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Que Farei quando Tudo Arde?

Desarrezoado amor, dentro em meu peito,
tem guerra com a razão. Amor, que jaz
i já de muitos dias, manda e faz
tudo o que quer, a torto e a direito.

Não espera razões, tudo é despeito,
tudo soberba e força; faz, desfaz,
sem respeito nenhum; e quando em paz
cuidais que sois, então tudo é desfeito.

Doutra parte, a Razão tempos espia,
espia ocasiões de tarde em tarde,
que ajunta o tempo; enfim vem o seu dia:

Então não tem lugar certo onde aguarde
Amor; trata traições, que não confia
nem dos seus. Que farei quando tudo arde?

Sá de Miranda, in 'Antologia Poética'

Qatar baniu A Rapariga Dinamarquesa

Ministro da Cultura exigiu a retirada do filme, sobre a primeira mulher transgénero, Lili Elbe, de todos os cinemas do país, depois de queixas de “depravação”.

No Qatar quem não viu A Rapariga Dinamarquesa, já não o vai poder fazer. A produção de Tom Hooper, protagonizada pelo vencedor de um Óscar Eddie Redmayne, tinha estreado no início do mês mas durou pouco tempo em sala devido às várias queixas sobre o conteúdo do filme, que conta a história da dinamarquesa Lili Elbe, conhecida como a primeira mulher transgénero.

Em resposta às críticas de “depravação” que se fizeram sentir em particular nas redes sociais, o ministério da Cultura e Informação do Qatar baniu A Rapariga Dinamarquesa. “Queremos informar que contactámos a administração em causa e a exibição do filme A Rapariga Dinamarquesa está agora banida dos cinemas”, escreveu no Twitter o ministro Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, agradecendo a “firme vigilância” de todos.

Um empregado de um cinema em Doha contou ao The Guardian que assim que a exigência do ministro chegou que o filme foi imediatamente retirado, tendo estado em exibição naquela sala apenas três dias.

O Guardian escreve que foram vários os cidadãos que se queixaram do conteúdo do filme, que tem dado que falar em grande parte pela transformação do actor Eddie Redmayne – mais uma, depois de ter sido o físico britânico Stephen Hawking, portador de esclerose lateral amiotrófica, num papel que lhe valeu o Óscar. “O filme contradiz a nossa religião, moral e tradição”, lê-se numa das críticas.

No grande ecrã, Redmayne é Lili Elbe, nascida homem com o nome de Einar Mogens Wegener em Dezembro de 1882. Na Academia Real Dinamarquesa de Belas Artes, ainda homem, Elbe conheceu a artista Gerda Gottlieb – no filme representada por Alicia Vikander – por quem se apaixonou e casou em 1904. Começou por se transformar em mulher quando Gottlieb precisava de uma musa para as suas pinturas e aos poucos passou a viver publicamente como mulher que se sentia.

Em 1930, fez uma cirurgia experimental na Alemanha para mudar de sexo, tornando-se na primeira pessoa a submeter-se a uma intervenção do género. Ao longo de dois anos, Lili Elb foi operada cinco vezes. No final deste processo, não se sentia mais a mesma pessoa e pediu ao rei da Dinamarca que dissolvesse o seu casamento, pedido concedido em 1930, altura em que conseguia também ver legalizada a sua nova identidade.

Qatar is a high income economy backed by the world's third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves.[17] The country has the highest per capita income in the world. Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development.[18] Qatar is an influential player in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network.[19][20][21] Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so.[22] For its size, Qatar wields disproportionate influence in the world, and has been identified as a middle power.
(...)
Islam is the predominant religion. Qatar's official state religion is Islam.[189] Most Qatari citizens belong to the strict Salafi sect of Islam.[190][191][192] Most Qatari citizens are Sunni Muslims, only between 10–20% of Qatari citizens are Shia Muslims.[193] According to the 2004 census, 71.5% of the population are Sunni Muslim and about 10-20% Shia Muslim, 8.5% are Christian and 10% are "other".[83][194][195] Sharia law is the main source of Qatari legislation according to Qatar's Constitution

