Horror in the East (2001) - full transcript

En Japón durante la segunda guerra mundial
la religión de Estado Shinto

inextricablemente ligado soldados japoneses
a su tierra natal.

En ese momento, sintoísmo estatal les enseñó

que el mundo estaba lleno de dioses
dominadas por el sungoddess,

de quien el emperador de Japón se
dice que está descendido.

Y el emperador no era solamente
un dios,

también era el comandante supremo de
las fuerzas armadas japonesas.

En cada pedido de estos soldados recibieron
fue dado en el nombre del emperador.

Nos dijeron que el emperador
era un dios viviente.

Si vas a la guerra y morir en acción,
a continuación, usted se convierte en un dios

y están consagrados en el santuario de Yasukuni



y el Emperador la amabilidad de visitar
y orar por usted.

Y una de las más claras instrucciones
estos soldados recibieron

en el nombre de su Emperador era
que bajo ninguna circunstancia se

que para ser capturado vivo.

l nunca pensó en rendirse.

Cada soldado recordaba las palabras
a partir de los Militares "Código de Servicio"

- "No avergonzar a ti mismo
al convertirse en un prisionero de guerra."

Esta es la historia de cómo,
cuando la guerra se volvió en contra de los Japoneses,

su deseo de morir antes que

la rendición fue terribles
consecuencias, no sólo para Japón,

pero para cada nación tocado
por la guerra en el este.

Cuando los marines norteamericanos intentaron
para retomar el Japonés celebró islas

como aquí en Tarawa
en el Pacífico en 1943,

la feroz manera en
que los Japoneses estaban dispuestos



a luchar hasta la muerte no
hacer que los Americanos respeto más,

esto tuvo el efecto contrario.

l pensaba que eran muy crueles,
eran sádicos,

y que quería morir por el emperador
y tuvimos que salir a la calle

y ayudarles a morir por el emperador.

l sopló un montón de ellos, de las cuevas;

cuando salieron de las cajas de pastillas después de
nos gustaría poner la gasolina en las ranuras

y se encendió con un lanzallamas.

Filmamos el infierno fuera de ellos
como iban.

Para muchos Amercians,
los Japoneses negativa a rendirse, se convirtió,

como su ataque sorpresa
en Pearl Harbour

y el maltrato de los
los prisioneros de guerra,

otro signo de
que eran un deshonroso enemigo.

Vamos a tener una bofetada

El pequeño y sucio Jap,

Y el Tío Sam es el tipo de persona que puede hacerlo

Nos pondremos en la piel de la raya de color amarillo

Desde el furtivo poco compañero

Y él va a pensar que un ciclón golpeó
cuando a través de ella.

Su coartada para luchar es
para salvar a su cara

Para los antepasados de espera
en el espacio celeste

Le voy a patear ese precioso espacio de abajo
a ese otro lugar

Tenemos que bofetada que poco sucia Jap

Nos habían enseñado que los Japoneses
eran infrahumanas cuando nos metimos en el ataque.

Pero por supuesto que no tenía amor por Hitler

o a los Nazis, pero también nos
había muchas personas en estados unidos

que eran de ascendencia alemana,
de descenso de ltalians.

lt era totalmente un punto de vista diferente
hemos tenido de la ltalians,

de los Alemanes,
que hemos tenido de los Japoneses.

Este punto de vista que los Japoneses
de alguna manera diferente

de los otros enemigos
los Aliados se enfrentan extendida

la forma en que los Japoneses de la guerra
muertos podrían ser tratados.

Ellos a su vez estos cuerpos

y les golpeó en la parte posterior de la cabeza
con la culata de un rifle.

l vio a los marines que había mucho
en una bolsa de papel de dientes de oro.

lt pesaba probablemente 10 o 15 libras.

Ahora que era su deber actividad,
y fue justo juego l adivinar.

Shoot 'em en la cabeza con un 45,
automáticamente la boca se abre.

El hombre, entonces, todos los dientes de oro mirando
a mí en la cara.

Y l no derribarlos
con la culata de un rifle,

l utiliza las pinzas,

l adivinar l tenía tanto odio
así que pensé ¿por qué l estaba haciendo eso.

l tenía una cantina, una cantimplora de agua
aquí y un comedor de los dientes de oro aquí.

Y la mutilación de los Japoneses muertos en la guerra
por algunos Estadounidenses se limita sólo

para robar el oro de los dientes
de sus bocas.

This photograph published during
the war in Life Magazine,

shows the girlfriend of
an American sailor next to a souvenir

which her boyfriend has sent home
from the Pacific.

