A GENERAL MEETS THE PRESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 451, 13 February 1948, Page 15

A GENERAL MEETS THE PRESS

Our Army in Japan

* . HE General was to meet Pressmen at three o'clock. A few minutes to the hour there were a dozen or so of us there, in q "War Office room" as bare as an institutional interior could be. No sovereign, no victorious generat looked down from the walls. Wellington did not wave his line forward, or greet Blucher in a huddle of dead and dying carefully arranged by the artist’s imagination. There was a long table for the interviewers and a cross table for the General and his staff. Clearly this was a room for hard thinking untrammelled by distractions. As one waited one could reflect on the relations between General and. Press. In ancient Rome, for example, they had no newspapers, but official news was posted up-‘Acta Diurna"-and

there were newsletters, as there were in England in Tudor and Stuart times, written by men in the capital for the information of folk in the country. Cicero writes complaining that there is too much politics in his newsletter from Rome, and not enough gos-sip-and Cicero ranks as a high-brow. What a Roman Might Have Said But did generals from outlying provinces meet writers of these newsletters and give them the low-down on what was going on? May we imagine a commander from Britain talking to a group in the earlier days of the occupation? "Things are going pretty well, gentlemen. We are subduing the country and bringing it under our rule. The Britons will be better off under us than under their rival chiefs, who were always scrapping. But it’s a tough job. Some of our posts are isolated, and they are liable to be attacked at any time by greatly superior numbers. And make no mistake about it, these chaps can fight. Do the troops like the country? I wouldn’t say too much about it, but they don’t care for it much. There’s a lot‘of forest, and the winters are wet and cold, and they miss the fun of garrison towns. But of course they do their job, The .Britons are pretty barbarous, but they’ve got their culture. I brought back some interesting metal work-some of it’s in gold. Here’s a brooch. ... . And then. the oysters. They’re about the best thing in Britain." And long afterwards, another interview. "Off the record, gentlemen, things aren’t going too well. We're pulling out; that’s about the size of it-at any rate we're taking a lot of the troops away. There’s too much pressure elsewhere. It’s

a bad business. What will happen to the Britons I don’t know. They’ll probably start fighting among themselves again, and the Picts and Scots will swarm over the Wall. And a lot of our chaps don’t want to leave. Britain’s a much pleasanter country than it used to be. There are nice towns, and villas dotted about the countryside. A lot of our men have married British girls, and feel like settling down there. Just before I left a centurian who was under orders came to me with tears in his eyes and begged me to let him stay." The Old Attitude Napoleon manipulated the Press as skilfully as its condition permitted. He was an artist in the writing of communiques. But can anyone imagine a ‘Press conference with Napoleon? Fancy a mere journelist putting.a question in the light of those terrible eyes before which marshals and monarchs quailed! Wellington would have been cold and distant, if indeed he could have been induced to recognise the existence of a journalist. And right into our own time, the official attitude was similar. Statesmen and generals were not interviewed. Journalists belonged to no recognised estate, and were expected to pick up information as best they could. True, they did tag on to armies-though Kitchener hated them-and it was left to a non-European army-the Japaneseto keep them right away from the front. This gave some irony to the coming interview, for Lieutenant-General H. C. H. Robertson commanded the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan. This was 1948, and while the (continued on next pagé)

ACROSS THE TABLE

(continued from previous page) Governments of the Western democracies had learned that in the national interests they must censor the Press in war-time, relations of a kind that would have seemed incomprehensible and indeed shocking to soldiers and statesmen of old, had been established with newspaper men. The General’s Frankness Genefal Robertson was very cordial and frank. He smiled as he talked and both he and his interviewers were completely at ease. He had a friendly smile; what he said was given clearly and agreeably-always easy to follow. On such occasions there is always a touch of conventionality in compliments, but General Robertson invested his references to the New Zealanders under his command with impressive sincerity, and that touch of fact which always improves a generality. The New Zealand Fighter Squadron (No. 14), for instance, was the best in Japan, and. about the best in the world. Why? Because it had been able to do a lot of training in very difficult ‘conditions. Long, narrow and mountainous, Japan was like New Zea~ land, but the wifds were much fiercer. Wellington, we remembered, has a bad reputation with its gusts up to 80. miles an hour, but in Japan they encounter gales up to 200 and over. Then the Y.W.C.A. The General spoke most warmly of their work, and mentioned Jean Begg, who was recently decorated, Muriel Wilson, and Phyllis Hindle. And the work among cholera casesthere was quite a lot of cholera, and the New Zealanders had more of it to handle .than any other unit in the B.C.O.F. There wasn’t a single case among the New Zealanders or the rest. The explanation was discipline. Themen followed their instructions strictly. With memories of what used to happen in the British Army in India-when medical science was not so advanced-one was impressed by this immunity. The Occupation How long would the occupation last? At least until. the peace treaty was signed, and no peace treaty was in sight. The longer the occupation lasted, the better chance there was of the liberal elements in the population strengthening their position; that was the opinion of competent observers. Did the Japanese admit defeat? A section did not. They claimed that Japan had "made peace." There were six and a-half million’ Japanese troops abroad when the war ended, and they had been brought home. But of these four million had never been defeated in battle. One wondered whether there was any parallel to these figures in history. Japan was beaten because she was struck at the heart, and the limbs collapsed. When General Robertson took the surrender of a Japanese admiral in the islands, he arranged that he should walk up to where the general was, past 400 yards of troops-to impress as cep him that it really was a defeat. Perhaps remembering his Mahan, and claims made for air power during and since the war, one Pressman asked if sea power had not been the ultimate base of victory against Japan. General Robertson agreed, but added that sea power could only function under ‘cover of air

A number of questions were asked about the state of the people. They were very well-disciplined, said the General, and it wasn’t easy to know What they réally thought. But certain new influences were at work. For example, women were taking more, interest in public affairs, and the work of the Y.W.C.A, units with the Army of Occupation had helped this movement. Then the Japanese worker would probably be impressed by the improvement in his working conditions. If Japan became a member of ‘the International Labour Office, it would’ have to maintain the labour standards agreed on. The Japanese worker had been introduced to the 40-hour week, and he might not like to go back to the old system of a 10-hour day and a seven-day week. Before the war, Christian, Churches had been restricted in their work. What of Christianity now? The General said there were 400,000 professed Christians at the occupation, but now there were over two millions, and he thought the increase would continue. As to fraternisation, General Robertson emphasised the barriers of language and conditions of life. There were a few wealthy people in Japan, but the mass of the nation lived on coolie level. If a foreign soldier wished to get to know the Japanese in their homes, he would first of all have to face the difficulty of a language he did not understand. Then he would fing the food and the surroundings distasteful. General Robertson thought Japanese culture would make little impression on the occupying troops. True, they go to Japanese theatres — "after D-D-T-ing themselves first." What of the Future? Wasn’t the question of room for expansion of population still unsettled? What was going to happen with a huge and growing population, and nowhere to go to? The General smiled again. "Your guess is as good as mine," hé said, in a frank recognition that the problem was still there. Not only was the population increasing, but he ‘thought the increase was deliberate, and the implications of this could be seen by anyone. "There were children everywhere, and they were well-fed and healthy." * So the conference ended on a note of interrogation. In this it did not differ from a good many other conferences these days, some of them of the highest level, But the journalists came away feeling that they had learned something, and under a good teacher in a very pleasant

class.

-Staff

Reporter