The Road to War (6/8) : Japan
For educational purposes
Desperate for living space and raw materials, Japan copied the West and sought an empire of her own in Asia.
When the United States cut off oil supplies, Japan was forced to act, attacking Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
Desperate for living space and raw materials, Japan copied the West and sought an empire of her own in Asia.
When the United States cut off oil supplies, Japan was forced to act, attacking Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Many years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, officers of the Japanese Navy drew up their
00:16first operations plan to destroy the American fleet in the Pacific. It was based on the
00:25latest technology and the best military advice available. When it was finished, the plan
00:32became a cornerstone of Japanese defense policy. The date was August the 15th, 1907.
01:25The greatest double-cross in history. Jap envoys talk peace in Washington. Jap planes, without
01:39warning, bring war to America. Our great Pacific outpost in the Hawaiian Islands is ruthlessly
01:45bombed as Japan's perfidious declaration of war. Death and destruction unleashed on a nation at
01:51peace. Our battle cry is, remember Pearl Harbor. That is how Pearl Harbor is remembered to this
01:59day. In an unprovoked attack without prior declaration of war, Japanese naval bombers
02:05killed 2,403 unsuspecting Americans and knocked out the United States Pacific Fleet. To Americans,
02:14it was an act of simple treachery. But history is usually written by the winners, and some
02:19contemporary Japanese historians see their country as a victim. When you look at it from
02:28the Japanese point of view and take into account the Japanese state papers and documents, as well
02:33as the testimonies of survivors, I don't see that Japan really wanted to start the war against
02:39America. I think war broke out because there was a strong desire on the American side to force
02:45Japan into war. That desire came from the top. In Japanese eyes, America and the British Empire
02:58were major obstacles to Japan's territorial ambitions. Most of these were directed at the
03:04mainland of Asia, but China, where Japan had been at war since 1931. The roots of Japan's
03:13conflict with her neighbors go back to the 19th century, for Japan's road to war was also her
03:19struggle to come to terms with the ways of the West. Until the 1850s, the Japanese had lived
03:37in deliberate isolation. Their history and their culture were their own. Their emperors
03:42came from the oldest ruling house in the world. It was the intrusion of foreign traders and the
03:53fear of colonization by the West that compelled them to modernize. Japan adopted a parliament,
03:58a penal code, and even a peerage, as in Britain. She also acquired an ambition to become, like her
04:06mentors in the West, an imperial power. It was Britain that Japan took as her guide. In 1902,
04:17they entered into the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. Japan was quite convinced that she would not
04:22make any mistakes as long as she followed the British example in diplomacy. All the Western
04:27powers had followed Britain in developing their international relationships to suit their own
04:32convenience. They all went about securing their own colonies and ruled over them. Japan came on
04:38the scene rather late in the day, but she followed the rules in a most exemplary fashion. Early in
04:46the century, Japan already held a substantial presence on the mainland of Asia. Korea was a
04:52protectorate. Further north, Japan held extensive rights in South Manchuria and neighboring provinces.
04:59In all, Japan's empire stretched from Taiwan in the south to Sakhalin in the north. With an eye
05:07to further expansion, her naval and military leaders identified the powers they thought
05:11most likely to block her supremacy in Asia. The first imperial defense policy was drawn up in
05:221907. There, a hypothetical enemy was actually decided upon. The army would be at war with
05:29Russia and the navy with America. Thereafter, all drills and military exercises were carried
05:35out with this in mind. Since these two countries were depicted as Japan's potential enemy over a
05:42long period, the idea gradually arose among the young officers that it was Japan's fate to go
05:48to war with both of these countries. I think it was inevitable. In 1904, Japan issued her first
06:01direct challenge to a Western power. In a territorial dispute over Port Arthur on the
06:06coast of mainland China, the Japanese army fought imperial Russia for several months. It was one of
06:14the first wars to be recorded in moving pictures. On land, it was the Japanese who won. To save the
06:21day, Russia dispatched its Baltic fleet to the Far East. The fleet took seven months to sail
06:27halfway around the globe, only to be wrecked in less than a day by Japanese warships. The world
06:33was impressed. Not for centuries had there been such a rapid rise to international power. There
06:40was special praise for Britain, whose alliance with Japan had been signed two years before. For
06:47the British had built the ships and trained the officers that defeated the Russians. Later, in the
06:54First World War, Japan fought on the side of the Allies. And in the victory celebrations in London,
07:00Japanese soldiers and sailors marched alongside their British and American comrades.
