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00:00May the 8th, 1945, V.E. Day, Victory in Europe.
00:30After years of struggle, an explosion of joy and of relief.
01:00Dina, Dina, Victory in Europe.
01:07Dina, Dina, Victory in Europe.
01:17Dina, Dina, Victory in Europe.
01:27Dina, Dina, Victory in Europe.
01:42We may allow ourselves a brief period
02:12of rejoicing.
02:20But let us not forget for a moment
02:22the toils and efforts that lie ahead.
02:27There was still Japan.
02:42There was still Japan.
02:52There was still Japan.
02:56There was still Japan.
03:06There was still Japan.
03:10There was still Japan.
03:14Tokyo, just before midday on the 7th of December 1942.
03:34The Japanese people observed the first anniversary
03:56of the Imperial Navy's destruction of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.
04:02It was one year since they learned that their nation of 80 millions
04:05had engaged the combined might of over 200 million Americans and British.
04:11Many had heard the news of the Pearl Harbor attack soberly, even apprehensively.
04:20But then came victory after victory.
04:23Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore.
04:26Earlier fears were lost in exultation.
04:36Prime Minister-General Hideki Tocho, representative of the militarists
04:39who had made Japan into an aggressive totalitarian state, had led his countrymen into the war.
04:58Now he promised them final victory.
05:00The nation will complete the final round of this conflict.
05:07To overthrow America and Britain, we will fight until the last day.
05:12Then in the greater Asian area, we shall accomplish the destruction of our enemies.
05:21Now at the start of the second year, both myself and the nation are thinking about the men in the front line.
05:28And once again, I expressed determination for final victory.
05:33War work must be pushed on and the struggle carried forward.
05:42At this time, Japan was not an industrial giant.
05:46But in this first year of war, they had seen the Japanese soldiers' spiritual strength and discipline
05:51prevail over the materially stronger but morally inferior Americans and British.
05:58The same dedication on the home front would make Japan's newly-won empire unassailable.
06:09For some well-informed Japanese, the Pearl Harbor attack had been an astonishing gamble.
06:23I came to work as usual about nine o'clock, and everybody was there, and there was martial music playing.
06:34And I almost fell over when I saw the newspaper extra saying that the emperor had declared war around the United States and Great Britain.
06:42I think the men on the street had the same feeling of being taken by complete surprise.
06:53But now, propaganda film could portray jubilant Japanese aviators smashing the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.
07:00When the fancies of the American fleet were standing the same in their own world as one of them,
07:07in the building, they were probably not the same in the world, as well as a project that began.
07:10Move the crew, what?
07:11Move the crew, move the crew of the men in their own head.
07:12Move the crew!
07:14Move the crew, move the crew.
07:16Move the crew, move the crew...
07:20Doubters were persuaded.
07:35Newsreels emphasized the humbling of the arrogant whites.
07:50The Japanese believed that their own soldiers always fought to the death.
07:55The sight of white prisoners dwarfing the Japanese who herded them into
07:59dishonorable captivity helped convince them of their own invincibility.
08:20Japan was winning and every day we heard over the radio all the victories
08:26and the whole nation was very excited and that thought I had at the time
08:35when I heard the news about the war, what's going to happen,
08:40but immediately all the victories and big war songs and marches over the radio all day long.
08:48So, we are quite excited and it was almost like a festival.
09:10War had been with the Japanese people for ten years.
09:13Since 1931, their armies had been fighting an endless frustrating war in China.
09:20Victory in the Pacific had been quick and complete, yet at last was something to celebrate.
09:25For years before Pearl Harbor, there had been mock air raid drills in every Japanese city.
09:39For years before Pearl Harbor, there had been mock air raid drills in every Japanese city.
09:44Not a precaution against China's almost non-existent airport, but part of the process of keeping war-like emotion at a high pitch.
10:04All took part.
10:23Neighbourhood associations, the Tonari Gumi, ensured that every one of the emperor's subjects at home was involved in the distant war.
10:35The Neighbourhood Association controlled all our life at that time and all the instructions from the government through the Tonari Gumi.