On May 31, those who had to decide on when and where — and if — the atomic bomb was to be dropped on Japan, met in the Pentagon. Speaking for the scientists, Robert Oppenheimer stated, as the official minutes of the meeting record, ‘that the visual effect of an atomic bombing would be tremendous. It would be accompanied by a brilliant luminescence which would rise to a height of 10,000 to 20,000 feet. The neutron effect of the explosion would be dangerous to life for a radius of at least two-thirds of a mile.’ There was a long discussion that day as to what the targets ought to be, and what effect the bomb might have on them. As the meeting came to an end, the Secretary for War, Henry Stimson, ‘expressed the conclusion’, as the minutes noted, ‘on which there was general agreement, that we could not give the Japanese any warning; that we could not concentrate on a civilian area; but that we should seek to make a profound psychological impression on as many of the inhabitants as possible’. At the suggestion of Dr Conant, Stimson agreed ‘that the most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses’.

It was James Byrnes, the American Secretary of State, who, that same day, took this decision to President Truman, for his approval. Byrnes noted, of their conversation, ‘Mr Truman told me he had been giving serious thought to the subject for many days, having been informed as to the investigation of the committee and the consideration of alternative plans, and that with reluctance he had to agree that he could think of no alternative and found himself in accord with what I told him the Committee was going to recommend’.

The alternative plan, to invade Kyushu Island in November, and the far larger Honshu Island in the following spring, had been judged so costly in the lives of the invading force as to make the use of the atomic bomb the preferable plan. If it led to Japan’s surrender before the November invasion, so the argument went, as many as a million American lives might be saved, and the war shortened by as much as a year.

Whether in a blood-bath, as at Okinawa, or with considerable slaughter, as on Luzon or Mindanao, or more easily, as in North Borneo, the Japanese were being driven slowly but relentlessly from their conquests. It was clear to the Japanese Government that the prospect of a heavy loss of American lives was not going to deter the continuing advance, or prevent new landings, including those clearly under preparation against mainland Japan. On June 20, Hirohito summoned his Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and military chiefs to an Imperial conference, at which he took an unusual initiative, urging them to make all possible efforts to end the war by diplomatic means. Even the War Minister and the Army Chief of Staff recognized the logic of their Emperor’s appeal.

In order to seek a negotiated peace, the Japanese Government decided to approach the Soviet Government, and to ask it to act as an intermediary. These approaches were made by the Japanese Foreign Minister, Togo, through his Ambassador in Moscow, Sato Naotake; unknown to Togo, his top-secret messages, sent by radio through Japan’s apparently unbreakable Magic system, were read by American Intelligence. Unfortunately for Japan, these intercepts made it clear to the Americans that, while Japan did want to negotiate peace with the United States, it was not prepared to accept unconditional surrender. Knowing this, the Americans were all the more determined to force Japan to its knees.

At half past five in the morning of 16 July 1945, the first atomic bomb was successfully tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the United States. ‘The sun can’t hold a candle to it!’ was the reaction of one of the physicists as he watched the light of the explosion dazzle with its reflection on the surrounding hills. At Ground Zero, the temperature at the moment of explosion had been three times hotter than the interior of the sun, and ten thousand times the heat of the sun on its surface. As had never happened before, the steel scaffold on which the experimental bomb had stood had been transformed into gas by the intense heat, and had dispersed. Within a mile radius of the explosion, all plant and animal life had vanished.
It was immediately clear that something quite extraordinary had happened. As far away as two hundred miles, windows had been blown out. A hundred and fifty miles away, bewildered citizens reported that the sun had come up and then gone down again. Many of the measuring devices and instruments set up in the desert had been swept away. Most of the film in the scientists’ cameras had been completely fogged — by radiation. That same day, in Berlin, the Allied leaders were gathering for their final conference on the future of the defeated Germany; that day, Churchill was given a guided tour through the ruins of Hitler’s Chancellery.

The Big Three conference opened at Potsdam on July 17, to discuss the continuing war against Japan, and the post-war settlement in Europe. As the conference began, Allied bombers, taking off from American and British ships, attacked military installations and airfields around Tokyo, while other American bombers hit at the industrial towns of Mito and Hitachi, on Honshu Island. But it was the news of the successful testing of the atomic bomb which led to the most dramatic information sent to Potsdam that day. ‘Operated on this morning,’ a top-secret telegram informed the American Secretary for War, Henry Stimson, and it continued: ‘Diagnosis not yet complete, but results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations.’

