Posted on 07/31/2018 11:28:01 AM PDT by Jagermonster
A used bookshop owner in Japan found the memo tucked away in a journal. The document gives the first glimpse into conversation between Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on the eve of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Tokyo –– A newly released memo by a wartime Japanese official provides what a historian says is the first look at the thinking of Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that thrust the United States into World War II.
While far from conclusive, the five-page document lends credence to the view that Hirohito bears at least some responsibility for starting the war.
At 8:30 p.m. in Tokyo, just hours before the attack, Tojo summoned two top aides for a countdown to war briefing. One of them, Vice Interior Minister Michio Yuzawa, wrote an account three hours after the meeting was over.
"The emperor seemed at ease and unshakable once he had made a decision," he quoted Tojo as saying.
To what extent Hirohito was responsible for the war is a sensitive topic in Japan, and the bookseller who discovered the memo kept it under wraps for nearly a decade before releasing it to Japan's Yomiuri newspaper, which published it last week. Hirohito was protected from indictment in the Tokyo war crimes trials during a US occupation that wanted to use him as a symbol to rebuild Japan as a democratic nation. Hirohito died in 1989 at age 87 after 62 years on the throne.
"It took me nine years to come forward, as I was afraid of a backlash," said bookshop owner Takeo Hatano, who handled the document carefully as he showed it to Associated Press journalists. "But now I hope ...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Yep, which would have been a bit hard to believe in any case given Hirohito's occasional public appearance in uniform and on horseback. But it's a reasonable assumption in Japan because nearly all of modern Japanese history (Tokugawa through Meiji) has the Emperor a virtual prisoner of the military. I sort of lean toward Bergamini's picture of a 25-year-old taking over from his father and wanting to assert himself and his country in a new, exciting, industrializing, expansionist world. It's a little hard to accept that Hirohito was either ignorant of or incurious about the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and of China in 1937. That was a decade of warfare before Pearl Harbor. He wasn't cleaning test tubes all that time.
Pol Pot killed 25% of his country's population in the 70s but lived until 1998. He committed suicide shortly after hearing the Americans were coming for him to face trial. To his credit the first thing this commie killed was all the lawyers.
I figure Pol Pot killed closer to 33% of his country’s population, and he did in in less than four years!!
Other way around. Japanese wargaming of the operation showed the catastrophe that actually occurred.
Their referees just 'raised' the sunk carriers so they could conduct the invasion of the island.
Japanese were outnumbered in aircraft.
Worse, their ships had no radar and a terrible radio in the Zero that rarely worked so it was difficult to coordinate air defense.
Eventually an airstrike was going to get through and cause catastrophic damage.
I don’t know the exact number but dawn on Dec. 7th 1941 occurred maybe 18 hours earlier than it did at Pearl Harbor.
Plenty of time for a meeting in japan on that date before the actual strike occurred.
<<...he says the Dec. 7th date caught his eye. But I thought the go ahead for the attack had to be given somewhat earlier?
Well, the 7th in Hawaii was the 8th in Japan.>>
Right, but the whole operation was planned and ships were launched for the attack well before that.
I just think that a December 7th meeting could possibly be a fait accompli unless Hirohito was already in the loop. Like I said, I don’t know, just wondering about how much you can infer from this memo.
Japan had a history of imperialism , before Pearl Harbor the Japanese had attacked and taken over Korea and were in the process of attacking China. The Emperor was complicit while atrocities were taking place across Asia by his military. So in a sense his direct knowledge of Pearl Harbor was unimportant as he was already tainted by Japan’s treatment of their neighbor countries.
Funny I actually attended the USN war college and spoke to a lot of people that worked on the simulation and the Japs win every time Midway simulation is run. But you know best.....
The commie party in Japan was very active in the initial occupation years.
When the operation was wargamed in May 42 by the Japanese, they lost their carriers.
Yamamoto stamped his feet and held his breath and insisted he had planning that would stop that from happening so the refs 'raised' the carriers so they could go on with gaming the actual invasion of the island.
You might want to read some more recent books on the battle like 'Shattered Sword' that actually go through Japanese documentation.
The battle wasn't nearly the 'miracle' that a goofy Charlton Heston movie portrays.
He knew damned well, LONG before the bombs dropped the war was lost....
The only question was how much it was going to cost both sides...
Midway was the beginning of the end.. Yes, it took many more years for the noose to fully close, but that was the beginning of the end.
Even a blind and delusional man had to know long before the first nuke to the mainland, that their cause was lost.
And at a word from Hirohito the whole mission would have been called off.
But yes, it was long in the planning. They had war games going back years, looking at a land war with Russia and a naval war with America. We can be certain the Pearl Harbor attack was not a spur of the moment thing.
I’m thinking that once the die was cast, Tojo and his fellows still needed reassurance that the emperor was on board. Hitting America, they’d be all in, do or die. Hirohito’s favor was that of the god and all the ancestors. And every moment spent in the presence of the emperor was of immense historical significance.
In this, records are significant to us as well. This one tells us, no decisions were made that day, but none were changed either — by the one person who could have changed them.
Like I said I actually saw the simulations run and the Japs won.
Wouldn't exactly be the first time the Naval War College screwed up a simulation.
I can run a simulation of Victoria Secret models bringing me pizza and beer, doesn't mean it's reality.
Then you'd have hit the Superfecta! The day is young.
Blech, I read a few of that guy’s books, and they got old and tired really, really fast. No thanks.
His books I tend to agree with you, but try Turtledove’s Road Not Taken, good short story/novella, very good and ends before you get tired of some of his style. You can download it online for free.
Or what sort of sweet deal did diane frankenswine and her husband get out if it?
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