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Day IT COME, victory in the Europe.
After years of combat,
a relief and joy explosion.
We can allow us.
a brief period of celebration.
But in let us not forget it to them arduous work
e of the sacrifices that still are for coming.
Still it had Japan.
The World in War
Japan
Tokyo, little before the noon
of day 7 of December of 1942.
The Japanese commemorate the first anniversary
of the destruction of the American fleet
in Pearl Harbor.
It are has one year that they had known that
Japan with 8 million citizens
it had defied the joint force
of more than 200 million
of English and Americans.
Many had received the notice
of the attack the Pearl Harbor
sober, until apreensivamente.
But later it was victory behind victory,
Hong-Kong, Malaysia, Singapura.
The first fears had been wasted in the exulta��o.
The first-minister, General Hideki Tojo,
representative of the militaristas
that they had become Japan one
Totalitarian and aggressive state,
it had lead its
compatriots for the war.
Now it promised to them
a last victory.
The nation goes to finish the last one
battle of this conflict.
To defeat America and
England, we will fight until the o end.
Later we go to finish the destruction
of our enemies in Asia
Now, at the beginning of as the year,
as much I eat the nation, I think
in the men of the aircraft marshalling area.
One more time express
determination for the final victory.
We must continue with
the work of war and with the fight.
At this time, Japan
it was not an industrial giant,
but in this first year they had seen
the spirit force and
it disciplines of the Japanese soldier
to take advantage on the English and the Americans,
stronger the material level,
but morally inferior.
The same devotion in the national front
it would become the just-conquered one
Inexpugn�vel Japanese empire.
For some clarified Japanese more,
the attack the Pearl Harbor
it had been a tremendous risk.
I was to work as always,
for return of the 9 of the morning.
They were all there and they touched music martial.
I almost fell for side when vi in manchetes
that the Emperor had declared
war to America and Great-Britain.
I find that the people in general
this astonishment partilhava.
But now the propaganda showed
the jubilant Japanese aviators
jamming the American fleet in Pearl Harbor.
The unsafe ones were vain.
The periodicals underlined
humilha��o of the caucasiano.
The Japanese knew that its
soldiers fought until a death.
When seeing the caucasianos prisoners
to be led for the Japanese
for a dishonoured capture,
it convinced them its proper invencibilidade.
Japan was earning.
Every day we heard in the radio
to tell the victories,
the nation was very enthusiastic.
When I heard the notice on the war
I thought about what would go to happen,
but the reports of the victories,
musics of war and the marches
that they all passed in the radio the day,
they had made them to be very enthusiastic.
It seemed a party.
The Japanese people had coexisted
with the war during 10 years.
Since 1931 the army fought one
interminable war with China.
The victory in the Pacific had
been fast and total.
Finally, they had something to festejar.
During years, before Pearl Harbor,
the cities were citizens
the aerial simulation of raides.
It was not for the almost inexistent one
Chinese Air Force,
but so that the sensation of the war
if it always kept hot.
All participated.
The associations of quarter, tonari-gumi,
the subjects made sure themselves of that all
they participated in the distant war.
The associations of quarter
they controlled all our life.
We received the instructions from
government through tonari-gumi.
Therefore we had that to obey
e we depended on them.
In all the quarters, the schools,
in the recreios and the streets
the citizens submitted themselves patriotically
to the conscription of thought and action.
The patriotic virtues started
to be infused since infancy.
Since very early, the children
they prepared the body and the mind
to serve a bigger cause
of what proper they:
the family, the nation, the Emperor.
If the nation was in war,
the children also had that to be
prepared for this.
When the lessons finished,
they had the duty and
privilege to serve to the country
e the terrestrial imperial forces,
aerial maritime and.
The pupils of secondary education
they passed one day with the Air Force.
If they had luck, from there little
they could be signed up as adult.
The Japanese were created
under three or four dogmas,
of the birth to the death:
the deity of the emperor,
the invencibilidade of the country
e that we were the elect race.
They were these things that were
hammers blow in the minds of the Japanese
since the infancy garden.
The boys learned to imitate
the martial code of the samurais,
archaic and fierce,
unprovided of mercy
for the enemy or itself proper.