10:47So, we had to obey it and we relied upon the Tonari Gumi.
11:01In every neighbourhood, in schools, in playing fields and on the streets,
11:05ordinary citizens patriotically submitted themselves to regimentation of thought and act.
11:25The inculcation of patriotic virtues began in infancy.
11:47From their earliest days, Japanese children prepared mind and body to serve a cause greater than themselves,
11:53the family, the family, the nation, the emperor.
12:05And if the nation was at war, children had to be ready for that too.
12:09When school was over, it would be their duty and their privilege.
12:11to serve their country in general.
12:13When school was over, it would be their duty and their privilege to serve their country.
12:15When school was over, it would be their duty and their privilege to serve their country
12:40in the imperial forces, on land, on sea, in the air.
12:53High school pupils joined the air force for a day.
12:57If they were lucky, they would have the chance to join as adults before too long.
13:01Of course, the Japanese were brought up in three or four cardinal truths from cradle to grave,
13:13that the emperor was divine, the country was invincible and consisted of a chosen race,
13:22things like these, which were drummed into the Japanese mind from kindergarten up.
13:31Japanese boys were taught to imitate the martial code of the samurai,
13:36archaic and ferocious, devoid of pity for enemy or for self.
13:45For the samurai, to die in battle was to fall at the moment of perfection, as the cherry blossom does.
14:01The worship of Buddha had co-existed in Japan for centuries
14:07with the ancient Shinto worship of spirits, of ancestors, of the sun goddess Amaterasu.
14:13But in the 1920s and 30s, the nationalists and militarists had insisted that Shinto be made the state religion.
14:37Shinto was pure.
14:43It was strictly Japanese.
14:46And it was from the Shinto sun goddess, the Japanese devoutly believed,
14:50that the nation's high priest was directly descended.
14:54The emperor.
14:55The emperor was a god and a warrior chief.
15:03The mystic belief that through him the Japanese race was destined for conquest was systematically propagated.
15:08The military acted in the emperor's name,
15:20but they contrived that in spite of appearances, he retained little real power on earth.
15:25The emperor was deeply solicitous of peace,
15:33which means that he was appalled to starting hostilities with America.
15:41But his position was such that if the cabinet recommended unanimously a certain line of policy,
15:54he could not disapprove of it, although he might dislike it at heart.
16:01In a government headed by a general, this meant doing what the army wanted.
16:11The ashes of Japan's war dead were carried home, packed in boxes.
16:18Relatives of the fallen, widows and mothers, had no more occasion for pride,
16:25no more right to tears than the day they had said goodbye.
16:28To send sons or husband to die for the emperor was the highest duty.
16:33We'll meet at the Yaskuni Shrine, where the ashes of the war dead were consecrated,
16:39was the traditional farewell of the soldiers leaving for the battlefront,
16:43wrapped in haramaki, a protective belly band of a thousand stitches.
16:51A girl stands on the corners of the street, say if in Tokyo, along the Ginza,
16:56and asks each passerby woman to make a stitch,
17:00and she must collect a thousand stitches.
17:02And this is given to a soldier.
17:05I got one, and you wrap this around your belly.
17:08It's supposed to keep your stomach warm so that you don't catch a cold or this or that,
17:14but also to ward off bullets.
17:15Now, we all know this cannot be done, but this is like a charm also.
17:20And I used to think, now I don't know whether I should say this,
17:26but I felt this is very unfair, especially when I got the order to go overseas.
17:31The Japanese girls are giving me this thousand stitches.
17:35I am going to die.
17:37I have not experienced a woman.
17:39Why cannot they give me their body for me to enjoy,
17:42and let me live however short my life is to enjoy the fullness of it?
17:48Because sleeping with me is not going to kill the girl, you know?
17:52Maybe she likes it, I don't know.
17:53But here I am, about to die, and all I get is a thousand stitches.
18:03Wartime farewells for men and women were supposed to be a spiritual experience,
18:08ceremonial, unsentimental.
18:32Men recovered from wounds left hospital to the singing of the Umi Yukapa.
18:58I go to a lonely grave far across the sea, they sang.