It was also necessary, Stimson was told, for a local press release to be issued, ‘as interest extends great distance’. The local press release stated that an ammunition dump had exploded, ‘producing a brilliant flash and blast’, which had been observed more than two hundred miles away.

At noon that day, Stimson, at lunch with Churchill, handed him a sheet of paper on which was written: ‘Babies satisfactorily born.’ Churchill had no idea what the message meant. ‘It means’, Stimson explained, ‘that the experiment in the Mexican desert has come off. The atomic bomb is a reality.’

Later that day, Churchill and Stalin held a private conversation, during which Stalin told the British Prime Minister that, when he was leaving Moscow for Berlin, a message had been delivered to him through the Japanese Ambassador. ‘It was from the Emperor of Japan,’ Stalin explained, who had ‘ — stated that “unconditional surrender” could not be accepted by Japan but that, if it was not insisted upon, “Japan might be prepared to compromise with regard to other terms”.’ According to the message, Stalin added, ‘the Emperor was making this suggestion “in the interests of all people concerned”.’

Churchill pointed out to Stalin that, while Britain shared America’s aim ‘of achieving complete victory over Japan’, at the same time people in America ‘were beginning to doubt the need for “unconditional surrender”. They were saying: was it worth while having the pleasure of killing ten million Japanese at the cost of one million Americans and British?’
The Japanese realized the Allied strength, Stalin commented, and as a result they were ‘very frightened’. They could see what unconditional surrender meant in practice ‘here in Berlin and the rest of Germany’.

On July 22, at Potsdam, Henry Stimson brought Churchill a detailed account of the effect of the atomic bomb test at Alamogordo. Inside a one-mile circle, Stimson reported, the devastation had been absolute. Churchill went at once to see Truman. ‘Up to this moment,’ Churchill later recalled, ‘we had shaped our ideas towards an assault upon the homeland of Japan by terrific air bombing and by the invasion of very large armies’. Churchill added: ‘We had contemplated the desperate resistance of the Japanese fighting to the death with Samurai devotion, not only in pitched battles, but in every cave and dug-out. I had in my mind the spectacle of Okinawa Island, where many thousands of Japanese, rather than surrender, had drawn up in line and destroyed themselves by hand-grenades after their leaders had solemnly performed the rite of hara-kiri. To quell the Japanese resistance man by man and conquer the country yard by yard might well require the loss of a million American lives and half that number of British — or more if we could get them there: for we were resolved to share the agony’.

Now, Churchill recalled ‘all this nightmare picture had vanished. In its place was the vision — fair and bright indeed it seemed — of the end of the whole war in one or two violent shocks. I thought immediately myself of how the Japanese people, whose courage I had always admired, might find in the apparition of this almost supernatural weapon an excuse which would save their honour and release them from their obligation of being killed to the last fighting man’.

On July 24, while still at Potsdam, Churchill, Truman, and the representatives of China agreed to send a message to Japan, offering her ‘an opportunity to end the war’. What had happened in Germany, the message read, ‘stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan’. The ‘full application’ of Allied military power, ‘backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese forces, and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland’. It was now for Japan to decide ‘whether she will continue to be controlled’ by those who had brought her ‘to the threshold of annihilation’, or whether she would follow ‘the path of reason’.

The Big Three then set out their ‘terms’, adding that there were no alternatives, and that ‘We shall brook no delay.’ The influence and authority of those who had ‘deceived and misled’ the people of Japan would have to be ‘eliminated for all time’. The Japanese forces would have to be ‘completely disarmed’. Japanese sovereignty would be limited to the four main islands of Japan ‘and such minor islands as we determine’. Freedom of speech, of religion and of thought, ‘as well as respect for fundamental human rights’, would be established. In return, Japan would be allowed to maintain ‘such industries as will sustain her economy’ and would be permitted ‘eventual participation in world trade relations’. The message ended: ‘We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is complete and utter destruction.’

