The American people were tired of war and wanted their troops brought home, so to them the immediate task was the demobilization of our military. The wishes of many of the political and military leader’s who assembled our vast war machine during the war, and, who also had the foresight of the approaching spread of communism, would acquiesce to the short-term wishes of the people in bringing home the troops, while at the same time try to address the long-term goals to maintain occupation troops in conquered and liberated territories to protect our worldwide national security interests.

     The Soviet "iron curtain," drawn across the European continent successfully, and quickly, drew eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania behind it, and formed the Soviet Warsaw Pact.

     In France, the communist labor unions were making political inroads in the National government and disrupting the country’s economic recovery.

     In Greece, where political and economic disorder led to civil war, the communist rebels received support from Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.

     In the Near East, the Soviets kept a grip on Iran by holding troops placed there during the war beyond the time specified in the wartime arrangement. They also tried to intimidate Turkey into giving them special privileges in connection with the strategic Dardanelles, a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart, the Bosphorus, both strategic naval & commercial shipping lanes.

     In Asia, besides insisting on full control in northern Korea, the Soviets had turned Manchuria over to the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong (Tse-tung), and encouraging him in his renewed effort to wrest power from U.S. supported Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government on Formosa (Taiwan).

     The impulse behind the Soviet drive, whether a search for national security or a desire to promote Communist world revolution in keeping with Marxist doctrine, their strategy appeared to be one of expansion. The United States could see no inherent limits to the outward push. Each Communist gain served as a springboard from which to try another. The American response was a policy of containment, of blocking any extension of Communist influence. But, viewing the European continent as the main area of Soviet expansion, the U.S. at first limited its containment policy to Western Europe and the Mediterranean area, while attempting other solutions to the problem in Asia.

      A decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, implemented by appropriate Supreme Commander Allied Powers (SCAP) action, to utilize the Japanese governmental agencies for the execution of Allied policies made the task of Occupation in Japan much easier than in Europe. By preserving the Emperor system, the Allies continued an acknowledged head of the Japanese people, whose traditional influence permitted immediate governmental control. Although stripped of his former power, the Emperor still commanded the respect of the Japanese masses who obeyed implicitly his order to cooperate with the Occupation forces. These factors determined the method under which Military Government was to operate in Japan.

     Since the Japanese civil government was capable of operating, Occupation authorities were relieved from directly administering a "conquered" country; instead, they were charged with seeing that the Japanese Government complied with SCAP's directives. Military Government was also to advise Japanese officials on matters in which they had no previous experience under a totalitarian regime. In effect, there was no "military government" in Japan in the literal sense of the word. It was simply a SCAP superstructure over already existing government machinery, designed to observe and assist the Japanese along the new democratic channels of administration.

1946 Tokyo Map Book issued by GHQ Command to U.S. and Allied Military personnel.

56 pages, may be a slow upload for some PC operating systems.

     The Eighth Army, under GEN Robert L. Eichelberger, assumed responsibility for the organization, activities, and proper functioning of Military Government in all Japan. His mission on this level was to oversee the Japanese in executing the general directives of GEN MacArthur. To accomplish this, local operational directives designed to implement the policies, plans, and directives of the SCAP were issued to tactical units as well as Military Government (MG) teams.

      Tokyo came under the jurisdiction of MG Team No. 32.

Personal Reflections

     “My Dad, who was commissioned in the field in France in WW I and was called back in WWII, was a friend of the commander of Fort Hamilton (near our home). The Commander invited our family to the Polo matches held at the fort, and to watch from his private box.

     The officer-in-charge of the box back then, and who wiped the seat for each of the commander’s guests, was a young lieutenant by the name of Robert L. Eichelberger.

      In 1946 that same young lieutenant was now my commanding general of the 8th Army in Japan. I had the satisfaction of stating to my fellow soldiers that "GEN Eichelberger is no big deal, he used to wipe my seat when I was a kid."   PFC Sigurd J. "Sig" Arnesen, Jr. Able Company, 1946-1947.

