Free The World at War by Richard Holmes Page A

went there in the Royal Navy there were certain people like myself who knew full well the potentialities of the Japanese as fighting men. There were others, however, who were completely with their heads in the sand, completely ignorant, who even expressed the opinion that the Japanese hadn't a hope of taking Hong Kong, or hadn't a hope of fighting a European power let alone achieving a victory over them. I remember on one occasion, I think it must have been about the beginning of 1939, when a British national newspaper ran a story in which the opinion was expressed that the Japanese could never be good fliers because they had no sense of balance through being carried on the backs of their mothers as children. And people used to argue with me or other people who had been in Japan and quite frankly it became rather ridiculous. If any one of us just pointed out the power of the Japanese fighting ships or what they were doing in the air, the aircraft they were designing, we were either laughed at or looked upon as being traitors.
    TOSHIKAZU KASE
    In the Navy, to cope with the combined strength of British and American navies without being an act of suicide, any intelligent naval officer would have chosen to limit hostilities to either one of them, not take on two great navies at the same time. I know that some of the officers thought that it would be possible to separate the two but it proved that this was impossible, that they are one and the same. Particularly we in the Foreign Office thought that hostility with Britain would automatically involve America and vice versa. The Navy simply had to accept this judgement that to fight only with America or only with Britain was impossible, so it had to take on the two powerful navies, like it or not.
    STAFF OFFICER DOI
    Germany informed Japan that it was going to invade the Soviet Union about twenty days before they took action. There were two views in the Japanese General Headquarters, one said that Japan should take considered action with Germany, the other said that Japan should wait and see. This view was that Germany's war against the Soviet Union might not go as well as Germany thought; moreover it was thought that there was no definite cause for going to war against the Soviet Union. The decision of the General Headquarters was to wait for a while and see how the situation would develop.
    HISATSUNE SAKOMIZU
    The Japanese similar toGerman people, especially military people, believed that Germany Army will destroy Russia within a very short period.
    TOSHIKAZU KASE
    Sorge I knew not very well, but those who knew him did not suspect that he was a spy, a master spy. *8 He infiltrated the inner circle of Prince Konoye, the Prime Minister. Prince Konoye had with him intelligent people like Ozaki Hotsumi, and Ozaki was frequented and consulted by Konoye on the count of our policy of China. That Sorge was employed by the Russians was not known to us but he had many tentacles and penetrated into the secrets of our government. Also because of his connection to the German Ambassador, he had full access to the German archives and he also had his own sources of information. Sorge was sent abroad to find out the intention of the Japanese High Command as regard the Soviet Union: are they attack Soviet Union or not? And Sorge concentrated on finding out this question, which was vital to the security of the Soviet Union, and shortly before the German attack, when Sorge was arrested, he confided to the Military Police that about a month beforehand he had come to a definite conclusion that Japan was not moving against the Soviet Union. The fact that the Soviet Union had easy access to our government and High Command naturally militated against our interests.
    TAKEO YOSHIKAWA
    Japanese spy at Hawaii
    I went to Hawaii in 1940, 7th March I think it was, and I worked ten months in Hawaii until the bombing attack over Honolulu and Hawaii. Sometimes I went to a geisha house early in the morning, at dawn,