The Japanese had failed to involve the Russians as peace-makers. They had also failed to undermine the Russian pledge, made five months earlier at Yalta, to enter the war against Japan within two to three months of the end of the war in Europe.

Hardly had this call for unconditional surrender been agreed to between America, Britain and China, than Truman approached Stalin, to tell him privately that the United States had just tested a bomb of extraordinary power. During that same day, Truman also discussed with Stimson when this new bomb was to be dropped, and on what sort of target. ‘The weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th,’ Truman wrote in his diary on July 24, and he added that he had instructed Stimson ‘to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital or the new’.

Truman went on to confide to his diary that he and Stimson were ‘in accord’ about the use of the atomic bomb on a military target, and he explained that: ‘The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I’m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful’.

On July 30, in connection with the plans for the dropping of the atomic bomb on the four target cities earlier agreed, General Carl Spaatz telegraphed to Washington that Hiroshima, ‘according to prisoner-of-war reports’, was the only one of the four ‘that does not have Allied prisoner-of-war camps’. He was told, by return of signal, that it was too late now to change the targets, ‘however, if you consider your information reliable, Hiroshima should be given first priority among them.'

On the night of August 5, seven groups of American bombers set off to bomb mainland Japan. Thirty of the bombers flew through the night to drop mines on the Inland Sea; sixty-five were on their way to bomb Saga; 102 were on an incendiary raid on Maebashi; 261 were to strike at the Nishinomiya–Mikage area; 111 were on their way to Ube; sixty-six were flying against Imabari; and one was flying, with two back-up planes, to Hiroshima.

This seventh mission was Operation Centreboard. It began at a quarter to three in the early hours of August 6, when the B-29 bomber, the ‘Enola Gay’, which had been especially adapted to carry an atomic bomb, took off from Tinian Island in the Marianas. Five and a half hours later, at a quarter-past eight in the morning Japanese time, it dropped its atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Among the messages scrawled on the bomb was one which read: ‘Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis.’

Captain Robert A. Lewis, the aircraft commander on the ‘Enola Gay’, saw the massive, blinding flash of the explosion, his fellow crewmen heard him call out: ‘My God, look at that son-of-a-bitch go!’ In that instant, 80,000 people were killed, and more than 35,000 injured.

Of the 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima when the bomb fell, 62,000 were destroyed. Of the two hundred doctors in the city, 180 were killed or badly injured. Of the city’s fifty-five hospitals and first aid centres, only three could still be used. Of the city’s 1,780 nurses, less than 150 could attend to the sick. Several American prisoners-of-war being held in Hiroshima castle since they had been shot down over the city eight days earlier were also killed. The city burned: ‘I am starting to count the fires,’ Staff Sergeant Caron recorded as he looked back. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six . . . fourteen, fifteen . . . it’s impossible. There are too many to count.’

‘It’s pretty terrific,’ another of the crewmen, Jacob Beser, commented, and he added: ‘What a relief it worked.’

***

The scale and nature of the destruction of human life at Hiroshima was eventually to alter the whole nature of how mankind looked at wars, power, diplomacy and the relationships between states. In the days when its reality was only slowly becoming apparent, it was the terrifying human aspects which each survivor could not shake out of his or her nightmares. ‘Mother was completely bedridden,’ a nine-year-old boy later recalled of the days following the bomb. ‘The hair of her head had almost all fallen out, her chest was festering, and from the two-inch hole in her back a lot of maggots were crawling in and out. The place was full of flies and mosquitoes and fleas, and an awfully bad smell hung over everything. Everywhere I looked there were many people like this who couldn’t move. From the evening when we arrived mother’s condition got worse and we seemed to see her weakening before our eyes. Because all night long she was having trouble breathing, we did everything we could to relieve her. The next morning grandmother and I fixed some gruel. As we took it to mother, she breathed her last breath. When we thought she had stopped breathing altogether, she took one deep breath and did not breathe any more after that’.

