Defending the Enemy – Introduction

On December 7, 1941, I sat in the miniature grandstand at the Lincoln Park Tennis Courts in Santa Monica, California, waiting for a court to open up. I was listening to a portable radio when the announcer interrupted with breaking news: “The United States is being attacked. Bombs are falling on Pearl Harbor.” The games came to an abrupt halt.

Like so many other Americans, my life took a new direction that day. It is still an amazing story, even to me, when I look back and see how pieces of my life’s puzzle fit together so perfectly in order to take me to Japan in the spring of 1946. It would have been impossible
that day to imagine myself going to the country of our former enemy less than six years later to be part of an historic event about which little is known even today: the trial of the leaders of Japan for war crimes.

My participation in the trials was on a daily basis for two and-a-half years. I interacted with the accused war criminals who masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor. I spoke with the accused, met their families, shared their hospitality, and enjoyed the tradition of “presentos.” Many of these people became my friends, and some of those friendships have lasted to this day.

The “puzzle pieces” first began to take shape in New York City, U.S.A. My father died when my sister was nine, and I was eight. My wonderful mother, a widow at twenty-seven, was left alone to raise the two of us. She decided to leave New York, the only home she knew, to
raise her girls in California. In 1932, we gathered our few possessions and moved to Santa Monica to be there in time for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

My mother had never been more than one hundred miles outside of New York City. Throughout our cross-country trip she regularly pulled into gas stations and asked, “Which way is it to California?” When we finally got here, the strain of this undertaking caused
her to briefly consider returning to New York where she had family.

Instead, she found an apartment and we quickly became Californians. Our lives were filled with school (A’s were the standard), tennis, and swimming. In tennis, I worked up to the rank of number one in Southern California in the juniors, and at the University of California,
Defending the Enemy.

Los Angeles (UCLA) I was the runner-up in the National Intercollegiate Championship. In swimming, I performed with the Aquacade. My thoughts of being a top tennis player faded when I had transitioned from “18 and under” to the seniors circuit. While I was in
the same age group as Jack Kramer, who went on to become a famous professional in the tennis circuit (and I even knew Bobby Riggs), my skills could not give me a life in the professional tennis circuit.

I turned nineteen in April of 1940 and graduated in June from UCLA with a major in political science for which I credit the professors who were so bright and made the subject so interesting. I was considering law school, so I sought admission to Boalt Hall in Berkeley and was granted an interview. Their conclusion was that I was summarily too young and completely unsophisticated. At loose ends, I did not know what else to do except find a job.

My first job was a secretarial position in a doctor’s office in Santa Monica, California. Maybe it was the competitive spirit I learned in tennis that made me so driven, but I set a goal to be the best secretary anywhere. I was still a novice in some key areas: dating, socializing and
learning to horseback ride. However, I loved to dance, play Ping-Pong, swim and travel.

The attack on Pearl Harbor turned life upside down for every American. Our country was at WAR! Jobs became plentiful. My strongest asset was that I could type one hundred words a minute. It was no problem finding a typist job on the swing shift at Lockheed Aircraft.
Electric typewriters were brand new and toy-like for a “speed demon” like me. My working hours were 4 p.m. to 12 a.m., leaving me time in the morning to attend stenotype school.

When my speed reached 175-words a minute, I was promoted to secretary at the new Lockheed Flight Engineering School, where airmen trained for the newly designed aircraft—the Constellation. Being a stenotypist instead of a shorthand secretary gave me an added skill, enabling me to record lectures given in a dark room while technical
slides were presented.

When the Army Air Force took over the program, I was asked to go along. The program was transferred to Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, where engineers were trained for the new B-29 planes. I was secretary to the head of the school, Major Frost. Many young men
were sent to the school. The program was so new that instructors were scarce, as were books. Even scarcer was any formal curriculum. But, somehow it all came together.

When the first group of engineers graduated and were given their wings as flight engineers, I felt almost as if I earned those wings myself. I, too, was part of the war effort. I was proud for all of us! (I retain that same pride today.)

The school was moved to Smoky Hill Air Force Base in Salina, Kansas, where the B-29s were delivered and the crews were readied for combat. In this little town at a private airfield, I decided to complete my dream and learn how to fly. I “earned my wings.”