     Several of the most controversial directives from SCAP General Order No. 1 were:

     the release of thousands of civil political prisoners, and the reestablishment of the labor unions banned by the Japanese controlled military government

     forbidding any former high ranking leaders of the military, and the civil bureaucrats involved as heads of the repressive government agencies from holding any positions of power or running for elective office;

     allowing women to vote and hold elective office;

     separation of the state sponsored Shinto religion from all educational text books and governmental processes;

     strict U.S. military censorship of media outlets and every form of public communication that involved government and education.

     Each resulted in unintended consequences, some good, and some bad. Of the thousands of new labor unions formed, the vast majority were directly influenced by the Japanese Communist Party, formed in 1922, who, even though they owed their newfound freedom to GEN MacArthur, would use the censorship issue and the systematic dismantlement of Japan’s war factories to foment continued unrest.

     Editors Note: The SCAP regulations on media censorship, suppressing unfavorable stories of SCAP and Japanese relations,extended to U.S. media agencies in Japan. To this day its results hinder historians in obtaining stories from the era on conflicts between the Japanese people and occupational forces, the meat and potatoes of what military police were confronted with on a daily basis.

     Statistics compiled by today’s historians from SCAP records show that during the first few months of the occupation, U.S. and Allied troops, to put it mildly, acted like bulls in a china shop. Assaults, robberies, thefts, and rapes by drunken troops occurred daily, while assaults, thefts and sabotage of Allied equipment and facilities perpetrated by the Japanese also occurred on a daily basis until commanders and the military and Japanese police could finally get a handle on the crime wave.

     The primary cause of the shared exchange of conflicts was a direct result of revenge, a feeling of superiority over a concurred people, black marketing of scarce food stocks and supplies, and the clash of eastern and western cultures.

     At the start of the year the 720th Military Police Battalion and its organic units, HQ & HQ Detachment, Able, Baker, Charlie Companies, and a Medical Detachment was now permanently headquartered in Nakano, and performing occupation duty in Metropolitan Tokyo, Japan.

     The battalion, commanded by  MAJ Jackson, was assigned subordinate to the Supreme Allied Command, 8th U.S. Army, 1st Cavalry Division, Tokyo. Once the military police occupation mission was set up, the battalion’s operational missions, would be directed by the area provost marshal.

     The battalion’s first permanent cantonment in Japan was in Nakano on L & 48th Streets near the Nakano railway station in the northwestern corner of Tokyo. The cantonment was named "Camp Burness” in memory of SGT Frederick A. Burness, Jr. of Baker Company, the battalion’s first casualty and to this day their only soldier missing in action. The compound was a former Japanese Army Communications Lineman’s School until 1937, and then became the covert Japanese Military Intelligence Training Center, or Nakano “Gakko” School until the end of the war.

     The entire compound, with the exception of the HQ building, were old wooden two story structures that were in disrepair and like many of the former Imperial Military buildings throughout the country, could be best described as firetraps.

     For additional photographs of the cantonment and battalion personnel at Nakano, click on the Camp Burness photograph to the right.  >

     The battalion’s primary mission was discipline, law and order and combined Japanese Police security duties in the Metropolitan area of Tokyo. There was also an extensive training program initiated to teach military police duties to the constant influx of new personnel being transferred into the theater from other branches of the Army that were being thinned by stateside rotations.

Personal Reflections

    “A detective received information that a former Imperial Army soldier, a former guard in the notorious Omari POW camp, was hiding out in a British Army facility. The former guards reputation was built on beating allied prisoners with a bullwhip, and was wanted by the occupation authorities for atrocities committed on American POW’s.

     My partner and I apprehended the man after climbing four flights of stairs to a small room at the top of a church belfry. We quietly entered the room and found him sleeping; he was awakened and apprehended without incident.”   PVT (2LT Retired USAR) Billy T. Gaddis, Able Company, 1945-1946.

Personal Reflections

    “Once, some of our boys tried to stop a quartermaster truck from speeding, and we damaged some jeeps and street cars by hitting them during the chase.

     We figured by stopping the truck maybe we’d end up eating stew for a while.”   PFC Palmer L. Larson, Charlie Company, 1945-1946.