That was thirteen days after the bomb had exploded over Hiroshima; by then, the death toll had risen by a further twelve thousand, reaching 92,233. It was to rise still further in the following years from the illnesses resulting from radiation. In 1986, the number of identified victims was given on the Cenotaph in Hiroshima as 138,890. People were still dying from the effects of radiation, nearly half a century after the bomb was dropped

The Americans had planned to drop a second atomic bomb on Japan on August 11, if, after the Hiroshima bomb, the Japanese did not surrender unconditionally. Because of predicted bad weather, however, that date was brought forward by two days. Thus it was, that at four minutes before two o’clock on the morning of August 9, as several hundred American bombers set off on a massive air raid over military targets on Honshu Island, a second specially adapted B-29 bomber, ‘Bock’s Car’, took off from Tinian Island with a second atomic bomb. Bock was the name of the bomber’s usual commander, Frederick Bock. But on this flight its pilot was Major Charles W. Sweeney. His target was to be the city of Kokura, but, if Kokura was obscured by cloud, an alternative target, Nagasaki, had been set. Reaching Kokura, ‘Bock’s Car’ found the city covered in industrial haze. As Sweeney’s orders were that he could drop the bomb only on a visual target, he flew on to Nagasaki. At two minutes after eleven o’clock, nine hours after the bomb had left Tinian, it was released, exploding 1,650 feet above the city.

In a few moments, more than 40,000 people had been killed. Five thousand were to die before the end of the year; thirty years later, the full death toll at Nagasaki was calculated at 48,857.

Among those who looked down on Nagasaki as the bomb exploded was the British pilot, Leonard Cheshire, present as an observer. He was later to recall the writhing cloud, ‘obscene in its greedy clawing at the earth, swelling as if with its regurgitation of all the life that it had consumed’.

At the very moment when the Nagasaki bomb exploded, the Japanese Supreme War Direction Council was meeting in Tokyo. News of the bomb led to a renewed discussion as to whether Japan should accept unconditional surrender. The Council was evenly divided; three generals were for surrender, three for continuing the war. The Foreign Minister, Shigenori Togo, cast his vote for surrender, as did the Prime Minister, Admiral Suzuki. But the Minister of War, General Anami, was emphatic that there should be no surrender. ‘It is far too early to say that the war is lost,’ he told his colleagues, and he added: ‘That we will inflict severe losses on the enemy when he invades Japan is certain, and it is by no means impossible that we may be able to reverse the situation in our favour, pulling victory out of defeat. Furthermore, our Army will not submit to demobilization. And since they know they are not permitted to surrender, since they know that a fighting man who surrenders is liable to extremely heavy punishment, there is really no alternative for us but to continue the war.’

The impasse was complete; but Togo and Suzuki were determined to end the war at once, and, in a secret meeting with Hirohito, prevailed upon him to summon a further meeting of the Supreme War Direction Council, and to preside over it himself.

The meeting took place shortly after midnight, in the Emperor’s underground bomb shelter. First, Suzuki read out the Potsdam Declaration. Then, Togo urged its acceptance, provided that the position of the Emperor and the throne could be respected. Suzuki supported Togo, General Anami opposed him. For nearly two hours, the discussion continued. Then Hirohito spoke. ‘Continuing the war’, he said, ‘can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese people and a prolongation of the suffering of all humanity. It seems obvious that the nation is no longer able to wage war, and its ability to defend its own shores is doubtful.’

The time had come, Hirohito told the council, ‘to bear the unbearable’. He therefore gave his sanction to Togo’s proposal that Japan should accept unconditional surrender. The message to that effect, a formal acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, was sent out from Tokyo, early on August 10, to the Japanese ambassadors in Switzerland and Sweden, for transmission to the Allies. ‘The Japanese Government’, read the message, ‘are ready to accept the terms enumerated in the Joint Declaration which was issued at Potsdam on 26 July, 1945, by the heads of government of the United States, Great Britain, and China, and later subscribed to by the Soviet Government, with the understanding that the said Declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler’.

***

On the morning of August 10, President Truman and his advisers discussed whether the proviso about the Emperor negated the acceptance of ‘unconditional’ surrender. A formula was devised, drafted by Secretary of State Byrnes, whereby Japan would have to agree that, from the moment of surrender, ‘the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the State shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers’. That morning, as the diplomatic exchanges began, Truman gave orders for the atomic bombing to stop. ‘He said’, noted Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace in his diary, that ‘the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, “all those kids”?

