Free Republic

In a 1945 summary, a U.S. Army Air Forces unit on Okinawa described August as “an eventful month in world history.” That understatement holds up 77 years later. Events had accelerated in the spring and summer of 1945. Germany surrendered on May 8 but Russia already was shipping massive amounts of men and materiel eastward. Moscow and Tokyo had a non-aggression treaty that Soviet premier Joseph Stalin cancelled on August 9. That night a massive Russian assault into Japanese-held Manchuria opened the Far East end game, briefly overlapping impending Japan’s surrender to the Allies. American forces began deploying from Europe...

VIDEO"It hasn't quite worked out as we thought."In World War II, Emperor Hirohito announced in his surrender speech to the Japanese people that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." And now we have a similar situation in Afghanistan as you can see in these video clips in which even the liberal media has noted that the situation in that country is collapsing. The big question I have is that since it has been known for months that American troops were leaving Afghanistan, then WHY did the United States leave behind tons of equipment? WHO made the...

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...

The “infamy” of December 7, 1941, is deeper than most Americans have ever imagined. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was almost certainly the result of a Soviet plot—“Operation Snow”—carried out by Harry Dexter White, a figure of enormous influence in the Roosevelt administration and a known Soviet spy. Americans remember Pearl Harbor as the work of a Japanese military machine hell-bent on a war of conquest. The truth is more complicated. The imperial regime had faced severe political shocks throughout the 1930s. Two attempts on the life of Emperor Hirohito—one by a Japanese communist whose father was a member...

How a Soviet mole in FDR's inner circle triggered Pearl Harbor – and its dire relevancy to our conflict today. ... On December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft delivered a shocking blow .. Nearly seven years later, Harry Dexter White, a senior official in the Roosevelt Administration, appeared to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities . Numerous witnesses, including Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, had implicated White in involvement with the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. ... Harry Dexter White, a Harvard PhD and Assistant Treasury Secretary, had played a major role in creating the World Bank...

Japanese Emperor Akihito Saturday expressed "deep remorse" for his country's role in World War II, 70 years to the day following Japan's surrender to the Allies. Akihito makes a highly ritualized comment on this anniversary day every year, but this this is first year featuring such a statement. Akihito was born in 1933, and has reigned since 1989. He is the son of Hirohito, who was the reigning emperor during the war. Though the emperor's formal powers were degraded in the settlement with the Allied Powers, Hirohito was allowed to retain his throne in a largely ceremonial fashion, and famously...

We now mark the 69th anniversary of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. The generations which made the decisions for World War II have passed away. The generation which faced the tragic violence required for carrying out those decisions is rapidly leaving us. As this personal knowledge becomes ever rarer, we must increasingly listen without response to revisionist contra-factual analyses expounding about what a needless, tragic and profoundly immoral decision the United States had made. The arguments advanced display a pleasing, deliberate ignorance which burnishes this peculiar new morality. However, these views can be countered...

"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." -- from Emperor Hirohito's surrender announcement to Japanese, August, 1945. "By most accounts, the Democrats stand to lose seats in both the House and Senate this coming Tuesday." -- Media Matters, Oct. 29,2010 By most accounts? So by some accounts, Democrats do not stand to lose any seats in the House and Senate on Election Day?

Here is video of Sen. John McCain last night, correcting President Obama's Hirohito gaffe, and then commenting on Obama's Afghanistan speech. Sean Hannity led into the interview with McCain by showing clips from Obama statements over the last two years regarding his view on the importance of Afghanistan, and his unwillingness to use the word "victory." He played the clip of Obama saying he is "worried about using the word 'victory,' because it invokes the image of Hirohito coming down and signing the surrender to MacArthur." Problem is, Japanese Emperor Hirohito did not sign the surrender on the Battleship Missouri....

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS, ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT - AT 9:15 A.M. ET: A number of commentators have noticed President Obama's appalling ignorance of history. The gaps were on full display during his speech in Cairo to the Muslim world, in which he did some hefty rewriting of the historical facts. He also is on record as saying they speak Austrian in Austria. But this takes the prize. Consider - the president of the United States on the history of World War II: President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but "victory" in...