07:11When Japan's future emperor, Crown Prince Hirohito, paid a state visit to Britain, Anglo-Japanese ties
07:17became closer still. His visit to the fleet at Portsmouth, together with the Prince of Wales,
07:22was one of the highlights of his tour. In contrast, relations with America were strained by race
07:32discrimination. For decades, California's farmers had relied on cheap Japanese labor. But in the
07:401920s, fear of the so-called Yellow Peril led to a total ban on Japanese immigrants. And among
07:46those who had been able to enter, discrimination extended to their children's use of swimming pools.
07:51They would clean the pools every Friday. The reason? Saturday, when the pools were clean,
08:00the water was nice and clear, the white boys and white girls would come in and swim. Sunday and
08:06Monday, too. Then, on Tuesday, the Hispanics, or the Mexicans, as they were called at that time,
08:15were allowed to come in. And they would cavort for a day or two. And when they got through and
08:21no longer using it, then the blacks were admitted and welcomed to the pool. Then, either a Thursday
08:29night or Friday, just before they cleaned the pools, they would allow us Asian Americans to
08:35come in and swim. Even if we went to a theater, we had to pay the full price admission, then we
08:40had to go up to what they called in those days, Nigger River, way up at the top. And occasionally,
08:47even on certain streetcars, we had to sit in the back. And so that there was a tiered discrimination
08:55against us based upon whether we came from Europe, or the Hispanic group, or the Asian group. And on
09:03the West Coast, we are at the bottom of the totem pole. When the Covenant of the League of Nations
09:09was drawn up in Versailles, an anti-racism clause had been on the agenda. The refusal of the
09:15Anglo-Saxon powers to include it caused bitter resentment among the Japanese. Moreover, when
09:21the spoils of defeated Germany were divided up, Japan was allowed a much smaller share than she
09:27considered to be her due. More humiliation followed when the great powers met in Washington
09:35in 1921 to discuss disarmament. Japan was made to limit her navy to just over half the size of the
09:41British and American navies. The Japanese were left with clear superiority in the Pacific, but
09:47national pride was hurt. The naval representative, Admiral Kato, was so upset that he vowed one day
09:53to turn the tables on the Anglo-Saxon powers in the Pacific. But nine years later, the restrictions
09:59were extended. The serving admirals and officers of the fleet were angered by the situation thus
10:06created, whereby America was now in a position to defeat Japan in the event of war. My own opinion
10:13is that by this time, America had already succeeded in breaking the back of the Japanese
10:17navy, and thus had already beaten her chief potential enemy without a fight.
10:21Britain added to Japan's gradual isolation. Under American pressure, she scrapped the
10:30Anglo-Japanese alliance, causing great offense to a wartime ally who had valued the treaty as a
10:36symbol of Japan's membership of the family of major powers. But these tensions at the diplomatic
10:42level tell only part of the story. To young Japanese, Americana was all the rage.
11:42The fruits of westernization soon turned sour. America's Great Depression in 1929 had a
12:12devastating impact on Japan, and Japanese nationalists blamed the attachment to western
12:17values for the ills of their own society. Japan could not feed its population, which had been
12:27growing at a rate of a million a year. The farmers worked plots that could barely support one family.
12:33Much of Japan's staple food, rice, had to be imported. To pay for the rice, Japan exported
12:39silk. Silk prices collapsed, and as western countries erected tariff walls to protect
12:47their own industries, Japan's export trade sank to its lowest level ever. Millions went hungry.
12:57Unable to reduce its surplus population by emigration,
13:01Japan turned to a drastic solution, the acquisition of living space in China,
13:06the great landmass 400 miles to the west. China was Japan's manifest destiny.
13:14Poverty-stricken, seemingly ungovernable, torn by warlords, banditry, and civil war,
13:20China needed law and order as badly as Japan needed space, or so Japan's leaders were able to reason.
13:30China had remained an independent country, but in the 19th century,
13:34she had been forced by European invaders, notably Britain and France,
13:38to lease settlements to foreign powers. The biggest was in Shanghai, where Britain,
13:43America, and other powers ran their own affairs independently of nominally sovereign China.