By the time Japanese resistance on Okinawa had ended, American commanders in the Pacific turned to re-examining the next phase, the invasion of the home islands. The kamikaze attacks and the refusal of the Japanese to surrender, combined with the knowledge of their biological warfare capability, made it a sobering task. The plan had been agreed by the joint chiefs of staff as early as 1944. It estimated that Operation Olympic to take the southern island of Kyushu in November would cost 100,000 casualties, and Operation Coronet in March 1946 to invade the main island of Honshu 250,000. Admiral King and General Arnold preferred to bomb and blockade Japan, to starve it into surrender. MacArthur and the US Army complained that that would take years and cause unnecessary suffering. It would also mean the death by starvation of most Allied prisoners of war and forced labourers. And since the bombing of Germany had not achieved victory, the army won the navy round to the idea of an invasion.

The Imperial Japanese Army was resolved to fight to the end, partly out of an imagined fear of a Communist uprising, and partly out of bushid pride. Its leaders felt that they could never consent to surrender when General Tj’s Instructions for Servicemen had declared: ‘Do not survive in shame as a prisoner. Die, to ensure that you do not leave ignominy behind you.’ Civilian politicians of the ‘peace party’ who wanted to negotiate would have been arrested, or even assassinated, if it had not been for the Emperor’s own indecision over what to do next. The former prime minister Prince Konoe Fumimaro later pointed out that ‘the army had dug themselves caves in the mountains and their idea of fighting on was to fight from every little hole or rock in the mountains’. The Japanese army also intended that civilians should die with them. A Patriotic Citzens Fighting Corps was being formed, many of whose members would be armed with nothing more than bamboo lances. Others were to have bombs strapped to them which they would detonate as they threw themselves against tanks. Even young women were pressured into volunteering to sacrifice themselves.

Japanese military leaders rejected the idea of unconditional surrender because they also believed that their conquerors intended to depose the Emperor. Although an overwhelming majority of the American public wanted exactly that, the State Department and the joint chiefs of staff had come round to the idea of retaining him as a constitutional monarch and softening the terms. The Potsdam Declaration on Japan, published on 26 July, made no mention of the Emperor to avoid a political backlash in the United States. The Japanese government had already approached the Soviet government, hoping that it would act as mediator, unaware that Stalin was redeploying his armies to the Far East to invade Manchuria.
The successful test of the first atom bomb in July appeared to offer the Americans a way of shocking the Japanese into surrender, and avoid the greater horrors of an invasion. After many studies and considerable debate, Tokyo and the ancient capital of Kyoto were rejected as targets. Hiroshima, which had not been as badly destroyed as other cities by LeMay’s bombers, was chosen as the first target, and Nagasaki as a follow-up objective if the Japanese had still not indicated acceptance.

On the morning of 6 August three B-29 Superfortresses appeared over Hiroshima. Two of them carried cameras and scientific equipment to record the effect. The third, the Enola Gay, opened its bomb doors at 08.15 hours, and less than a minute later most of the city of Hiroshima disinte-grated in a blinding light. Around 100,000 people were killed instantly, and many thousands more died later from radiation poisoning, burns and shock. President Truman’s staff in Washington issued a warning to the Japanese that if they failed to surrender immediately, ‘they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth’.

Two days later, Red Army forces surged across the Manchurian frontier. Stalin did not intend to miss out on the territorial spoils he had been promised. On 9 August, when nothing had been heard from Tokyo, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing 35,000 people. The Emperor was deeply moved by the terrible fate of those who had died, and requested as much information as possible. It is quite clear that without the atomic bombs he would not have mustered the quiet resolve which he showed later to end the war.

The fire-bombing of Tokyo and the decision to drop the atomic bombs were driven by the Americans’ urge to ‘get this business over with’. But the threat of kamikaze resistance, perhaps even with biological weapons, threatened a far worse battle than that on Okinawa. On the basis that approximately a quarter of Okinawa’s civilians had died in the fighting there, a similar scale of civilian casualties on the home islands would have exceeded many times over the numbers killed by the atomic bombs. Other considerations, most notably the temptation of demonstrating US power to a Soviet Union then ruthlessly imposing its will in central Europe, played an influential, although not decisive, part.

