Was this man really a kindly “Uncle Tojo” to Australia in 1942?
James Bowen says, “No”. In January and February 1942, Japanese Prime Minister, General Hideki Tojo, demanded that Australia surrender to Japan. When Australia ignored his demands, General Tojo set in train a plan to isolate Australia completely from all American help. This plan was called Operation FS, and it was intended to compel Australia’s surrender to Japan by means of isolation from American help and intensified blockade, bombing, and psychological warfare. Assuming that these hostile measures would produce an Australian surrender, Tojo assigned to the Total War Institute in Tokyo the planning to incorporate Australia into Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Despite clear historical evidence of these hostile Japanese plans, and a series of major battles to implement them in 1942, the former senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, Dr Peter Stanley, and the director of the Memorial, Major General Steve Gower, deny that Australia faced grave peril from Japan in