The skull of a Japanese soldier signed
by her boyfriend's comrades.

There are a lot of atrocities in war,
that are on both sides, on both sides.

Not only one side, both sides.

Call it revenge, call it what you want.

Japanese soldiers fighting
the Australians in New Guinea

también fueron a cometer atrocidades
en contra de los enemigos muertos en la guerra.

ln a finales de 1943, prohibido rendirse
y separados de sus suministros,

Las tropas japonesas comenzaron a morir de hambre.

Como resultado,
algunos recurrieron al canibalismo,

comer tanto a sus propios muertos
y el enemigo muerto así.

Las conclusiones del Ejército Australiano
en este tema más delicado

se mantuvieron en secreto hasta la década de 1990,

cuando un Japonés académico administrado
para obtener su desclasificación.

La práctica de la antropofagia era mucho más
una práctica ampliamente extendida de lo que pensaba.

l encontrado a través de mi investigación
que el canibalismo fue organizado

práctica en grupo en lugar de
de forma individual se practica la actividad.

Que los altos oficiales Japoneses eran conscientes de
el problema de canibalismo entre

sus hombres es claro a partir de este fin de
de Mayor General Aotsu,

que dice que cualquier soldado Japonés

que ha comido carne humana es ser
condenado a muerte,

pero excluye específicamente de
que los que han comido enemigo carne.

El propósito de este grupo de canibalismo
era, por supuesto, la supervivencia

debido a que cerca de 160.000 fuerzas Japonesas
fueron enviados a Nueva Guinea en 1942

pero el 93 por ciento de
las fuerzas Japonesas murió

y l se siente enojado hacia
los oficiales Japoneses

los que hicieron de esta decisión
para enviar gran cantidad de

Los soldados japoneses en Nueva Guinea
sin la suficiente preparación.

Y cuando la situación cambió ellos
simplemente decidió abandonar a los soldados.

Y lo que estos abandonados
los soldados que sabía era que

cuando murió su divino emperador
iba a ir y adorar a sí mismo.

Los primeros signos de que un gran número de
tanto civiles como soldados podría

estar dispuesto a morir por su emperador
en lugar de rendirse fue en 1944

- en un lugar de 1400 millas al sur oriente
de la casa de las islas de Japón -

la isla de Saipan.

Aquí, los civiles se les dijo que
los Americanos violación y el asesinato de ellos

si ellos fueron capturados
y con el aliento

del ejército Japonés miles de personas tomaron
sus propias vidas.

Ellos estaban tirando las mujeres y
los niños por el acantilado sobre el coral.

Hay fotos de ella.

Y como ellos estaban tirando los niños

l usado para disparar a los niños
a medida que se iba abajo

para no sufrir
cuando llegan a la coral.

Habían salto y se podía escuchar el
los gritos de los niños en el coral.

lt es un gran acantilado.

Que había de saltar hacia abajo con los bebés.

Muchas veces l a pensar acerca de
que en mis sueños.

lf era lo correcto para mí
cosa para no tener que sufrir

cuando cayó,
causa en la que se va a morir de todos modos,

usted sabe, cuando llegan a
la coral de ahí abajo.

Pero muchos de ellos no muere,

ellos todavía estaría vivo
y tener una muerte horrible,

así que l había disparar y es como disparar
un caballo que se rompe una pierna.

Y este es un ser humano.

Cómo l nunca fue a través de
Saipan l no lo sé.

l he estado años en el post
traumático de la tensión, el estrés de la guerra.

La propaganda japonesa acerca de Saipan
destacó la nobleza de

muriendo en la lucha contra los Aliados

y el mensaje fue difundido
entre los estudiantes Japoneses.

Con la captura de las islas
como Saipan y Tinian,

los bombarderos pesados estaban ahora en más fácil gama de
objetivos en la casa de las islas de Japón.

Los Aliados lanzan ahora
el mayor de los bombardeos aéreos

el mundo nunca había visto.

Durante la guerra, los aliados arrojaron
más de 160.000 toneladas de bombas sobre Japón

en un esfuerzo para hacer el Japonés
aceptar la rendición incondicional.

l fue de 21 años de edad.

Y l realmente se quiere obtener la guerra
sobre e l quería llegar a casa.

Y si me dijeron que para ir
y bomba de algunas ciudades, a continuación,

l se fue y bombardearon las ciudades.

Ellos fueron bombardeadas para nada a la izquierda
a excepción de los pasos y de las chimeneas.

