Chapter 2: Apathy and Neglect ～ Arnold G. Fisch, Military Government in the Ryukyu Islands, 1945- 1950 (1988)

*1:CHAPTER III: Apathy and Neglect
American forces in the Ryukyus settled into the garrison phase of operations in September 1945. By then most enemy holdouts had been captured, and the wholesale movement of citizens necessitated by the command's base development plan had ceased. Extensive relief efforts conducted by military government units had averted the threat of starvation and epidemics among civilians. Now that there was time for reflection and assessment, civil affairs officers on Okinawa began to rethink the mission of military government in broader terms. Despite problems and discouragements encountered during the assault phase, many of these men had retained more than a small measure of idealism; given the opportunity and resources, they would eagerly attempt to recreate a peaceful Okinawan society. To that end they began to look beyond the post-assault relief measures toward a return to prewar social and economic normalcy.

*2:It was obvious that any restoration would be closely linked to military concerns. During the postwar years American military interest in the islands underwent several permutations. Although Okinawa remained important in all American strategic planning, the government's economic commitment to the Ryukyus was not so constant, and the military government effort there suffered severely from austere postwar military budgets. A stepchild of the Far East Command, the Ryukyuan command's physical and manpower needs tended to receive a lower priority in an organization where units in Japan and Korea took precedence. In the same time period, the command watched its university-prepared military government personnel depart. Those who had not only participated in the planning for the campaign but had also organized the rehabilitation of civilian society were rapidly being demobilized. They were replaced by individuals who had neither the intellectual commitment to the job nor the singular advantages of their predecessors in education and training. These postwar manpower realities combined with strategic, economic, and social considerations to create formidable tasks for military government during a period that might accurately be described as the nadir of American interest in the Ryukyus.

*3:Okinawa and Postwar Strategy

In the weeks following the collapse of Japan, the Joint Planning Staff looked at the world-wide base sites and divided them into several categories. Some it decided were “primary base areas," those essential to the security of the United States and its possessions or necessary to projected military operations; others it classified in lesser categories. The Joint Chiefs accepted their staff's definitions and coordinated their discussion of bases with the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee as part of the process of negotiating with foreign governments to secure the needed sites. As for the Ryukyus, the Joint Chiefs, from the first, included the islands in their list of primary base areas, assuming continued American control over the islands either by direct sovereignty or at the very least through United Nations trusteeship.

*4:The Department of State questioned this assumption. Secretary James F. Byrnes passed on to the new president, Harry S. Truman, his department's conclusion that "political and diplomatic considerations" made it necessary to consider the Ryukyus "minor islands which should be returned to Japan and demilitarized." The secretary's concern for diplomatic considerations stemmed from the ambiguous status of the Ryukyus at the conclusion of World War II. On 26 July 1945 the United States, Great Britain, China, and, later, the Soviet Union, agreed at the Potsdam Conference that "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine."3 In its formal surrender on 2 September 1945 Japan accepted the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration. Its Okinawa Prefecture, consisting of Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Gunto and surrounding islands, ceased to exist. But the ultimate status of Okinawa remained unclear, and the vagueness of the phrase "such minor islands as we determine" contained the seeds of potential territorial discord among the interested nations. The military potential of Okinawa's bases notwithstanding, Secretary Byrnes sought to minimize the chances of international disputes by demilitarizing the Ryukyus and returning them to Japanese control.

*5:The Joint Chiefs of Staff reacted quickly and negatively to the Department of State's position. Acting through the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, they urged the secretary of state to inform the president of their contrary assessment. On 10 September 1946 Fleet Ad- miral William D. Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed the president of the military leaders' "grave concern" over the proposed return of the Ryukyus to Japan and urged Truman to review the matter further.

*6:The debate would take several curious twists and turns as the basic assumptions that supported it changed abruptly in the immediate postwar years. Both the Joint Chiefs and the Department of State assumed that international affairs in Asia would revolve around a democratic China controlled by the Nationalists and assisted by American aid and support; that America and the Soviet Union would continue to work in approx- imately the same sort of international cooperation that had characterized their wartime partnership; and that decolonization of South and South- east Asia would come quickly and easily with a number of independent democratic nations emerging. All these assumptions proved incorrect, although it was not until the late 1940s that the new, harsh realities would be fully appreciated."

Disagreement over the near- and long-term disposition of Okinawa persisted, but remained low-key and generally went unpublicized. The secretary of state tended to focus attention on the Japanese question, and until 1951 the issue of Okinawa's status remained a corollary to the larger issue of a peace treaty between Japan and her former adversaries. The Department of State was content to let the War Department administer occupied territories. For their part, the Joint Chiefs concentrated on the emerging military realities of the postwar period that included America's expanded global responsibilities and the potential threat from long-range air power. By retaining existing overseas bases and by securing others, they hoped to provide a defense perimeter, as an Army spokesmen put it to a congressional audience in 1946, “surrounding ourselves with a cordon of bases from which our forces may intercept attacking units and from which we may launch immediate... counterblows."" As a large Far East outpost, Okinawa was a strategic link in this "cordon of bases." To harden this link the Joint Chiefs committed a large occupation force and drew up claborate base development plans for the island, although the particulars of these plans and the size of the force would vary from year to year with the ebb and flow of international events.