For one samurai, to die in battle
it was to fall at the moment of the perfection,
as the flower of the cerejeira.
During centuries the cult of Buddha
it had coexisted in Japan
with the old Shinto worship
to the esp�ritos of ancestor
of the goddess of the Sun Amaterasu.
But in years 20 and 30,
the nationalists and militaristas
they had insisted on becoming Shinto
in the official religion.
Shinto was pure, was strict Japanese.
The Japanese believed piously
that the Pontiff of the nation
it descended directly of the Shinto Goddess of the Sun,
that is, the Emperor.
The Emperor was a god and a warlike head.
The belief of that through it
race was destined to the conquest
she was systematically propagandeada.
The military acted on behalf of the Emperor,
but they underlined of that although the appearances,
it enjoyed of little power in the land.
The Emperor desired the peace deeply,
therefore it opposed itself
to the beginning of the hostilities with America.
However, it met in such position
that if the Cabinet
he recommended unanimously
a certain politics,
it could not disapprove it,
although not to agree to it.
In a government led for a General,
this meant to make
that the army wanted.
The leached ashes of the dead soldiers
they were brought for house,
inside of boxes.
For the familiar ones of the victims, widowers and mothers,
the chance of the pride or the tears,
it had passed in the day of the farewell.
To send a son or a husband
to die for the Emperor,
it was its higher duty.
"We will find In them in the temple of Yasukuni",
where the leached ashes of deceased were blessed,
it was the place of the farewell to
soldiers who left for the war
wrapped up in haramaki,
a protective band with a thousand
points that used in the belly.
The women were in a esquina,
for example, in Tokyo, it was in Ginza,
e asked for to each woman who passed
to sew a point.
It had that to collect a thousand points.
This band was offered one
soldier, I also received one,
e it rolled it in return of the belly.
Its purpose was to keep the hot belly
for the soldier if not to gripar
e to deviate the bullets.
We know that this is impossible,
but it was an amulet.
I costumava to think.
I do not know if I must say this,
but it found that very unjust age.
Over all when I was sent for overseas.
The Japanese women offer to me
a thousand points and I go to die.
Not yet it stows with a woman,
because they do not offer me
its bodies instead of this
e thus allows that alive I
my life in its fullness.
They would not die for having slept with me.
Until they could like, I know there.
But soon, I give to die,
e alone I receive a thousand points.
The farewells in war time
they would have to be spirituals,
cerimoniosas and colds.
The recouped men already left
of the hospital singing the Umi Yukaba.
They sang, "I go for my tomb
tapeworm, there far in the sea "
e left of new for the war.
However, less than 5 months
after Pearl Harbor,
the war already was not thus so distant.
Sixteen B-25 Mitchell,
commanded for Lieutenant-Colonel
James Doolittle,
they had unglued from the aircraft carrier "Hornet"
for the first aerial attack to Japan.
They wanted to make a miniature one,
but anticipated demonstration
of the vulnerability of Japan
in relation to one it has attacked aerial
e had been entirely successful.
When the attack of Doolitle was.
effected on skies of Tokyo,
it had a species of consternation,
because the military.
they guaranteed some times to the public,
that the Japanese sky was impenetrable.
The bombers had penetrated
effectively the Japanese skies,
to play 16 tons of bombs
on its cities.
The estragos in itself had not been great,
but the shock was.
The press received instructions
for the transmission of the notice.
They wanted that we gave to understand
that it had been a cruel act,
an indiscriminate bombing
on civilians, women and children.
Eight of the pilots of Doolittle had been captured.
For the Japanese, only
others were bombed.
They were enraged
for the fact of this barbarity
to have if abated on them.
The prisoners had been judged
for a military court.
Three had been executed.
The main function of the women
Japanese age to procreate.
Experts only of the ceremony of the tea,
they remained in the embroidery frames.
Now that the battle fronts
they were taking the men,
they were directed stop
harder activities.
The women of the field already worked
to the side of the men,
but for the women of the city,
war brought a total change.
To replenish the store-room
empobrecida of the country,
they also were obliged
to work during long hours.
They extracted coal to use to advantage
the few resources of Japan
e to keep the war machine functioning.
