@@abdulraheem468 Hirohito was still enormously influential even as a figurehead. He was revered by the Japanese in a way that European constitutional monarchs weren't, and when the council couldn't agree on whether to accept the allied surrender proposal, it was Hirohito's intervention that caused them to accept it.
@@abdulraheem468 except Tojo wasn't Prime Minister when that happened. And the ones doing the coup didn't do it to rebel against the Emperor; they did it becuase they thought the Emperor was being used by the goverment. And they just wanted the war to continue.
I'm a Filipino teenager, I remember asking my father about Japanese occupation in the Philippines during WW2, he said he asked it to when he was a lad, he remembered his elderly neighbors and grandpa talking about the brutality of the Hapon (Japanese) during the time of ww2, that the hapon seems did not care much about lives only the pride they care and kept, the hapon is fearless they will not be caught alive because they commit (seppuku) a Japanese suicidal ritual using a smaller katana and kill themselves, beheaded by their comrade or swallowing cyanide, and the brutality they did in there occupied land, the hapon were very brutal and cruel, when they captured a filipino or american guerilla they tortured him to give any information that they could use, if they were not satisfied they will peel the human skin and put salt or drowned him in a salt water, and put him in a harsh labor camp wherein everyone was forced to work all day with a small portion of water and food sometimes nothing, only death awaits you there, if you don't listen to them you will be shot or beheaded with a japanese katana and also many beautiful women abused making them a temporary tool for dopamine boost. I was speechless when my father told me that, and many elder said that the 3 years of Imperial Japanese colonization in the Philippines are more worse than a Spanish 333 years, I really glad I heard that story and shared it to you before it become a lost history to learn with, I told myself that I was very lucky not to have been born in that time. A fascinating history and at the same time full of mystery. sorry for my grammar
At ngayon na adik na ung mga Pinoy sa anime pero ang hind nila alam na bini brainwashed na tayo ng mga hapon para kalimutan ang mga masamang ginawa nila sa atin
Same here in Indonesia, the senior people also said 3,5 years of Japanese occupation was way worse than 200 years Dutch colonization. They kidnapped girls and forced them to be sex slaves, stole livestock, burned villages, and took many people for forced labour to the death.
Same in Singapore, the British were ok but Imperial Japan killed a lot, tortured a lot and raped a lot or force other people to rape women. It was very sad
It is the same in my country. 3,5 years of Japanese occupation is worse than hundreds of years of European colonialism. It shows that being under the Christian West is far better than under the pagan faithless fellow asians.
Something like 18,000 Japanese soldiers fought on Iwo Jima, a literal rock in the middle of the ocean that measures like 8 square miles. I think all but some 200 of them died.
Worth noting that toward the end of the war, U.S. marines weren't exactly inclined to take prisoners after they saw what the Japanese had done to POWs.
Japan got into a bad habit of trapping the wounded with grenades, the US knew this and told the marines. this lead to far more marines shooting the wounded to ensure their own safety.
@@ctsquad501st3 With how deep the propaganda ran, both the Japanese and the US were spared when there was no invasion of the home islands. while the US would have won, it would have cost the Japanese millions of lives and the US tens of thousands.
@@edwxx20001exactly, the Japanese constantly either booby trapped or faked surrender in attempt to take marines out with them, they would even do this with civilians as well and convince them to martyr themselves
I read a great book called you can’t fight tanks with bayonets, it dives deeps into the psychology of the Japanese military leading up and through ww2. I highly recommend it to anyone that’s interested on this topic.
@@Quincy556 Hirohito was pro west. Small hats sucked Japan into economic interdependence and then burst the bubble. All this was intentional to create WW2.
@@whowhat4450 its the title of a book, not a thesis statement. No idea why it's called that if its a quote someone says, or if it's meant figuratively, or even ironically,
The Japanese were also very much ruthless to those who surrender to them and those who they were occupying. Whilst the US were keeping troop morale high by literally shipping ice cream to the Navy, the Japanese made due with comfort women who they stole from families of those they occupy. They were so ruthless even the Germans were horrified by their atrocities. Hell, a Nazi officer was honored as a folk hero in occupied Chinese territory because he would regularly go out at night to stop Japanese soldiers from abusing their power on the civilians, be it chopping off their heads or ""Nanking"" the women in the streets.
Lmao. You think nazis are not as bad as Japanese? Try searching about what they did in Auschwitz. So much bs how germany is easily forgiven about what they did in ww2.
Nanking (Nanjing) is the name of the city, and the Nazi you're thinking of is "John Rabe". He was a Nazi party member, and he used that to help Chinese people. He was very definitely *not* SS. Do not think that anyone who joined the Schutzstaffel would have qualms about war crimes, that was pretty much their reason for being.
Japan’s view of surrender and such things was a tactical and strategic mistake. It takes much longer to develop troop numbers than it does the equipment they use. Also losing permanently combat experience when you don’t have to is dumb.
Absolutely. Also each of Japan’s main enemies (China, the US, the British Empire and latter the USSR) had a larger population. Any one of those nations could trade lives with Japan and come out on top and Japan was facing all of them. If they were going to have any hope of winning they should have been prioritizing keeping their troops alive from the start.
@@vondantalingting Their air force at the beginning was a formidable force to be reckon with, but because of the infamous you know what tactics, later on their planes were manned by recruits that knew nothing. Not to mention veterans weren't used as trainers but still keep fighting until they died, which means all their knowledge and experience in combat vanished without passing on to the next generation.
@@vondantalingtinglet me reframe it: japan's culture of the elite abusing the people for centuries like slaves or automatons using stupid excuses like "tradition", "respect", etc. sucks. They've been very successful after CHANGING. And they shoulf keep changing for the better. Facts.
my grandfather won a commendation for bravery from the navy for his service at okinawa and iwo jima. he never talked about it. we didn’t even know he was there till after he died and we found the letter. this man was a history professor who loved to reminisce about his youth. but he never mentioned iwo jima or okinawa to his children or grandchildren, not once. 😬
You know some sht went down if the vet doesnt want to talk about it. My grandpa was the same. Never even spoke to his children about it but a few times when he rarely drank. Never when they were kids though.
That's why it had to take 2 nukes to convince the emperor to finally surrender and even then many of the Japanese generals refused to surrender and even committed suicide. And in the Philippines, it took until 1979, until the last Japanese soldier was sent home. The Japanese refused to surrender to anything, they were a force on their own level. As a Filipino, my grandparents are still traumatized to this day of the war crimes the Japanese committed to our friends, families....And we barely got an apology.
@@darthpotwet2668 The time between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just three days. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan played a significant role in the country's decision to surrender in World War II. While the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, caused widespread destruction and loss of life, it wasn't immediately followed by surrender. It took until August 9, 1945, after the bombing of Nagasaki, for Japan to formally surrender. The dual bombings demonstrated the devastating power of nuclear weapons and the determination of the Allied Powers to bring about Japan's surrender. The combination of the two bombings likely accelerated Japan's decision to end the war, as it faced the prospect of further devastating attacks and recognized the futility of continued resistance. Therefore, it's generally believed that both bombings played a crucial role in Japan's surrender. Would it have taken a week for them to finally stop? Maybe a year? And during these times, Japanese soldiers continued to commit horrible things to the Filipino, be it the Bataan Death March, the Scorched Earth tactics, the torture and brutality and sexual violence towards the women and children.
japan would have surrendered anyway, bombs or no bombs. don`t believe the propaganda you were fed in your years at school. stalin declared them war when they were holding out for a truce attempt. because of this they surrendered, they were not going to attempt to fight the world
I only know a scratch on the surface of one particular Japanese soldier's story, but it sounds tragic. I discovered he had caused the family a lot of grief, which I heard from his sister-in-law, due to his numerous addictions and problems. He was a gambler and heavy drinker at the very least, and when I purchased the family home -- a very old house -- I found many pictures showing he was in the military during WWII. Later, his nephew told me his uncle had been part of the kamikaze corps. Imagine how it must have messed with his mind and his life. I feel so sorry for him. In his flight suit picture, he looked like a child.
They were children. I've seen a photo of Japanese schoolgirls saying good luck and goodbye to classmates who were about to go on their first (and last) mission. And another group of Japanese teen boys holding a puppy, who might have gotten a chance to grow up - but they didn't. When a culture values "face" over the lives of their kids - it needs to be corrected...
My grandpa was a Marine sergeant who was wounded in 42 fighting in the Guadalcanal campaign. He had been on reserve for nearly three years until he was reactivated at the beginning of 45 for mobilization for the invasion of the main Japanese islands later that year. He was basically told by his superiors to expect his entire platoon to take 100 percent casualties. He was given no illusions about how horrendous this invasion would be. He wholeheartedly believed to his dying day, that the decision to drop the bombs that summer literally saved his life and the life of his men and no academic with the benefit of hindsight would change his mind on that.
He was right. The estimates for casualties for operation downfall were catastrophic. 2-3 million American casualties and “tens of millions” for the Japanese. It was estimated the war would carry on until 1947.
@@calebsorrel7684The numbers of expected WIA and KIA of Americans was so high, that an hellasish number of Purple Hearts were made. So many that, even in 2024, there are STILL many of those awards left. That just absolutely blows my mind!
@@jeffsanders663the estimates I've seen for a beachhead were 750,000 to one million wia and kia allied troops and 3 million Japanese. And that's just for a beachhead. My dad was getting ready to board a transport when they dropped the 2nd bomb.
My relatives still holds grudge on the U.S, as they too were expansionism, yet they see no fault of their own. You left us to be trapped on a island that is smaller compared to the Brits, how lucky it must be for America to own its massive land.
I love that Godzilla Minus One of all movies wrestled with the morality of the way "honor" was valued above all else and that they were too careless with life and you can honor your country more by living for it instead of dying.
Honestly went in expecting your typical goofy fair of monster movies but got some really deep and interesting stuff. Would have watched the movie even without Godzilla lol
Too many people act as if honor is a bad thing. If you don't have honor, your life is no different than that of a snake because trusting you is a fools endeavor.
@@zombieoutbreakprodI think that’s why people like it so much. The Godzilla movie isn’t really about Godzilla. It’s about the physical and physiological affects of war and they decided to make Godzilla the antagonist but realistically the antagonist could of been basically anything and the movie would have still worked for the most part.
My great grandfather was in the japanese navy, and by drinking 2 litres of soy sauce and getting a really high fever on purpose because of it, he wasn't included in the naval mission which killed everyone involved but him.
My grandfather was personally responsible for taking down 13 Messerschmidt 109's, 2 BF110's, 5 Focke Wulf 190's and 2 Heinkel HE1-11s. They said he was the worst mechanic in the Luftwaffe at his Court Martial.
The Japanese hierarchy was brutal to it's own people, soldiers, and sailors. Yamamoto was at sea instead of in Tokyo to avoid assassination by the army. NOBODY was safe. It was a real dystopia
@@jasonseti2343 Yamamoto also lied for years about losing most of the carriers of kido butai at Midway to the army. They kept requesting their support and he claimed they were currently operating elsewhere. The army was making grand strategy plans assuming they had a numbers advantage with carriers when in fact those carriers had been lost already. Only very few Japanese knew about the fate of the fleet until the war ended.
I guess this means, from top to bottom, every function of the combat oriented war effort felt that theirs was the most important. There would be no unity of command, and elevated command friction.
my father fought in the pacific during ww2. Solomon and Marshall islands campaign. he told me that "quarter was neither given nor expected in the pacific theater.
Thats one thing that a lot of people don't get with the pacific and the nukes that were dropped.. Like its a tragedy that it was required but it saved tens of thousands of Japanese and allied troops. It would have been an absolute meat grinder..