Completar el 100 por ciento de la obliteración.

lt no se como salir de un pegando un
bayoneta en alguien vientre bien.

Todavía kill 'em
pero kill 'em desde una distancia

y no tiene por que
desmoralizante efecto en ustedes.

l sentí todo excepto la misericordia
para las personas que por algún motivo.

l no l no estaba obsesionado con
cualquier sentimiento de simpatía.

l no es.

Tokio fue atacada con bombas incendiarias en
el 10 de Marzo de 1945.

Más de 300 de American B29 bombarderos
cayó incendiarias

lo que causó una tormenta de fuego
en la capital Japonesa.

Alrededor de 100.000 personas murieron.

Primero un poco la llama de la captura de
nuestra ropa,

así que le dijo a cada uno de los otros
y trató de sacarlo.

l escuchó un fuerte grito en mi espalda.
lt era mi bebé.

El bebé estaba llorando en mi espalda.
l se dio la vuelta.

Lloraba con la boca abierta
y las chispas de fuego se metió en ella.

La llama roja fue la quema de derecho
en su boca.

Mi madre me gritó
para tenerlo en mis brazos

en lugar de llevarlo en mi espalda.

Mi padre y mi madre estaban tratando de
para proteger al bebé

a partir de la furia de un fuego que nos rodea.

Mis padres deben de haber sido capturado
en el fuego y murió.

lt más allá de cualquier descripción.

lt's so very painful even to
think about it.

Despite the destruction in Tokyo,

opinion was still divided
in the Japanese government

in the months that followed over
what should be done.

Accepting unconditional surrender might,
some feared,

mean the elimination of the institution
of the emperor itself.

Emperor Hirohito,
together with his military leaders,

believed that in order to negotiate
a more advantageous peace

Japan needed to win one big victory.

And these were the men

who would help provide it: the Kamikazes.

Pilots who would fly their planes to crash
deliberately into enemy targets.

Kamikaze strategy had been born in 1944

with sporadic suicide attacks
on Allied planes and ships.

Now in the spring of 1945 Kamikazes

were to sortie en masse
for the first time.

There had always been a tradition amongst
the Japanese warrior

elite of suicide being an honourable way
out of an insurmountable problem.

Now this tradition was extended
beyond the elite.

ln this close knit society,

one strongly based on respect
through hierarchy,

suicide was now seen as a way of
showing that

what mattered was not one's own life
but the life of the state,

the life of the Emperor.

Through films like these showing
the self-sacrifice

of the Kamikaze the message was spread
into the general population.

l thought they were doing very well.

l didn't think that they were wasting
their lives.

l believed that they were sacrificing
their lives for the country.

And us civilians, we should also be ready
to sacrifice our lives

for the coutnry when the time came.

The Japanese people belonged to
the Emperor.

We were his children.

But not all Kamikazes volunteered
as freely

as the propaganda images suggest.

The story of how Kenichiro Oonuki
came to be a kamikaze

offers a less simplistic insight.

All the fighter pilots,

about 150 of us at the training base,
were called in.

A senior officer,
the head of the troop told us

they were recruiting people
for a special mission.

And he said, ''lf you go on this mission,
you won't come back alive.''

Everybody thought this was ridiculous and
nobody really was willing to go.

We wanted to give the answer
''No, l don't want to go.''

But later on we thought, ''Wait.

lf we want to say no,
can we really say it?

Can we say no to this officer?''

We told each other
that we should calm down

and think about the consequences.

lf some people rejected the offer,

they might be shunned and sent to the most
severe battle front in the south

and would meet certain death anyway.

Then when their family was informed
of this, how would they feel?

They would be ostracized
from the community.

Nobody wanted to volunteers,
but everybody did write

'' Yes l volunteer for the special mission
with all my heart.''

Everybody had the same expression
in their eyes.

Like a deep sea fish looking up
at the blue sky above.

l've never seen sadder expressions
in anyone's eyes since then.

The biggest Kamikaze attack of the war
was on the British

and American fleets during the battle
for Okinawa in spring 1945.

l think they were the worst moments
of my life.

l'd been frightened many times in the war
but that was about the worst time,

sitting there knowing that one kamikaze
coming up there

could have swept the whole of our
complement of aircraft and aircrew.

They could kill the whole lot.
lt's not nice.

We wouldn't be expected to survive if
the kamikaze had hit the deck.

All of us would have gone up in smoke,

a lot of roasting going on and
all they'd do is to brush

the remains over the side...
that's all what one can do...

