Episode
The World at War - Part XI - Kamikaze - Unconditional Surrender
- Podcast
- Myth of the 20th Century
- Published
- Oct 15, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 6781
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Summary
In 1967, director Kihachi Okamoto released the film ‘Japan’s Longest Day’, depicting the pivotal 24 hours the government debated if they would accept the Allies’ terms for surrender in 1945. For context, the movie summarizes Japan’s point of view: “for the first seven months of the war Japan was overwhelmingly dominant. In the blink of an eye, the Imperial Forces gained complete ascendancy in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and projected their immense military might as far south as Australia. But in the Pacific Theatre, a crucial strategic battle was lost at Midway. From that day forward the power of the Imperial Forces gradually began to wane. It became impossible to maintain the strength of the front-line troops. Eventually, the island of Okinawa was lost to the Allies. B29’s flew from bases at Tinian and Saipan and dropped bombs on 92 cities, starting with Tokyo, reducing them to smoldering plains of rubble. Munitions factories were destroyed one after another. 3,600,000 soldiers had been killed or wounded in the war. 1,470,000 civilians had suffered death or injury at home. The victims of the war, on all sides, exceeded 10,000,000. Japan’s days as a conquering nation were numbered. Plans for the so-called “Operation Olympic” which called for deploying a million Allied troops on Japanese soil were well underway. And according to the Japanese Minister of Agriculture and Commerce Ishiguro, the forecast for Autumn 1945 was the worst harvest since 1931. Except for our farmers, most Japanese are on the brink of death from starvation. Japan has no strength to continue the fight! As a last resort, an Imperial Council was held in which they asked the Emperor himself to decide the matter. At the end of the meeting, the Emperor made the following judgment: “To continue the war…