When the school moved to Lowry Field in Denver, Colorado, I applied for entry into the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots—WASPs— and was accepted. But the news came that the Air Force was discontinuing the program. This left me in Denver without a job, because I
had already given my resignation to the Flight Engineering School. I figured the Air Force must have had some guilty feelings, because I was soon told I could work in Washington, D.C., in Intelligence. While working in Washington, I enrolled in the evening program at George Washington University Law School. I met Colonel Leonard Coleman, a pilot in the Air Force and an attorney in civilian life. We became friends and stayed in touch.

When the war was over, I returned to Los Angeles and began working as a secretary in the District Attorney’s Office. One day I received a call from Leonard. He asked if I were still interested in attending law school. He told me about an opening for secretaries to serve in Tokyo, Japan, at the War Crimes Trials, which were expected to last about six months. He emphasized this experience would be great preparation for law school.

So, this story begins in the spring of 1946. Like so many other Americans, I judged Japanese people by the horrific hallmark event that took place at Pearl Harbor. I had heard stories of the death march at Bataan, when the Japanese took over the Philippines. To me the
Japanese were evil, subhuman people. Now here I was -- a participant in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE).

I had heard of the Nuremberg Tribunal and knew the two trials followed the cessation of hostilities, and also had something to do with fixing blame for the major conflicts that had dominated American life for the past five years. I was supposed to work with the lawyers who would be prosecuting the leaders of the fallen country. But it did not turn out that way. The job swiftly took a 180-degree change for me; I began working for the defense of the accused Japanese war criminals.

For the next two-and-a-half years, I interacted with “the accused” on a daily basis. I spoke with them; I met some of their families; we became friends. I remained friends with many of the Japanese people I met while working for the Occupation. I traveled to all four islands; each had spectacular shrines, parks, cities, and people. When not traveling, I frequented those tennis courts that were still playable at Hibiya Park or at the almost burned-out Tokyo Tennis Club and later at the Dai Ichi Hotel.

At the end of the trials, three of those I regarded as “enemy friends” were sentenced to be hanged. Others were imprisoned and later freed. Those who were freed went on to make meaningful contributions to the rebirth of their country and regain their former stature as leaders within the new government. One eventually became prime minister.

In the remotest corners of the four islands of Japan there was not a single Japanese person who did not know about the “Tokyo Saiban” and the role played by the American defense counsel. It was many, many months before those millions of unbelieving eyes and ears could begin to comprehend that the presence of American attorneys was living proof of the greatness of our nation—a nation whose doctrines and teachings could be trusted and followed to the benefit of a defeated country.

It is my wish for this account to bring forth some measure of understanding of the human side of this historic trial, and provide recognition for the efforts and struggles of the American attorneys who so vigorously guarded our ideals of fair play and justice for even the most
hated of defendants, and who struggled to bring lasting understanding and benefit to the Japanese people.

Today, so many decades later, wars of aggression are still fought. There are winners and losers. Historians and learned scholars have written about the Nuremberg Trials, and a few have written about the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. In 1970, American
moviemakers, in collaboration with the Japanese, made Tora, Tora, Tora, describing the Pearl Harbor attack from its conception to its delivery.

Other movies since then have portrayed the attack in an attempt to recreate the social and political culture of our country before, during, and immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack.
However, for those who lived through the war, every year on December 7th, there are reminders of the attack and memories are stirred. The mind plays funny tricks, but still brings us back to where we were when the announcement was made on that fateful day. We can
almost hear the voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing the nation: “December 7th, a date that will live in infamy.” My story is not a treatise on the legality of the trial or the lessons it may have taught. This is simply my story written with the hope it will bring some understanding of why American attorneys defended the leaders of their most recent enemy—Japan. For those of us who were part of the defense, the enemy leaders took on a new dimension.

They became “clients with a story to tell.” Whether this trial proved they were right or wrong, justified or unjustified, is not half as important as the visual indoctrination of the Japanese people with the American concept of democracy. The old and familiar expression, “One picture is worth a thousand words,” was never more evident than in the courtroom of the War Ministry Building where every day for two-and-a-half years, the Japanese spectators’ section
was crammed to capacity with unbelievers who watched American attorneys fighting sincerely and earnestly in defense of Japan’s former leaders.

When I finally came home, I had a completely different perspective of these people and their culture; and those experiences continued to broaden my life through all these years. That is why I felt compelled to write this story and invite you, the reader, to join me in seeing two
sides of the Occupation—the American demonstration of democracy in action and the old Japanese culture competing with the new.