4) In his memoirs General Douglas MacArthur wrote about his first meeting with Emperor Hirohito after the end of the Second World War.

But my fears were groundless. What he said was this: “I come to you, General MacArthur, to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent as the one to bear sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of war.” A tremendous impression swept me. This courageous assumption of a responsibility implicit with death, a responsibility clearly belied by facts of which I was fully aware, moved me to the very marrow of my bones. He was an – Emperor by inherent birth, but in that instant I knew I faced the First Gentleman of Japan in his own right.

The link doesn’t provide much else, just some minor background.

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Um, sorry, no. Nippon or Nihon 日本国 means “place the sun comes from”, “in the direction of sunrise.”

That is the duty of all soldiers and warriors. To defend their nation by killing as many of their enemies as feasible. Patton would have agreed. MacArthur too. Petraeus as well.

For people who have studied the military or been in it or have studied military history, this is not such a strange thing. It can be a sad thing, but so is human nature. It is their duty to kill their enemies, just as it was America’s duty to kill as many of them as we could. That is what being enemies in war means, and that is why the horror of war is worse than the peace of victory, when two nations, who were once enemies, may now call each other friends and allies.

This is the tragedy and the pride of the human species. It cannot be changed, though it can be temporarily made worse by incompetence and hatred.

A military man understands that an honorable enemy does as best as he can to destroy and defeat his enemies. That is his duty, just as it is an American soldier’s duty to do the same in defense of our nation. He would not be the man he was, if he did not conduct himself in an honorable fashion.

I know I’ve provided much research for people to read, but the benefits are worth it. These things were found by me today, even though I had a general idea of what I was searching for from previous research. The more recent links, like say the Yoshida memoirs, document the more positive reconstruction of Japan.

but not when your heart is heavy with sadness.

The sadness is born of the costs of duty. In the pursuit of duty, from which hardships and sacrifices will be called forth, it is indeed the mountains themselves that are upon those shoulders.

Death, in itself, can be seen as a transition to another life, one in which people may reunite with their loved ones in Heaven or the Japanese version of spiritual shrines. To the Japanese, death was always easy compared to what duty called for them to do. That honor and shame culture once more.

Instead, MacArthur tried a Constitutional committee to cook up something to govern Japan. The Japanese Diet, however, were not cooperating. So Hirohito stepped in once more and told the idiots to comply, now. Since all the Diet wanted was the preservation of the Imperial Family, its symbols, and its status, which MacArthur was actually for cause he needed it to keep Japan peaceful and calm, there was no real problem. But the Japanese are so tight lipped and stubborn at times, and given the language difficulties, MacArthur might not have been able to bypass the deadlock in time.

A coup was actually attempted by an army general, who sent troops to occupy the emperor’s palace grounds, take the emperor into protective custody and seize the recordings of his statement to be broadcast. The coup failed, of course, but as Wellington had said about Waterloo, it was a close-run thing.

Something people should know about this incident. It was the flight of an American bomber over the Imperial Palace that saved Hirohito from that little coup. When American bombers were sighted, the Japanese ordered all lights extinguished. Including those at the Imperial Palace gardens. This happened pretty much right at the moment the coup was going to ambush Hirohito’s vehicle and take him prisoner. It was so dark, however, they couldn’t see in front of their faces, let alone get into position to do anything useful. By the time the lights came on and the officers had regrouped, Hirohito was already gone to make the radio address. The night had passed Out of their hands.

Divine providence? Washington would have said so.

Btw, Emperor Hirohito did not surrender with the belief that he himself would survive that action.

DOWER: In a way, the occupation ended on this imperial note, where the two emperors of the occupation period, the two sovereign figures, the two authoritarian figures, said farewell. MacArthur left for the airport and was given a good sendoff by the Japanese government. In his memoirs, I believe MacArthur says that two million people lined the streets and the police calculated that two hundred-thousand people actually lined the streets. That sounds about right to me, because MacArthur always tended to exaggerate things by a factor of ten.

School children were given time off and if you look at the pictures from the period, you’ll see school children standing there, waving Japanese flags and American flags. And so he was seen off and some of the outpourings were really emotional, the people saying, imagining–this is an editorial in one of the newspapers, the Mainichi Newspaper–imagining him going, saying, what was almost like a liturgical prayer: “General, General, General, you have left us, did you see the fields of ripening grain, this is the bountiful harvest, which is like the harvest that you have left for us.” It was very, very emotional.

A lot of Leftists paint the right, us, as warmongers. Our generals as warmongers. That we just want to bomb people. Why? Cause they are brainless drones which have no conception of real history. MacArthur was a political conservative, but he was no reactionist. He did not oppose Roosevelt’s policies just because they were new deal, unlike some of his subordinates.

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It may require an email to sign up, but I strongly recommend you save this link and read it at your leisure later. We all can benefit from the knowledge of the greatest leaders and heroes of the past, for the sake of the present and the children of the future.

Y, you gave me a lot of reading/thinking material today. I am not complaining, just pondering.

Briefly, I’ll share my first reaction to the letters.
They were powerful and poetic and yet for all they said, for all they shared with the intended reader and for all that was shared by the writer knowing his fate (which afforded him the opportunity to do so) they would have sat better with my soul if the pilot was addressing his life and his own death. He wasn’t. Period. His mission was to create death and destruction and while he could wax poetic in self reflection, it could not and did not reach beyond his own world.

Death is lighter than a feather … but not when your heart is heavy with sadness.