The guns were going,
all the ship's guns were,

the place was black with smoke up

there where the bursts had been going on.

And there were occasional splashes
in the sea

where some kamikaze had been hit,

or missed, you know, because some of them
were pretty careless.

One of them had hit the forward gun turret

and that killed about six people
and injured another six.

And the second one had bounced off
the flight deck aft

and that l think swept a few aeroplanes
into the sea

and killed about four people
or maybe eight people.

Because of the war and what
we heard about what

they did on the land fighting we had
no compassion for them at all.

There're no good Japanese,
there're only dead ones.

The British warships with their
armoured decks

did not suffer as much under kamikaze
attack as the Americans.

Altogether 24 American ships were sunk

and around 200 damaged
by kamikazes off Okinawa.

Kenichiro Oonuki was shot down
by the Americans

before he had a chance to crash his plane
into one of their warships.

The Japanese authorities said
he was dishonourable, imprisoned him,

and denied him the chance to fly another
kamikaze mission.

Many of my comrades died,
thousands of them,

whereas we simply survived.
We survived and we feel guilty about it.

ln March 1945 as the kamikazes
flew around them

the Americans landed here on the
small island of Tokashiki.

As on Saipan the civilians were told by
the Japanese army

that the Americans would rape
and murder them.

The army encouraged the islanders to adopt
kamikaze tactics.

To some, they gave 2 hand grenades and
told them to throw one at the Americans

and then to blow themselves up
with the other.

On March 27th 1945,
about 800 villagers gathered

in this ravine at the southern end
of the island.

The Americans were less than
half a mile away.

The children were told that
they would be killed

if the enemy captured them.

And also that to be captured
would bring great shame,

so it was better to choose to die.

There was an explosion, a small American
bomb had dropped nearby.

One of the village elders started to try

and kill his family
with the branch of a tree.

At the sign that
this senior member of the group

would sacrifice those he loved,

other villagers started
to follow his example.

The first person we killed was our
own mother, who gave us life.

Everything around me, including my mind
was all in absolute chaos

and l don't remember the details.

But what l do remember is that we first
tried to tie her neck with rope.

Finally we took a stone
and bashed in her head.

That's the brutal thing
we did to our mother.

l was only 16. l couldn't stop crying
because of a sadness

that l had never experienced before.

l will never cry like that
in my life again.

That day in March around 320 men, women
and children died on Tokashiki.

Shigeaki Kinjyou survived only because as
he tried to attack the Americans

in a suicide charge he was captured alive.

l think we were dreadfully manipulated.
As l got older my soul started to suffer.

55 years, since the end of the war,
and l still suffer today.

By the time of the suicides on Tokashiki,
in March 1945,

the Japanese Empire had been pushed apart.

The British army was advancing
through Burma.

And the Americans threatened to
land on Okinawa,

the largest piece of Japanese territory
they'd yet reached,

less than a thousand miles from Tokyo.

The lmperial Japanese Army
ordered an heroic

stand to be made here on Okinawa,

one that might then allow the Japanese
to negotiate peace from strength.

The Americans expected the Japanese
to defend the beaches.

After all, that was the only way a landing
could ever be prevented.

But on April the 1st 1945,

when 50,000 American troops came ashore,

they found their
arrival virtually unopposed.

Everyone was very happy.

What happened to the Japanese?

Now we just thought we were
luckier than hell.

And we were very surprised
that there wasn't cannon fire,

mortar fire, small arms fire meeting us.
We were very pleased.

But there were Japanese troops
on the island,

more than eighty thousand of them

dug into the fabric
of the island interior.

Some in concrete pill boxes
underneath the trees.

l saw Americans for the first time
in my life.

Their tanks come first and then
the infantry companies followed.

The soldiers were carrying guns
and they were chewing gum.

l didn't know what they were chewing
at the time.

They looked as though
they came for a picnic.

The Japanese leadership hoped
that on Okinawa their army,

together with the civilian population,
would be so determined,

so prepared to sacrifice themselves

that the Allies would realize
that a compromise peace

would be in everyone's best interests.

We realised that we were losing
a lot of people.

A lot of people. They were very excellent
trained troops.

And killed any number of
our company people.

You'd get up there and you'd get under
machine gun fire

and mortar fire and you lose people.

The Japanese soldier' last word
was usually ''Mother''.

l saw several people die in the war,

but l heard nobody call out ''Banzai''
for the Emperor.

Americans also muttered ''Mother''
when they died.

When we shot them, we heard them calling
''Mom'' or ''Mother''.