19:02And went off to the war again.
19:10But suddenly, less than five months after Pearl Harbor, the war was not so far away.
19:19The 18th of April, 1942.
19:32Sixteen Mitchell medium bombers commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle set out
19:37from the U.S. aircraft carrier Hornet for the first ever air raid on Japan.
19:42The American aim was to make a token, but early demonstration of Japan's vulnerability to air attack.
19:59In this, they entirely succeeded.
20:01When Doolittle raid was conducted over the sky of Tokyo, that produced a sort of consternation.
20:17Because the military repeatedly assured the public that the Japanese sky was impenetrable.
20:31Doolittle's bombers did penetrate Japan's skies to drop a mere 16 tons of bombs on her cities.
20:38The actual damage was not great.
20:42The shock was.
20:43The Japanese press were told how to display the news.
20:48The complexion was put on as a cruel act, indiscriminate bombing of civilians and women and children.
20:56Eight Doolittle flyers were captured.
21:10But the Japanese bombing was something that happened to other people.
21:14They were angry that this barbarity had happened to them.
21:23The prisoners were tried by a military court.
21:27Three were executed.
21:38The main function of Japanese women was to bear sons.
21:43Skilled only in such feminine arts as the tea ceremony, they stayed in the background.
21:49Now, with the battlefronts taking the men away, they were directed to sterner things.
21:56Country women were used to taking their place in the fields alongside their men.
22:23But for the women from the cities, the war meant a complete change.
22:27To stock the nation's depleted larder, they too were conscripted to labor long hour.
22:31They mined coal to make the utmost use of Japan's scanty resources and keep the war machine moving.
22:45City girls were brought up to be wives and mothers, to be known as the honorable hidden one.
23:10The women of Japan must take over men's work, they were told, as their enemies had done to ensure victory.
23:27City girls were brought up to the world of Japan.
23:29They may be sued by the war on the border.
23:29悪魔薙薙の朝露に 煌めき開ける愛の道
23:44光の山の霊 東から 世界にとどろけ 建設の歌
23:59When we worked at the factory, every other week we had to work from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until 11 o'clock.
24:16And at 11 o'clock when we finished our work, they would take us to a dining room and they would give us one bowl of soup.
24:27But actually it's hot salt water with maybe two or three soybeans, but we are very hungry, or maybe just one noodle at the bottom.
24:43Everything we got through ration, unless we have a card for ration, we couldn't get anything, we have to do some self-supply.
24:54And we grew potatoes in our gardens. We worked very hard to grow our own vegetables.
25:03Our everyday life, life was very, very hard.
25:10The Empress herself took on a new role, urging the nation to more effort, more sacrifice.
25:16Sacrifice was necessary for victory. And in final victory, their belief was still unshaken.
25:21None knew that by June 1942, the battle had already become one simply for survival.
25:29June 1942. United States warplanes take off to intercept a Japanese armada attacking the island of Midway.
25:51To this battle, Admiral Yamamoto, the Japanese naval commander-in-chief, had committed the four largest aircraft carriers in the Japanese fleet.
26:17When the battle ended on the 5th of June 1942, Yamamoto's four carriers were blazing wrecks, or sunk.
26:27Midway was a defeat from which Japan's navy never recovered.
26:31But the Japanese people were told that Midway was a victory.
26:36The truth was concealed even from members of the government.
26:39We were told that one aircraft carrier was sunk, and one was severely damaged.
26:50Since there were four carriers involved in the battle, the way we heard it, three had come back, although one was severely damaged.
26:59But the Anglo-American side was saying that all four had been sunk.
27:05This left some doubts in our minds.
27:08We pressed the navy to give us more details, but they stuck to their original announcement.
27:14I was a news cameraman in a Midway battle.
27:23When we got back to our base in the Japan Sea, we were not even allowed to write any letters.
27:30The wounded were kept in the isolation wards.
27:32A top-secret order said that nothing could be talked of the Midway battle, not even within the navy itself.
27:42I was virtually kept prisoner for about a month and a half after returning to Japan.
27:48As a journalist, I was kept under particularly strict surveillance,
27:53because we were reputedly great talkers and loose with our tongues.