13:51Both Britain and America wanted to protect China, or rather they wanted to defend their
13:56own economic interests there. Their policies towards China had always been economically
14:01motivated. From the American point of view, any Japanese advance into China would upset
14:06the balance of power in the Pacific, and wasn't desirable for that reason.
14:12For Japan, the gateway to China was Manchuria, where Japan already had commercial rights to
14:17the railway and a garrison to guard it. This overseas force, called the Kwantung Army,
14:24was in many ways a law unto itself.
14:30In 1931, radical Kwantung officers decided to colonize Manchuria.
14:37They manufactured an incident by blowing up a section of the railway.
14:41They then presented it to the outside world as an unprovoked attack by Chinese troops.
14:46Only years later did the full story emerge.
14:50The fact that the Manchurian incident arose as a result of a Japanese plot
14:54was known only to a very few people. I think that Japan managed to conceal it very skillfully.
15:03I've recently managed to find one of the soldiers who was directly involved in the incident.
15:09According to him, Kawamoto Chu-yi and two other soldiers went off down the railway line at about
15:1510.30 at night. Kawamoto gave the order to halt.
15:21You two keep guard on both sides, he said. Kawamoto was doing something furtively behind him.
15:29Suddenly, he shouted for them to get down, and the railway line blew up.
15:34Then Kawamoto said, the Chinese army has just blown up the Manchurian railway.
15:40Let's go immediately and tell everyone.
15:46Within hours of the explosion, the fighting spread to the outskirts of Mukden,
15:50the capital and headquarters of the Kwantung Army.
15:53A senior staff officer there, Tadashi Katakura, recalls the need for a quick decision,
15:59whether to cover up and press on or withdraw.
16:06There was a meeting of the chiefs of staff, following a phone conversation with the army
16:10commander, who'd just returned. We all wore Japanese kimonos,
16:15except Ishihara, who appeared in his military uniform.
16:19Before the meeting, four of us talked under a willow tree in the garden of the headquarters.
16:24We agreed that it looked like a plot concocted by Ishihara and Itagaki,
16:29and we discussed what we ought to do.
16:32We agreed that unless we worked together to settle the incident,
16:35not only would the army have to retreat from Manchuria,
16:39but Japan would lose all rights and interests in the country.
16:43So, we decided to back the plotters.
16:49Unhindered by a weak and embarrassed government in Tokyo,
16:52the Kwantung Army swept across Manchuria.
16:57Manchuria became Manchukuo, a puppet state under Japanese protection.
17:02As titular head of state, Japan secured the services of Henry Puyi,
17:06the last emperor of China.
17:14China appealed to the League of Nations,
17:16but the League was an instrument of conciliation,
17:19not an international police force.
17:21It sent an Englishman, the Earl of Lytton, to investigate.
17:24His report condemned Japan.
17:26Manchuria, you will see on this map,
17:29is a part of China situated north of the Great Wall.
17:34It is about the size of France and Germany combined.
17:38Trouble began on the 18th of September last year
17:42when Japanese troops occupied the town of Mukden.
17:46And the excuse given by them was the Chinese were trying to take over Manchuria.
17:53The excuse given by them was that Chinese soldiers had blown up a section
17:58of the South Manchurian Railway and fired upon a Japanese patrol.
18:03We found that the Japanese occupation of this large part of China
18:08was not justified on the ground of self-defense
18:12and that the new state which had been set up was a Japanese protectorate
18:17rather than a genuine case of Manchurian self-determination.
18:21The issue is very critical and the peace of the world hangs in the balance.
18:28Lord Lytton's verdict was overwhelmingly endorsed by the League
18:32to the fury of Japan's delegate, Yosuke Matsuoka.
18:36I call on His Excellency Mr Matsuoka, delegate of Japan.
18:42China has long been derelict in her international duties as a sovereign state.
18:49Matsuoka accused the Western imperial powers of hypocrisy,
18:53pointing out that they had been the first to acquire interests in China.
18:57And with that, he and Japan walked out of the League.
19:05At home, Matsuoka was treated as a hero.
19:08Defying the great powers, Japan had made off with a share of the decaying Chinese empire.
