JAPANESE HIGH COMMAND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 92, 21 July 1944, Page 4

JAPANESE HIGH COMMAND

THE curt dismissal of General Tojo, from the position of Chief of the Japanese General Staff, was announced with dramatic suddenness by the Tokyo radio yesterday. The full effect of such news upon the world at large will be difficult to guage. From the Allied point of view it has been received even in these action-packed days with genuine surprise. In the desperate German Reich it will have a fuller and deeper effect coming as it does on top of the growing misfortunes of Hitler's populace. But in Japan the news will be little short of devastating. Here: the wondering public is forced to view the unprecedented fall of a man who had become a virtual dictator; whose position by all the laws of prestige and 'face' was unassailable, and on whose caprice the Imperial Empire was plunged into war. Undoubtedly, had the same tide of success continued to crown Tojo'k policy of treachery and aggression, he would still be sitting in triumph as the idol of the: people and the mainstay of the imperial power of the Emperor. But all is not well, and there must be a scapegoat to pay the penalty. So it is the mighty Tojo, the man who represented the ambitious military clique, the man who climbed to power over the frustrated plans of the more moderate schools of thought, the man who knew one doctrine alone—force, by which means he promised his people the dazzling riches of a Japanese controlled Orient, who has been selected for a signal show of imperial displeasure. At one blow the greatest man in the nation has been singled out for disgrace. Nothing short of public bewilderment and confusion must follow, and it is quite likely that Tojo's mortal journey will come likewise to> an abrupt end in the approved traditional Japanese manner. Indeed only by hari-kari can a national leader of Nippon hope to regain some of his lost esteem. It is not hard to picture the stream of events which led to this final drastic action by the Nippon War Cabinet. Tojo's boastful policy has not been successful. The Imperial Navy, built at such great cost and effort, is virtually hamstrung. Fascist Italy has already collapsed, and has officially turned against the Axis. Nazi Germany herself appears to be on the verge of defeat, due largely to the giant war efforts of Russia—Japan's traditional enemy. The Japanese war lords of to-day, have literally seen 'the writing on the wall.' They know only too well the fate which lies in store for themselves, their monarchy, and their empire, when the undivided might of the Allied war-machine is turned against their comparatively puny defences. Invasion, defeat, obliteration — unless, unless a miracle can happen to change the course of fate. The slender chance remaining demands -a change in command, a more vigorous prosecution of the war, so that the Japanese conquests will be held and consolidated, not wrested from her one by one; a new appeal to the nation for still greater efforts, and a call upon the fighting men for still more fanatical sacrifices in the sacred cause of the Emperor. The results of this tremendous "change must be far-reaching. Without a doubt we can expect a livelier role to be played by Japanese forces on all fronts before it is considered too late to turn the .'tide which as we have said only a miracle could divert. Japan to-day is playing for higher stakes than ever when she bombed Pearl Harbour. Then it was conquest or failure; to-day it is life or death, and the stakes are so high and the consequences so grave' that the greatest war-lord of them all has been deemed a necessary and a worthy sacrifice.