Through Japanese Eyes (1945)
This is a book about the war using many quotes from Japanese individuals, along with the author's own comments about the war. It's an absolutely fascinating book.
Japan's War Aims
”Pearl Harbor had long been forecast by Port Arthur, where the Japanese made a similar sneak attack on the Russian fleet in 1904.”
”...the Japanese...contemplate nothing less than a 'glorious Hundred Year War' for the destruction of American and European civilization and the extermination of the whole white race, after which Imperial Japan will establish and enforce peace on her own terms.”
Another Master Race
The author dedicates a lot of time to negative writing about Shinto. He doesn't distinguish, though, between pre-war Shinto, and “official” state-sponsored Shinto.
He says that Japan is indirectly responsible for the whole world war, including the European theater.
”There are three reasons for this. The first is that Shinto, which is merely primitive nature worship without a theology, without a doctrine, and without a moral or ethical code, has preserved in the Japanese all the treachery and savagery of the jungle age, as will be shown in later chapters. The second is that it has inbued the Japanese with the idea that they are a superior race and has thus kindled, in them, all the ambitions that flow from such a concept. And the third is that it has put behind these ambitions all the driving power of religious fanaticism, surpassing any the Nazis have been able to arouse. ...It has also forced whatever intelligence can become vocal in Japan into its own obscurantist channels, establishing a kind of religious totalitarianism.”
He somehow claims that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria was what led to the second world war, the entire war, although he doesn't really explain this well, at least as far as the European theater goes.
The God Emperor
”The crowning achievement of Shinto...is Mikadoism, or the worship of the Japanese Emperor as God...He is God himself, or rather the human incarnatino of an eternal God, and thus a 'manifest God,' whose rule is 'coeval with Heavan and earth.”
Emperor of the World
The author talks about the Hakko Ichiu principle, which he refers to as “the principle of the Empire-founding.” Once the Empire was founded, “Thereafter the Capital may be extended so as to embrace all the six cardinal points, and the eight cords may be covered so as to form a roof.” In other words, the rule of Japan was to be extended in all the directions, over the entire planet, uniting all nations everywhere under the rule of Japan.
Hirohito's role
”The record of Hirohito's reign, which ironically enough is called by the name of 'Radiant Peace,' is one of unmitigated evil, culminating in the Pacific war, and indirectly in the whole world war.”
”He has never opposed or condemned the Japanese aggression that began in Manchuria in 1931 and led to the Pacific War. On the contrary, he issued Imperial Rescripts supporting it as well as Japan's secession from the League of Nations, thus giving them his divine, imperial, and priestly blessings.”
”He has never opposed or condemned the shocking atrocities which are an integral part of Japanese warfare and which were first exemplified in the rape of Nanking. Nor can he plead that he had no knowledge of them. It was his younger brother, Prince Asaka, who was in command at Nanking, and it is inconceivable under Japanese traditions that the younger brother did not describe in detail to his elder brother just what happened at Nanking.”
The Plan of World Conquest
”These ambitions and detailed plans for their realization were laid down by Premier Baron Giichi tanaka in another memorial to the throne submitted in 1927. When first published in 1931, this memorial was denounced by the Japanese as a forgery. Today, there is no reason to doubt its authenticity. It merely expands on the previous Hotta plan; its main tenets have been the Leitmotif of all Japanese official and unofficial pronouncements ever since, and it has been implemented by the events.”
”According to this memorial, Japanese world dominion must begin with the conquest of Manchuria, to be followed by the conquest of China and the rest of East Asia and Oceania as a base for further world-wide operation. Once that base is secured and organized, Japan will be able to proceed to the conquest of India, Central and Western Asia, Europe and the United States.”
Appeal to Color
”...another divine mission imposed on them by Heaven...is the salvation of the colored races from the oppression of the white man. This salvation is to be achieved by nothing less than the extermination of the whole white race from the face of the earth.”
”Nor is there anything in the white man's make-up to match the burning hatred of many Japanese for the whole white race.”
”But it is for the white man that they reserve their most savage hymns of hate, and they sing with joy when white men slaughter one another in recurrent wars.”
Japanese Anti-Semitism
”...in aping Nazi methods they have also adopted anti-Semitism as one of their major propaganda weapons...when the anti-Semitic campaign began in Japan just before the war, most Japanese were sorely puzzled and asked: 'What is a Jew?'”
The Japanese Warrior
”...Allied fighting men have also learned to know the Japanese as dirty, tricky, and treacherous...They have seen the Japanese go berserk, or hysterical, shrieking, howling, stomping, or dancing insanely in the midst of Allied fire.”
Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
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