We talked about it amongst ourselves

that when they were dying they said
the same thing as us.

But not all American soldiers accepted

this common link of humanity
as they were.

They were inhuman race.

We were taught and did not ever
take a Japanese prisoner.

ln the 2 years that l was overseas
with the Raiders,

4th Marine, 6th Marines divisions,

l saw no prisoner ever taken.

One came with 30, 40 of them
with their hands up.

They were killed on the spot.

Because we didn't take prisoners.

On Guadalcanal, a number of Japanese
would come up,

purporting to surrender, and fall down
with grenades under their arms,

and blow up people.

Any number of tricks, the Japanese had.

We took no prisoners.

The Americans would often order
the Japanese soldiers

ever surrendered that did to take off
their clothes

to show they weren't armed.

Many thousands of Japanese soldiers did
manage to survive to become POWs.

But occasions were even after their
surrenders had been accepted.

The lives of surrender soldiers
still at risk.

Two fellows, running a telephone line
across country,

came across a Japanese
who'd surrendered to them.

They took him to the company headquarters,
and the captain just blew his top,

'You've ruined our record,' he said,

'Sergeant, er take this prisoner
to battalion headquarters

and l'll see you at 11.15.'

Well, it was eleven o'clock and the
headquarters was 5 miles away.

So they took him out and killed him.

After weeks of fighting,
much of it hand-to-hand,

and distraught with lack of sleep
and food,

Hajime Kondo decided his time had come.

Almost all my colleagues had died.

l thought it's time for us to join them.

That why we decided to attempt
a Banzai attack.

lt was suicidal behaviour
but l believed that death

would be a kind of relief for us
at the time.

l saw my comrade get shot and fall down
on the ground

and when l was trying to save him,

l stumbled over a stone and fell down.

l was surrounded by American soldiers.

They were pointing guns at me and
that's how l was captured.

As the Americans pushed the Japanese army
to the south of the island,

there were many civilian suicides,
several thousand here at Cape Kiyan.

Once more, the Japanese army
played a crucial role

in encouraging civilians
to kill themselves.

On the remote islands nearby,
where there were no Japanese soldiers,

there were no mass suicides.

lt was an awesome scale of sacrifice.

Around 8,000 American troops,
60,000 Japanese soldiers

and 150,000 Japanese civilians died
on Okinawa.

And still the war continued.

The reason why then Japan
continued the war

is that for the previous half century,
through the first sino-japanese war,

the russo-japanese war,
up to World War l,

the Japanese had never lost a war.

Japan had always won.

Thus, both the Government and
the military people didn't know

how to deal with losing a war.

They didn't have any experience of defeat
and they didn't know how to end it,

how to lose the war.

ln that situation,
it was easier to continue the war rather

than make the courageous decision
to lose it.

While the fighting raged on Okinawa,

here in Borneo the Japanese
refusal to surrender

was to have a catastrophic effect
on allied Prisoners of War.

British and Australian Prisoners of War
had been first sent to this camp

at Sandakan in North Borneo and forced

to build an airfield
by their Japanese captors.

Many had been captured
at the fall of Singapore,

others when the Japanese
over-ran the island of Java.

The prisoners laboured here
in temperatures

often as high as 30 degrees celsius,
malnourished,

many sick with beri beri or malaria.

Always under the constant
threat of receiving

a beating from their Japanese guards.

There was one occasion on
which somebody intervened

When he was an officer,

when one his men were being beaten up
by some Japanese guards

and he was horribly beaten up by quite
a number of them.

The Japanese treatment of Prisoners of War
was brutal, sadistic,

and uncivilised, but in those conditions,
there was no solution.

You have to take it.

ln the old British phrase,
you have to grin and bear it.

Peter Lee was fortunate to survive.

He was one of a group
of officers transferred

from the camp before the crisis developed.

l'd have given my right hand
to have stayed.

l lost some very good friends,

not only amongst the 700 men
who were left,

but also the officers.
They were very fine men.

Fearing an Allied invasion,
the Japanese forced more then 1000 British

and Australian Prisoners of War to march
through the jungle

over 160 miles towards Japanese bases on
the other side of Borneo.

The biggest of these forced marches,
with nearly 550 POWs,

left Sandakan in May 1945.

Well, maybe one in ten
was sort of healthy.

But the food situation was terribly bad
and a lot of them were sick

They had malaria and things like that
so they were weak.

A couple of days later,
we were told that if they fell over,

if they fell over,
we shouldn't leave them.

We had to get rid of them.

