59 pages • 1-hour read
Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
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Part 7-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 7: “Three Years Later”-Epilogue: “Beiju: Daijingu Temple”
Part 7, Chapter 1 Summary: “Kama Lane”
Three years later, in May of 1945, Wada’s father, Hisakichi, sits alone thinking about how things have changed. Some aspects of martial law have eased, but his wife has died, his daughter has moved away, and he cannot connect with his Nisei son, Douglas. His tea house was demolished for a hospital complex, and his legacy is gone. He thinks of the two Nisei units in Europe, who have taken heavy losses. A report by Gero Iwai about his inability to find fifth-columnists amid the Nisei allowed for the mass enlistment of these loyal citizens. They proved loyal and competent in the European war, earning awards and praise. Douglas has had a child, like his sister, and the family is growing, even though Hisakichi grows tired and frail.
Part 7, Chapter 2 Summary: “Suginami Ward”
In Tokyo, Yoshikawa is awaiting the birth of his first child in the hospital when the bombers arrive. He knows Japan is losing the war. As a former interrogator, he helped to pump captured American servicemen for intel. Knowing the end was neigh, he retired from the Navy. Firebombing ensues, burning the wooden homes of Tokyo as Yoshikawa and his wife leave the hospital with a baby girl.
On April 13, Roosevelt dies and many in Japan celebrate, though the bombings kill their joy. Many flee the devastation in Tokyo, but Yoshikawa and his family stay.
Part 7, Chapter 3 Summary: “Alexander Young Hotel”
In June 1945, Okinawa surrenders. Bradford Smith, a psychological warfare expert with the Office of War Information (OWI) informs Wada of the news. Wada has been working with the OWI, helping create “thought bombs” to be dropped on the civilian population. Smith is preparing leaflets to drop on the mainland next.
Part 7, Chapter 4 Summary: “Okinawa”
Masaji Marumoto, the popular and well-connected Hawaiian lawyer who is now tasked with rebuilding Okinawa by building a civilian government, has arrived on the island. He thinks of his peers incarcerated on the mainland and feels disgust at their poor treatment.
Part 7, Chapter 5 Summary: “Alexander Young Hotel”
On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrender. Since July 26 and the Potsdam Declaration, Japan’s surrender would be the only thing that ended the war outright. Across Hawaii, celebrations break out and Wada celebrates in the streets with his countrymen, though he knows damage to the Japanese American community will be deep and lasting. Wada and Iwai both wonder if they will be allowed to stay once the detainees return.
Part 7, Chapter 6 Summary: “Tokyo Station”
Yoshikawa sends his wife and daughter away from Tokyo and worries he will be attacked for committing war crimes. He goes underground, assuming an alias. General Douglas MacArthur orders the arrest of many, including Tojo Hideki. Yoshikawa’s interrogation unit is being sought. He hides out in a temple and takes the name Hekishu.
Meanwhile, Douglas Wada is awarded the Civilian Certificate of Merit, the first Japanese American to earn the honor.
Part 7, Chapter 7 Summary: “Alexander Young Hotel”
President Truman decides that the Japanese leadership will be tried by the international criminal court and not MacArthur’s military tribunal. Along with Lt. Cmdr. Denzil Carr, Wada has been tasked with helping interrogate, translate, and set up a group of interpreters in a three-month assignment. Wada and Carr agree that they will look for Yoshikawa under the name Morimura while in Japan.
Part 8, Chapter 1 Summary: “Ichigaya Ward”
Wada is in Tokyo, shocked at the total devastation he finds. He visits Yasukuni Shrine, the shrine favored by kamikaze pilots, but cannot enter in his Allied uniform. Back at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East building, Wada walks past William Flood Webb, the tribunal president’s office. Wada and Carr have over 100 translators on their staff. Wada is enraged by the devastation he sees, believing it could have been prevented had the Japanese leadership surrendered months earlier. His search for Tadashi Morimura leads nowhere.
Part 8, Chapter 2 Summary: “Former Japanese Ministry of War”
Wada interrogates Minoru Genda, one of the men responsible for the Pearl Harbor attack. He learns about the Japanese side of the attack and hones in on the intelligence gathered in Oahu and dispatched to the fleet ahead of the strike. Genda details Japanese losses and laments leaving infrastructure intact, concluding that they should have attacked again.
Part 8, Chapter 3 Summary: “International Military Tribunal for the Far East”
The tribunal’s prosecutors want to show that some Japanese leaders used war crimes to fuel their expansionism. Because only the top tier is being prosecuted, many mid-level war criminals will escape punishment. Genda will be spared. Wada is worried about how long the process is taking, though Wada now has some 400 translators working under him. Eventually, he is sent home after seven months and is eager to leave Japan.
Part 8, Chapter 4 Summary: “Alexander Young Hotel”
In February of 1948 Wada’s job is now to weed out communists in Hawaii. He gets a phone call that the one-time spy-driver Kotoshirodo is back. He files a report on the driver, but the driver’s file remains otherwise empty. He is never charged nor punished and lives out his life in Hawaii without reprisal for his pivotal role in the Pearl Harbor attack.
Part 8, Chapter 5 Summary: “Kama Lane”
A Shinto shrine is seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act that was written into law in WWI. Lawyers for the Japanese organization that owns the temple sue the government, and everyone in the Hawaiian Japanese community eagerly follow the case.
Part 8, Chapter 6 Summary: “U.S. District Court, District of Hawaii”
The court rules that the US government wrongly seized the land and temple. The legal victory sees the return of the land to the rightful owners and many subsequent lawsuits. Wada has moved out of Kama Lane and is involved in the community, participating in Boy Scouts and Lion’s Club. His young nephew from Japan now lives with him, his wife, and his daughter.
