Field of Spears: The Last Mission of the Jordan Crew (review)

On July 20, 1945, the Jordan crew crashed in Niigata, Japan, and suffered tragic mistreatment by the villagers of this remote region. Field of Spears attempts to recreate the circumstances which led up to the downing, capture, and subsequent abuse of the Jordan crew by the discontented villagers. Introducing the reader to the Jordan crew, author Gregory Hadley's narrative text creates an intimate rapport with the crewmembers and their personal backgrounds and brings the reader into their viewpoints on the war and on their life. The history of the development of their plane, the B-29, one of the major characters in this tragic event, gives the reader insight into the military mind-set and motives for producing and utilizing this aeronautical tool against the backdrop of the developments in the Pacific theater of World War II. Hadley expounds on new military tactics which combined with the B-29's manufacturing and operational flaws, put the Jordan crew into several close calls with danger. Niigata city and its environs, site of the downing and capture, are painted with clear strokes as a provincial Japanese port comfortable with being isolated from both Tokyo and the outside world. As "Japan's lifeline to its Northeast Asian colonies" (42), it brought in much needed supplies to the country and wealth and food to Niigata. This would change when the U.S. military discovered that Japan was still providing crucial raw materials through Niigata's still unmined port, which prompted the U.S. to bring the Jordan crew to this secluded part of Japan. Japanese militaristic propaganda combined with Niigata's own deteriorating local economic conditions to create its strongly ambivalent attitudes toward the West. It is Hadley's critical insight into what the Japanese populace were constrained to believe and were experiencing in terms of hardship, their lack of independent ability to formulate and voice dissent or concern, which gives them a "voice" that more traditional texts of the war do not provide. Hadley brings the reader into the fields of country villagers ignored by their city neighbors and Tokyo administrators. It is into this tapestry woven by the tensions between urban Tokyo and rural Niigata that the crew experienced capture at the hands of angry villagers outside Niigata.

The oral materials in the book contribute greatly to the enrichment of the portrait, as well as some clarification of the villagers' accounts of the night of the capture. What the oral materials point to in many subtle ways is the resistance of the villagers to come to terms with their part in the capture and murder of the crewmen. The villagers repeatedly turned the conversations to various incidents unrelated to the Jordan crew's capture. The author mentions that he would interview the villagers in groups, recounting the same commonly accepted details; however, within individual interviews, different and sometimes conflicting details would emerge. The oral tale which grew and became codified in the general memory of the villagers clashed with factual evidence. Hadley states that "even Japanese researchers who have studied the incident of the Jordan Crew have been sent packing when discovered asking questions about this taboo subject" (150, 151). The oral materials from the Jordan crewmen imply a desire to have the events and circumstances honestly recounted, while wanting at the same time to be portrayed not as murderers but as ordinary men following orders (154) who were doing the best they could for their country. Military documents, local newspaper accounts, and debriefings from the crewmen also add to the palette. Hadley uses both oral materials and written accounts to formulate theories as to possibly why the villagers acted in such a manner and how the various crewmembers who did not survive that night met their end.

Field of Spears contributes to the reader's knowledge of the subject of downed B-29 crewmen in an intimate and thorough manner. By giving the reader background knowledge...