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Japanese WWII Leader Resisted To The End

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The Associated Press

Published: August 13, 2008

TOKYO - Japanese World War II leader Hideki Tojo wanted to keep fighting after U.S. atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accusing surrender proponents of being "frightened," a newly released diary reveals.

Excerpts from about 20 pages written by Tojo in the final days of the war and held by the National Archives of Japan were published for the first time in several newspapers Tuesday.

Tojo, executed in 1948 after being convicted of war crimes by the Allies, was prime minister during much of the war. "We now have to see our country surrender to the enemy without demonstrating our power up to 120 percent," Tojo wrote on Aug. 13, 1945, just two days before Japan gave up. "We are now on a course for a humiliating peace, or rather a humiliating surrender."

Tojo also criticized his colleagues, accusing government leaders of "being scared of enemy threats and easily throwing their hands up."

Surrender proponents were "frightened by 'the new type of bomb' and terrified by the Soviet Union's entry into the war," he wrote.

The stridency of the writings is remarkable considering they were penned just days after the U.S. atomic bombs incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 200,000 people and posing the threat of the destruction of Japan.

At the time, Japan had begun arming children, women and the elderly with bamboo spears in addition to the aircraft and other forces it had marshaled to defend the homeland against a ground invasion.

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