Part 8, Chapter 7 Summary: “Mount Tantalus”
After leaving the FBI, Robert Shivers now works at the US Customs office in Honolulu. He is running for territorial governor. His odds are good. However, he has a fatal heart attack in June of 1950. He is buried in Hawaii, his grave tended by Sue, the exchange student who lived with Shivers and his wife Connie.
Part 8, Chapter 8 Summary: “Royal Hawaiian Hotel”
Wada escorts Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida on a visit to Hawaii, acting as interpreter and bodyguard. The peace treaty has not been signed, so the US is still technically at war with Japan. The Prime Minister wishes to visit the war dead in Hawaii, against Wada’s recommendation. He visits the cemetery then returns to the hotel.
Helen and Douglas Wada are buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in Honolulu.
Part 8, Chapter 9 Summary: “Imperial Hotel”
Takeo Yoshikawa learns of the prime minister’s visit to the cemetery and is excited to reclaim his name and his life. He tells MacArthur’s chief historian everything, no longer afraid of reprisal.
Epilogue: “Beiju: Daijingu Temple”
Hisakichi Wada delivers wooden artwork that took him three years to make to the Sailing Temple, watching its installation. It is nearly his 88th birthday, an auspicious and important milestone. Things have changed in Hawaii’s traditional Issei community. Many shrines have reopened, but they have not regained prominence. Nevertheless, Hisakichi Wada is hopeful that he and his grandchildren have a future in Hawaii.
Part 7-Epilogue Analysis
With Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese-American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, the authors aimed to “explore the roots of NCIS and the forgotten players who made the service what it is today” (vii). Douglas Wada is the centerpiece of their exploration into naval intelligence ahead of the attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR tasked the ONI—the precursor to the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) and eventual NCIS—with handling cases related to “sabotage, espionage and subversive activities” (225). As the only Japanese linguist in the ONI in 1937, Wada is unique. He presents the ideal historical figure for the authors to place at the heart of their exploration of the ONI’s contributions, a figure that both defies the norm and exemplifies what the NCIS would someday become.
Although Douglas Wada lies at the heart of Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese-American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, his characterization is limited to what is available in the historical record. To that end, he is never realized on the page as fictional characters with clear motivations and predictable story arcs are realized. In the appendices, the authors lament the lack of characterization surrounding Wada, whom one biographer called, “a man of mystery” (225). The authors are careful not to presume Wada’s actions and ideas, instead basing his characterization and contributions entirely on fact, leaving holes in his identity, his whereabouts, and his roles during pivotal moments. “Even colleagues and friends seldom got a full view of his professional life” the authors state about Wada after concluding their research (225). The authors note extensive gaps in his career record where he was presumably released from active duty, on limited assignments, or participating in classified missions. Some notes reference his participation in clandestine projects that exist nowhere but his service record. While the authors assert that his contribution must have been more extensive than what is detailed in the book, there wasn’t sufficient evidence to include more of Wada’s contributions.
This final section of the book offers insight into important implications of the attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans. One side effect of the incarceration of a majority Issei population was the decrease in prevalence and popularity of Shinto, an ancient religion from Japan practiced less frequently and less ardently by Nisei and subsequent generations. During the war, Shinto shrines were shuttered, some clergy deported to Japan (essentially forced into exile) and some land bearing shrines was illegally seized under eminent domain claims. The result was a religion in decline. At the time of the book’s publication, however, this was starting to change: “The shrines and temples of Honolulu are reviving. There are a lot fewer than before the war, and many deported priests remain in Japan. But the shadow over Shintoism and Buddhism has lifted” (222). The book thus ends on the hopeful line, “They’re daily reminders that [Wada’s] family and his faith have a future in Hawaii” (223). In this way, the text offers a response to one of Wada’s chief concerns throughout the narrative, namely, the tension between his professional life and his Japanese heritage. As a final word on The Nisei Struggle to Assert Selfhood, the authors venture that one’s heritage and the patriotic commitment to one’s country can coexist in harmony.
The Lack of Justice at the War’s End is a thematic element that ties the latter half of the book together. In repeated instances of injustice, guilty spies are released without prosecution while innocent Nisei and Issei are locked up without due process. This reaches a crescendo with the Military Tribunal for the Far East, where Wada witnesses the release of many war criminals as the prosecution narrows its scope and aim. Wada interrogates Genda personally, knowing he’ll be set free. Wada learns that Yoshikawa is alive and hiding in Japan under an alias, able to escape detection. Later, Wada learns that Kotoshirodo is living free and without repercussions in Hawaii. For Wada, these lapses in justice are more than occupational frustrations. He endured the injustice of the concentration camps and martial law only to emerge from war to watch the actual enemies walk free. In Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese-American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, there is no justice in Wada’s eyes, and no reward for his life-long effort.
Despite the harsh reality that the spies who reconnoitered the harbor, and the Japanese military men who led the attack were not tried, the book ends on a positive note. The Epilogue follows Hisakichi Wada, Douglas Wada’s father, as he readjusts to life in Hawaii after the war, eventually regaining his profession as a Shinto carpenter and living long enough to see his grandchildren flourish. The book concludes with the return of this prominent Issei leader to a position of standing in the community in Hawaii, demonstrating that the dark days of paranoia, mistrust, and animosity are in the past. Shinto will rebound, the Japanese language can be taught in Hawaii again, and traditional customs and beliefs are no longer cause for persecution. Among Hisakichi’s surviving legacy are Douglas Wada’s three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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