@@Vidar93 Not insisting on unconditional surrender (condition was sparing the Emperor) would have ended the war far earlier but the US's pride was at stake. Ended up sparing the Emperor anyway...
you saw her character for a second as she laughed about the Nuke strike. One thing for every military expert to understand is how ever necessary your actions are, they always be related to huge human suffering . Suntze: at home you can practice your swordplay even with your left hand, outside you only use the right one
I think even to this day, the sheer sudden destruction wrought on those days reaches the point of absurdity. At that point, laughter is a coping mechanism.
@@agrajyadav2951 Nope, by that time in the war, the Japanese home island was suffering too. If you want to see a particularly depressing view of that time, watch "Grave of the Fireflies." It's a great animated movie but be warned. It will hurt your soul.
This is all true, except that not surrendering is not an inherent part of Japanese culture, but a modern product. For example. despite common perceptions, samurai regularly surrendered and switched sides. Even during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), several thousand Japanese surrendered. It was after this, and especially from the 1930's that the Army's handbooks changed to include a policy of never retreating etc.
So basically, when they adopted fascism and tried for a very conservative "old value" revival. People tend to forget this, but it's quite important that it certainly wasn't the whole population that subscribed to this, and weeding them out like flies during the war really helped after the war. Unfortunately the US army then turned around and destroyed the trade unions and left wing parties with the aid of the mob, because they were "communists". Maybe so - but they had some justification I would say. Denazification never really happened after that and we're still stuck with asshole Japanese politicians that cater to the old fascist crowd.
Well then why in the Hell would they chose the time when they were going against the toughest opponent they had ever faced, and they knew how much of an advantage that the US had on them, would they adopt the old do or die ideals when even they knew that the die part was quite likely.
Japanese were brutal and their soldiers acted like monsters..... people forget how they treated the Asian people they had enslaved or the Allied pows. My uncle was a prisoner of their's after Singapore fell. he didn't survive captivity. the battles in China, Burma and the Pacific were unlike those in Europe... totally different in ferocity
In other countries high level where brutal seriously in all time soldiers go to war because they know if they win they can loot much as they want this was one of the driving force for soldiers to even work for you which Japanese soldier kept World war 2 I would say Japan have completely white wash their self with anime of course they didn't change anything inside the reason they don't build strong army first they don't have young people second its expensive
@coling As a wordsmith, I am searching for a word, and it's not "ferocity'. Maybe in a year I will think of one. The German army (the Heer) were legendary with how much damage they did to the Allies while RETREATING. Historians use the phrase: "masters of tactical retreat". Agreeing with what u commented, by way of comparison, when it was time for the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) to retreat at ANY TIME during the war, the IJA would charge the Allies with a sword, knife, or empty handed. When the Japanese army air force (or navy air arm) lost nearly all pilots with enough skill to land an airplane, they used those unskilled pilots to purposely crash into Allied navy ships (for example, the U.S.S. Bunker Hill aircraft carrier). My father, a "90 Day Wonder (slang description)", was extremely rushed through officers training in the last days of WW2 to replace one of the hundreds of U.S. Navy officers that lost their lives to kamikazes in the last months of WW2 (mostly the Battle of Okinawa island). I might not have been born 20 years later, were it not for the USSR (now Russia) breaking their pre - war peace agreement with Japan by encircling more than a million IJA troops in Manchuria (northern mainland China), while the USAAF was dropping the 2nd nuke on Japan. The British didn't think 2 nukes would stop Japan so their navy was bringing a 3rd nuke to the USAAF, while the U.S.S. Indianapolis was bringing a 4th nuke to the USAAF.
How she snickers ( nervousness ? ) at " ...getting nuked..." is Extremely disrespectful. Extremely. Does she even realize it was overwhelming civilians that died ? ☆
@@fjb4932 I believe she was referring to the possibility of Tokyo itself being nuked, with the emperor there. That's why she said "HIM" getting nuked.
A lot of people think bombing Japan wasn't the right move and wasn't worth such a high moral sacrifice but I honestly don't think they would've ever surrendered if it we're for that. In the end, the amount of both Americans and Japanese saved from that horrible decision, likely far outway how many people had to be sacrificed.
The Romans had a practice called Decimation that was used on troops who ran away from battle. They would take the surviving soldiers, break them up into groups of ten, hand them wooden clubs, and force them to draw lots. The unlucky loser was then beaten to death by his friends and fellow soldiers. This was an incredibly brutal punishment, but it did spare 90% of the men and gave them a hell of a motivation to stand and fight from then on.
Actually it didn’t, it ruined moral because strangely soldiers don’t like killing their friends It also led to units being dismantled and reformed into other units and was soon stopped when commanders realised it did more harm than good
What relevance is that to a video about "Japanese morale"? Also, "decimation" is, like most Roman pop culture stuff, mired in myth. It wasn't "used on troops who ran away", because the punishment for that varied, usually consisting of corporal punishment, depending on factors like severity, the outcome of the battle, and how widespread the cowardice was. The punishment of decimation was for cases where an entire cohort failed in an important duty. For example, the rear guard would suffer decimation, as their job was to cover the rest of the army's retreat. It wasn't as widespread as for every fleeing soldier, because disorganised retreats were common in the ancient world.
This leads to the same thing as that fable of: "what's the punishment for quitting? Death! Well what's the punishment for trying to kil the king/emperor/etc. etc. Also death! So I might as well try to kill the emperor...at least then he might die instead of me."
That’s one of the things that I remember from my father, that he was haunted till his death, because the Japanese would not surrender, and it was feudal, and he still had to kill them because they wouldn’t stop
An old man i know was saying, "War is wrong in every direction, is just a way the upper high using you the lower one to gain more power for themselves. But the reason i was fight to the end is knowing that my family won't have any future if i don't fight, and knowing that the other boys with me with the same reason just made me feel like big failure if i don't join them. And once you at the war, you don't leave your brother alone until your last breath"
Very well-said. When you choose to fight, fight for a good cause. Else just walk away, for you are just sacrificing for the sake of sacrificing for someone’s ego.
Nah, at this point, it's not even about East VS West; hell, it's not even about pointing out differences. Just state a demonstrable fact about ANY culture, even your own native one; you're going to get jumped. Like, I'm from Catalonia and I can't even explain to anyone where the (thoroughly well documented) differences with Castilian culture come from. I'm assuming a big difference between your case and mine, though; you'd probably be attacked by these fake lefty NPCs that have flooded the west in the last decade, while I keep getting attacked by the right for not being nationalist (fascist) enough.
It's fucking sad the other day my sister had the nerve to tell me I had to say oriental not Asian as if one of those words was a pejorative it's just a word
@@KirillTheBeastfascism is a particular form of Socialism where is the means of production are privately held but controlled by the government. This is in no way shape or manor part of the conservative or right wing.
As a Korean, East Asian culture is fucked, i wished it was mixed with Western values, we have "benefits" like strong national identity and the belief that the country/society is bigger than yourself but it gets exhausting.
What do Western nations call people who refuse to fight in war? Or, if you want to go back a bit to pretty much precisely the same attitude - read "Charge of the Light Brigade".
That attitude wasn't limited to soldiers. I remember reading about a Japanese man who survived the Titanic sinking, and he was shamed when he got back to Japan simply for surviving while others did not. So I'd say it's not so much slavery as extreme collectivism.
I was stationed in Japan several years and traveled extensively with friends. One day, a JN man in a military hat beckoned for us to come inside his sushi restaurant. He was a WWII veteran and spoke no English. We ate free and he insisted we return in a week. That time, he gathered people to eat with us and make friends. On our third visit, he provided a grand feast, all free again. The place was pacKed. Students who spoke English told us the old man was a "master" in the town and often hosted foreigners to meet JN people. We met the police chief who was sitting with the local mafia chief. It was a grand time.
Not too many can remember the atrocities that the Japanese did to the Chinese during World War Two. My father fought the Japanese during World War Two. Twenty some years after the war, he would not enter a Japanese department store. We were living in Hong Kong at the time.
@@tomwallen7271yup that’s partly why they are the way they are right now. A century of humiliation will do that to a country, like a mild version of Germany
@@dingleberry4234 Germany's a perfect example of an overcorrection. They are happy to impose restrictions on free speech, as long as it's related to Nazism. They will crack down on nazi speech/imagery, etc. Not ideal, but they have a good reason for that kind of overcorrection.
@@tomwallen7271except the Filipinos are too forgiving. They're not like the Chinese that would boycott a local bottled water brand coz the cap look like the Japanese flag. Many Filipinos increasingly think of Japan in a friendly way. Public opinion about China tho, well that's going the opposite direction.
The US expectation for japanese home island attacks was 1,000,000+ Allie’s and 90% of the Japanese population. Mothers threw their children of the cliffs in Iwo Jima before jumping after them! Much worse was expected at home.
"Mothers threw their children of the cliffs in Iwo Jima...." That would be Okinawa, not Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima, was nothing more than a small volcanic island with a military outpost stationed there.
@@wildbikerbill6530 And I doubt it happened on Okinawa, either. The Okinawans weren't, and aren't, Japanese. The US should have asked the Ryukyuans if they wanted to be handed back to Japan, remain under the US, be independent, or join with Taiwan. Not just hand them back to the foreign power that treated them so badly during that war, and for centuries prior.
@@MrNyathi1 They have film of it happening on Okinawa, so that it happened isn't in doubt. Japanese propaganda about how horrible they would be treated by the Americans was very effective.
@@wildbikerbill6530 You're right. I'd forgotten about the propaganda. I should imagine that the Okinawans believed Americans were capable of anything, after what they experienced at Japanese hands. And many Americans did commit war crimes, albeit in response to Japanese perfidy. I should imagine the Okinawans were quite surprised once they learned how GIs actually behaved towards them.
My grandpa was in the Navy on the USS Mt McKinley in ww 2. He said that when the ships started getting near to the islands, mothers would throw their children off the cliffs because the Japanese government had told the people these rumors.
It wasn't just about what others think back then; it was life or death. A Japanese soldier returning from battle would've been executed for "cowardice"
Easterners put a lot of importance on community and others around you. Because of this there’s a sense that you are valuable when you’re doing something for your community. Westerners put more importance on self and personal liberties by comparison.
Really? Do you hold the ideological views you do because of genuine personal conviction? Or do you say what you know will be accepted by those around you, and not say those things you know will get you cancelled?
@@MusicismoreImportantArabs? Are you referring to Islam, and its extreme emphasis on conformity? I know that most Arabs are Muslim (but not all), but most Muslims aren't Arabs.
@tonypringles2285 well unless his grandfather was the last living member of his families bloodline and assuming the story is true, I would said it's damn near a certainty.
The trouble is that common sense didn’t prevail in most situations involving Japanese troops especially regarding treatment of prisoners. When you hear the horror stories about what they got up to with their prisoners, it was horrific. Hence why there’s a little sympathy regarding the dropping of two nuclear bombs Treated its captured territories and captured prisoners with dignity. They probably could’ve surrendered on for easier terms without losing two cities and having a lot of the others turned into smoking ruins by firebombing Princess, with some of the railways they built using slave labour they’ve made a little help in real terms to achieving any sort of advancement. The work wasn’t a great quality and frankly all they did was cost a lot of lives for nothing.
@@g-1393 raped an entire town? Tortured prisoners for the sheer joy of torturing? Kidnapped and used local girls as traveling sex slaves? Alot huh? You're just another internet example of someone with nothing to say but an overwhelming need to say it anyway
And in addition to this, in the west it was generally understood that you are not required to give information to your captors, nor could they torture you for said information, hence why the allies and axis played cat and mouse with different ways of getting the information without causing harm, the Japanese meanwhile felt as if they where over after capture, the shame and dishonour being too much, they even failed to prevent their own capture by ending their own lives, so in most captured japanese soldier cases they would just give whatever information was asked for as their higher ups never thaught them to keep such information a secret since they where not supose to surrender or get caught.
"Nor could they torture you" is a bit of an exaggeration. Look up Frederick Meyer and his torture after he was captured by Germans. You described spy games during WW2 in durian theater as some silly game but there was plenty of death and torture involved.