19:15As for the League, it had shown itself to be ineffective
19:18and it was never to recover its authority.
19:23A fleet of merchant ships carried Japanese reinforcements
19:26across the Yellow Sea to Manchuria.
19:29In their wake went settlers, farmers and industrial workers
19:33who would exploit Manchukuo's potential.
19:36Japan had found new living space.
19:48In propaganda films made to encourage civilian migration,
19:52Manchukuo was celebrated as a land of opportunity,
19:56where Japanese families could prosper,
19:58protected from Chinese bandits by the ever watchful Kwantung Army.
20:07But many of the settlers had been conscripted and living conditions came as a shock.
20:13I thought Manchuria was like places which I saw in American movies,
20:17but life in reality was very cruel.
20:19The weather was cold and food was bad.
20:22We couldn't eat Japanese food, only millet and barnyard grass.
20:26We Japanese have miso soup,
20:28but in their soup there was something sour and salty.
20:32Anyhow, there was no nutrition, only cold.
20:35Not only I, but everyone wanted to go home.
20:38But we'd been sent from home to Japan,
20:41but we'd been sent from home like soldiers.
20:43We couldn't give up so easily.
20:45In the house, we could see the stars through the holes in the ceiling.
20:49On a cold night, I needed padded bedding and an overcoat on top of that.
20:53Outside there were wolves.
20:55I knew that I'd come to a horrible place.
21:01The local Chinese were treated severely.
21:04Some collaborated.
21:05Many worked as coolies for the Kwantung Occupation Army.
21:11In a remote area, some Chinese were doing roadworks.
21:16They escaped, but some Japanese soldiers caught them and tortured them,
21:20kicking and beating them in front of us.
21:22We were 15 or 16 years old.
21:24Those elderly Chinese men weren't young enough to be spies or anything like that.
21:29I was watching and wondering why they were doing such violent things to the Chinese people.
21:35Reflecting back, we used to think that the Japanese were a superior race.
21:39Chinese and Koreans were lower class.
21:42Even in our pioneer group, some of them despised the Chinese.
21:46We all did.
21:52Japan's military elite now controlled foreign policy.
21:56By law, the army and the navy enjoyed direct access to the emperor
22:00and effective independence of the government.
22:04The army was deeply conservative,
22:06suspicious of political parties, academic freedom, disarmament, and the West.
22:14Many middle-ranking officers joined ultra-nationalist groups,
22:17demanding colonial expansion.
22:21Civilian government gradually collapsed.
22:24In a six-year period, the army forced three prime ministers out of office.
22:28Two more were assassinated, as were several cabinet ministers.
22:32The violence reached a climax in 1936,
22:35when fanatical officers staged a revolt.
22:37Soldiers broke into the houses of ministers and officials.
22:42Several were murdered before the government,
22:44backed by the emperor and the navy, restored an uneasy peace.
22:58This cabinet in Tokyo has fallen victim to an attempt to seize power
23:01by a section of the Japanese army.
23:03Admiral Okada, the prime minister, was shot by assassins who forcibly entered his home.
23:08The veteran Count Saito was also shot.
23:10In these tragic circumstances, the recent speech by his son, Ambassador Saito,
23:14has a dramatic significance.
23:16Japan is a spoiled child who may go astray any moment,
23:22who may run amuck at the slightest provocation.
23:34The one source of stability in Japan was the emperor, Hirohito.
23:38The first of the emperors had begun his reign in 660 BC.
23:43He and his successors were believed to be Arahitogami,
23:47human and at the same time a god.
23:53Hirohito was a slight and timid figure,
23:56but all the warring factions owed him allegiance,
23:59and emperor worship was central to the life of his people.
24:04Every school had to have a special little shrine called a Huan Den,
24:08where the photographs of the emperor and empress had to be kept,
24:11together with a copy of the imperial re-script.
24:14Every time we passed in front of this little shrine,
24:17we had to perform a deep bow.
24:19There were different degrees of bowing,
24:21from the lighter to the deeper, according to the occasion.
24:25But when it came to anything to do with the emperor and his family,
24:28we had to lower our heads and bow.
24:30When we looked in the direction of the photographs,
24:32we weren't supposed to look at them directly.
24:35We had to bow so deeply and so long,
24:37that if we wanted to see the photographs themselves,
24:39our only chance was to roll our eyes upwards very briefly.
