and 182 serviced; the Base Ordnance Depot, under canvas at Hiro, had received 450 tons of ammunition; 16 Australian Mobile Laundry and Forward Decontamination Unit had arrived and estab lished itself; 10 Section Officers’ Shop was operating and that a Furniture Repair Factory had been established. Between February and 30 April 1946, a constant stream of personnel, vehicles and almost 250,000 tons of cargo had passed through the facilities established at Kure port.'17 The demands of the administration of the force were to exercise commanders at all levels. In his Valedictory Report to the JCOSA, dated 25 July 1946, the first C-in-C, BCOF, Northcott, summarised the major difficulties that had beset the force in the following terms: 'The Plan for the participation of the British Commonwealth Force in the Occupation of Japan is still being prepared by JCOSA, although the important day to day administrative sec tions are being implemented. Speedy decisions on policy matters are seldom possible when at least four Governments, their Chiefs of Staff, Treasury and other State Departments are directly concerned. In the initial stages, the provision of integrated units was limited to Force HQ and Base HQ. The Plan lays down the policy of integration for all things common to BCOF ... but each contingent is not adequately represented ... there are differences in organisation as well as psychological variations between elements which make complete integration difficult. My Directive was still in draft when my appointment terminated, although certain of the contents have been acted upon. On the other hand, the commander 9 NZ INF BDE has always had a separate directive from his Government which made him virtually independent in all matters except operational control. The natural tendency of Commanders is to follow instructions issued by their own national headquarters prior to their arrival in Japan. The manning position with British units, both Army and RAF has steadily deteriorated owing to heavy drains of repatriation and undue delay in sending forward the necessary reinforcements. 9 NZ INF BDE came to Japan without medical stores ... 130 AGH has a war establishment of 300 beds. There are now over 600 patients in the hospital. There has been a considerable incidence of VD among all contingents. It is important that the supply of fresh vegetables to Japan is maintained, as Occupation forces are not permitted to obtain food from civilian sources. The vehicles of both NZ and Australian units were generally in poor condition on arrival and due to limited workshop facilities it has been difficult to cope with this repair commitment. The two Docks Operating Companys working under adverse weather conditions with mediocre Japanese labour, dealt with a heavy flow of shipping. The average discharge rate exceeded 3000 tons a day. Weather between Japan and the Empire countries has interrupted mail services and on occasions mail had been jettisoned to prevent aircraft crashing. Considerable effort have been devoted to the setting up of leave centres. An extensive labour organisation has been established and already 18,000 Japanese labourers are being employed in connection with the repair and maintenance of buildings, roads, drainage and sewerage installations, and in the disposal of Jap anese equipment. Dependants must be brought to Japan as early as practicable. A number of officers and NCOs have been separated from their families for long periods. It is important that a suitable organisation for dealing with Social Welfare of the troops should be maintained throughout the Force. Many of the voluntary organisations in home countries have now been disbanded and the contacts with dependants where assistance is required is most important to morale.'18 top