One radio host mentioned when he spoke to a old Japanese woman how life was in Japan she mentioned the food situation was so bad that boiled barley was the replacement for rice because they grow enough for everyone but barley grew well in most places so imagine eating barley like you'd eat oatmeal or beans it only meant you ate them whole or mashed and once a week they would hopefully get to eat a plum and the best thing they found out was fried plum it allowed them to put flavor in their food
There's a reason that, in Japanese, the family name comes before your personal name. Your first duty is to bring honor to your lord and family; everything else, including your life, is secondary. Nowadays that just means going to med school and becoming a dentist though....
You're overgeneralizing to the point of absurdity. Family names for ordinary people weren't common until a century ago when they were adopted/invented as part of modernization (1875) which is after the period of lords (daimyo)/samurai. There were clan names before that indicating which region you were in.
interestingly enough, Japan and Germany had very opposite directions after the war in respect to their leaders: While many german generals and even high ranking nazis tried to shift the blame on Hitler alone, in Japan kind of the opposite happened. Generals took the blame for the Emperor to ensure he would remain in power. They feared that if the Emperor would be removed, Japan would fall to the Soviet Union/Communism. And even though Japan commited horrible atrocities throughout the war, Hirohito remained the only leader of the Axis power that stayed in power. (I know he commited suicide before, but can you even imagine a world or any reason were Hitler would remain in power over Germany after the defeat?)
@@ottokarl5427 worth remembering, however, that Hirohito's power wasn't as absolute as power Hitler had in Germany. Hirohito was a bit of a figurehead. Hirohito was left as the Emperor because: 1) ultimately, after all of that, he wasn't dangerous 2) keeping him endeared American occupiers to the Japanese population. The station of the Emperor was a crucial element for Japanese culture, and there wasn't any need to stir the wasps' nest. 3) at least arguably, he wasn't personally as responsible for Japanese atrocities as other dictators of the Axis.
@@rsmith02 Now, It's a familiarity/formality level thing. Like if you just work with someone, or are not good friends you do not use their first name. If you are a kid talking to a teacher for example, using the teachers first name is like a purposeful way to be rude and show you do not respect them and or see them as above you
Not realy. They had one more after Nagasaki. 3 more were due at the end of Sept. So 6 total built by that time but having 3 in Sept 45. They still only had 9 in 1946. 13 th was ready by 1947.
Sidenote II: one air raid on Tokyo killed more than both nukes combined. They surrendered because they got news of what happened to their army doe to operation auguststorm. The nukes where only an excuse so they could offer a conditional surrender and keep Adolf II out of justice and the US accepted it so the Soviets couldn't get an hold on the Japanese mainland. The nukes have been more pr than anything else and for sure had no strategic value.😂
@@S300V With the Japanese surrender there was no reason to keep production fully ramped up. If Japan had not surrendered then they would have kept making them as fast as possible and expanded production if possible.
@@brucenorman8904 no, no... Production was in full swing. The fissle material production technology of the time was very inefficient, plus every bomb was made in laboratory conditions. It was very problematic to upscale production and didnt happen until 1950.
@@blub5117 _"one air raid on Tokyo killed more than both nukes combined"_ But it also failed to kill a lot of people. Japan, unaware that nukes took a lot of work to build, would have to assume that by the time they'd analysed the effects of the bomb in sufficient detail to develop effective defences, they would probably have lost numerous concentrations of population, including a large portion of Tokyo.
I lived in Yokouska Japan long years ago while still in the US Navy. I chose to live off base. The next door neighbor was a soldier from WWII. He avoided us like the plague. We never spoke in 15 months while the other neighbors treated us as friends.
This is kind of a strange comment. I mean what did you expect from him? For all you know his whole family was burned in the fire bombings or disintegrated at Nagasaki, while he watched his friends shot to pieces before his eyes.
Well you have to consider that not only did Russia and Japan have prior bad blood, the Soviets were only going to be able to get over there in the near term on US boats. They were badly hurt and had massive rebuilding to to. Also Russia has never really been a Naval power and thus didn't prioritize fleet rebuilding. The Americans and British knew that the Soviets were going to be a huge pain in everyone's ass in the near future so there was no way in hell they were going to give them any access to any portion of that island if they could prevent it. Instead they wanted to set Japan up as a sort of soft cap to any Soviet plans for the Pacific. It served quite well in that regard. It still does, the Russians might not be as bad as the Soviets, but they are still Russians and are going to act like it. Just ask Ukraine about the wisdom of trusting them.
@@tomhenry897 before 2 nukes, but america rejected their surrenders because they wanted to really see how much they could slaughter civilians with those bombs.
@@ceryxfigmenti5377no not realy, japan only offerd a not full surrender, they wanted to keep korea, stay in a war with the uk and to keep their old gornment in power, the same one which started to war . The usa saw how good the bomb was at it's jobe in new mexico when they tested it .
@@ceryxfigmenti5377that's just stupid. And it didn't happen that way. The allies wanted unconditional surrender. The Japanese refused. After the first bomb drop, the US again asked for surrender. Instead, the Japanese army tried to over throw the government so Japan would fight to the last man, woman, and child. And after the second bomb, it took the emperor to call for unconditional surrender. So no. It wasn't about killing civilians. It was about saving millions of lives and billions of dollars invading Japan instead.
Wild. Anyone willing to take up a weapon to protect civilians back home is not a failure. Anyone waiting back home for a returning soldier to shame is the one who is a failure because they could've chosen to go to war and didn't.
Carlson’s series is titled: Super Nova in the East. For WWI buffs I encourage you to listen to his series: Countdown to Armageddon. I’ve never read or listened to anything like his series. His presentation is phenominal.
According to a book I recently read, Hirohito was actually very involved in the decision to keep fighting, as it was his primary goal to preserve the "kokutai" or Imperial prerogative.
@@TheNagroth It tickles me when people have such hard-line stances about historical events purely from conjecture. It's especially funny that you think the most terrifying weapon ever deployed (twice) wasn't a factor in the decision.
@@totalmetaljacket789 ofc it was a factor but japan would have surrendered anyway. it only happened quicker due to the bombing. what should tickle you is you were a constant recipient of propaganda growing up
Much of the Far East still thinks like this in terms of culture and society, and it ruins them. I've worked with many Chinese and S. Korean professionals that constantly lament the immense social pressure of obligation and expectations that creates this social norm of "if you're not constantly working harder than everyone else, you're a failure". This unwinnable rat race is actually what inspired the creation of the show "Squid Games", which was meant as a criticism and reflection of this.
Much of the West still thinks like this in terms of culture and society, and it ruins them. I've worked with American and European professionals, they think that the government and society owe them for everything and freedom is above all. Hence it creates an illusion that drugs should be legalized and it is okay to be a loser living on unemployment benefits. That's why the series like breaking bad is so popular and worshipped.
@@jacksonthompson7099actually t Having many children is still an obligation in many asian countries. In my opinion i think the declining birth rate in japan is because there is too much pressure over other things to think about marriage
To be fair, Japan already wanted to surrender after the nukes, but the Soviets goaded them into continuing the war by opening secret peace talks where Japan wouldn't have to unconditionally surrender, which were nothing more than a ruse to buy time, since the Soviets couldn't have claimed their "spoils" from the Yalta Conference if they didn't deploy troops in the Pacific Theater after the defeat of Nazi Germany like they pledged.
@@MEGATRYANT I thought they had 30 days or something like that to start a new front against Japan after Germany surrendered. To be honest I thought the Soviets attacked on the last day of the deadline
@@MEGATRYANT to be fair to the soviets, the japanese didn't surrender immediately after the bombs got dropped not just because of some secret soviet influence or force, but rather the emperor slowly coming to terms with the fact that the war can't be won or they won't get better terms, and if it did happen, it was just one of the factors behind why japan surrendered when it didnot to mention it would take a long time to transfer from Germany all the way to the far east, as well as keeping those soldiers fed and well supplied, as the Trans Siberian railway was basically the only proper source of both deployed troops and supplies for them. When the Soviets DID hit though, they hit hard.
@@Yanramich The Soviets were literally keeping negotiations that had surrender terms somewhat favorable to the Japanese to keep them from unconditionally surrendering to the US with the purpose of buying time to move enough troops to the Pacific. It's was obvious to the Japanese that they could only unconditionally surrender when the Soviets attacked, because they pretty much dropped the fake negotiations and said only unconditional surrender would be accepted at the same time, but by then it didn't matter, the Soviets were going to grab the land they were pledged in the Yalta Conference because they had deployed troops in the Pacific Theater.
If i remember correctly something similar happened to a Japanese passenger traveling in the Titanic. He survived that ordeal but when he got home he was shamed for having survived, idk how tf can your people shame you for doing what's natural for us......which is to stay alive in live or die situations!!!
There was a reddit post that made a particularly interesting insight into why Japanese troops didn't surrender, and instead banzai charged. Beyond all of these considerations, their officers watched their morale carefully... and the moment it started to falter, they gave the order - Fix Bayonets. Hard to have many survivors who can surrender if everyone charges a machine gun before the situation sucks hard enough that surrender is what's on everyone's minds.
I think the last hold out on Guam surrendered in 79 or 80 if I'm remembering correctly (just tried to find the story that I remember all I'm finding is a soldier that was captured in 72, 3 years before I was there
@@anonymeguy6363 I'm not American or Japanese, I don't care either way. this intelligent woman isn't trying to be offensive she's just pragmatic and realistic. there's no place for emotion when having a discussion like this.
They couldn't retreat from Stalingrad, because Rumania switched sides with the Soviets and they caught the Germans in a pincher, no way out. This is documented in a German officers book "Five years, Four fronts"
@@tomgreene7942A breakout effort to regroup with the rest of army group would still be far more sensible than just simply keep going deeper towards Russia
mind you, hirohito didnt break the deadlock after he thought theyd get nuked, he broke the deadlock after theyd been nuked twice and the vote to surrender was 3-3
Even some of the Japanese who did surrender, notably those at the Cowra prison camp in Australia in 1944, decided that they would very much die trying to escape than wait to be repatriated in shame
A lot of people have this impression that war is a game. That if you get enough points on your streak the enemy hits a threshold and says “you win, here’s your prize.” That’s not how surrender works. Surrenders happen for complex reasons based in the multiplicity of motivations in everyone with the power to request it and be obeyed.
No, but when an enemy is cold, hungry, morale has crashed and they know that the only way off of this island is in chains or a body bag. When they are sick and tired of being sick and tired and the enemy has food, medicine and supplies and are inclined to use a portion of those to take care of the people they capture. When they are not known for being cruel to captures, they are quite likely to surrender if only to get a regular meal and some semblance of warmth. It is far less costly to feed a POW than it is to hunt this desperate man down and kill him. Not only is it humane to take prisoners and treat them well, it just makes good economic sense. This is why all modern militaries want to be known as being merciful to those who surrender. It removes a soldier from the enemies ranks at far less risk and cost than killing them and also provides a potential intelligence source. When this expectation of humane treatment breaks down you get fights like Germany vs the Soviets. AKA Battle of the Big Mustache vs the Little Mustache. As far as shear brutality, it matched the Japanese campaign and the American counteroffensive and it happened on a vastly larger scale. War maybe Hell by nature, but fighting like that shows us that no matter how terrible things are, they can always get worse.
The thing if Tojo and the other Military leaders in the cabinet had their way the operation to take Japan would have been a 1000 times worse then Iwo or Okinawa or really other battle the US had fought in. I'm pretty sure the US is still using purple hearts made for that operation now and giving them to soldier's. If you’re curious look up Operation Downfall
My Grandfather had fought as a general in the second Sino-Chinese war. He knew Jaoan would lose, but he had to go along with it all. He ultimately let his daughter marry an American because my Father showed great honor. There were no hard feelings.