24:46I remember when I was five years old,
24:49the emperor came and visited a military exercise in Hokkaido.
24:53A week before the emperor's visit,
24:55the police came and searched the area.
24:57The emperor's constitutional position was hedged about with ambiguities,
25:02but no one has ever denied that,
25:03if he had cared to command, all Japan would have obeyed.
25:07should be on a higher level than the Emperor.
25:15The Emperor's constitutional position
25:17was hedged about with ambiguities,
25:19but no one has ever denied
25:21that if he had cared to command,
25:23all Japan would have obeyed.
25:29After the war,
25:30Hirohito was made to renounce his godly status.
25:33But up to his death,
25:35his hold on the affections of his people
25:37was as strong as it had been
25:38in his days as the divine ruler of Japan.
25:49By 1936,
25:51a rearmed and bellicose Japan
25:53had occupied much of China
25:54to the north of the Great Wall.
25:56It was time to develop relations
25:58with the expansionist powers in Europe.
26:01The anti-comintern pact
26:04with Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany
26:07was designed to protect its signatories
26:09from the Soviet Union.
26:11It was the first treaty
26:12between Japan and the Axis powers.
26:15For Japan,
26:16intent on expanding into China,
26:18it was some insurance
26:20against interference from the Russians.
26:31In Manchuria,
26:33the quality of iron ore and coal was poor,
26:36and the pressure to expand further was compelling.
26:39On July the 7th, 1937,
26:41a restless Japanese army
26:43turned a trivial incident
26:45into another opportunity of conquest.
26:48Several companies of Japanese infantry
26:50were training at night
26:52by the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking.
26:54They were divided into groups,
26:56one representing an imaginary enemy.
26:59At 10.30pm, the exercise had just ended.
27:04Within a minute,
27:06two or three shots came whizzing over our heads.
27:08These were shots from the Chinese soldiers
27:10on the embankment.
27:12You can generally tell the difference
27:14between blank and live ammunition.
27:16When it was fired, it made a bang
27:18and came straight over our heads,
27:20and we could hear the sound of it landing.
27:22Staff Sergeant Iwaiya
27:24told the battalion commander what was going on,
27:26and the commander immediately ordered a muster.
27:31By this time, it was beginning to get light.
27:35Eighth Company was ordered to advance again
27:37as far as Ryobyo,
27:38the place where they'd been the night before.
27:41When we got to the bridge,
27:42an enemy officer appeared and shouted,
27:44Stop!
27:45One of our officers went over to speak to him.
27:48We've been ordered here as we were yesterday, he said.
27:51The Chinese officer said,
27:52No way, and returned to his men.
27:55As soon as he got back,
27:57the Chinese started firing at us.
27:59I was the commander of the 3rd Light Machine Gun Platoon,
28:02and I'd already seen plenty of action.
28:04So I took a machine gun from a soldier
28:06and blazed away at the enemy,
28:08forcing them to pull back.
28:15This was the start of the Sino-Japanese War.
28:20It quickly escalated
28:21as Japanese forces made for Shanghai,
28:24the biggest commercial city in the East
28:26and the home of thousands of expatriate Americans and Europeans.
28:30The Army's own newsreels recorded the triumphant advance.
28:54Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers
28:56challenged the Japanese army.
28:59The Kobayashi Corps crossed the mountains
29:02and finally reached the Shokyo,
29:04the home of the 3rd Light Machine Gun Platoon.
29:06It was here that the 3rd Light Machine Gun Platoon
29:08launched their full-blown attack.
29:11It was October 16th.
29:13The heat of the sun, the heat of the sun,
29:16the wind of the flag of the 3rd Light Machine Gun Platoon
29:23The fate of Manchuria had attracted little notice in the West.
29:26As an American newspaper of the day remarked,
29:29the American people don't give a hoot in a rain barrel
29:32who controls North China.
29:34But an attack on Shanghai was a challenge to Western interests.
29:44Here's where it started.
29:46The Marco Polo Bridge, a few miles southwest of Peiping.
29:49A bridge destined to be as famous in China's fight for independence, no doubt,
29:53as the bridge at Concord is to American history.
29:56The first clash brings the pick of China's new army to the scene,
29:59this time determined to resist the invader.
