Japanese Militarism Quotes

This quotation has been used by many criticizing the policy of massive bombing of Japanese Cities towards the end of the war. At first it appears that there was a racist disregard for Japanese Civilian lives. However there was legal logic. The Japanese had already bombed cities throughout Asia and did not adhere to the rules of war. The Japanese government “invited” all Japanese to join the military to defend the homeland to the death in the coming invasion. All adult civilians were mobilized. There were no adult civilians left in Japan. Perhaps more important was the industrial organization of Japan which exists in large part to this day. There were tens of thousands of small & tiny factories distributed throughout all the Japanese cities. These were distributed in civilian areas & in many cases were actually in homes to take advantage of available labor and not have to transport people. There was no way to bomb the munitions factories without bombing civilian neighborhoods.

The final decision regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor and war with America had to be made. The Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Tojo, the full cabinet and leading elder statesmen were invited. Hara attended as one of the latter class. America had instituted an embargo of critical raw material whose end was contingent of Japan withdrawing from the territory that they had invaded and stop their territorial aggression in Asia, an aggression which some Japanese leaders—notably the military—was absolutely necessary to provide for the growing Japanese population and its increasing standard of living. At the time, an embargo was a powerfully effective weapon, which left Japan only two choices: Withdrawal or War. In modern times nations have chosen to endure and evade embargoes rather than be forced into undesirable positions.

This quotation is important because the American public and their leaders saw only one course of action—invasion of the Japanese Mainland. The debate was whether to attempt the invasion right away or bomb and blockade Japan into destruction and starvation weakening the population so their resistance would not produce the kind of casualties that we had experienced with the Invasion of Okinawa. The bombing and blockade strategy was selected and 80 percent of Tokyo was obliterated. Yet the Japanese refused to surrender even after all its manufacturing capability was destroyed and the agriculture was beginning to be destroyed. Most Americans did not realize it but the atomic bomb was being made ready for use. After the test bomb in New Mexico, we had enough fissionable material for 2 bombs and it would take several months for each additional bomb. The use of the atomic bomb at the time seemed not much different from the massive bombing that had already taken place. More Japanese were killed in some of these conventional bombings than with the Atomic Bomb. The key believe was that the Japanese would not give up. After the first A bomb, they still would not surrender, and when the Emperor decided on surrender after the 2nd bomb, there was a military insurrection in the palace to stop the Emperor’s surrender message to the people from being broadcast. It was just minutes too late, and the Emperor had to be obeyed. Invasion, with its terrible casualties—many more than the atomic bombs—was unnecessary.