One can either look back with bitterness or look forward and think how to create a future that was better than the past. Japan did this better than anyone and after a rather bumpy start, they managed to over the course of a century, went from being a backwater deliberately kept several centuries behind in technological and social development, to a powerful and respected nation slapping their old foes around. Not by force of arms but by force of economy and improvement often besting other nations in industries they created. They repeatedly forced a stagnant and complacent US auto industry to "Git Gud" and start making cars that held up in comparison to the then ugly but very efficient and reliable cars they were making. Japan is not an exploding economy anymore but they have settled on a standard level that is quite good. The best in east Asia I believe, although S. Korea is closing that gap. Still things are looking pretty good for them in most ways.
Which means by his own sense of morality, Hirohito was either a coward who got countless people killed because he wouldnt give his life, or an eager participant in war crimes.
I hope Sarah will watch the Japanese film The Great War of Archimedes, about the details behind the design of the Yamato (and Musashi), and how obvious it was to the designers that giant battleships were wasteful in the 1930s, but the brass could not let go of the romance of battleships. It's made by the director who created Godzilla Minus 1 and is outstanding.
Not to mention that Japanese soldiers were told that Americans were ruthless cold-blooded murders who would torture prisoners went in reality Japanese prisoners of Americans were probably treated better than they were in the actual Japanese military (I have absolutely no source for that information but it just feels and sounds right)
you are right though, things like flogging and hazing was extremely common according to IJA veterans and that lower ranks were treated like servants for the seniors and you got beat personally for falling out of line, and even in 2024 the social hierarchy system in East Asia is fucked.
@@17Trees33 That hierarchy is also one of the main reasons the Japanese were so brutal because they can't take those frustrations out on their seniors so they took it out on the occupied citizens
There were a huge number of cases of American soldiers vandalizing and looting corpses and even Japanese body parts, but it was still nothing compared to what the Japanese was doing. Their propaganda led to Japanese settlers throwing babies and killing their elderly to prevent the alleged torture and rape from US marines. But for Japanese soldiers, flogging, hazing, beatings, almost all types of summary punishments were really common. This led to a disastrous level of hiearchy where the superior can never be questioned by an inferior, a culture that still has ripple effects today.
The surrender option was super difficult decision to make by the Japanese High Command. Many of the top generals weren’t very phased by the nukes that scared the civilian/home island leaders into capitulation, it was the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviets that convinced them that the war was lost. There’s so much disconnect between each of the leaders and their own personal honor that it made the final days of the Pacific theater a shitshow of coups and holdouts
The Japanese high command knew the war was lost long before the Soviets got involved and were always planning to surrender. The sticking point was the terms of surrender. The allied, particularly the US, wanted an unconditional surrender followed by an occupation like what happened to Germany. The Japanese high command wanted to avoid this. They were hoping to avoid an occupation and secure a guarantee that the Emperor would be spared and the royal institution preserved
A Naval WWII officer named Edward L. Beach wrote an EXCELLENT book about US Naval submarine warfare; it was made into a film called "Run Silent, Run Deep". The primary targets of the subs were NOT IJN ships, but the MARUs [merchant supply-vessels]. We copied the U-boat "wolfpacks", and realized that if you STARVE your enemy, and can deprive him of SUPPLIES, the "cutting edge" dulls quickly, and DIPs [Dies In Place].
Those without it turn to dust. Those with it live forever. Even if just as a footnote, it’s the only form of immortality available. Legacy is all we have left after we pass, and glory is the currency in which you purchase it.
For a country that showed honor & obligation, the Emporer should've committed Seppuku or Harakiri for the disgrace of surrender but instead he showed cowardice just like Shiro Ishii who ran Unit 731. He made a plea deal during the surrender for immunity from war crimes if he gave up all his recorded experiments & lab materials from Unit 731. He died in 1959 with laryngeal cancer as a free man!
No way he died in 1959 man. I think you’re confusing the date. I saw a picture of Hirohito next to Ronald Reagan. That means he lived to at least the 80’s
Japan shouldn’t of started on the US anyway have they not done so they could’ve not had the mainland of Japan trashed even if the other allies including China, Australia, Japan, New Zealand et cetera had driven them out of Asia they could at least avoided losing most of the existing infrastructure on the main islands of Japan.
@@nickywags0712 Ishii, the commander of Unit 731 died in 1959. Emperor Hirohito died in 1989. You can thank Operation Paperclip (or its Japanese equivalent) for making the deal with Ishii. There are still recent scientific studies that use Nazi and Japanese human experimental / torture data.
My Great Grandmother was a kamikaze pilot, she returned 5 times to re-fuel, No one ever knew until she died in 2003..She had more fly time than anyone in her squadron !! Love you Granny !
Coming back for fuel doesn’t make sense. In many cases Kamikazee pilots would only be given enough fuel to reach their objective, not to make it back. Also Japanese women were banned from flying aircraft at the onset of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. And finally, females were not allowed to serve in combat roles in the Japanese military, and were only allowed to become nurses or clerical staff in the late war. I don’t want to attack the credibility of your claim but something appears to be off.
Even after Hirohito decided to surrender, there was an attempted coup against Him that was barely put down.
Hirohito was a figurehead Tojo was in charge
It wasn't "barely put down". It failed spectacularly. The rebels badly misread the situation
@@abdulraheem468 Hirohito was still enormously influential even as a figurehead. He was revered by the Japanese in a way that European constitutional monarchs weren't, and when the council couldn't agree on whether to accept the allied surrender proposal, it was Hirohito's intervention that caused them to accept it.
@@yoloswaggins7121no it was barely put down. Only reason it didn’t succeed was because a handful of captains decided to not follow the coup.
@@abdulraheem468 except Tojo wasn't Prime Minister when that happened.
And the ones doing the coup didn't do it to rebel against the Emperor; they did it becuase they thought the Emperor was being used by the goverment. And they just wanted the war to continue.
" I don't mind if my soldiers run away, as long they come back" - Wellington😅
Now that's soldiering.
just don't fight for these bastards
@@leejentaylor6195 thats me. I will never fight for ppl hiding behind me like cowards. you want me to fight for you, better lead from the front.
The most British way to look at war and tbh it does work
Vs the French who just want it to be a good story
"You have no honor."
"And you're a SLAVE TO IT!"
-The GOAT Of Tsushima
Corny ahhh
@@mylles1112 Corny but true
"Just believe in the ball and throw yourself" -Wise Old Janitor
Yes the 🐐
Everything is cony for you huh@@mylles1112
I'm a Filipino teenager, I remember asking my father about Japanese occupation in the Philippines during WW2, he said he asked it to when he was a lad, he remembered his elderly
neighbors and grandpa talking about the brutality of the Hapon (Japanese) during the time of ww2, that the hapon seems did not care much about lives only the pride they care and kept, the hapon is fearless they will not be caught alive because they commit (seppuku) a Japanese suicidal ritual using a smaller katana and kill themselves, beheaded by their comrade or swallowing cyanide, and the brutality they did in there occupied land, the hapon were very brutal and cruel, when they captured a filipino or american guerilla they tortured him to give any information that they could use, if they were not satisfied they will peel the human skin and put salt or drowned him in a salt water, and put him in a harsh labor camp wherein everyone was forced to work all day with a small portion of water and food sometimes nothing, only death awaits you there, if you don't listen to them you will be shot or beheaded with a japanese katana and also many beautiful women abused making them a temporary tool for dopamine boost. I was speechless when my father told me that, and many elder said that the 3 years of Imperial Japanese colonization in the Philippines are more worse than a Spanish 333 years, I really glad I heard that story and shared it to you before it become a lost history to learn with, I told myself that I was very lucky not to have been born in that time. A fascinating history and at the same time full of mystery.
sorry for my grammar
At ngayon na adik na ung mga Pinoy sa anime pero ang hind nila alam na bini brainwashed na tayo ng mga hapon para kalimutan ang mga masamang ginawa nila sa atin
Same here in Indonesia, the senior people also said 3,5 years of Japanese occupation was way worse than 200 years Dutch colonization. They kidnapped girls and forced them to be sex slaves, stole livestock, burned villages, and took many people for forced labour to the death.
Same in Singapore, the British were ok but Imperial Japan killed a lot, tortured a lot and raped a lot or force other people to rape women. It was very sad
@@muhammadsuhairi7510 they were monsters.. not all of them but most
It is the same in my country. 3,5 years of Japanese occupation is worse than hundreds of years of European colonialism.
It shows that being under the Christian West is far better than under the pagan faithless fellow asians.
Something like 18,000 Japanese soldiers fought on Iwo Jima, a literal rock in the middle of the ocean that measures like 8 square miles. I think all but some 200 of them died.
So Japanese cars work well.
It got to the point where practically every Japanese pow was only a pow because when they were captured they were unconscious or too injurd to resist
22,000 Japanese on Iwo. Just over 1,000 survived. Some hid in the cave networks and didnt surrender for several years after the war
As a Korean, East Asian culture is fucked.
A literal rock that is sovereign Japanese soil and part of the Tokyo prefecture. They were going to make sure Iwo was soaked in blood.
Worth noting that toward the end of the war, U.S. marines weren't exactly inclined to take prisoners after they saw what the Japanese had done to POWs.
Japan got into a bad habit of trapping the wounded with grenades, the US knew this and told the marines. this lead to far more marines shooting the wounded to ensure their own safety.
@edwxx20001 Japan voided their right to the Geneva convention. They were lucky we we more merciful then them
@@ctsquad501st3 With how deep the propaganda ran, both the Japanese and the US were spared when there was no invasion of the home islands. while the US would have won, it would have cost the Japanese millions of lives and the US tens of thousands.
@@edwxx20001exactly, the Japanese constantly either booby trapped or faked surrender in attempt to take marines out with them, they would even do this with civilians as well and convince them to martyr themselves
@@edwxx20001that's on the Japanese then. Its not an opposing armies 1st priority to ensure the safety of enemy combatants wounded for otherwise.
I read a great book called you can’t fight tanks with bayonets, it dives deeps into the psychology of the Japanese military leading up and through ww2. I highly recommend it to anyone that’s interested on this topic.
Thank you so much for this. I’ve gotten myself an online copy and it will definitely illuminate that section of my understanding about the war!
This is false with enough troops you can clear the field the tanks will run out of ammo then they are useless.
@@whowhat4450 what are you even talking about?
@@Quincy556 Hirohito was pro west. Small hats sucked Japan into economic interdependence and then burst the bubble. All this was intentional to create WW2.
@@whowhat4450 its the title of a book, not a thesis statement. No idea why it's called that if its a quote someone says, or if it's meant figuratively, or even ironically,
The Japanese were also very much ruthless to those who surrender to them and those who they were occupying. Whilst the US were keeping troop morale high by literally shipping ice cream to the Navy, the Japanese made due with comfort women who they stole from families of those they occupy. They were so ruthless even the Germans were horrified by their atrocities. Hell, a Nazi officer was honored as a folk hero in occupied Chinese territory because he would regularly go out at night to stop Japanese soldiers from abusing their power on the civilians, be it chopping off their heads or ""Nanking"" the women in the streets.
The Japanese were fighting against the future communist China and North Korea. USSA was helping them. Who is the real evil?
Lmao. You think nazis are not as bad as Japanese? Try searching about what they did in Auschwitz. So much bs how germany is easily forgiven about what they did in ww2.
Nanking (Nanjing) is the name of the city, and the Nazi you're thinking of is "John Rabe". He was a Nazi party member, and he used that to help Chinese people. He was very definitely *not* SS. Do not think that anyone who joined the Schutzstaffel would have qualms about war crimes, that was pretty much their reason for being.
@@MrNyathi1 yapyap
@@MCE851 Sorry, I don't speak dog.
Japan’s view of surrender and such things was a tactical and strategic mistake. It takes much longer to develop troop numbers than it does the equipment they use. Also losing permanently combat experience when you don’t have to is dumb.