The women of the city, educated
wives and mothers to become,
the "honored occult ones",
they had to leave the isolation
e to learn new crafts.
They said that had to substitute the men,
as its enemies they had
fact, to assure the victory.
We worked in the plant.
We worked week yes,
week not, of 15h to 23h.
To 23h, when we finished our work,
they took in them for the supper room
where in they gave a soup earthen bowl to them.
In the truth nor it was soup, was salty water,
with two or three sprouts of soy.
We had as much hunger.
Perhaps it had a wire of mass back in the deep one.
Everything what we had was rationed.
If we did not have a password
of food we did not have nothing.
We had to arrange our proper food,
therefore we planted potatoes in the garden.
We worked very stops
terms our vegetables.
The daily life.
it was very difficult.
The proper Empress assumed a new role,
stirring up the nation to make more
efforts and more sacrifices.
The sacrifice was necessary for the victory
e believed that the last one
victory still was unquestionable.
Nobody wise person who from June of 1942,
already they fought only for the survival.
June of 1942.
The airplanes of war of
United States take off
to intercept the Japanese armed
that it attacked the island of Midway.
For the battle, Admiral Yamamoto,
Commander-in-chief of the Japanese fleet,
it had pledged the four greaters
aircraft carrier of the Japanese fleet.
When the battle finished,
in 5 of June of 1942,
the aircraft carriers of Yamamoto
if they had set on fire or sunk.
Midway was a defeat of which
Japanese navy never recovered.
However, the people was informed
of that it had been a victory.
The truth was occulted
even of the members of the government.
They had said them that one of
aircraft carrier had sunk,
e that another one seriously was damaged.
As that battle had counted
with four aircraft carrier,
the version that had counted in them
it was that three had returned
e one was in p�ssimo been,
but the Anglo-American section said
that they had destroyed the four.
The doubt was installed in our minds.
We pressure the Navy stops
in they supplied more details to them,
but they had remained fidiciary offices
to its initial report.
Tei-ichi Makishima
I age chamber operator
e I filmed the battle of Midway.
When we come back to our base, in the Sea of Japan
nor they had left in them to write letters.
The wounded had been kept
in isolated infirmaries.
We receive orders private
of that we could not partilhar
information on the battle,
not even with the remaining portion of the Navy.
I practically was made
prisoner during one month and way
after coming back to Japan.
As she was journalist,
I was under a monitoring
particularly pressed,
because we had the reputation
to be very talkative.
They had forbidden to me to come back the Tokyo,
while the remaining portion of the war lasted.
The true situation
it was never transmitted in the radio.
during the War It is clearly that each reporter.
he was minutely censured at that time.
Thus, the public one was informed
of that the Army and the Navy
it continued to accumulate victories.
It did not have reporters, only propaganda.
But a result was described
in the told conflict
in the propaganda films:
the caucasianos oppressors of the eastern people
defeated for the courageous Japanese soldier.
E, in turn, the welded espartano
dominated for the revolt
for the luxurious life of the enemy.
Tokyo, 5 of June of 1943.
A funeral of State for
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
The great commander whom he led
the victory in Pearl Harbor.
The people was informed of that
the Admiral died as a hero,
in the aircraft marshalling area,
having faced the death with
elegance in a war airplane.
Its loss was bigger of what
of many warships.
But this first public admission of defeat,
although to be represented as
but symbolic of hero�smo,
it hid obscurer truths
of which the proper Yamamoto was well cliente.
It wise person who the superiority
material of the enemy,
when it was mobilized in its
fullness, would be smashing.
In Pearl Harbor, it had
bet in a brief war.
In Midway, the appositive one was lost.
Yamamoto is abated in skies
that now they were full of enemy airplanes
e overseas was now dominated
for the Navy of the enemy.
In 1944, the scale hung
entirely against Japan.
The metal was now a good
precious for the war,
too much precious it stops
ornaments or ceremonies.
The war had been fought
to assure raw material
for a land where it became scarce,
but above all, for the oil.
But now that the resources
that General Tojo boasts
that they would go to gush out of its conquests,
they were more close to the deep one
of the sea of what of Japan,
what it went for Japan not
it arrived for the war machine.