30:02And the fat is in the fire.
30:06With Japan quickly pouring 20,000 men into the Peiping area,
30:10Chinese infantry forces are quickly reinforced.
30:13Greatest damage is caused by the Japanese bombing raids,
30:16with many parts of Chinese towns and cities reduced to a shambles.
30:23Wounded pour into the city from the outskirts,
30:26where the 29th Route Army threw back the Japanese after fierce fighting.
30:30Red Cross facilities are overtaxed,
30:32but the traditional rickshaw bears the brunt
30:35of the transfer of the wounded to the rear.
30:37But reinforcements go forward
30:39to bolster the heroic defense of the 29th Route Army.
30:46Within a month of the encounter at the Marco Polo Bridge,
30:49the assault on Shanghai began.
30:52The navy struck first in amphibious landings.
30:55The army followed.
30:57And then the bombing began.
31:01Thousands of Chinese civilians fled into the European enclaves,
31:05but there was no room for all the refugees.
32:36To escape the terror, men, women and children fled into the countryside.
32:47The lucky ones got away in trains,
32:50but there were not enough trains.
32:57With most of eastern China overrun by invaders,
33:01the flood of refugees became the biggest exodus in history.
33:05Some 20 million Chinese trudged westward for hundreds of miles.
33:11China's government in Nanking appealed to the League of Nations.
33:15The League was powerless.
33:17But in the vastness of China,
33:19the Japanese army's lines of communication became hopelessly overstretched.
33:25The advance bogged down and casualties mounted.
33:29Japan was trapped in a war too big to win and impossible to abandon.
33:38Her soldiers were hardy and brave.
33:40They had been taught that death in battle would be rewarded
33:43by a place of honor among the spirits of their ancestors.
33:54The ashes of the war dead were brought back to Japan.
33:58In solemn ceremonies at a sacred temple, the Yasukuni Shrine,
34:02they were presented to believed families.
34:15The names of the war dead were placed in the inner recesses of the temple,
34:19where even the emperor came to bow.
34:29Japan's ancient martial tradition demanded total obedience to superior orders.
34:39Surrender on the battlefield was profoundly dishonorable.
34:45The defeated enemy was beneath contempt,
34:48and this the citizens of China were not allowed to do.
34:53The defeated enemy was beneath contempt,
34:56and this the citizens of China were not allowed to discover.
35:01After the fall of Shanghai,
35:03the Japanese army pushed westward up the Yangtze Valley to the capital, Nanking.
35:12Nanking fell in December 1937.
35:16If Shanghai had been hell for the civil population,
35:20there is no name for what now took place.
35:25In ten days, Japanese soldiers shot and burneted and beheaded
35:30tens of thousands of Chinese civilians and prisoners of war.
35:35Shiro Azuma was a private soldier who kept a diary during the massacres.
35:40He himself killed several captured Chinese soldiers
35:44and lived to regret what he had done.
35:49It was mass murder.
35:51When I went to the Yangtze River, corpses just covered the ground.
35:55I couldn't help stepping on them to go to the boat.
35:58I had no choice.
36:01Some people never examine their conscience.
36:04They want to say that I'm exaggerating,
36:06that there was no massacre at Nanking.
36:09There are people who try to play down what we had done,
36:12and I have to fight against them.
36:14If we don't reflect on our actions, we never improve.
36:18We have to learn from our mistakes.
36:21We have to learn from our mistakes.
36:24We have to learn from our mistakes.
36:27We have to learn from our mistakes.
36:29We never improve.
36:31We were tried and brought to court by your country,
36:34for the Japanese have never reconciled themselves
36:36to what they've done in the past.
36:49Hitler thought that the Germans were a chosen people
36:52and the Jewish race were inferior.
36:54They discriminated against other races too.
36:57We did the same.
36:58The Japanese were superior, the Chinese inferior.
37:02We used to call a Chinese person a kolo, a small stone.
37:06Let's kick it.
37:07We despised the Chinese.
37:09That's why we could be so cruel to them.
37:12Because we were so overpopulated,
37:15we didn't take human life seriously.
37:17We didn't respect ourselves,
37:19so why should we have cared for the Chinese?
37:23News of the atrocities had reached the West
37:27from doctors, missionaries, and journalists.