Tell me you've never understood the meaning of Society, Culture, Traditions, and History without telling me at all:
Your correct but also wrong
Absolutely. Also each of Japan’s main enemies (China, the US, the British Empire and latter the USSR) had a larger population. Any one of those nations could trade lives with Japan and come out on top and Japan was facing all of them. If they were going to have any hope of winning they should have been prioritizing keeping their troops alive from the start.
@@vondantalingting Their air force at the beginning was a formidable force to be reckon with, but because of the infamous you know what tactics, later on their planes were manned by recruits that knew nothing. Not to mention veterans weren't used as trainers but still keep fighting until they died, which means all their knowledge and experience in combat vanished without passing on to the next generation.
@@vondantalingtinglet me reframe it: japan's culture of the elite abusing the people for centuries like slaves or automatons using stupid excuses like "tradition", "respect", etc. sucks. They've been very successful after CHANGING. And they shoulf keep changing for the better. Facts.
my grandfather won a commendation for bravery from the navy for his service at okinawa and iwo jima. he never talked about it. we didn’t even know he was there till after he died and we found the letter. this man was a history professor who loved to reminisce about his youth. but he never mentioned iwo jima or okinawa to his children or grandchildren, not once. 😬
Wellll I meaannnn not the best thing to be bragging about, Japanese culture or otherwise… 😬
You know some sht went down if the vet doesnt want to talk about it. My grandpa was the same. Never even spoke to his children about it but a few times when he rarely drank. Never when they were kids though.
@@highcountrydelatite you don’t know what a commendation is.
Super weird how he could be in 2 battles that were happening at more or less the same time.
@@Aaron-dc3it Iwo Jima ended in March, Okinawa began in April and ended in June
That's why it had to take 2 nukes to convince the emperor to finally surrender and even then many of the Japanese generals refused to surrender and even committed suicide. And in the Philippines, it took until 1979, until the last Japanese soldier was sent home.
The Japanese refused to surrender to anything, they were a force on their own level.
As a Filipino, my grandparents are still traumatized to this day of the war crimes the Japanese committed to our friends, families....And we barely got an apology.
It took 1 nuke, the Japanese couldn't surrender fast enough because of a storm so the second was dropped
Bombs did nothing to make japanese high command surrender, until soviets started the invasión of manchuria, japanese where more scared of russians
@@darthpotwet2668 The time between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just three days. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
The dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan played a significant role in the country's decision to surrender in World War II. While the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, caused widespread destruction and loss of life, it wasn't immediately followed by surrender. It took until August 9, 1945, after the bombing of Nagasaki, for Japan to formally surrender.
The dual bombings demonstrated the devastating power of nuclear weapons and the determination of the Allied Powers to bring about Japan's surrender. The combination of the two bombings likely accelerated Japan's decision to end the war, as it faced the prospect of further devastating attacks and recognized the futility of continued resistance. Therefore, it's generally believed that both bombings played a crucial role in Japan's surrender.
Would it have taken a week for them to finally stop? Maybe a year?
And during these times, Japanese soldiers continued to commit horrible things to the Filipino, be it the Bataan Death March, the Scorched Earth tactics, the torture and brutality and sexual violence towards the women and children.
japan would have surrendered anyway, bombs or no bombs. don`t believe the propaganda you were fed in your years at school. stalin declared them war when they were holding out for a truce attempt. because of this they surrendered, they were not going to attempt to fight the world
@@quiet8690 facts about their surrender is obtainable. do not believe national propaganda
I only know a scratch on the surface of one particular Japanese soldier's story, but it sounds tragic. I discovered he had caused the family a lot of grief, which I heard from his sister-in-law, due to his numerous addictions and problems. He was a gambler and heavy drinker at the very least, and when I purchased the family home -- a very old house -- I found many pictures showing he was in the military during WWII. Later, his nephew told me his uncle had been part of the kamikaze corps. Imagine how it must have messed with his mind and his life. I feel so sorry for him. In his flight suit picture, he looked like a child.
They were children. I've seen a photo of Japanese schoolgirls saying good luck and goodbye to classmates who were about to go on their first (and last) mission. And another group of Japanese teen boys holding a puppy, who might have gotten a chance to grow up - but they didn't.
When a culture values "face" over the lives of their kids - it needs to be corrected...
The Japanese did some of the most horrifying torture to POW. So no they didn't surrender..
They had no respect for soldiers who surrender
Yes, especially Unit 731
No
@@hosspreyas they should. Surrender is an act of cowardice and you forfeit your body as theirs to do with as they please
@@MrCryptler69unit 731 made great scintific discoveries that are relevant to this day
My grandpa was a Marine sergeant who was wounded in 42 fighting in the Guadalcanal campaign. He had been on reserve for nearly three years until he was reactivated at the beginning of 45 for mobilization for the invasion of the main Japanese islands later that year.
He was basically told by his superiors to expect his entire platoon to take 100 percent casualties. He was given no illusions about how horrendous this invasion would be.
He wholeheartedly believed to his dying day, that the decision to drop the bombs that summer literally saved his life and the life of his men and no academic with the benefit of hindsight would change his mind on that.
He was right. The estimates for casualties for operation downfall were catastrophic. 2-3 million American casualties and “tens of millions” for the Japanese. It was estimated the war would carry on until 1947.
@@calebsorrel7684The numbers of expected WIA and KIA of Americans was so high, that an hellasish number of Purple Hearts were made.
So many that, even in 2024, there are STILL many of those awards left.
That just absolutely blows my mind!
@@jeffsanders663the estimates I've seen for a beachhead were 750,000 to one million wia and kia allied troops and 3 million Japanese. And that's just for a beachhead. My dad was getting ready to board a transport when they dropped the 2nd bomb.
My relatives still holds grudge on the U.S, as they too were expansionism, yet they see no fault of their own. You left us to be trapped on a island that is smaller compared to the Brits, how lucky it must be for America to own its massive land.
@@nabukotokei Britain is 243,610 km², Japan 377,970 km², so not smaller.
I love that Godzilla Minus One of all movies wrestled with the morality of the way "honor" was valued above all else and that they were too careless with life and you can honor your country more by living for it instead of dying.
Honestly went in expecting your typical goofy fair of monster movies but got some really deep and interesting stuff. Would have watched the movie even without Godzilla lol
Damn
Lol that movie is made by Japan with stpid american mindset. They japanese who made them dont even understand what kamikaze about and why its a thing
Too many people act as if honor is a bad thing.
If you don't have honor, your life is no different than that of a snake because trusting you is a fools endeavor.
@@zombieoutbreakprodI think that’s why people like it so much. The Godzilla movie isn’t really about Godzilla. It’s about the physical and physiological affects of war and they decided to make Godzilla the antagonist but realistically the antagonist could of been basically anything and the movie would have still worked for the most part.
I am a us marine, when they told me (as in the drill instructors) the stories of ww2 and how much a fight it was I couldn't imagine.....
My great grandfather was in the japanese navy, and by drinking 2 litres of soy sauce and getting a really high fever on purpose because of it, he wasn't included in the naval mission which killed everyone involved but him.
Did he do that on purpose?if yes,than he was smart.
My grandfather was personally responsible for taking down 13 Messerschmidt 109's, 2 BF110's, 5 Focke Wulf 190's and 2 Heinkel HE1-11s.
They said he was the worst mechanic in the Luftwaffe at his Court Martial.
@@jujuUK68 Ayo that went downhill pretty Quick😂😂😂😂
Him doing that is why you exist! 😳
You exist because of two litres of soy sauce
The Japanese hierarchy was brutal to it's own people, soldiers, and sailors. Yamamoto was at sea instead of in Tokyo to avoid assassination by the army. NOBODY was safe. It was a real dystopia
Tbh the IJ Navy and Army had a special case of rivalry at the time, one where it felt more like two gangs at each other's throats.
They refused to help and cooperate with each other, don’t want the other to hog all the glory.
@@jasonseti2343They both knew resources were limited and victory required continuous expansion in both the Pacific and China.
@@jasonseti2343 Yamamoto also lied for years about losing most of the carriers of kido butai at Midway to the army. They kept requesting their support and he claimed they were currently operating elsewhere. The army was making grand strategy plans assuming they had a numbers advantage with carriers when in fact those carriers had been lost already.
Only very few Japanese knew about the fate of the fleet until the war ended.
@@quineloeYou’d have to be a truly incompetent leader to punish the very people who serve you for daring to be practical & face the facts of reality.
How have I never heard of Sarah before?! She has fantastic points of view and ways of thinking about conflicts in a way I have never really heard.
The Japanese capitulated after their Kwantung army was defeated by Soviet troops in China, and not because the Americans dropped a couple of bombs
Operational success vs strategy is such a perfect, concise and fascinating way to describe this
I guess this means, from top to bottom, every function of the combat oriented war effort felt that theirs was the most important. There would be no unity of command, and elevated command friction.
my father fought in the pacific during ww2. Solomon and Marshall islands campaign. he told me that "quarter was neither given nor expected in the pacific theater.
Thats one thing that a lot of people don't get with the pacific and the nukes that were dropped.. Like its a tragedy that it was required but it saved tens of thousands of Japanese and allied troops. It would have been an absolute meat grinder..
@@Vidar93 So 100.000+ were killed to save tens of thousand of lives?
most Japanese soldiers surrendered were shot at the site. US army did not take them as prisoner.
@@dfsdh432v9Because they had a habit of pulling out grenades when they were close enough to the American troops.
@@Vidar93 Not insisting on unconditional surrender (condition was sparing the Emperor) would have ended the war far earlier but the US's pride was at stake. Ended up sparing the Emperor anyway...
you saw her character for a second as she laughed about the Nuke strike. One thing for every military expert to understand is how ever necessary your actions are, they always be related to huge human suffering . Suntze: at home you can practice your swordplay even with your left hand, outside you only use the right one
Tf are you yapping about
Japan literally asked for it 💀
I saw that too 😅
That laugh after she said "nuked" was too worrying.
Almost every American loved that fact.
she's freaky
She is an arrogant ass. But karma is a bitch.
I think even to this day, the sheer sudden destruction wrought on those days reaches the point of absurdity. At that point, laughter is a coping mechanism.
I'm deeply offended by that laughter
Japanese soldiers wondering if they'll get food this week.
American Soldiers wondering what flavor ice cream they'll pick tonight.
And it's the exact opposite for their respective populations 😂
@@agrajyadav2951 Nope, by that time in the war, the Japanese home island was suffering too. If you want to see a particularly depressing view of that time, watch "Grave of the Fireflies." It's a great animated movie but be warned. It will hurt your soul.
@agrajyadav2951 what? America civilians are ice cream all the time during ww2
@@tonypringles2285 it's been some time since ww2
@@agrajyadav2951dude what are you talking about?? why do you think americans have a high obesity rate? we have more than enoughfood bro
This is all true, except that not surrendering is not an inherent part of Japanese culture, but a modern product. For example. despite common perceptions, samurai regularly surrendered and switched sides. Even during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), several thousand Japanese surrendered. It was after this, and especially from the 1930's that the Army's handbooks changed to include a policy of never retreating etc.
So basically, when they adopted fascism and tried for a very conservative "old value" revival. People tend to forget this, but it's quite important that it certainly wasn't the whole population that subscribed to this, and weeding them out like flies during the war really helped after the war.
Unfortunately the US army then turned around and destroyed the trade unions and left wing parties with the aid of the mob, because they were "communists". Maybe so - but they had some justification I would say.
Denazification never really happened after that and we're still stuck with asshole Japanese politicians that cater to the old fascist crowd.
@@StCreedwhoa you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Well then why in the Hell would they chose the time when they were going against the toughest opponent they had ever faced, and they knew how much of an advantage that the US had on them, would they adopt the old do or die ideals when even they knew that the die part was quite likely.