It is true that several civilian members of the Japanese regime were keen on negotiation, but their fundamental insistence–that Japan be allowed to keep Korea and Manchuria–could never have been acceptable to the Allies. Even this peace faction refused to accept any notion of Japanese guilt for having started the war, or international trials for crimes committed by the Imperial Army dating back to the original invasion of Chinese territory in 1931.

A few hours before the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War had met to consider whether it should accept the Potsdam Declaration. Representatives of Imperial General Headquarters were still firmly opposed. On the evening of 9 August just after the Nakasaki bomb had fallen, the Emperor summoned the Supreme Council’s members again. He said that they should accept the terms, providing that the imperial house and its succession was preserved. This proviso was transmitted to Washington the next day. There were mixed feelings during the discussions at the White House. Some, including James Byrnes, argued that no qualifications should be allowed. Stimson, the secretary for war, argued more persuasively that only the Emperor’s authority could persuade the Japanese armed forces to surrender. This would save the Americans countless further battles, and would give the Soviet armies less time to rampage across the region.

The American reply, which emphasized again that the Japanese would be allowed to choose the form of government which they desired, reached Tokyo via the Japanese embassy in Switzerland. The military leaders still refused to accept defeat. While American bombers continued their campaign, although no more atomic weapons were used on Truman’s orders, the arguments continued for several days. Eventually on 14 August the Emperor stepped in and announced that he had decided that they should accept the Potsdam Declaration. Ministers and military leaders alike began to weep. He also said that he would record a broadcast to the nation, an unprecedented event.

That night army officers attempted a coup to prevent the broadcast of the Emperor’s announcement. Having persuaded the 2nd Imperial Guard Regiment to join them through trickery, they entered the Imperial Palace to destroy the message recorded by the Emperor announcing the country’s capitulation. The Emperor and Marquis Kido, the court chamberlain, managed to hide. The rebels found nothing, and when loyal troops arrived, Major Hatanaka Kenji, the main leader of the coup, knew that he had no alternative but suicide. Other military leaders took the same course.
At noon on 15 August Japanese radio stations broadcast the Emperor’s recorded message, calling on all his forces to surrender because the war situation had evolved ‘not necessarily to Japan’s advantage’. Officers and soldiers listened to his words on the radio with tears streaming down their faces. Many were on their knees bowing towards the voice of the divine Mikado, whose voice they had never heard before. Some pilots set out on a final mission of gyokusai or ‘glorious self-annihilation’. Most were intercepted and shot down by American fighters. The self-image of the Yamato race bore a number of similarities to that of the Nazi Herrenvolk. In an attitude reminiscent of the German army after the First World War, many Japanese soldiers continued to persuade themselves that ‘Japan lost the war but we never lost a battle.’

On 30 August US forces landed at Yokohama to begin the occupation of Japan. Over the next ten days there were 1,336 cases of rape reported in Yokohama and the surrounding region of Kanagawa. Australian troops apparently also committed many rapes in the area of Hiroshima. This had been expected by the Japanese authorities. On 21 August, nine days before the arrival of Allied troops, the Japanese government had summoned a meeting of ministers to establish a Recreation and Amusement Association, to provide comfort women for their conquerors. Local officials and police chiefs were told to organize a nationwide network of military brothels staffed by existing prostitutes, but also by geishas and other young women. The intention was to reduce the incidence of rape. The first opened in a Tokyo suburb on 27 August and hundreds followed. One of the brothels was run by the mistress of General Ishii Shirö, the head of Unit 731. Some 20,000 young women were recruited, with varying degrees of coercion by the end of the year to appease their conquerors.

The formal surrender of Japan did not take place until 2 September. General MacArthur, accompanied by Admiral Nimitz, took it at a table placed on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay off Yokohama. They were watched by two emaciated figures just released from captivity: General Percival, who had conducted the British surrender at Singapore, and General Wainwright, the American commander on Corregidor.