1945
“And thanks to Tim Mak for his insights into editing, and Ron Doering for buying the book in the first place.
Introduction By the summer of 1945, the Japanese were thoroughly and utterly defeated. Their cities were rubble, their navy nonexistent, their economy destroyed, and their people near starvation. By all rights, they should have surrendered.
But surrender wasn't in the vocabulary of the militarists who ran the nation. They lived by the code of Bushido, which condemned surrender. I...nstead, they wished to fight until an honorable peace was achieved and felt they had good reasons for doing so.
First, they considered the recent agreement among the Allies, the Potsdam Declaration, to be a plan to destroy both Japan and her culture. This was intolerable to them.
Second, they considered any possible occupation of Japan and any subsequent war crimes trials to be mortal insults. So too were any thoughts of making the powers of the emperor subject to the will of the people. After all, didn't the emperor own the people?MoreLess
Introduction By the summer of 1945, the Japanese were thoroughly and utterly defeated. Their cities were rubble, their navy nonexistent, their economy destroyed, and their people near starvation. By all rights, they should have surrendered.
But surrender wasn't in the vocabulary of the militarists who ran the nation. They lived by the code of Bushido, which condemned surrender. I...nstead, they wished to fight until an honorable peace was achieved and felt they had good reasons for doing so.
First, they considered the recent agreement among the Allies, the Potsdam Declaration, to be a plan to destroy both Japan and her culture. This was intolerable to them.
Second, they considered any possible occupation of Japan and any subsequent war crimes trials to be mortal insults. So too were any thoughts of making the powers of the emperor subject to the will of the people. After all, didn't the emperor own the people?MoreLess
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