@@StCreed Tell me you don't know what Facism is without telling me you don't know what Facism is...
Japan was never a facist country.
@@danielkrcmar5395People think any authoritarian government is fascism and it’s hilariously misguided. Japan was clearly an imperialist state.
War is like a game of chess, sometimes it's checkmate, sometimes is a draw, sometimes you lose.
"The war situation has not necessarilly developed in Japan's favour" - Emperor Hirohito
Japanese were brutal and their soldiers acted like monsters..... people forget how they treated the Asian people they had enslaved or the Allied pows. My uncle was a prisoner of their's after Singapore fell. he didn't survive captivity. the battles in China, Burma and the Pacific were unlike those in Europe... totally different in ferocity
War makes all monsters.
Look at the things Canada did in its war history....a fair bit of Geneva laws are because of Canada
In other countries high level where brutal seriously in all time soldiers go to war because they know if they win they can loot much as they want this was one of the driving force for soldiers to even work for you which Japanese soldier kept World war 2 I would say Japan have completely white wash their self with anime of course they didn't change anything inside the reason they don't build strong army first they don't have young people second its expensive
my Grandad fought against Japanese in World War II he really did hold a hatred against them
@coling
As a wordsmith, I am searching for a word, and it's not "ferocity'. Maybe in a year I will think of one.
The German army (the Heer) were legendary with how much damage they did to the Allies while RETREATING. Historians use the phrase: "masters of tactical retreat".
Agreeing with what u commented, by way of comparison, when it was time for the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) to retreat at ANY TIME during the war, the IJA would charge the Allies with a sword, knife, or empty handed.
When the Japanese army air force (or navy air arm) lost nearly all pilots with enough skill to land an airplane, they used those unskilled pilots to purposely crash into Allied navy ships (for example, the U.S.S. Bunker Hill aircraft carrier).
My father, a "90 Day Wonder (slang description)", was extremely rushed through officers training in the last days of WW2 to replace one of the hundreds of U.S. Navy officers that lost their lives to kamikazes in the last months of WW2 (mostly the Battle of Okinawa island).
I might not have been born 20 years later, were it not for the USSR (now Russia) breaking their pre - war peace agreement with Japan by encircling more than a million IJA troops in Manchuria (northern mainland China), while the USAAF was dropping the 2nd nuke on Japan.
The British didn't think 2 nukes would stop Japan so their navy was bringing a 3rd nuke to the USAAF, while the U.S.S. Indianapolis was bringing a 4th nuke to the USAAF.
Nanking didn't r*pe itself
Professor Sarah Paine is awesome. She is so knowledgeable but hearing her speak history makes it so easy to understand snd follow.
How she snickers ( nervousness ? ) at " ...getting nuked..." is Extremely disrespectful.
Extremely.
Does she even realize it was overwhelming civilians that died ? ☆
@@fjb4932lol. They had those nukes coming.
@@fjb4932I highly doubt it was because she finds nukes funny. It was because of the impossible situation the emperor found himself in.
@@fjb4932 I believe she was referring to the possibility of Tokyo itself being nuked, with the emperor there. That's why she said "HIM" getting nuked.
@@fjb4932siiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhh.
A lot of people think bombing Japan wasn't the right move and wasn't worth such a high moral sacrifice but I honestly don't think they would've ever surrendered if it we're for that. In the end, the amount of both Americans and Japanese saved from that horrible decision, likely far outway how many people had to be sacrificed.
Finally a normal opinion
The Romans had a practice called Decimation that was used on troops who ran away from battle. They would take the surviving soldiers, break them up into groups of ten, hand them wooden clubs, and force them to draw lots. The unlucky loser was then beaten to death by his friends and fellow soldiers. This was an incredibly brutal punishment, but it did spare 90% of the men and gave them a hell of a motivation to stand and fight from then on.
Actually it didn’t, it ruined moral because strangely soldiers don’t like killing their friends
It also led to units being dismantled and reformed into other units and was soon stopped when commanders realised it did more harm than good
What relevance is that to a video about "Japanese morale"?
Also, "decimation" is, like most Roman pop culture stuff, mired in myth. It wasn't "used on troops who ran away", because the punishment for that varied, usually consisting of corporal punishment, depending on factors like severity, the outcome of the battle, and how widespread the cowardice was.
The punishment of decimation was for cases where an entire cohort failed in an important duty. For example, the rear guard would suffer decimation, as their job was to cover the rest of the army's retreat. It wasn't as widespread as for every fleeing soldier, because disorganised retreats were common in the ancient world.
Isn’t decimation used for mutiny only?
I learned about this from Warhammer 40k. When Perturabo first met his legion he did the exact thing to them. So now I know where this came from.
This leads to the same thing as that fable of: "what's the punishment for quitting? Death! Well what's the punishment for trying to kil the king/emperor/etc. etc. Also death! So I might as well try to kill the emperor...at least then he might die instead of me."
That’s one of the things that I remember from my father, that he was haunted till his death, because the Japanese would not surrender, and it was feudal, and he still had to kill them because they wouldn’t stop
Thank you for sharing.
An old man i know was saying, "War is wrong in every direction, is just a way the upper high using you the lower one to gain more power for themselves. But the reason i was fight to the end is knowing that my family won't have any future if i don't fight, and knowing that the other boys with me with the same reason just made me feel like big failure if i don't join them. And once you at the war, you don't leave your brother alone until your last breath"
Very well-said.
When you choose to fight, fight for a good cause. Else just walk away, for you are just sacrificing for the sake of sacrificing for someone’s ego.
This lady literally said:
Dishonor on your whole family, dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow...
Locality not cow
@@nickallain4947 r/whoosh
@@nickallain4947 Either you didn't have a childhood or you're ten years old.
@@nickallain4947 ha ha youz the lolcow :)
@@user-ms3gg1kv8qShe clearly said “locality”
When I point out such differences in east vs west culture, I am attacked as a bigot and racist.
Only by Leftists who never matured past age 5.
Nah, at this point, it's not even about East VS West; hell, it's not even about pointing out differences. Just state a demonstrable fact about ANY culture, even your own native one; you're going to get jumped. Like, I'm from Catalonia and I can't even explain to anyone where the (thoroughly well documented) differences with Castilian culture come from. I'm assuming a big difference between your case and mine, though; you'd probably be attacked by these fake lefty NPCs that have flooded the west in the last decade, while I keep getting attacked by the right for not being nationalist (fascist) enough.
It's fucking sad the other day my sister had the nerve to tell me I had to say oriental not Asian as if one of those words was a pejorative it's just a word
@@KirillTheBeastfascism is a particular form of Socialism where is the means of production are privately held but controlled by the government. This is in no way shape or manor part of the conservative or right wing.
As a Korean, East Asian culture is fucked, i wished it was mixed with Western values, we have "benefits" like strong national identity and the belief that the country/society is bigger than yourself but it gets exhausting.
Hard core history does such a good job breaking this done. Really interesting stuff
That's not "honor" or "obligation", that's servitude or slavery.
What do Western nations call people who refuse to fight in war? Or, if you want to go back a bit to pretty much precisely the same attitude - read "Charge of the Light Brigade".
@@MrNyathi1
I call people who refuse to fight in war honored with digninity that valorizes their own morality and freedom.
That attitude wasn't limited to soldiers. I remember reading about a Japanese man who survived the Titanic sinking, and he was shamed when he got back to Japan simply for surviving while others did not. So I'd say it's not so much slavery as extreme collectivism.
I was stationed in Japan several years and traveled extensively with friends. One day, a JN man in a military hat beckoned for us to come inside his sushi restaurant. He was a WWII veteran and spoke no English. We ate free and he insisted we return in a week. That time, he gathered people to eat with us and make friends. On our third visit, he provided a grand feast, all free again. The place was pacKed. Students who spoke English told us the old man was a "master" in the town and often hosted foreigners to meet JN people. We met the police chief who was sitting with the local mafia chief. It was a grand time.
That sounds like a wonderful experience.
Thank you for sharing.
"...the police chief who was sitting with the local mafia chief."
There's a story there, if only we knew.
@@wildbikerbill6530 Indeed, they were in fact, gentlemen working in the same industry. Probably knew all the same people.
Not too many can remember the atrocities that the Japanese did to the Chinese during World War Two. My father fought the Japanese during World War Two. Twenty some years after the war, he would not enter a Japanese department store. We were living in Hong Kong at the time.
The Chinese remember, and the Filipinos remember too.
@@tomwallen7271yup that’s partly why they are the way they are right now. A century of humiliation will do that to a country, like a mild version of Germany
@@dingleberry4234 Germany's a perfect example of an overcorrection. They are happy to impose restrictions on free speech, as long as it's related to Nazism. They will crack down on nazi speech/imagery, etc. Not ideal, but they have a good reason for that kind of overcorrection.
@@tomwallen7271except the Filipinos are too forgiving. They're not like the Chinese that would boycott a local bottled water brand coz the cap look like the Japanese flag.
Many Filipinos increasingly think of Japan in a friendly way. Public opinion about China tho, well that's going the opposite direction.
Well, Chinese died under Mao even more and if those, ywho still have a feud with Japan, than they are idiots.
That is actually a very interesting way to look at it.
The US expectation for japanese home island attacks was 1,000,000+ Allie’s and 90% of the Japanese population. Mothers threw their children of the cliffs in Iwo Jima before jumping after them! Much worse was expected at home.
"Mothers threw their children of the cliffs in Iwo Jima...." That would be Okinawa, not Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima, was nothing more than a small volcanic island with a military outpost stationed there.
@@wildbikerbill6530 And I doubt it happened on Okinawa, either. The Okinawans weren't, and aren't, Japanese. The US should have asked the Ryukyuans if they wanted to be handed back to Japan, remain under the US, be independent, or join with Taiwan.
Not just hand them back to the foreign power that treated them so badly during that war, and for centuries prior.
@@MrNyathi1 They have film of it happening on Okinawa, so that it happened isn't in doubt. Japanese propaganda about how horrible they would be treated by the Americans was very effective.
@@wildbikerbill6530 You're right. I'd forgotten about the propaganda. I should imagine that the Okinawans believed Americans were capable of anything, after what they experienced at Japanese hands. And many Americans did commit war crimes, albeit in response to Japanese perfidy. I should imagine the Okinawans were quite surprised once they learned how GIs actually behaved towards them.
The propoganda about how American soldiers will eat you alive also had a huge effect on surrendering.
Because that’s what they did.
@@gavynhohon2818go be dumb on Mastodon.
@@gavynhohon2818Crazy to think there are people like you who genuinely believe that. Pick up a history book.
My grandpa was in the Navy on the USS Mt McKinley in ww 2. He said that when the ships started getting near to the islands, mothers would throw their children off the cliffs because the Japanese government had told the people these rumors.
@@mentak2593 Yes the brutality of the Japanese was unbelievable, and there actions rival the worst crimes of the Nazis
Reminder that the ability to not care what other's think is powerful.
maybe, but the grammar remains wrong
It wasn't just about what others think back then; it was life or death. A Japanese soldier returning from battle would've been executed for "cowardice"
@billygilmusic5072 yeah like the one Japanese man who survived the titanic.
@billygilmusic5072 But not every Japanese soldier was executed if they returned.
@@Scarletraven87 you forgot to put a period in your sentence.
Easterners put a lot of importance on community and others around you. Because of this there’s a sense that you are valuable when you’re doing something for your community. Westerners put more importance on self and personal liberties by comparison.
Really? Do you hold the ideological views you do because of genuine personal conviction? Or do you say what you know will be accepted by those around you, and not say those things you know will get you cancelled?
And Turkiye and Russia who are both east and west?
Hence these words mean nothing
It's because of china and Arabs she using these pointless words
@@MusicismoreImportantArabs? Are you referring to Islam, and its extreme emphasis on conformity? I know that most Arabs are Muslim (but not all), but most Muslims aren't Arabs.
