Table of ContentsForeword
Introduction
Chapter One: US Army Tanks I Saw in My Homeland in England
Chapter Two: Is Japan the Only Country That Committed War Crimes ?
Chapter Three: What did Yukio Mishima want through his death?
Chapter Four: The Press Conference of Osaka City Mayor Toru Hashimotoand the “Comfort Women” issue
Chapter Five: “Nanking Massacre”: Denied by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong
Chapter Six: What was “The Voice of the Heroic Dead” all about
Chapter Seven: Japan as the Light of Hope for Asia
Chapter Eight: Asian leaders I have met
Chapter Nine: People I remember
Final Chapter: People of Japan, be proud of your own history

Foreword
Kase Hideaki

Henry Scott Stokes and I have been close friends for many years.
In 1964 Stokes was named the first Tokyo bureau chief of the Financial Times, the UK’s
most distinguished British international business daily; he was only 26 at the time.
Known for his skillful journalism, Stokes was persuaded to become the Tokyo bureau
chief of another British daily, The Times, in 1967. By 1978 he had moved to The New
York Times, which he served not only as Tokyo bureau chief, but also as a reporter
covering all of Asia.
His friendship with Mishima Yukio brought him into the international spotlight. Shortly
before Mishima committed seppuku, or ritual suicide, he penned a letter to Stokes.
There is an institution in Tokyo called the FCCJ (Foreign Correspondents’ Club ofJapan). Nearly 200 foreign journalists belong to the FCC. Stokes is two years my junior,but he is now the FCCJ’s most senior member.
Readers will, I am certain, find the author’s observations eye-opening. I too learned agreat deal from them.
The relationship between England, Stokes’ native land, and the US is a close-knit one.
However, readers will surely be surprised by the huge gulf between mainstream
Japanese and British perceptions of the US.
Stokes recalls how shocked he was, as a small boy standing at the roadside, at the sightof an American tank unit passing through Glastonbury, his home town.
They treated themselves, these young boys from Idaho, or Utah, orArkansas, or wherever they came from, as kings. I still remember
the smiles those American kids had on their faces. They were incontrol. They could do what they well pleased. (Chapter One, P.5)
Meeting with the U.S. military for the first time, I had the very
powerful feeling, a strong instinct, that these U.S. forces weretaking control of our country, not the Germans whom we were
supposed to be fighting. The U.S. was a dominant force in ourcountry, which was deeply uncomfortable. (Chapter One, P.5)
Like me, Stokes is favorably disposed toward the US. But unlike the English,
pro-American Japanese are not made viscerally uncomfortable by the presence ofAmerican military bases on our soil, because we have entrusted our national security to
US military might.
At some point we stopped taking pride in being Japanese.
I was astounded at my realization that it was the illusion of a “pacifist Constitution,”
which took control of the Japanese during the postwar era, that caused our awareness ofJapan as an independent nation to diminish. Japan remains occupied by the Americans,at least psychologically. We are like drug addicts who can’t kick the habit.
March 10, 2013 marked the 67th anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo.
That night Tokyo Skytree was illuminated with white lights to honor the victims of theair raids. And in Sumida Ward a group of concerned citizens staged a performance
intended to draw attention to the terrible tragedy.
Inspired by the group’s conscientiousness, Stokes demonstrated his support by writing
an introduction to the performance and distributing it to foreign journalists in Tokyo.
Stokes writes about having seen, at a young age, a “dark red glow in the sky” when out

walking one evening in Glastonbury. He was looking at the night sky over Bristol, miles
away, which had been bombed by the Germans. In this book, Stokes writes that the“sight of the dark, red clouds over Tokyo, on a scale a hundred times greater, stands
with me today as a memory of those years. It’s nothing on the scale of the appearance of
those tanks, but it was a big deal.”(Chapter One, P.5)
He has also handed down judgment on the Tokyo Trials. He has denounced the tribunal,angrily, calling it the epitome of injustice.
Fairness, virtue, protocol, and principle, which western nations
have respected, were ignored in order to continue this performance,
which was not worthy of its name (the trials). The spirit of fair play
was just degraded. Such deception was consistent. That was thetruth of the Tokyo Trials. What western civilization had done was amost uncivilized action. Justice was not practiced. It was a horrible,
pathetic, evil event that took place.” (Chapter Three, p.10)

Stokes concludes that it is the victor’s side who must be judged. (Chapter Three, p.10)
Within the precincts of Yasukuni Shrine is a copper bust of Dr. Radhabinod Pal, who iswell known in Japan as the only justice of the Tokyo Trials to hand down a dissenting
judgment.1 Justice Pal recommended that all defendants be acquitted of all charges. For
some reason, both Dr. Pal and his judgment are virtually unknown in the Western world.
Nevertheless, even without Justice Pal, it is likely that the belief that the Tokyo Trials
were immensely unjust would have become widespread in Japan.
In his discussion of the Tokyo Trials, Stokes makes no mention of Justice Pal. This
causes me to wonder, especially since Stokes is extremely critical of the tribunal.

