The Defeated

In advance of the conqueror, Japan began to go through the motions of reaching for democracy.

The peacemaking Government of Premier Prince Naruhiko-Higashi-Kuni decreed--for what it was worth to the outside world--that autocracy was out, democracy in. An extraordinary "epochmaking" session of the Diet was summoned for Sept. 4 to legalize the shift. The influential Nippon Times editorialized urgently: "The old order is finished and the work of building a new world must be started immediately."

In short order the Government: abolished compulsory military service, proclaimed the freedom of the press "after the nation settles down," abolished the Munitions Ministry and other wartime departments, revived the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry, abolished wartime labor mobilization, established a board to supervise reconstruction, drafted a new budget emphasizing rehabilitation.

The Moon & the Rain. If this made the future look brighter for the Allied occupiers, the present was dark enough for the defeated. U.S. bombing, of all types, lamented Radio Tokyo, had destroyed 44 cities, killed 260,000, injured 412,000, left 9,200,000 homeless. Tokyo alone had lost 63% of its population (dead and evacuated), 70% of its homes. When Lieut. General Robert L. Eichelberger led his Eighth Army in to occupy the Tokyo area, he would find it at least as desolate as any city in Europe.

Isamu Inouye, a Tokyo commentator, broadcast a dismal plaint: "There is no place where the wounds do not appear. . . . Communications are in disorder, homes have been burned . . . clothes are covered with dust. . . . The Japanese people, who love bathing so much, are not able to bathe. . . . Even the vegetables of the family gardens . . . were entirely blown away by this recent typhoon. . . . Through the roofs of the people's very humble temporary living quarters . . . shines the moon and also leaks the rain."

Japan also told the world what atomic bombing was like. The details were sickening. Said the Japs:

P: The two atomic bombs had killed 90,000, wounded 180,000.

P: In Hiroshima, 30.000 had died in the explosion; 30,000 more had died in the following fortnight from mysterious ailments;* some victims' skin turned brilliant red, formed giant blisters.

P:Japanese soldiers cleaning up wreckage were found 50% deficient in white corpuscles.

The Japanese reports might well be exaggerated to make their defeat appear due solely to the "inhuman" atomic bomb.

For many Japanese the shame of surrender was even harder to take. "Large numbers" of people, reported Radio Tokyo, were committing hara-kiri before the Imperial Palace.

*Unofficial scientists guessed at: 1) continued radioactivity in the bombed area, 2) mysterious rays of concentrated neutrons, 3) "concussion pneumonia."

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