The US atomic bomb attacks and the Soviet Union's entry into World War II that led to Japan's surrender were "God's gifts," the Japanese navy minister was quoted as saying at that time in documents released on Friday by the US National Security Archive.
Navy minister Mitsumasa Yonai told an adviser to the Japanese ruling elite that the two events provided a good excuse to surrender at a time when local hostility to Emperor Hirohito and his government was increasing rapidly.
The conversation was among the first complete published translations from the Japanese of accounts of key high-level meetings and discussions in Tokyo leading to the end of the war, the archive said.
ONLINE COLLECTION
The translations were released on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima as part of a comprehensive online collection, including declassified US government documents, on the first use of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific.
"It may be inappropriate to put it in this way, but the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war are, in a sense, God's gifts," Yonai said, nearly a week after a US B-29 dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
Three days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The two bombs killed some 210,000 people.
"Now we can end the war without making it clear that we have to end the war because of the domestic situation," said Yonai, who was among the six-member inner Cabinet led by then prime minister Kantaro Suzuki.
"I have long been advocating the conclusion [of the war], not because I am afraid of the enemy's attacks or because of the atomic bombs or the Soviet participation in the war," he said.
"The most important reason is my concern over the domestic situation," he said.
GROWING HOSTILITY
The bombings came as Hirohito, once considered a demigod, was losing public support for continuing the war amid growing hostility toward him and his government.
Faced with such domestic pressure, Hirohito and his advisers welcomed the dropping of the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan because they provided the emperor with credit for ending the turmoil.
The effect of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Japanese decision to surrender compared with the impact of the Soviet entry into the war has been a subject of controversy among historians.
The curtain fell on Japan's quest for Asian hegemony less than a week after the Nagasaki nuclear bombing on Aug. 9, 1945, as Japan surrendered unconditionally by accepting the Potsdam Declaration.
Hirohito turned into a figurehead and died in 1989, leaving the ancient Chrysanthemum Throne to his son Akihito.
But Hirohito's death never resolved questions over his own responsibility for Japan's actions in the war.
also see stories:
Japan remembers Hiroshima
Editorial: Japan knows who its friends are
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS