Found the review quoted below while looking for an internet version of a statement I recalled in Peter Wetzler’s Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 1998) that in the days leading up to Japan’s surrender one of Hirohito’s most senior advisers told him to forget about the IJA’s grand plans for defending Japan and the Emperor to the last man, because the Allies could land paratroops around him regardless of where the IJA land defences were. This was claimed to rattle Hirohito as much as, or more than, the atomic bombs.
This could fit in with the rapid Soviet advances and America having aircraft routinely flying over Japan, and Hirohito seeing the risk of an airborne assault on him growing.
It’s an interesting slant on his thinking.
My interest in tracking down Wetzler’s comment (I don’t own the book and my local library has barely heard of Hirohito, never mind the book) relates to my interest in the argument that Hirohito surrendered to preserve the Imperial line rather than Japan.
Anyway, here’s a book review which covers some of the issues from the perspectives of different historians.
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan,
by Herbert P. Bix,Harper-Collins, New York, 2000, 800 pages, ISBN 0060931302
Reviewed by Ben-Ami Shillony
More than ten years after his death, Hirohito (or Emperor Showa as he is now called) continues to draw attention and generate controversy. To many people in the world he personifies Japan’s aggression before and during World War II, its extraordinary postwar recovery, and the intricate continuities between the two periods. Most of the writings about him focus on his role in the “Fifteen Year War” (which lasted for less than fourteen years). Almost everything he did prior to that upheaval is considered as preparation for it, and most of what he did after the war is treated as a consequence of it. The book under review, the largest and most detailed biography of Hirohito in English, follows that pattern. Superbly written, meticulously researched, and vigorously advertised, it received the 2000 National Book Critics Award for Biography and Autobiography, and the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. Its main thesis contends that Hirohito, contrary to the conventional view that he was mostly a titular figure, was the actual wartime leader of Japan who decided on strategy and operations. After the defeat, with the help of the American occupation which needed his cooperation, he contrived a massive cover-up of his wartime role. This enabled him to conceal his culpability and to remain on the throne. Hirohito’s refusal to assume responsibility distorted the nature of postwar democracy and pacifism and prevented the Japanese from confronting their past.
Blaming Hirohito for the war is not a new idea. Thirty years ago, David Bergamini, in his controversial book Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy (William Morrow, 1971), accused the emperor of instigating the war and of personally ordering the atrocities. Four years later, the Japanese historian Inoue Kiyoshi, in his Tenno no senso sekinin (Gendai hyoron-sha, 1975), described Hirohito as a reckless reactionary responsible for the war. In the last decade, Herbert Bix broached his theory of the emperor as the war leader in his article “The Showa Emperor’s ‘Monologue’ and the Problem of War Responsibility” (Journal of Japanese Studies, Summer 1992), while Irokawa Daikichi in his book The Age of Hirohito: In Search of Modern Japan (Free Press 1995) accused Hirohito for failing to prevent the war. The postwar cover up has been expounded in John W. Dower’s book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (Norton, 1999).
In this volume, Bix puts to final rest the belief that the emperor was an uninformed, helpless puppet in the hands of the military. Very few would argue with him over that. But he turns to the other extreme, claiming that Hirohito was the “major protagonist” (p. 520) of the war. Other historians, examining more or less the same material, reached different conclusions. Stephen S. Large, in his Emperor Hirohito & Showa Japan (Routledge, 1992), found that the emperor was involved in the war as an informed observer and as a sanctioner of military plans, but he never initiated, decided or dictated policy. Hata Ikuhiko, in his Showa tenno itsutsu no ketsudan (Bungei shunju, 1994), claimed that during the years 1937-1945 Hirohito made only one important decision, that of ending the war. Peter Wetzler, in his recent book Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 1998), pointed out that in accordance with the political tradition of Japan, the emperor was only one of several participants in the decision making process. Therefore he had to be consulted, but could not dictate to others. Wetzler dismisses the theory that Hirohito was a frustrated peace lover, but he rejects Bix’s claim (as presented in the 1992 article), that the emperor led Japan in war. On the basis of the wartime records, he concludes that Hirohito was well informed on military planning, was often consulted, occasionally made suggestions, but at no time did he determine strategy in the manner of a Western commander in chief.
Bix bases his theory on the vast powers that the emperor wielded, on the aggressive edicts, orders, and declarations that he issued, and on the hawkish persons that he appointed to leadership positions. Indeed, the Meiji constitution established the emperor as a supreme ruler, invested him with the powers to declare war and determine policy, and gave him direct command over the armed forces. Bix claims that this derived from “the ancient notion that the emperor was the medium through which the gods worked their will (p. 54).” Therefore Hirohito was burdened with “enormous responsibilities from which he could have no escape so long as he ruled (p. 442).” Yet the historic facts are different. In both the ancient tradition and the modern practice, the emperors were symbolic rulers, sanctioning the policies of those whom they had officially “chosen,” but who in fact gained power by their own means. The Meiji constitution removed responsibility from the emperor and invested it in his government. All the rescripts, edicts, and declarations of the emperor, which Bix quotes extensively and to which he attaches great importance, were composed by the cabinet or other government organs. All the appointments that he “made” had been decided in advance by others and “humbly submitted” to him for approval. All the military orders that he “issued” had been formulated by the armed forces and presented to him for signature. On some occasions his personal views were taken into consideration, but except for August 1945, he was never expected to make a major decision.
In modern legal terms he was responsible for all that was done in his name, but that was not the political tradition of Japan. If Hirohito was responsible for the war that he declared, the orders that he issued and the prime ministers that he appointed, then Emperor Meiji should be praised, or blamed, for the two wars that he declared, the modernizing edicts that he issued, and the leaders that he appointed. Yet neither Bix nor any other modern historian gives him that credit. Japanese writers in the Meiji period attributed all the achievements of the state to the emperor, while blaming others for the failures. Bix does the opposite: he blames Hirohito for all that went wrong, but does not credit him with any achievement. He sees a difference between the two emperors: “in virtually everything he had done since becoming emperor, Hirohito had departed from the precedent set by his grandfather (p. 433).” But the evidence points to the contrary: in dedicating himself to the war effort, Hirohito followed in the footsteps of his illustrious grandfather whom he often quoted. Both emperors presided over aggressive wars against China, in which atrocities were committed (after the capture of Port Arthur in 1894, the Japanese massacred tens of thousands of its inhabitants). Both took their roles as commanders in chief very seriously. As Carol Gluck has pointed out, Emperor Meiji spent eight months with the imperial headquarters in Hiroshima, “enduring the privations of a soldier” and working "day and night at military affairs."1 Bix claims that Hirohito was more militaristic than his grandfather, because he was accompanied by military aides-de-camp and wore a uniform (p. 89), but Emperor Meiji too was surrounded by military aides and appeared in public in military uniform.