Not a good week for President Obama. He's created the whole police "acted stupidly" fiasco. Now he has made another historical gaffe, this time by saying Japanese Emperor Hirohito signed the surrender of Japan to Gen Douglas MacArthur in 1945. Problem is: Hirohito didn't sign the surrender! On September 2, 1945, General Yoshijiro Umezu and Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu represented Japan in signing the Instrument of Surrender aboard the Battleship Missouri. Here's video of the surrender . . . . . Obama used the incorrect historical reference to support his statement that "victory" is not necessarily our goal in Afghanistan:...

Did Hirohito play an active part in planning and conducting the war? Japanese emperor Hirohito expressed doubts about going to war with China in the 1930s and 40s, extracts from a diary of one of his advisers reveal. They show Hirohito was afraid the Soviet Union would intervene. The diary by Kuraji Ogura, who worked as a chamberlain to Hirohito in World War II, was found recently and parts have been published in Japan's media. The full text may help solve the debate about how much responsibility the emperor had for Japan's wartime action. South Pacific visit The document...

Countries around Asia are honouring their dead and calling for peace, as they mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said his nation felt "deep remorse" for the aggression shown towards its neighbours during the war. Commemorative services are also taking place in other Asian nations. But across the region, many still feel that Japan has yet to fully face up to, and atone for, its wartime actions. The war in the Pacific, which finally ended on 15 August 1945, killed millions of people from the jungles...

August 6, 1945, a bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on the City of Nagasaki, thus marking the end of the bloodiest war in human history. In all there were 60 million military and civilian casualties from all countries involved. Germany had been defeated and Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker, however in the Pacific war raged on with no end in sight. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito vowed not to surrender as long as there was a single Japanese standing. The only other way to defeat Japan was...

Diet panel OK's bill to rename April 29 'Showa Day' (Kyodo) _ A House of Representatives committee on Friday approved a bill to rename April 29, which is now Greenery Day, as Showa Day to mark the birthday of Emperor Hirohito. A majority of the lower house Cabinet Committee approved the measure as lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komeito party, and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan voted for it. On Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda acknowledged that people with memories of World War II could have objections to the new name...

John Kerry gave a fire-breathing speech at Temple University in Philadelphia on Friday. In it he announced what will be his themes for the balance of the campaign, subject of course to 180-degree changes at any time. There was one problem with the speech. It was largely “fact-free,” as Dave Barry is wont to say. Here are the claims, and the relevant facts to each claim: “The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy -- Al Qaeda -- ...” Kerry may not have noticed, but your average college student ought to know that...

Even though I may not look it, I am essentially a pretty happy guy. Like most people my age, I get out of sorts when I consider the steady decline of art, culture and baseball. But so long as nobody puts a gun to my head and makes me listen to Hip Hop, and so long as I don't have to watch MTV or suffer through yet another Jim Carrey movie, I don't let myself get too perturbed by current trends. I don't even object to the mud-slinging one associates with presidential campaigns. I just remind myself that nobody ever...

"An investigation, based on newly released documents, into President Truman's controversial decision to drop the A-bomb. Concludes that the real reason the U.S. dropped the bomb was to intimidate the Soviet Union." Several 'experts' explained that dropping the A-bombs on Japan were unnecessary [there were no dissenting points of view aired]. The announcer -- bearing an English accent -- explained that the reasons that Truman decided to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki were: 1. A raving desire for revenge on the part of the American people. 2. To use the opportunity to 'experiment' the new weapon on an expendable population. 3....

Everyone knows that there is a connection between Green Acres, Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies. But I will mail 25 cents to the first person who can connect Mr. Ed to these shows (Postage shall be paid by the winner). I know the answer to this question.Hint: Wax museum.

Ishihara The consequences of joining the club Jonathan MirskyINVENTING JAPAN: FROM EMPIRE TO ECONOMIC MIRACLE, 1853-1964 By Ian Buruma Weidenfeld, £12.99, pp.162, ISBN:1842126873 It didn’t last quite 40 years, but for much of the adult lives of Spectator readers Japan was Top Country; indeed, Harvard’s Ezra Vogel wrote Japan as Number One, and he and many others, including international corporate executives, sought to discover the secret of Japan’s success and wondered how it could be applied in the West. In the late 1990s the bubble burst: Sayonara, Number One. What happened? It is the considerable achievement of Ian Buruma’s...