Exact Date Unknown In the spring CPT J. F. RaZor, Commanding Officer of Charlie Company, asked 1LT Edward J. Meyers to query the MP’s of the company to find out if any had civilian experience in operating motorcycles.

     PFC Donald H. Scholten met the requirements, and he immediately found himself receiving a promotion to the rank of Corporal, and the NCOIC of the newly formed battalion “Motor Cycle Squad.” CPL Scholten was assigned six other MP’s, and the training sessions began.

     Their newly acquired Harley Davidson WLA 750cc (45 cubic inch) side-valve V-twin, three speed, hand shift model was the best the Army had in its inventory at the time.

     The squad spent the next month training in the large drill field behind headquarters. CPL Scholten, described the area as, "room enough so they would not hurt anyone." Once the MP’s mastered the first hurdles of balancing and operating the powerful motorcycles, they moved onto the streets of Tokyo and practiced weekly on their escort formations.

     CPL Scholten would take the lead and the six-squad members would follow behind in pairs of two abreast. He blew on his whistle to signal the formation to break into single file and prepare to park curbside. CPL Scholten said "there was very little traffic then, due to the fact the Japanese had very few cars." The motorcycles were used for traffic control duties, mail, emergency medical and VIP escorts.

     The maintenance on the motorcycles was performed by the motor pool, and when not on cycle patrol, the squad performed regular desk duties, escorts and patrol.

     From October 1946 until April 1948, they continued to extend their tours in order to complete the assignment. After the trials were completed, approximately fifty members of the battalion detail were assigned to Sugamo to provide security until the Tribunal sentences could be carried out.

     The inmates at Sugamo consisted of those condemned, those sentenced to long-term imprisonment, and those undergoing trial.

13 February The main advance parties of headquarters British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF), British Command Base and the 4,000 members of the 34th Australian Infantry Brigade Group arrived in Japan. They served subordinate to the operational control of the U.S. 8th Army Headquarters, and subject to SCAP rules and regulations.

     At the same time, other military police contingents were arriving from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and India to serve along side the Australian Provosts as part of the BCOF Military Police presence. Like their U.S. MP counterparts, the Provost Forces also had total civil and military jurisdiction involving military and civilian violations of the Occupational Directives from SCAP Headquarters. Their detachments would eventually be established in Kure, Hiro, Tokyo, Kobe, Kyoto, Kaitaichi, and Eta Jima. The BCOF Provost Force would continue to serve with distinction in Japan until their deactivation in 1956.

7 April Rallied by the labor movement, approximately 20,000 left wing Japanese and Korean demonstrators marched on the Imperial Palace in Tokyo demanding the resignation of Japanese Premier Kijuro Shidehara. Many hurled rocks at his residence. They were protesting the shortage of rice rations. Their petition was presented and later rejected as Communists propaganda by George Atcheson, Jr. the U.S. delegate to the Allied Council of Japan.

     The Tokyo Police and Emperor’s Imperial Palace Guard provided on site security during the demonstration, as U.S. Army intelligence agents closely observed, and the battalion’s reaction force acted only to support the civil authorities and prevent occupation troops or their dependents from entering the area.

1 May The Communist dominated labor movement supported by the Social Democratic Party of Japan threatened national strikes at the first May Day rally in eleven years being held in front of the Emperor’s Palace in Tokyo, one block for SCAP Headquarters. The rally coincided with the May Day parades first ordered in 1945 by Premier Joseph Stalin in Communist Russia. They demanded that the right-wing Liberal Party step down to allow them to take over the rains of government. The peaceful crowd of an estimated 400,000 participants maintained their orderly rally despite the political rhetoric being thrown about by both Parliamentary parties.

     Battalion MP’s were present along with members of the SCAP Public Safety Division’s U.S. Army 441st Counter Intelligence Corps, and thousands of Japanese Police. In addition to keeping a watch on the crowds during the May Day speeches and festivities, they were also looking for Hideo Tokayama, a former member of the feared Japanese wartime Secret Police agency and head of a Communist inspired gang in the capital city. Tokayama and his followers had access to pistols and grenades and threatened to assassinate GEN MacArthur during his daily motorcade. MacArthur refused to be intimidated and maintained his daily schedule, and without any additional security measures.