The food also became scarce.
The official ration of 1500 calories daily,
level of subsistence, many
times were not reached.
The rice harvest had been
the worse one of last the 50 years.
The hunger pairava for close.
The 1941 victories
they had placed Japan behind
of a vast protective ring,
defended until the o end.
The half one of 1944, the armies
amphibians of General MacArthur
they had reduced it an interior ring
dependant of the island of Saipan.
Saipan, at a distance of a flight of Japan,
she was seen for the Japanese military
as a inexpugn�vel shield.
It was vital that thus it was.
We perceive that if we lost Saipan,
we would be in a very difficult position.
The importance of Saipan inhabited
in the fact of that if this it fell
the war would be same in front of Japan.
Japan would be to the reach of
bombings of the Americans.
It was a defense area
absolutely vital for Japan.
In 15 of June of 1944,
after an incessant bombing
for the sea and air,
the American troops had attacked the coast.
As always the military garrisons
Japaneses had fought until the o end.
For the first time, the civilians
Japanese, women and children,
they turn over pegos in the war.
Some, stuned and docile, had been submitted.
Saipan had deep ports
e two aerodromes.
All the rocks had been defended.
In three weeks, to conquer
an island with 220 km2,
the Americans had lost 15 a thousand
men, between died and wounded.
All the 25 a thousand defenders
Japanese faleceram in the combat.
Some civilians, as well as many soldiers,
they had preferred the suicide the surrender.
They had died in go, Saipan was conquered.
Exactly before the last Japanese dying,
the Americans already were ready
to attack the metropolis.
The truth was too much close
even so that High-Command
Japanese could hide it.
They had informed the people of whom
the situation was serious,
but not irremediable.
However, the proper sacred nation
directly it was threatened.
The school boys had learned
that Japan was to the reach of the enemy.
It had fond the moment
for all, new and old,
to face danger the same
that its soldiers.
It remained only one handful of trained pilots
in that long ago it are
the worthy Japanese Air Force,
constructed to attack and it does not stop defending.
When the war started, its
huntings Zero dominated skies.
Now loosers were exceeded and.
They now disdained its machines
in relation to the giant ortalezas
that now they attacked the native land.
They were young e courageous,
but they were very few.
It felt the same in relation to one hunting Zero
that one samurai feels for the sword.
It had to manipulate the airplane, such
as if it was my body.
Also it believed that cockpit
it was a private place
that it would be my tomb.
When we went to attack, never
we took parachute.
We never believed that
we could leaving to imprison in them,
if we were abated
on enemy territory.
Since always, the Japanese warrior believed
that it was a sin to leave itself to imprison.
In the same way, we, while
modern Japanese soldiers,
we did not have leaving to imprison in them
because it would be a dishonor.
With the Imperial Navy insult,
the shield of defeated Saipan
e the conquered Phillipino,
but the islands of Iwo Jima
e finally Okinawa remained
to hinder the advance them Allies
on Japan.
In April of 1945, Iwo Jima is captured.
Now an American Army,
protected for warships
Okinawa threat, the last island before Japan.
In a desperate blow it stops
to hinder the last attack,
Japan congregated one more time
its young ones to fight and to die
as its ancestor.
Squadrons had been formed special,
the Kamikaze, the Men of the Wind The holy ghost,
baptisms in honor of the tuf�o
that it verwhelmed the invasion
of Kublai Khan, centuries before.
They had drunk the last goblet of wine
of rice and they had left for the death.
Its airplanes had been
converted into flying bombs.
Its mission was to beat
against the enemy ships
to the plaza of Okinawa.
As commander, they asked many times to me
if it was difficult to congregate these squadrons,
but in the truth the inverse one was transferred.
We had many pilots
that they were voluntariaram,
but only some could
to leave for each attack.
Therefore, the difficulty inhabited
in choosing a reduced group.
All the others asked for it chose that them
e was complicated to ask for
to that they had not been chosen
to wait for the next chance.
On the other hand, those
that they were chosen for the attack
they were very enthusiastic,
therefore it was not difficult to send them.
But, in contrast to one it has attacked normal,
when these kamikaze left,
never more they returned.