@@MrNyathi1 57 Muslim countries
22 arab
That devilish laugh when she said the emperor was about to get nuked
My grandfather left was a Japanese infantryman. He never returned out of shame. Ended up fighting in Vietnam and came to the US after that.
Doubt
Damn, you think you have any family in Japan?
You're like african american, african don't see african american as african... Thats why your ancestor stay in US...
@tonypringles2285 well unless his grandfather was the last living member of his families bloodline and assuming the story is true, I would said it's damn near a certainty.
If this is true its awsome bro
Japanese didn't surrender because they were afraid that the Americans were as sadistic as they were
The trouble is that common sense didn’t prevail in most situations involving Japanese troops especially regarding treatment of prisoners. When you hear the horror stories about what they got up to with their prisoners, it was horrific. Hence why there’s a little sympathy regarding the dropping of two nuclear bombs Treated its captured territories and captured prisoners with dignity. They probably could’ve surrendered on for easier terms without losing two cities and having a lot of the others turned into smoking ruins by firebombing
Princess, with some of the railways they built using slave labour they’ve made a little help in real terms to achieving any sort of advancement. The work wasn’t a great quality and frankly all they did was cost a lot of lives for nothing.
The thing is a lot of them were
@@g-1393 raped an entire town?
Tortured prisoners for the sheer joy of torturing?
Kidnapped and used local girls as traveling sex slaves?
Alot huh?
You're just another internet example of someone with nothing to say but an overwhelming need to say it anyway
America was nowhere as bad. It's not like the u.s. dropped 2 atomic bombs on civilian cities and not battlefields
Japanese let hell lose on Philippines, they did the unthinkable day in day out
And in addition to this, in the west it was generally understood that you are not required to give information to your captors, nor could they torture you for said information, hence why the allies and axis played cat and mouse with different ways of getting the information without causing harm, the Japanese meanwhile felt as if they where over after capture, the shame and dishonour being too much, they even failed to prevent their own capture by ending their own lives, so in most captured japanese soldier cases they would just give whatever information was asked for as their higher ups never thaught them to keep such information a secret since they where not supose to surrender or get caught.
"Nor could they torture you" is a bit of an exaggeration. Look up Frederick Meyer and his torture after he was captured by Germans.
You described spy games during WW2 in durian theater as some silly game but there was plenty of death and torture involved.
One radio host mentioned when he spoke to a old Japanese woman how life was in Japan she mentioned the food situation was so bad that boiled barley was the replacement for rice because they grow enough for everyone but barley grew well in most places so imagine eating barley like you'd eat oatmeal or beans it only meant you ate them whole or mashed and once a week they would hopefully get to eat a plum and the best thing they found out was fried plum it allowed them to put flavor in their food
There's a reason that, in Japanese, the family name comes before your personal name. Your first duty is to bring honor to your lord and family; everything else, including your life, is secondary.
Nowadays that just means going to med school and becoming a dentist though....
You're overgeneralizing to the point of absurdity.
Family names for ordinary people weren't common until a century ago when they were adopted/invented as part of modernization (1875) which is after the period of lords (daimyo)/samurai.
There were clan names before that indicating which region you were in.
interestingly enough, Japan and Germany had very opposite directions after the war in respect to their leaders: While many german generals and even high ranking nazis tried to shift the blame on Hitler alone, in Japan kind of the opposite happened. Generals took the blame for the Emperor to ensure he would remain in power. They feared that if the Emperor would be removed, Japan would fall to the Soviet Union/Communism.
And even though Japan commited horrible atrocities throughout the war, Hirohito remained the only leader of the Axis power that stayed in power.
(I know he commited suicide before, but can you even imagine a world or any reason were Hitler would remain in power over Germany after the defeat?)
@@ottokarl5427 worth remembering, however, that Hirohito's power wasn't as absolute as power Hitler had in Germany. Hirohito was a bit of a figurehead.
Hirohito was left as the Emperor because:
1) ultimately, after all of that, he wasn't dangerous
2) keeping him endeared American occupiers to the Japanese population. The station of the Emperor was a crucial element for Japanese culture, and there wasn't any need to stir the wasps' nest.
3) at least arguably, he wasn't personally as responsible for Japanese atrocities as other dictators of the Axis.
@@rsmith02 Now, It's a familiarity/formality level thing.
Like if you just work with someone, or are not good friends you do not use their first name.
If you are a kid talking to a teacher for example, using the teachers first name is like a purposeful way to be rude and show you do not respect them and or see them as above you
@@adzi6164also Hirohito decide to end the war peacefully unlike Hitler who decide to fck it and kill himself and let German in state of chaos
Side note: The USA was preparing a 3rd Atomic device for later in August.
Another 6 for September and another 9 for October.
Not realy. They had one more after Nagasaki. 3 more were due at the end of Sept. So 6 total built by that time but having 3 in Sept 45. They still only had 9 in 1946. 13 th was ready by 1947.
Sidenote II: one air raid on Tokyo killed more than both nukes combined. They surrendered because they got news of what happened to their army doe to operation auguststorm. The nukes where only an excuse so they could offer a conditional surrender and keep Adolf II out of justice and the US accepted it so the Soviets couldn't get an hold on the Japanese mainland. The nukes have been more pr than anything else and for sure had no strategic value.😂
@@S300V With the Japanese surrender there was no reason to keep production fully ramped up. If Japan had not surrendered then they would have kept making them as fast as possible and expanded production if possible.
@@brucenorman8904 no, no... Production was in full swing. The fissle material production technology of the time was very inefficient, plus every bomb was made in laboratory conditions. It was very problematic to upscale production and didnt happen until 1950.
@@blub5117 _"one air raid on Tokyo killed more than both nukes combined"_
But it also failed to kill a lot of people. Japan, unaware that nukes took a lot of work to build, would have to assume that by the time they'd analysed the effects of the bomb in sufficient detail to develop effective defences, they would probably have lost numerous concentrations of population, including a large portion of Tokyo.
That laughter on her face when she mentioned nukes is frightening ngl
There was this lone Japanese soldier hiding in the jungles of the Philippines still fighting solo for years after the war was already over.
I lived in Yokouska Japan long years ago while still in the US Navy. I chose to live off base. The next door neighbor was a soldier from WWII. He avoided us like the plague. We never spoke in 15 months while the other neighbors treated us as friends.
My father fought in Europe, but my next door neighbor fought in the PAcific and hated the Japanese until the day he died.
Japanese or American soldier?
@@danishcossack4392stupid questions deserve stupid answers. The neighbor was a Maritian from the War of the World's invasion.
This is kind of a strange comment. I mean what did you expect from him? For all you know his whole family was burned in the fire bombings or disintegrated at Nagasaki, while he watched his friends shot to pieces before his eyes.
That makes sense honestly
The emperor saw post war Berlin and knew there was a better deal with Truman then Stalin.
After 2 nukes
Well you have to consider that not only did Russia and Japan have prior bad blood, the Soviets were only going to be able to get over there in the near term on US boats. They were badly hurt and had massive rebuilding to to. Also Russia has never really been a Naval power and thus didn't prioritize fleet rebuilding. The Americans and British knew that the Soviets were going to be a huge pain in everyone's ass in the near future so there was no way in hell they were going to give them any access to any portion of that island if they could prevent it. Instead they wanted to set Japan up as a sort of soft cap to any Soviet plans for the Pacific. It served quite well in that regard. It still does, the Russians might not be as bad as the Soviets, but they are still Russians and are going to act like it. Just ask Ukraine about the wisdom of trusting them.
@@tomhenry897 before 2 nukes, but america rejected their surrenders because they wanted to really see how much they could slaughter civilians with those bombs.
@@ceryxfigmenti5377no not realy, japan only offerd a not full surrender, they wanted to keep korea, stay in a war with the uk and to keep their old gornment in power, the same one which started to war .
The usa saw how good the bomb was at it's jobe in new mexico when they tested it .
@@ceryxfigmenti5377that's just stupid. And it didn't happen that way. The allies wanted unconditional surrender. The Japanese refused. After the first bomb drop, the US again asked for surrender. Instead, the Japanese army tried to over throw the government so Japan would fight to the last man, woman, and child. And after the second bomb, it took the emperor to call for unconditional surrender. So no. It wasn't about killing civilians. It was about saving millions of lives and billions of dollars invading Japan instead.
I heard once there was a ~60 year old soldier found on an island, the only person he believed about the war being over was his superior officer
Wild.
Anyone willing to take up a weapon to protect civilians back home is not a failure. Anyone waiting back home for a returning soldier to shame is the one who is a failure because they could've chosen to go to war and didn't.
It's so refreshing to hear a smart person speak now that social media is full of idiots talking about nothing but bs.
Satire I hope.
Carlson’s series is titled: Super Nova in the East. For WWI buffs I encourage you to listen to his series: Countdown to Armageddon.
I’ve never read or listened to anything like his series. His presentation is phenominal.
She have chuckle while talking about nukes.
According to a book I recently read, Hirohito was actually very involved in the decision to keep fighting, as it was his primary goal to preserve the "kokutai" or Imperial prerogative.
That laugh after she mentioned Hirohito being nuked. 😂😂😂
Which was BS, Japan only gave up because Russia was kicking their asses over in China and knew the US would give them better terms.
@@TheNagroth It tickles me when people have such hard-line stances about historical events purely from conjecture.
It's especially funny that you think the most terrifying weapon ever deployed (twice) wasn't a factor in the decision.
@@totalmetaljacket789 ofc it was a factor but japan would have surrendered anyway. it only happened quicker due to the bombing. what should tickle you is you were a constant recipient of propaganda growing up
@@totalmetaljacket789 "purely from conjecture" japanese documents. add to this logic, japan was not going engage in a fight vs the world
@@hotdog9262 Russia wasn't a serious factor, as they posed no threat to mainland Japan.
I recommend Dan Carlin’s series on Japan from the late 19th century through to the end of WW2. Truly fascinating people the Japanese.
They're just like everyone else, Only _more_ so!
She’s shown up in my algorithm 3 times today.. thank you
I have never seen a crypt keeper laugh. that's not something one can unsee.
Much of the Far East still thinks like this in terms of culture and society, and it ruins them. I've worked with many Chinese and S. Korean professionals that constantly lament the immense social pressure of obligation and expectations that creates this social norm of "if you're not constantly working harder than everyone else, you're a failure". This unwinnable rat race is actually what inspired the creation of the show "Squid Games", which was meant as a criticism and reflection of this.
Much of the West still thinks like this in terms of culture and society, and it ruins them. I've worked with American and European professionals, they think that the government and society owe them for everything and freedom is above all. Hence it creates an illusion that drugs should be legalized and it is okay to be a loser living on unemployment benefits. That's why the series like breaking bad is so popular and worshipped.
Seems to also be a big factor in there birth rate declines as well from my perspective.
And that's why I hate the eastern mentality.
Oh whoa. 😳
@@jacksonthompson7099actually t
Having many children is still an obligation in many asian countries. In my opinion i think the declining birth rate in japan is because there is too much pressure over other things to think about marriage
Man those 700,000 Japanese soldiers brought dishonor when the Soviets attacked Manchuria
To be fair, Japan already wanted to surrender after the nukes, but the Soviets goaded them into continuing the war by opening secret peace talks where Japan wouldn't have to unconditionally surrender, which were nothing more than a ruse to buy time, since the Soviets couldn't have claimed their "spoils" from the Yalta Conference if they didn't deploy troops in the Pacific Theater after the defeat of Nazi Germany like they pledged.
@@MEGATRYANT I thought they had 30 days or something like that to start a new front against Japan after Germany surrendered.
To be honest I thought the Soviets attacked on the last day of the deadline
@@mt8956 The Soviets pledged to send troops to the Pacific 3 months after the defeat of Germany.
They full send when the nukes dropped.