27:57And I was kept from going back to Tokyo while the rest of the war lasted.
28:03The situation was never broadcasted from the NHK, of course.
28:10Every news broadcast was strictly censored in those days.
28:19So the general public only knew that the Japanese army and navy kept winning every battle they fought.
28:38No news, just propaganda.
28:41Only one outcome was imaginable in the conflict ceaselessly portrayed in the propaganda films.
28:52The white oppressors of oriental people overcome by the brave Japanese soldier.
28:57The Spartan Japanese soldier, in turn, overcome by contempt and rage at his white enemy's soft living.
29:27Tokyo, the 5th of June, 1943.
29:47The state funeral for Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto,
29:51the great commander who had masterminded the victory at Pearl Harbor.
29:54Yamamoto died a hero, the Japanese people were told,
30:00in the front line, meeting death gallantly in a war play.
30:04His loss was greater than many battleships.
30:08But this first public admission of a defeat,
30:20although represented as only symbolic of heroism,
30:23hid grimmer truths of which Yamamoto himself had been well aware.
30:28He knew that the enemy's material superiority,
30:32once fully mobilized, would be overwhelming.
30:34At Pearl Harbor, he had gambled that the war would be a short one.
30:40At midway, the gamble was lost.
30:43Yamamoto had been shot down in skies,
30:58now swarming with enemy planes,
31:00overseas now dominated by the enemy's navy.
31:02By 1944, the scales had tipped fully against Japan.
31:15Metal had become a precious war commodity,
31:18too valuable for ornament or ceremony.
31:20The war had been fought to secure raw materials for a land where they were scarce,
31:28above all, for oil.
31:30But now the resources General Tojo had boasted would flow from their conquests
31:34were getting no nearer to Japan than the bottom of the ocean.
31:38Not enough got through to keep the war machine going.
31:40And food was scarce.
31:45The official daily ration of 1,500 calories, subsistence level,
31:49was often not met.
31:51The rice harvest was the worst for 50 years.
31:54Starvation hovered close.
31:56The victories of 1941 had placed Japan behind a vast protective ring,
32:05defended in depth.
32:08By the middle of 1944,
32:11General MacArthur's amphibious armies had reduced this to an inner ring
32:15hinging on the island of Saipan.
32:19Saipan, within flying distance of Japan,
32:22was claimed by the Japanese military to be a shield and an impregnable one.
32:28It was vital that it should be.
32:35It was realized that if Saipan was lost,
32:39we would be in a very difficult position.
32:43The importance of Saipan was that,
32:45once it fell, the war would be right in front of Japan's eyes.
32:49Japan would come within bombing range of U.S. planes.
32:57It was an absolutely vital defense area for Japan.
33:01On the 15th of June, 1944,
33:15after five days of saturation bombardment by sea and air,
33:19American assault troops stormed ashore.
33:21As always, the Japanese garrison fought to the last.
33:38Here, for the first time,
33:52Japanese civilians, women and children were caught up in the battle.
33:56Some, dazed and docile, submitted.
33:58Saipan had deep-water harbors.
34:11It had two airfields.
34:13Every rock was defended.
34:19Saipan had deep-water harbors.
34:23In three weeks, to take an island only 85 square miles in area,
34:50the Americans lost 15,000 dead and wounded.
35:0125,000 Japanese defenders died to a man.
35:05And some civilians, like many soldiers,
35:26chose suicide rather than surrender.
35:29They died in vain.
35:42Saipan was taken.
35:49Even before the last Japanese had died,
35:52American bombers were ready to take off for the mainland.
35:55The truth was now too close,
35:58even for the Japanese high command to conceal it.
36:10The situation, they told the people, was grave,
36:13but not hopeless.
36:14But the sacred homeland itself was now directly threatened.
36:20The enemy, schoolchildren learned,
36:23was within striking distance by air.
36:25The time had come for all, young and old,
36:35to meet the threat with the same defiance as their fighting men.
36:41Only a handful of trained pilots remained of Japan's once proud air arm,
36:46built for attack, not defense.