It had a sadness, because
we knew that those that left
never more they came back.
Kamikaze was abated in air.
They had inflicted serious damages, but they had failed.
The Americans had invaded Okinawa.
Okinawa was only the 560 km of Japan.
The more if they approached to the island,
more fanatic if it became the fight.
In Okinawa, only 7 a thousand
Japanese soldiers had survived.
Of more than the 100 a thousand soldiers who
they had died, many had been committed suicide,
as well as 75 a thousand civilians.
Mrs.
Yonaha, a student,
also she was ready for the suicide.
To our return, the soldiers and
inhabitants ran away in disbandment,
obviously confused.
I followed the soldiers and I enter
in a small shelter.
We only wanted sheltering in them from rain.
In this shelter, we find some officers.
We heard the American Army
calling in them for it are.
Who wants that it was, spoke
in a wonderful Japanese.
But it has much time that we had learned
that we did not have to relieve us
nor to be war prisoners.
Thus we leave that they continued
to insist all during the day,
without yielding.
They cried out of the sea and they said:"They leave, leave"
They said:
"We will not make the aged women, children badly and.
They leave, please! "
Already it had taken the decision to die
e found that it had to commit the suicide.
One of the soldiers had a garnet
e said:"We go committing suicide in them"
e we agree.
When we take this decision,
I felt a great relief and one
great tranquilidade.
He is clearly that first to kill did not want me,
it wanted to run away from some form
e to continue to live.
But the speakers had started
to be each time higher.
We feel that the Americans
they were each time next,
therefore I asked for to the soldier to also kill me.
When it was to the wait
that the soldier pulled the trigger,
one of the other soldiers unseamed the sword
e started to agitate it knot air and to say:
"Voc�s, the women and children,
they leave! They do not have to die here! "
We are very scared with that one would cry out,
therefore we arise ourselves and we withdraw.
The place where we were hidden
he was very small,
therefore it was enough to give a step behind
to be outside of the shelter.
We saw two soldiers American
in them to point pistols.
They had not said nothing,
but they were always making signal
with the pistols to sairmos.
The soldiers who we had left there inside
they had asked for them not to say
to the Americans who were there,
because all went to commit suicide.
In 2 of July of 1945, Okinawa fell.
In the metropolis, the people prepared itself
for the storm that arrived.
First the super ortalezas
to sobrevoarem Tokyo,
they were only premessenger of
hundreds that were for coming.
They went to expel fire and explosives,
in one it has attacked aerial open pasture,
that one would abate systematically
on the Japanese cities.
In formations that arrived at the 2 a thousand members,
all the hours, almost without opposition,
the rubbles had reduced the Japanese cities.
In the ground, the anxiety to find
shelters against raides aerial,
it was changedded into one feared daily routine.
First, I ran for the shelters,
but he was not tranquila there inside,
because they were small e fragile.
The people who were in the shelter
they were always so tired,
so pale and quiet.
Nor the children cried,
because too much tired and they were scared.
Therefore, we were all silenced.
The Japanese cities wooden
they were set on fire easily,
with its citizens there inside.
This artificial hell in Tokyo
it was worse of what that one that if
it followed to the 1923 earthquake,
the worse natural disaster of Tokyo.
Not very far from my house,
it had many men who had died.
Mine better friend.
it lost the father, the brother and the sister, in that night,
e the mother of it was committed suicide after this.
In the following morning.
it wanted to go to see as was my house,
therefore I crossed the bridge
e I directed me for house,
but it completely was destroyed.
She was too much tired and it was.
thinking about.
but the war detestava.
Detestava the war.
I was there suffering in silence.
Tokyo, was a deportation carbonized.
But the steel and the cement had survived.
The stench of the death was gotten loose of the ruins.
In one it has attacked, in one alone night,
more than 70 a thousand had perished.
In the aerial attacks on Japan,
about 250 a thousand civilians they had died.
Eight million had been without ceiling.
Men and women, youngsters and young women,
the survivors prepared themselves
to defend its native land.
To come back to send the invaders toward the sea,
with rifles wooden,
arcs and arrows, spears of bamboo.
In the end, when lode fell of the sky.
Irresistible, unimaginable.
in mushroom form.