Biography: Hirohito 1961

Mike Wallace narrates this history of Hirohito. He starts off talking about tradition in Japan. He mentions Hirohito's goodwill tour of Europe in 1921. He talks about how Hirohito was impressed by the things he saw on his trip.

1928: Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan.Wallace then talks about how Hirohito wanted peace but the militarists did not.

(A number of the scenes in this biography are exactly the same ones in Perspective on Greatness: Hirohito, The Last Banzai program.)

Babe Ruth visited Japan and was greeted as 'a national hero.'

1931: Japan seizes Manchuria (again, much of the footage is exactly the same as the other film.)

1937: Japan invades China. Wallace talks about the indoctrination of the soldiers and how Japanese people took part in massive air raid drills. Then the film talks about Pearl Harbor. Then it talks about the advances Japanese forces made in 1942. It also includes information about the Bataan Death March.

1943: The tide of battle turns against Japan. The film mentions the firebombing of Tokyo. Then it moves to the subject of the kamikaze. The atomic bombs end the war. Then it talks how Douglas MacArthur took over and about the war crime trials of Japanese military people. Hirohito renounces his divinity and takes to walking 'among his people' as one of them.

A lot of changes take place in Japan including the granting of the right to vote to women.

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