There was more than the usual touch of unreality to the business at the chancery when a telegram was received conveying greetings on the occasion of the Burmese new year from the Burmese foreign minister to the Republic’s. Recto is now detained by the U.S. Army while his Burmese colleague is, so far as it is known, in full flight from _____. Letters were also received from the local Indonesian organization, thanking all the Greater East Asia ambassadors for the resolution on the independence of the East Indies, approved at their recent conference. Apparently the Indonesian association is now out in the open. One of its officers told me in passing that, following their usual tactics, the Japanese had invited them to the East Asia People’s Rally yesterday in separate island groups, that is, as Javanese, Sumatrans, Borneans, etc. They had promptly refused to go until they had been given a united invitation as Indonesians. A good dinner was served, he said. Every guest was given a hard-boiled egg, an extravagance in wartime Japan that only the army, which sponsored the celebration, can afford.
Meantime, with Daihonei admitting that the Americans “were allowed to make some advances” in the southern part of Okinawa, the Japanese navy went into a significant reorganization. The headquarters of the combined fleet has been absorbed into a new general headquarters of the entire navy, with the former commander-in-chief of the fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, at its head. Explaining the change a Japanese told me in all seriousness that there was no point in having a commander for the combined fleet. Naval operations have practically ceased to exist. The naval front line is now on the coast of the homeland.