As the prisoners of war fell, exhausted,

by the side of the jungle trail,
they were shot.

One of the Australian prisoners of war

who collapsed was murdered
by Toyoshige Karashima.

l felt very sorry for him,
but l had no choice but to kill him.

l shot him

When people were about to die,

they know that up to then they had made
their utmost effort to survive.

But once they realise that
there is no chance of survival,

they just give up.

For us, even if l wanted to help him,

there was no way l could,
except to help him by killing him

Each day, as they marched on through
appalling conditions,

more prisoners of war died.

And not just prisoners of war.

A hundred of the 1 ,000 Japanese soldiers

who went on the marches
from Sandakan died.

But, in contrast,
all of the prisoners of war

who were left in Japanese care
would lose their lives,

the final survivors murdered by
the Japanese

in an attempt to conceal their crime
after they'd reached their destination.

Of the 1800 Australian Prisoners of War

who'd been alive at Sandakan camp in 1944,

only 6, who'd managed to escape into
the jungle, survived.

The rest died either in the camp itself,

on the marches,
or once their trek was over.

Every single one of the 700 British
Prisoners of War lost their lives.

Absolute horror.
Because nobody, l'd say,

at that time, had any idea
that any such thing could possibly

occur in what is called a civilised world.

Toyoshige Karashima
was subsequently convicted

by an Australian War Crimes
tribunal of murdering

more than a dozen Prisoners of War.

l don't feel guilty now about
what l have done

because in a war people cannot be normal.

We had already learnt
what the Japanese were like

when we were trained by the Japanese army
at a training camp in Taiwan

and we saw many Japanese
in colonised Taiwan.

When we joined the Japanese army,

we were told that we were the soldiers
of the Emperor

and all we needed to do was to obey orders
- to obey orders

which were the orders of the Emperor.
That's what l was told.

And the fierce resistance of the Emperor's
army was costing the Allies dear.

l passed right by a graveyard.

lndescribable number of crosses,
er, of, er, of markers.

l couldn't describe to you how
l was um affected by that.

l had never seen 7,000 markers before.

And when l came to realise that
they were just kids like myself,

that wouldn't be going home, sorry, l um,

l just couldn't make it any more.

lt it just took something out of me,
that l didn't know was there.

l thought l was pretty tough.
l wasn't tough.

l, er, anyway, yeh,
it was a traumatic event.

With Okinwa taken, the next battle,
these marines believed,

would be on the home islands of Japan.

We went from Okinawa to Guam to be in
training to attack Japan.

And we fully expected heavy casualties.

Whether, without the use of the
atomic bomb in August 1945,

the Japanese might have subsequently
given up

before any invasion was necessary,

is one of the great unanswered questions
of history.

For the last few weeks of the war,

Japan had been seeking Moscow's help
to mediate a peace,

but one that still fell short
of unconditional surrender.

What is certain is that, after the
atomic bombs were dropped,

throughout Asia and the Pacific Japanese
troops laid down their arms,

finally allowed to stop fighting
and survive.

Around 5,000 soldiers and politicians

would subsequently be tried
for war crimes.

British and Malay officials
watched 10,000 faces

getting lost as the Japs marched past
and saluted the Union Jack.

Prestige is precious in the Far East

and this is the way to make sure that,

from now on, Japan's name is mud.

Spared humiliation
was the Emperor himself.

After the nuclear bombs had been dropped

and the Japanese had made peace
overtures to the allies

who had hinted that the institution
of the Emperor

could be kept in Japan - and so it proved.

After the war Hirohito
remained in his palace

in the central part of Tokyo,

for the allies useful
as a symbol of continuity

between the old Japan and the new;

now a constitutional monarch at the head
of a democratic government,

no longer a living god.

Historians is divided into
how much Hirohito,

with a hard-line government around him,

was able to control the conduct of
the war.

But what there is no argument about,

is that at the end of the war,

the Supreme Commander of the lmperial
Armed Forces stayed on as Emperor,

despite more than a million Japanese
soldiers dying in his name.

Why did the person at the top,

the person who had supreme responsibility,

not take responsibility for the war?

l would have expected if the Emperor
had given any thought

a los que murieron en la miseria
en la primera línea,

él habría tenido alguna responsabilidad.

Veteranos en realidad no hablar de la guerra
experiencias abiertamente.

'' No hablar de cosas malas ''

- dicen que lo haría vergüenza Japón.
''Callar.''

El emperador Hirohito se mantuvo en el trono

hasta su muerte en enero de 1989.