Personal Reflections

     “I was transferred from the Philippines to a replacement depot at Atsugi, Japan. From there I was assigned directly to the IMTFE. We never had any contact with any of the rest of the battalion, so I don't know anyone who served in downtown Tokyo.

     The highest-ranking NCO in our unit was a buck sergeant. There were two corporals; several PFC's and the rest were buck privates. We were told that those downtown were taking all the better grades, which led to some resentment. We were stationed at the trial building with six to a room.

     The food and lodging was pretty good. Some of us were assigned to the courtroom and others transported the prisoners from and to Sugamo prison. Occasionally, when Tojo wanted to meet with his attorneys, I would be assigned to guard him. Although I could have I never discussed anything with him. Some got his autograph, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction by asking for it. I was only 17 at the time and often think that MacArthur would have gotten in trouble with Truman sooner had he escaped while I was guarding him, but I was watching him closely looking for the opportunity to shoot him.

     Little did I know at the time that I would eventually be an attorney or I would have paid closer attention to the courtroom proceedings? While there I was promoted from private to PFC which was a big deal.”   PFC Ralph McKenna, IMTFE, 1947-1948.

     “They picked a bunch of us to go down to guard the war crimes prisoners, as part of the International Military tribunal of the Far East (IMTFE).

     I was a guard in the courtroom and stood right beside Tojo. There’s a photograph of me on duty when the court was in full session. He [Tojo] signed a five-dollar bill for me, in Japanese and in English too. He spoke English about as well as he could speak Japanese.

13 May Carrying their red banners, over 100 Japanese women and their young children boarded two trucks and headed for the Imperial Palace to protest continuing food shortages in the city. The group was part of the Communist Party rally attended by approximately 1,000 people organized by Sanzo Nozako, a party spokesman.

     Upon arrival at the palace gates the protesters forced their way inside the grounds and to the office of the Imperial household to speak with representatives of the Emperor. After delivering their pleas the group departed without further incident.

19 May Elements of the U.S. 1st. Cavalry Division to include their organic 545th MP Company were deployed to the area of the Imperial Palace as more than 150,000 Japanese demonstrators under the direction of the Japanese Communist Party were paraded past GEN MacArthur’s Headquarters building and forming at the Imperial Palace gates to protest the food shortages. The crowd was singing Communist Party songs and displaying their party flags and signs as well as a few Russian flags. Besides protesting the massive food shortages, the crown was denouncing the current Premier and his cabinet.

     The entire Tokyo Police Force of 3,000 was deployed by the Japanese Home Office to cope with the crowds.

31 May CPT Charles J. “Johnny” Benge supply officer of the IMTFE and a battalion officer, departed Japan to return stateside for separation from active duty.

20 May Concerned that the demonstrations and threat of accompanying violence was getting out of hand, GEN MacArthur issued a public statement cautioning the Japanese that,

     “the growing tendency toward mass violence and the physical process of intimidation under organized leadership is a menace not only to orderly government, but to the basic purposes and security of the Occupation itself.”

     SCAP took action, drafted an ordinance, and ordered the Japanese government to enact it.

     On 12 June, the Prime Minister’s cabinet issued Imperial Ordinance No. 31, creating prohibitive fines and prison terms of up to ten years at hard labor for engaging in acts prejudicial to Occupational objectives, to include: violations of orders given by U.S. commanders and all Japanese laws and ordinances promulgated to implement SCAP directives.

26 May An American serviceman’s body was discovered floating in the moat of the Imperial Palace and battalion patrols responded, the cause of death and circumstances of how the serviceman’s body ended up in the moat still remain unknown. SGT Mark P. Kusanovich of HQ & HQ Detachment was summoned to operate a 10-ton wrecker with winch to facilitate the removal of the body from the moat.

     SGT Kusanovich was later presented a citation from the battalion for his actions. The citation read, “SGT Mark P. Kusanovich not only operated the 10-ton wrecker with superior skill which made the removal of the body possible, but also displayed a high degree of initiative and coolness. His actions were exemplary and extremely praiseworthy.”