37:30In America, anti-Japanese feeling found an outlet
37:33in demands for economic sanctions.
37:36But President Roosevelt was determined
37:38not to provoke Japan.
37:41America showed its reluctance even to contemplate war
37:45when the U.S. gunboat Panay was sunk by Japanese aircraft
37:48while patrolling the Yangtze River.
37:51All that was needed to keep relations on an even keel
37:54was an apology and an offer of compensation
37:57from the government in Tokyo.
37:59It was a great mistake.
38:01It was an unintentional and unexpected occurrence.
38:06The Japanese government and people
38:09wished to express their sincerest and profoundest regrets
38:14to the American government and people
38:17on account of this deplorable incident.
38:21By the summer of 1938,
38:23the Japanese army had occupied all the seaports
38:26and the richer parts of China.
38:36But the cost of Japan's colonial war
38:39was crippling the economy.
38:41Raw materials, especially scrap iron,
38:43were removed from the market
38:45and diverted to defense production.
38:50By 1938, the armed forces were absorbing
38:5370% of government spending.
39:05The results were spectacular.
39:07The army had 2,000 first-line aircraft,
39:10including fighter bombers
39:12as effective as any in Europe and America.
39:20The navy, defying the disarmament treaties
39:22of Washington and London,
39:24had built the largest and most powerful battleships afloat.
39:28Many of the navy's 3,500 pilots
39:31had years of experience in combat.
39:38On the other side of the world,
39:40an equally formidable military power,
39:42Nazi Germany, invaded Poland.
39:45By May 1940, Hitler's Wehrmacht
39:48had overrun much of continental Europe.
39:51The Japanese were dazzled.
39:57Foreign Minister Matsuoka flew to Berlin
40:00to sign a new pact of mutual military support.
40:03Henceforth, Germany, Italy, and Japan
40:06would spring to one another's defense
40:08if a co-signatory were attacked.
40:13But the meeting also endorsed the claims
40:15of the Axis powers to supremacy in Europe
40:18and Japan's right to impose a new order in Asia,
40:21for Japan now needed even further territorial advances
40:25to sustain her existing empire.
40:33Beyond China, the Philippines, Indochina,
40:36and the Dutch East Indies
40:38had the raw materials for which Japan's
40:40voracious military machine was desperate.
40:43Above all, there was oil.
40:45The navy alone was consuming 400 tons of it an hour,
40:49and Japan's reserves were running out.
40:52To get reliable supplies of oil,
40:54Japan would have to invade her neighbors to the south.
40:59The first objective was French Indochina.
41:02By agreement with the defeated government of France,
41:05Japan occupied the north of the colony.
41:08Ten months later, Japan swallowed the rest of Indochina,
41:11securing a base for further expansion in Southeast Asia.
41:15By now, alarm bells were ringing in London and Washington.
41:22From that moment on, Singapore,
41:24which was the key British base in the Far East,
41:27was within range of Japanese bombers.
41:29Should Singapore fall,
41:31the Dutch East Indies would easily come under Japanese occupation.
41:35All this was seen by President Roosevelt as very dangerous
41:38because it meant that Japan could dominate
41:40the whole of Asia and the Pacific.
41:43President Roosevelt's response was immediate.
41:46On the 26th of July, he banned all exports to Japan of oil.
41:51His move forced Japan into a corner.
41:53She could either fight her way out or capitulate.
42:00The Japanese were loath to start a war
42:02just to assure the country's oil supplies,
42:05but they felt that, regrettably, this is what it had come to.
42:08Even though it would ultimately mean fighting America
42:10to get that oil from the East Indies,
42:12there was no other way out.
42:14That's how they saw it.
42:19There was a widespread feeling that Japan was unlikely to win
42:22a long, drawn-out war with America,
42:24and people wondered how Japan could have got into such a situation.
42:28Even most military leaders had little confidence
42:31that Japan could fight a long war with America.
42:34But a short war, that was something else.
42:38Many felt that after one or one and a half years of fighting,
42:42Japan might well be in a good enough position
42:44to call a halt and to offer peace.
42:51Japan's leaders were divided.
42:53The Prime Minister, Prince Konoe,
42:55urged continued negotiation with Washington.
42:58The military leaders pressed for war.