Postwar Military Organization

The last months of the war ushered in a period of rapid change in the organization of military forces on the Ryukyu Islands. The Joint Chiefs originally assigned both operational control and military govern- ment responsibility for the islands to the Navy, but the fact was neither the Army nor the Navy wanted to assume responsibility for the region." Admiral Nimitz argued that since the Tenth Army had invaded Okinawa to stage the planned invasion of Japan, it should assume these respon- sibilities. Bowing to the Pacific commander's request, the Joint Chiefs, on 18 July 1945, ordered control of the islands, excluding certain naval facilities, turned over to the Army. This transfer of command, they noted, was to be a temporary expedient; once the invasion of the Japanese home islands was accomplished, command of the Ryukyus was to be returned to the Navy." Effective 31 July, Headquarters, Island Command, Okinawa, was reconstituted as Headquarters, Army Service Command I (AS-COM I), and assigned to Army Forces, Western Pacific." At that time. the command's military strength totalled some 259,000 officers and men (see Table 1). The Commander in Chief, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, Gen- eral MacArthur, assumed responsibility from his headquarters in Manila for military government in the Ryukyus, although he continued to direct what had been for some time a joint service operation with the prepon- derance of its manpower in naval uniform. In July civil affairs personnel in the islands included about 2,600 naval officers and men (including Seabees) and 279 Army officers and men.12

These arrangements lasted only seven more weeks. The abrupt surrender of Japan found the Army ill-prepared to exercise its responsibility for military government on Okinawa. Its few hundred civil affairs officers on the island were desperately needed for occupation duty with the Tenth TABLE I U.S. ARMY FORCES STRENGTH IN THE RYUKYUS 31 AUGUST 1945-31 August 1949
Date        Officers    Enlisted    Nurses    Warrants    Total
August 1945.    20.502    236.320    866    1.312        259,000
August 1946    1.332    18.561    64    59        20.016
August 1947.    1.378    15.054    46    45        16.523
August 1948.    703    9.748                10,451
August 1949.    919    11.538                12,457
Source: DA, Strength of the Army (STM-30), | Sep 45, p. 4; | Sep 46, p. 24; 1 Sep 47, p. 10; 1 Sep 48, p. 13: 1 Sep 49, p. 12.
Army in Korea and with the Eighth Army in Japan. Consequently, the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, advised the Commander in Chief, Pacific, Fleet Admiral Nimitz, that military government would be a permanent Navy responsibility." On 21 September 1945 the Navy assumed complete accountability for military government although the Army retained operational control of the islands. Fleet Admiral Nimitz designated the Commanding Officer, Naval Operating Base, Okinawa, Rear Adm. John D. Price, as Chief Military Government officer while Col. Charles I. Murray, USMC, continued in his capacity as Deputy Commander for Military Government.'4

The Navy accepted responsibility for military government based on the assumption that Okinawa was desirable as a naval base and that the Navy would soon be given operational control, since the Army's tenure in the Ryukyus was merely temporary. Both assumptions proved false. The surrender of Japan not only curtailed Army Service Command I's base development plans, it also obviated most of the rationale for development of Okinawa's naval facilities. Moreover, by early 1946 the Navy had more closely examined the anchorages in Buckner Bay and found them less desirable than originally thought. Consequently, the Navy lost interest in the Ryukyus except as a location for minor facilities. In March 1946 the Chief of Naval Operations recommended to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the Army not only retain operational control of the Ryukyus, but also assume responsibility for military government. Later the same month the Army's Chief of Staff concurred with that recommendation, asking only that Navy civil affairs officers continue to serve until sufficient Army personnel became available." Accordingly, on 1 July 1946 the Navy surrendered all administrative authority in the Ryukyus to the Army. The Okinawa Base Command became the Ryukyus Command with Brig. Gen. Frederic L. Hayden, senior military officer in the Ryukyus, commanding. Col. William H. Craig, USA, replaced Colonel Murray as the Deputy Commander for Military Government.'7

In preparation for the transfer of military government responsibility, Army civil affairs officers began arriving on Okinawa in late May 1946. By the end of the month 73 officers, mostly second lieutenants, had reported. These officers, all of whom were from military government assignments in Japan, had a measure of on-the-job training, but little or no formal instruction in civil affairs. Nevertheless, the transition pro- ceeded smoothly. On 1 July the administration of military government in the Ryukyus south of 30 degree north latitude passed from the Navy to the Army.

A comprehensive reorganization of American forces would soon affect these command arrangements. As the result of a Joint Chiefs of Staff decision in December 1946 to create more unified commands in areas of strategic importance, responsibility for all American land, naval, and air military operations within the Far East area fell to General Douglas MacArthur as Commander in Chief, Far East (CINCFE). The Far East command superseded U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, as the command re- sponsible for military government in the Ryukyu Islands, as well as in the other areas assigned to it. General Headquarters, Far East Command, and General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), were physically combined in Tokyo, and the same staff served for both headquarters. The Joint Chiefs of Staff divided authority and responsibility on the basis of geography and function. MacArthur's authority as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers remained limited to the four main islands of Japan and a few minor outlying islands where he was responsible for a variety of nonmilitary activities. As Commander