1Radhabinod Pal, International Military Tribunal for the Far East: Dissentient Judgement ofJustice Pal (Tokyo: Kokusho-Kankokai, 1999); http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/65_S4.pdf

But even in the absence of Dr. Pal’s dissenting judgment, it should be patently obviousthat the tribunal was a miscarriage of justice motivated solely by the desire for revenge.
At that kangaroo court Japan was adjudged an aggressor nation. Nevertheless, in the
midst of the Tokyo Trials, the armies of Great Britain, France and the Netherlands wereengaging in a war of aggression, the intent being to reclaim their former colonies,
colonies that Japan had liberated.
Awakened by the example set by Japan, the peoples of Asia rose up and fought valiantly
to preserve their independence. This fact alone bears witness to the monumental
unfairness of the tribunal.
Stokes argues that the victor nations’ historical view with respect to World War II is amockery of history, and that Japan was not an aggressor nation. On the contrary, Japan
was the “light of hope of Asia.”2
Furthermore, he is certain that Japan has been the victim of baseless accusations
concerning the alleged Nanking massacre and the coercion of military prostitutes(comfort women).
I am often invited to speak abroad, and have noticed that there is very little accurate
information about the Nanking “massacre” or the comfort women emanating fromJapan. To make matters worse, some of Japan’s textbooks include material that supports
the aforementioned accusations. This combination of circumstances compounds thedifficulty of persuading foreigners that the accusations are false.
According to Stokes, the historical perspective embraced by the victor nations arises
from the conviction on the part of Caucasians that they are superior and that persons ofcolor are, therefore, inferior. He wonders why the majority of Japanese subscribe to2

http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/94_S4.pdf

that historical perspective.
The white race looked down on people of color, perceiving them as subhuman, until
Japan upset Western supremacy during World War II, paving the way for the liberationof the Asian and African peoples.
That condescension was truly reprehensible. Soon after Truman dropped atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he was quoted as saying to Cabinet members, with a smileon his face, “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.” Thisattitude was not peculiar to Truman; it is shared by the great majority of Europeans andAmericans.
Stokes indicates that Japan liberated Asia, and the resulting tidal wave swept over theAfrican continent, ultimately engendering the racial equality that we enjoy today.
Japan’s involvement in World War II resulted in the dawning of an entirely new era ofhuman history.
After they hear him speak, people who attend Stokes’ lectures, which take him all overJapan, often make comments like “I have seen the light!” and “My perception of myselfas a Japanese has changed.”
It is my hope that the majority of readers will find that their distorted historicalperspective, forced on them by the victor nations, will be corrected after they havefinished this book. May it receive the wide audience it deserves.

INTRODUCTION
It was 1964, the year the Summer Olympics were held in Tokyo, when I first set foot on
Japanese soil as the first Tokyo bureau chief for the Financial Times. I have now been in
Japan for 50 years and am the oldest member of the FCCJ (Foreign Correspondents’
Club of Japan).

Growing up in England, I was told time and time again that the Japanese are a barbaric,cruel race. This sort of propaganda is similar to what the Japanese were hearing then:“Death to the kichiku Bei’ei, the American and British monsters!”

World War II ended, but British hostility toward Japan did not diminish. It only grewstronger. After all, Japan was responsible for Great Britain’s losing every one of its
Asian colonies. Raised in that environment, I suppose it was only natural that I tooshould grow up disliking Japan.

When I first arrived in Japan I never doubted for a moment that Japan had committed
war crimes, as adjudged by the Tokyo Trials. I was also convinced that the Japanese had
perpetrated a massacre in Nanking.

But the longer I stayed in Japan, the more I learned about 20th-century Japanese andAsian history. At some point I found myself analyzing the past century’s events not froman Allied or a Japanese standpoint, but from a third-party perspective. I realized thatthe opinions I had previously embraced were wrong. My friendship with Mishima Yukio
was extremely influential during that process.

In the Greater East Asian War, Japan was fighting for its survival. Gen. Douglas
MacArthur said as much in a speech he delivered before the US Congress after theconflict had ended. The Tokyo Trials were a total sham, serving only as a theater for
unlawful retribution. And as for the Nanking “massacre,” there is not one shred ofevidence attesting to it. However, the Chinese are hell-bent on using foreign journalists
and corporations to spread their propaganda throughout the world. There is no point ineven debating the comfort-women issue.

I find it very disappointing that so few Japanese attempt to discredit the false
accusations and set the record straight. In today’s international community those whomaintain that there was no massacre in Nanking are shunned. They are filed in thesame pigeonhole as the Holocaust deniers. This is regrettable, but it is the reality weface. Therefore, we must be prudent. But unless the Japanese state their case andrestate it, again and again, these false accusations will go down in history as fact.
Japanese efforts in this direction have been pitifully inadequate.

There is no need for the Japanese to be overly considerate or adulatory. It is enough forthem to state Japan’s position, and let the Americans and the Chinese state theirpositions. Of course there will be disagreement. There is no way to avoid disagreement;that is the way the world works. If the Japanese adopt an empathetic stance, they will
be taken advantage of immediately.

There is one more thing I would like to mention — something that I cannot emphasize
enough. That is that most of the instigators are at the root of the thorny issues Japan
faces now (Nanking, Yasukuni Shrine, comfort women, etc.) vis-à-vis China and Korea,
are Japanese nationals. It is up to the Japanese to decide how to deal with thisparticular problem.

The Japanese have yet to extricate themselves from the curse of the victor nations’historical perspective forced on them by the Allies. I will be grateful if this book serves
in any way to help them break free.

In closing I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to Fujita Hiroyuki for his tirelesswork translating and editing my manuscripts and dictation.

Henry Scott Stokes
November 25, 2013