43:01On September the 3rd, they compromised.
43:04If there was no agreement with Washington by the end of October,
43:07Japan would attack the Far Eastern possessions
43:10of America, Britain, and the Netherlands.
43:14At the Imperial Palace, the plan was put to the Emperor.
43:17He revealed grave doubts.
43:20Pulling a paper from his pocket,
43:22he read out a poem composed by his grandfather.
43:32All the seas in every quarter are as brothers to one another.
43:36Why then do the winds and waves of strife
43:39rage so turbulently throughout the world?
43:45The Emperor didn't want war with America,
43:48but his position had always been to respect
43:50the established political system.
43:52I'm only speculating, but it may well be
43:55that if the Emperor had stepped in firmly
43:57and made clear his strong opposition to war,
43:59then it might not have happened.
44:01But he couldn't have done that.
44:02It would have meant setting a constitutional precedent.
44:05There was the danger of provoking a military revolt.
44:10The Army Minister, General Tojo,
44:12now took over the government, replacing Prince Konoe.
44:15The deadline for negotiations was extended to the end of November,
44:19and a special envoy was sent to Washington
44:21to continue the talks.
44:24In a dramatic attempt to avert war in the Pacific,
44:27Saburo Kurosu comes as a special envoy
44:30of the Tokyo government.
44:32In an interview, he says,
44:34Gentlemen, you all know how difficult my mission is.
44:38But I'll do all I can to make it a successful one
44:42for the sake of two countries,
44:44Japan and the United States.
44:49The talks became less and less cordial.
44:52Washington insisted on a Japanese withdrawal from China
44:55before the oil embargo could be lifted.
44:57Tokyo refused.
44:59By now, the Americans had broken the code
45:01between the Japanese envoys and their masters in Tokyo.
45:05They knew that attack was imminent.
45:07But exactly where or when it was coming remained a mystery.
45:12Kurosu continued to negotiate.
45:14But as he talked, a Japanese task force
45:17of six aircraft carriers, two battleships,
45:20and an escort of cruisers and destroyers
45:23was crossing the Pacific, bound for Pearl Harbor.
45:30The naval commander who drew up the operational plan
45:33for the attack on Pearl Harbor is still alive.
45:37In his Tokyo home, he has kept a model
45:39of the aircraft carrier from which he helped direct the attack.
45:46In order for us to succeed,
45:48the torpedoes had to find their target unimpeded.
45:51The water at Pearl Harbor is shallow,
45:53and there was a chance that the torpedoes
45:55might get stuck in the seabed.
45:57So we called in specialists who could sort this out for us.
46:01Secondly, we had to use large aerial bombs.
46:04We aimed to attack the harbor by horizontal penetration,
46:07so accurate knowledge of local landmarks was crucial.
46:11In an attack like this, it's more important
46:13to have a good pilot than a good bomb aimer.
46:16We also used high-speed bombs,
46:18which are smaller and easier to control.
46:21It was the use of these three main weapons
46:23that we had to perfect.
46:28The attack on Pearl Harbor caught
46:30the United States Pacific Fleet completely by surprise.
46:39Most of the warships were tied up at their moorings,
46:42and in two hours, 19 ships, including eight battleships,
46:46were sunk or badly damaged.
46:50Nearly 200 American planes were destroyed on the ground.
46:57But the Japanese missed their principal target.
47:00The fleet's three aircraft carriers were at sea
47:03and escaped the attack.
47:05To the high command in Tokyo,
47:07Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike,
47:09an attempt to disable the only power
47:11that could block a Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia.
47:16Even President Roosevelt gave Japan's planners their due.
47:20Our enemies, he said, performed a brilliant feat of deception,
47:24perfectly timed and executed with great skill.
47:33Four years later, the Japanese Empire was in ruins.
47:40The military technology she had pursued so keenly
47:43had been turned against her, with lethal effect.
47:47Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
47:49Tokyo itself had been flattened by American bombers.
47:55Japan's new constitution was written by the victors.
47:58In it, Japan renounced war and the emperor his divinity.
48:02What Japan had aspired to
48:04was imperial grandeur in the European mold.
48:07Too late, she discovered that imperialism by military conquest
48:11was no longer an ambition the world could tolerate.
48:32Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
49:02Transcription by ESO. Translation by —