Interesting
I think I have read that after the war the Japanese people and especially the leaders learned the valuable lesson of NOT listening to ‘yes-men’ and people who only tell you what you want to hear.
I think they blame that reason most of all for the Japanese Emperor not believing he could lose the war until he woke up to find two of his cities missing.
Interesting, but far from conclusive.
It is not clear that Hirohito even knew of the eminent attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.
Hirohito should have been hanged after the war. He was responsible for starting the war in the Pacific, and for all the atrocities the conquered countries and POWs suffered. That he survived well into my adulthood is one of the major crimes of the 20th century.
Hirohito was up to his ears in planning the war. Only MacArthour saved him from the noose to use him as a figure head. Read The Japanese Imperial conspiracy for the full history.
I would have guessed that the word “baka” was thrown around a lot.
David Bergamini was the first AFAIK to suggest the Showa Emperor (Hirohito) was the driving force behind the war in general and the war in the Pacific in particular, at a time when Edwin O. Reischauer had spent 20 years peddling the idea that the Emperor had been co-opted by a bunch of “militarists,” in large part because WWII morphed into the Cold War and we needed Japan to be our forward megabase against the Soviet Union and China in east Asia.
My only question about the Pearl Harbor attack is what did Hillary Clinton get out of it?
Hirohito kept believing he could get a victory that would lead to a negotiated peace up to the fall of Okinawa in June 45’.
Took Nagasaki though for him to finally put his foot down and say ‘enough’.
Hirohito bears some responsibility?? Wow. I don’t know what to think — Jim Nabors, or Claude Rains?
I read the article in CS Monitor - he says the Dec. 7th date caught his eye. But I thought the go ahead for the attack had to be given somewhat earlier? (If the movie “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is to be believed. Clearly the planning was long before. I’m not sure how this squares with Hirohito being in the loop before the last minute. Is the memo genuine?
I don’t know either way, just wondering...
With England battling for its survival and barely hanging on to key bases in the Mediterranean and N. Africa, Japan saw a onetime opportunity to strike in the South Pacific, overrun British and U.S. possessions there, and expand their empire in order to have access to the raw materials they otherwise had to import. Their calculation was that taking out the fleet in Pearl Harbor would set us back years and by that time, they would have consolidated the South Pacific.
They knew that the U.S. was going to make them pay eventually but they were not expecting us to be able to fight back so quickly. They figured we would get dragged into the European war and be mired over there for years. Long term, they expected the U.S., wary of fighting yet another war, to eventually accept the new situation (in the South Pacific), after perhaps "winning back" some token possessions like Hawaii and the Aleutians.
The battles of Coral Sea and Midway (mid 1942) stunned the Japanese and it was then that they realized they made a grave error. But by then, it was too late.
Battle of Midway was devastating to the Japanese. Four of their best carriers sunk. They would never recover even though it did take three more years for us to finish the job.
“’Tojo is a bureaucrat who was incapable of making own decisions, so he turned to the emperor as his supervisor. That’s why he had to report everything for the emperor to decide. If the emperor didn’t say no, then he would proceed,’ Furukawa said. ‘Clearly, the memo shows the absence of political leadership in Japan.’”
This doesn’t ring true at all. First, everyone in any position in Imperial Japan was incapable, to some extent, of making his own decisions. Individualism wasn’t how they rolled. It doesn’t typically work that way in other governments or in corporations either.
And war with America was a prospect of existential consequence. There’s no way Tojo or anyone else, short of the god king, would put the fate of the nation on the line.
Tojo didn’t turn to the emperor because he couldn’t decide, he did it because such a decision was above his pay grade.
Everyone with a desk has some inkling of the limits of his authority.
In Imperial Japan, where a man was obliged to disembowel himself for making a poor choice, consensus was an imperative at every level.
Nor does this indicate any “absence of political leadership.” The war wasn’t mere politics. True, there were factions within the government, at odds as to how to govern and how to proceed with an ongoing war that nearly all of them were committed to expanding. But war is never simply “politics by other means.” Not for long. Not in Japan where the supreme political authority was regarded literally as a god.
Not defending Tojo here, who may indeed have been a narrow-minded fellow on his own turf, but getting a wink from Hirohito in this case doesn’t reflect badly on his performance. He did it because it was unthinkable to do otherwise.
Hirohito should have hung because of the Rape of Nanking, ALONE!
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was another reason for a rope!
I understand the mentality about the Japanese - spent over three years there while in the Marine Corps - but Hirohito was not a dummy or puppet - he was ruthless, heartless and power-mad!
“A used bookshop owner”...
Owner of a used bookshop?
Owner of a shop that sells used books?
slightly used owner of a bookshop?
Oh, and the article’s interesting, too...
My step Grandfather whom was originally from Switzerland taught a young Hirohito French lessons, I believe in the 1920’s. They continued to correspond over the years. After both he and my Grandmother passed away and their personal items sorted through my Mom / Aunt found a hand written letter from Hirohito to my Grandfather from the 1930’s lamenting among other things that he thought there was the possibility of War. The letter stayed with my Aunt. My side of the Family, and now mine since my Mom passed last Month includes an official Wedding Portrait that Hirohito sent to my Grandfather.