36:49When war began, their zero fighters had ruled the skies.
36:54Now they were outdated and outgunned.
36:57These men pitted their machines against the giant American super fortresses
37:01which now attacked the homeland.
37:06They were young and brave,
37:08but they were very few.
37:09I felt that the zero fighter was to me
37:30what the sword was to the samurai.
37:33And I felt that I must manipulate the plane
37:35just as if it were my own body.
37:38And I also believed that the cockpit was a secret place,
37:43which would be my death place.
37:50When we went on an attack,
37:52we never took parachutes.
37:55This was because we believed
37:57that we should never become prisoners
38:00when shot down over enemy positions.
38:02From ancient days,
38:09it was the belief of the Japanese warrior
38:11that to be taken prisoner alive is sinful.
38:15We too were always taught
38:17that the modern Japanese soldiers
38:20should never become prisoners
38:21because it is the greatest disgrace.
38:24With the Imperial Navy shattered,
38:27the Saipan shield pierced,
38:29the Philippines conquered,
38:31only the islands of Iwo Jima
38:33and finally Okinawa
38:34were left to bar the Allied advance
38:36on Japan proper.
38:39By April 1945,
38:41Iwo Jima had been taken.
38:42Now an American army
38:45protected by massed warships
38:47threatened Okinawa,
38:49the last island before Japan.
38:53In a desperate throw
38:54to stave off the ultimate assault,
38:56Japan once more
38:57summoned its young men
38:58to fight and die
39:00as their ancestors had done.
39:02Special squadrons were formed,
39:06the Kamikaze,
39:07Men of the Divine Wind,
39:10named for the typhoon
39:11which had destroyed
39:11the invasion force of Kubla Khan
39:13centuries before.
39:15They drank a last cup of rice wine
39:17and set off to die.
39:29That aircraft had been converted
39:31into flying bombs.
39:36Their mission was to crash them
39:38onto the decks of enemy warships
39:39round Okinawa.
40:01As a commander,
40:09I'm often asked
40:10whether I went through hell
40:11in sending out these pilots.
40:14But actually,
40:15the opposite is the case.
40:17We had a lot of pilots
40:19who volunteered,
40:20but it was only a very few
40:22who could leave
40:23on one attack.
40:24And so it was more difficult
40:26to choose the selected few.
40:27All the other volunteers said,
40:30Send me!
40:31Send me!
40:32So it's difficult
40:32to ask these people
40:34not selected
40:35if they'll wait
40:35until another day.
40:40On the other hand,
40:42those taking part
40:43in the day's attack
40:44were in very high spirits
40:45and so there's no difficulty
40:48in sending these men out.
40:51But unlike an ordinary attack,
40:53these kamikaze pilots,
40:55once they took off,
40:56they never come back.
40:58And so there was this sadness
41:00in knowing that the people
41:01you were sending out,
41:03you'll never see again.
41:04The kamikaze
41:19were shot out of the air.
41:23They did severe damage
41:24but failed.
41:25Americans invaded Okinawa.
41:46Okinawa was only
41:47350 miles
41:49from metropolitan Japan.
41:51The nearer to the mainland,
41:53the more fanatical the fighting.
41:55Let's go!
42:18What have you done?
42:19What have you done?
42:20Done.
42:22On Okinawa, only 7,000 Japanese soldiers survived.
42:41Over 100,000 died, many by their own hand, and 75,000 civilians.
42:52Mrs. Yonaha, the student, was ready to die too.
43:17All around us, the soldiers and the inhabitants were running helter-skelter, obviously confused.
43:24For some reason, I followed the soldiers and we got into a small shelter.
43:29It was more to get out of the rain than anything.
43:32We found several other soldiers already in the hideout.
43:36We could hear the US Army calling us through loudspeakers to come out.
43:41Whoever it was spoke a very beautiful Japanese.
43:44But we had been taught from a long time that we should never surrender and become prisoners
43:50of war.
43:51So we let these broadcasts continue all day long without any let-up.
43:56The shouts came from the sea, come out, come out.
44:03They were saying, we will not inflict any harm on women and children and old people.
