- 209 - Special Failure & Responsibility Emperor Hirohito Part 1

Hello again Pacific War Week by Week listeners, it is I your dutiful host Craig Watson with more goodies from my exclusive patreon podcast series. This is actually going to be a two parter specifically looking at the failure and responsibility of Emperor Hirohito during the 15 year war Japan unleashed in 1931. Again a big thanks to all of you for listening all these years, you are all awesome. Hello everyone, a big thanks to all of you who joined the patreon and voted for this to be the next episode, you all are awesome. Now I realize very well when I jumped into my former patreon episode on Ishiwara Kanji, I fell into a rabbit hole and it became a rather long series. I wanted to get this one done in a single episode but its also kind of a behemoth subject, so I will do this in two parts: this episode will be on Hirohito’s failure and responsibility in regards to the China War from 1931-1941. The next one will cover Hirohito’s failure and responsibility in the world war from 1941-1945. I am not going to cover the entire life of Hirohito, no what I want is to specifically cover his actions from 1931-1945. Nw I want you to understand the purpose of this episode is to destroy a narrative, a narrative that carried on from 1945-1989. That narrative has always been that Emperor Hirohito was nothing more than a hostage during the war years of 1931-1945. This narrative was largely built by himself and the United States as a means of keeping the peace after 1945. However upon his death in 1989 many meeting notes and diaries from those who worked close to him began emerging and much work was done by historians like Herbert P Bix and Francis Pike. The narrative had it that Hirohito was powerless to stop things, did not know or was being misled by those around him, but this is far from the truth. Hirohito was very active in matters that led to the horrors of the 15 year war and he had his own reasons for why or when he acted and when he did not. For this episode to be able to contain it into a single one, I am going to focus on Hirohito’s involvement in the undeclared war with China, that's 1931-1941. For those of you who don’t know, China and Japan were very much at war in 1931-1937 and certainly 1937 onwards, but it was undeclared for various reasons. If you guys really like this one, let me know and I can hit Hirohito 1941-1945 which is honestly a different beast of its own. For those of you who don’t know, Hirohito was born on April 29th of 1901, the grandson of Emperor Meiji. Hirohito entered the world right at the dawn of a new era of imperial rivalry in Asia and the Pacific. According to custom, Japanese royals were raised apart from their parents, at the age of 3 he was placed in the care of the Kwamura family who vowed to raise him to be unselfish, persevering in the face of difficulties, respectful of the views of others and immune to fear. In 1908 he entered elementary education at the age of 7 and would be taught first be General Nogi Maresuke who notoriously did not pamper the prince. Nogi rigorously had Hirohito train in physical education and specifically implanted virtues and traits he thought appropriate for the future sovereign: frugality, diligence, patience, manliness, and the ability to exercise self-control under difficult conditions. Hirohito learnt what hard work was from Nogi and that education could overcome all shortcomings. Emperor Meiji made sure his grandson received military training. When Emperor Meiji died in 1912, Hirohito’s father, Yoshihito took the throne as emperor Taisho. Taisho for a lack of better words, suffered from cerebral meningitis at an early age and this led to cognitive deficiency’s and in reality the Genro would really be running the show so to say. When Taisho took the throne it was understood immediately, Hirohito needed to be prepared quickly to take the throne. After Meiji’s funeral General Nogi politely told the family he could no longer be a teacher and committed seppuku with his wife. He wrote a suicide letter explained he wanted to expiate his disgrace during the russo japanese war for all the casualties that occurred at Port Arthur, hardcore as fuck. Hirohito would view Nogi nearly as much of an iconic hero as his grandfather Meiji, the most important figure in his life. Hirohito’s next teacher was the absolute legendary Fleet Admiral Togo Heihachiro who would instill national defense policy into him. Hirohito would be taught Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahans theories as all the great minds were taught at the time. Now I know it sucks but I cant delve deep into all this. What I want you to envision is a growing Man, instilled with the belief above all else, the Kokutai was most important. The Kokutai was the national essence of Japan. It was all aspects of Japanese polity, derived from history, tradition and customs all focused around the cult of the Emperor. The government run by politicians was secondary, at any given...