@@MEGATRYANT to be fair to the soviets, the japanese didn't surrender immediately after the bombs got dropped not just because of some secret soviet influence or force, but rather the emperor slowly coming to terms with the fact that the war can't be won or they won't get better terms, and if it did happen, it was just one of the factors behind why japan surrendered when it didnot to mention it would take a long time to transfer from Germany all the way to the far east, as well as keeping those soldiers fed and well supplied, as the Trans Siberian railway was basically the only proper source of both deployed troops and supplies for them.
When the Soviets DID hit though, they hit hard.
@@Yanramich The Soviets were literally keeping negotiations that had surrender terms somewhat favorable to the Japanese to keep them from unconditionally surrendering to the US with the purpose of buying time to move enough troops to the Pacific.
It's was obvious to the Japanese that they could only unconditionally surrender when the Soviets attacked, because they pretty much dropped the fake negotiations and said only unconditional surrender would be accepted at the same time, but by then it didn't matter, the Soviets were going to grab the land they were pledged in the Yalta Conference because they had deployed troops in the Pacific Theater.
If i remember correctly something similar happened to a Japanese passenger traveling in the Titanic. He survived that ordeal but when he got home he was shamed for having survived, idk how tf can your people shame you for doing what's natural for us......which is to stay alive in live or die situations!!!
There was a reddit post that made a particularly interesting insight into why Japanese troops didn't surrender, and instead banzai charged. Beyond all of these considerations, their officers watched their morale carefully... and the moment it started to falter, they gave the order - Fix Bayonets.
Hard to have many survivors who can surrender if everyone charges a machine gun before the situation sucks hard enough that surrender is what's on everyone's minds.
"In the West, where you can surrender"
Words never uttered by a United States Marine
🔴 There's still a 98 year old Japanese soldier hiding in the jungle waiting to either be relieved or for the invaders to show up.
💀
I think the last hold out on Guam surrendered in 79 or 80 if I'm remembering correctly (just tried to find the story that I remember all I'm finding is a soldier that was captured in 72, 3 years before I was there
I think the last Japanese soldier o
Part of the reason the mongols were so effective is that they perfected the art of running
That was then and a good description. Much has changed since then.
It cuts both ways. An enemy that will never surrender means that you'll always have to fight for territory. Every Single Inch, you pay blood for land
Exactly
"about to get nuked - LOL" fucking hell
did that hurt your feelings?
@@disaffected_malcontent Would be pretty mad if not. It´s nothing to laugh about at all.
@@GregorClegane402 did it hurt your feelings too?
@@disaffected_malcontentyou seem to have a lot on your mind. It's alright to seek help you know😢
@@anonymeguy6363 I'm not American or Japanese, I don't care either way. this intelligent woman isn't trying to be offensive she's just pragmatic and realistic. there's no place for emotion when having a discussion like this.
I remember a Japanese man who survived the Titanic disaster but was shamed by his whole community when he came home, all because he didn’t die
Her smiling when she says Hirohito would be nuked shows she is the witch Bavmorda from Willow
I would assume 30% of the casualties the Japanese received in ww2 were self inflicted 😂
The german fortress system caused the same problems for them. Not retreating from stalingrad did so much more damage than just losing it
They couldn't retreat from Stalingrad, because Rumania switched sides with the Soviets and they caught the Germans in a pincher, no way out. This is documented in a German officers book "Five years, Four fronts"
@@tomgreene7942A breakout effort to regroup with the rest of army group would still be far more sensible than just simply keep going deeper towards Russia
mind you, hirohito didnt break the deadlock after he thought theyd get nuked, he broke the deadlock after theyd been nuked twice and the vote to surrender was 3-3
Even some of the Japanese who did surrender, notably those at the Cowra prison camp in Australia in 1944, decided that they would very much die trying to escape than wait to be repatriated in shame
A lot of people have this impression that war is a game. That if you get enough points on your streak the enemy hits a threshold and says “you win, here’s your prize.” That’s not how surrender works. Surrenders happen for complex reasons based in the multiplicity of motivations in everyone with the power to request it and be obeyed.
No, but when an enemy is cold, hungry, morale has crashed and they know that the only way off of this island is in chains or a body bag. When they are sick and tired of being sick and tired and the enemy has food, medicine and supplies and are inclined to use a portion of those to take care of the people they capture. When they are not known for being cruel to captures, they are quite likely to surrender if only to get a regular meal and some semblance of warmth.
It is far less costly to feed a POW than it is to hunt this desperate man down and kill him. Not only is it humane to take prisoners and treat them well, it just makes good economic sense. This is why all modern militaries want to be known as being merciful to those who surrender. It removes a soldier from the enemies ranks at far less risk and cost than killing them and also provides a potential intelligence source. When this expectation of humane treatment breaks down you get fights like Germany vs the Soviets. AKA Battle of the Big Mustache vs the Little Mustache. As far as shear brutality, it matched the Japanese campaign and the American counteroffensive and it happened on a vastly larger scale. War maybe Hell by nature, but fighting like that shows us that no matter how terrible things are, they can always get worse.
@@Snipergoat1agreed. War is hell but it doesn't need to be genocide
The thing if Tojo and the other Military leaders in the cabinet had their way the operation to take Japan would have been a 1000 times worse then Iwo or Okinawa or really other battle the US had fought in. I'm pretty sure the US is still using purple hearts made for that operation now and giving them to soldier's. If you’re curious look up Operation Downfall
Scary and it feels like its coming back,wars like that
Her laughing after the mention of nuke is alarming.
Yeah that bothered me. I mean, WTF?
My Grandfather had fought as a general in the second Sino-Chinese war. He knew Jaoan would lose, but he had to go along with it all. He ultimately let his daughter marry an American because my Father showed great honor. There were no hard feelings.
Did your grandfather get executed for war crimes
One can either look back with bitterness or look forward and think how to create a future that was better than the past. Japan did this better than anyone and after a rather bumpy start, they managed to over the course of a century, went from being a backwater deliberately kept several centuries behind in technological and social development, to a powerful and respected nation slapping their old foes around. Not by force of arms but by force of economy and improvement often besting other nations in industries they created. They repeatedly forced a stagnant and complacent US auto industry to "Git Gud" and start making cars that held up in comparison to the then ugly but very efficient and reliable cars they were making. Japan is not an exploding economy anymore but they have settled on a standard level that is quite good. The best in east Asia I believe, although S. Korea is closing that gap. Still things are looking pretty good for them in most ways.
(The Marines rarely retreated, and only lost their flag a few times.)
Which means by his own sense of morality, Hirohito was either a coward who got countless people killed because he wouldnt give his life, or an eager participant in war crimes.
I hope Sarah will watch the Japanese film The Great War of Archimedes, about the details behind the design of the Yamato (and Musashi), and how obvious it was to the designers that giant battleships were wasteful in the 1930s, but the brass could not let go of the romance of battleships. It's made by the director who created Godzilla Minus 1 and is outstanding.
Not to mention that Japanese soldiers were told that Americans were ruthless cold-blooded murders who would torture prisoners went in reality Japanese prisoners of Americans were probably treated better than they were in the actual Japanese military (I have absolutely no source for that information but it just feels and sounds right)
you are right though, things like flogging and hazing was extremely common according to IJA veterans and that lower ranks were treated like servants for the seniors and you got beat personally for falling out of line, and even in 2024 the social hierarchy system in East Asia is fucked.
@@17Trees33 That hierarchy is also one of the main reasons the Japanese were so brutal because they can't take those frustrations out on their seniors so they took it out on the occupied citizens
There were a huge number of cases of American soldiers vandalizing and looting corpses and even Japanese body parts, but it was still nothing compared to what the Japanese was doing. Their propaganda led to Japanese settlers throwing babies and killing their elderly to prevent the alleged torture and rape from US marines. But for Japanese soldiers, flogging, hazing, beatings, almost all types of summary punishments were really common. This led to a disastrous level of hiearchy where the superior can never be questioned by an inferior, a culture that still has ripple effects today.
It's all about the feels.
The surrender option was super difficult decision to make by the Japanese High Command.
Many of the top generals weren’t very phased by the nukes that scared the civilian/home island leaders into capitulation, it was the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviets that convinced them that the war was lost. There’s so much disconnect between each of the leaders and their own personal honor that it made the final days of the Pacific theater a shitshow of coups and holdouts
No. No.
@@MarcoBonechi Actually yes. Now go drink yr beer.
The Japanese high command knew the war was lost long before the Soviets got involved and were always planning to surrender. The sticking point was the terms of surrender.
The allied, particularly the US, wanted an unconditional surrender followed by an occupation like what happened to Germany. The Japanese high command wanted to avoid this. They were hoping to avoid an occupation and secure a guarantee that the Emperor would be spared and the royal institution preserved
WRONG
If the Japanese weren’t afraid of marines weren’t afraid of the Soviets
And keep what land they still had
A Naval WWII officer named Edward L. Beach wrote an EXCELLENT book about US Naval submarine warfare; it was made into a film called "Run Silent, Run Deep".
The primary targets of the subs were NOT IJN ships, but the MARUs [merchant supply-vessels]. We copied the U-boat "wolfpacks", and realized that if you STARVE your enemy, and can deprive him of SUPPLIES, the "cutting edge" dulls quickly, and DIPs [Dies In Place].
She's a very intelligent articulate woman I appreciate her immensely
Glory is a fools prize. And honor is of no use to the dead.
Those without it turn to dust. Those with it live forever. Even if just as a footnote, it’s the only form of immortality available.
Legacy is all we have left after we pass, and glory is the currency in which you purchase it.
@@davidbowie50yearsofbowiean23 And you can achieve them without death.
naw. glory and honor are gay@@davidbowie50yearsofbowiean23
For a country that showed honor & obligation, the Emporer should've committed Seppuku or Harakiri for the disgrace of surrender but instead he showed cowardice just like Shiro Ishii who ran Unit 731. He made a plea deal during the surrender for immunity from war crimes if he gave up all his recorded experiments & lab materials from Unit 731. He died in 1959 with laryngeal cancer as a free man!
No way he died in 1959 man. I think you’re confusing the date. I saw a picture of Hirohito next to Ronald Reagan. That means he lived to at least the 80’s
Japan shouldn’t of started on the US anyway have they not done so they could’ve not had the mainland of Japan trashed even if the other allies including China, Australia, Japan, New Zealand et cetera had driven them out of Asia they could at least avoided losing most of the existing infrastructure on the main islands of Japan.
@@alistairjamesheaton9155The US should not have stopped the supply of oil imports to Japan. They were liberating Asia from the western colonials.
@@nickywags0712 Ishii, the commander of Unit 731 died in 1959. Emperor Hirohito died in 1989.
You can thank Operation Paperclip (or its Japanese equivalent) for making the deal with Ishii. There are still recent scientific studies that use Nazi and Japanese human experimental / torture data.
You should liberate earth from yourself@@Trollingthemloudlytnd
The solar eclipse they experienced not too long ago made them rethink that philosophy
It makes for stubborn soldiers. But they and everyone like them lost in the end. Perplexing yet amusing.
My Great Grandmother was a kamikaze pilot, she returned 5 times to re-fuel, No one ever knew until she died in 2003..She had more fly time than anyone in her squadron !! Love you Granny !
War is full of sad stories. My grandfather saldy died in a Concentration Camp.
He was drunk on duty and fell out of a guard tower....
Uh, Japanese women were not allowed to serve in the military.
Aren't kamikaze pilots supposed to die in battle?
@@kanestalin7246 Yes, the good ones
Coming back for fuel doesn’t make sense. In many cases Kamikazee pilots would only be given enough fuel to reach their objective, not to make it back. Also Japanese women were banned from flying aircraft at the onset of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. And finally, females were not allowed to serve in combat roles in the Japanese military, and were only allowed to become nurses or clerical staff in the late war. I don’t want to attack the credibility of your claim but something appears to be off.