44:09So please come out.
44:11I had already decided to die and felt that I should commit suicide.
44:17One of the soldiers had a hand grenade and said, let's all commit suicide and we agreed.
44:25Once we had made that decision, I felt a great relief and a calmness come over me.
44:32At first, of course, I did not want to kill myself.
44:36I wanted to escape somehow and keep on living.
44:40But the loudspeakers began to increase in intensity and in volume.
44:45We felt that the Americans were coming in closer and closer.
44:49So I asked the soldier to kill me together with himself.
44:54Just when I was waiting for the soldier to pull the pin, one of the other soldiers took
44:59out a sword and started waving it around saying, you women and children get out.
45:04You shouldn't die here.
45:06We were quite startled by the sudden shouting and so we stood up and took a step backwards.
45:14The place in which we were hiding was very small.
45:17So one step back and we were outside the shelter.
45:21We looked up and saw two American soldiers pointing pistols at us.
45:26They didn't say anything but kept gesturing with their pistols, come out, come out.
45:36We looked down close the door, seeing every wind of Mandel of the Helicite
45:39During that time, individually inside the店иком was blowing up.
45:40bruk
45:52Wow.
45:54Wow.
45:55Wow.
45:55Wow.
45:55The next one was 79 to 85.
45:56冒san
45:58Wow.
45:59Wow.
45:59Wow.
45:59Wow.
46:00Wow.
46:00Wow.
46:01Yeah.
46:01Wow.
46:02Wow.
46:03Oh.
46:05The soldiers we had left inside asked us not to tell the U.S. soldiers they were hiding,
46:15because all of them were going to commit suicide.
46:23On the 2nd of July, 1945, Okinawa fell.
46:28In the home islands, the Japanese people braced themselves for the storm to come.
46:34The first super fortresses over Tokyo a few months earlier were only the harbingers of
46:39hundreds of others.
46:45These were now to spew out fire and high explosive in a sustained aerial assault, systematically
46:51raising the cities of Japan, one after the other.
46:58There is the end of the line.
47:05Ok, there is the end of the line.
47:13In formations of up to 2,000 at a time, round the clock, virtually unopposed, they laid Japan's
47:35place.
47:36It is waste.
47:37So, beneath them, they have found, nowhere, older, and the new
47:45operation of Japan.
47:46These were also a great idea of their side of the living area.
47:53Beneath them, the rush to air-raid shelters as the sirens blew became a dreaded daily
48:11routine.
48:14I first ran into the shelter, but I didn't rely upon it because it was very small.
48:23People in the shelter were so tired and always pale and silent and, what do I say, the children
48:39not so crying because they were too tired and too terrible to cry, I think.
48:45So they were all in silence.
48:53Japan's wooden cities burned easily and there are citizens in them.
49:06This man-made inferno in Tokyo was worse even than that following the great earthquake of
49:111923, the capital's worst natural disaster.
49:16Some distance from my house, there was a lot of men who died.
49:28And my best friends lost her father and brother and sister that night.
49:37And her mother, suicide after that.
49:42And the water was worse than that.
50:08The next morning, I thought, I want to see my house, so I crossed the bridge and went
50:19to my house, and all the houses were destroyed.
50:25I was so tired, I was, and I, to think anything about, but I hated the war, and I hated the
50:36war.
50:37I was standing in vain and in silence, too.
50:46Tokyo was a charred wasteland, only steel and concrete survived.
50:52Sixteen square miles of the capital were flattened, the stench of death hung heavy over the ruins.
50:59In one raid, in one night, over 70,000 perished.
51:04In air raids on Japan, nearly a quarter of a million civilians died.
51:12Eight million were made homeless.
51:20Man and woman, boy and girl, the survivors prepared to defend their homeland, to drive
51:27the invaders back into the sea with wooden rifles, bows and arrows, bamboo spears.
51:35But the end, when it came, was to be from the sky, irresistible, unimaginable.
51:44Mushroom-shaped.
51:59You are here, two miles of the sky.
52:02You are here, one of the stars.
52:08You are here with me.
52:18THE END
52:48THE END
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