     All through a most restful delay-in-route at Daytona Beach, Florida, where my father was working as the auditor of the Sheraton Hotel there, I kept wondering how things could have gone so wrong. These sad thoughts continued as I traveled by civilian trains though the deep South to New Orleans, Louisiana, and from there by a most uncomfortable troop train journey to Camp Stoneman outside San Francisco, California, through whose portals, it was said, passed “the Best Damn Soldiers in World.” It was there that fate finally tossed the dice in my favor, and I was included in a company-size group that, for some unknown reason, was singled out as military police replacements in Tokyo.

     Even though the first leg of our “cruise” from San Francisco to Honolulu experienced calm seas, virtually every GI aboard suffered from severe seasickness. Since I had sailed to Bermuda by ocean liner as a child without any ill effects, I thought I would be immune to a case of mal-de-mer. Being cooped up in the humid, ill-ventilated hold, however, with four tiers of sick soldiers above me quickly convinced me that my trust was sadly misplaced, and I too joined the sea-sick ranks all the way to Hawaii.

    After docking late at night in Yokohama in early September, we were immediately packed into trucks and transported to the 4th Replacement Depot at Camp Zama in Kanagawa Prefecture, the former Imperial Army Academy that was called by most Americans Japan's "West Point." While the old buildings there may have been fairly imposing at one time, they were in quite bad shape by 1946. However, we only spent a day or two there before boarding a rickety old Japanese train, again at night, for our final destination, the 720th Military Police Battalion camp in Tokyo’s Nakano Ward, a place the Japanese called “Nakano Gakko” that had once served as the intelligence training school for the Japanese Army. It was on this journey that I received my first introduction to the typical Japanese toilet.

     Having to relieve myself, I spotted a door marked “W. C.” [water closet] which I knew indicated a public toilet. Upon opening the door, however, I found not a toilet, as I knew it, but rather a simple receptacle flush with the floor that opened out to the tracks below. Since my legs do not bend in the Japanese manner, I still have trouble with the traditional models.

    Upon arrival in Nakano later that night, I was initially assigned to “D” Company. Thus began my very fondly remembered police service with both Dog and Baker Companies, as well as serving as a telephone operator with Headquarters Detachment, of the 720th MPs, and my most eventful, almost two-year tour of duty in Tokyo.”  PFC John E. “Jack” Marquardt, Dog & Baker Companies, 1946-1948.

30 September It was “Conversion Day” in the Pacific command. Military Payment Certificates (MPC) were used to replace the dollar as the form of currency used overseas by U.S. military personnel when its use was not permitted by a host country, or when the U.S. State Department determined that use of U.S. currency was not in the best interest of the U.S. Government.

     The “A” Yen notes in use were converted into the new MPC series 461, and issued in both U.S. dollar and fractional dollar amounts.

     Over the decades of its use, MPC was given many common and at times humorous and not so humorous nicknames by the U.S. troops; script, Monopoly money, funny money, and Mickey Mouse money, just to name a few.

     When the issued series of MPC was compromised by hoarding by unauthorized foreign nationals or troops from black market activities, or counterfeited to a degree where it would hurt the monetary stability of the host country, it was secretly changed and without announcement an exchange day would be called for. Limits on the dollar amount each soldier or dependent could exchange for the new series rendered the old series worthless.

      I did, however, have a very personal experience in connection with all the new money. Prior to it being issued, the notes were stored in large wooden crates in a Japanese bank at the corner of Avenue "W" and 5th Street in Marunouchi (it may have been the former Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank building, the one that had large columns at the entrance).

     Shortly before the conversion day, PFC Dave Bushong from Canton, Ohio, and I were assigned all-night guard duty at the bank, and I remember vividly spending the whole night gazing at the millions of dollars piled up in the back of the bank . . . so near, and yet so far.

     The crates were securely nailed shut and bound with steel bands but they were not in the bank's vault, just piled up on the floor with only the two MPs and their .45 Colt pistols to guard it all.