The Surrender of Japan

On the morning of August 15th, 1945, Emperor Hirohito's voice crackled over Japanese airwaves to announce the unthinkable - the surrender of Japan. Today we delve into the complex story behind that surrender, examining Japan's fierce military code, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. We're joined by Dr. Evan Mawdsley, historian of the Second World War, to unpack the final days of the Pacific War and explore what might have happened if Japan had not surrendered. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Tim Arstall. Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025! To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask! Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/. We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 0:32Speaker 01

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• 1:15Speaker 01

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• 1:29Dan Snow?

  On the morning of August the 15th, 1945, 80 years ago, a voice crackled for the first time over the Japanese airwaves. Families gathered round the wireless had never heard this voice before. Only a sliver of imperial subjects had done, but it was one that belonged to someone that every single one of them knew. It was the voice of Emperor Hirohito. He was announcing something unthinkable: the surrender of Japan.

• 2:05Dan Snow?

  After years of brutal warfare in Asia and the Pacific, the Second World War there was finally drawing to a close. You're listening to Dan Snow's History, and in this episode, I'll ask, how did it all come to this? What made the Japanese Empire, with its fierce military code, its powerful armies remaining across much of Southeast and East Asia, its deeply entrenched, oft-repeated determination never to surrender? What made it lay down its arms? I'm going to delve into the complex story of Japan's surrender. There's the atomic destruction of the cities of Roshima and Nagasaki.

• 2:45Dan Snow?

  There's the Soviet invasion of the Japanese Empire in Asia, in Manchuria, and the prospect of invasion of the home islands themselves. In this case, defeat had many fathers. I'm also going to ask in this episode, what would happen if Japan hadn't surrendered? We're going to explore the plans that the Allies had in place for a full-scale invasion, and what that might have meant for Japan and the world. I'm happy to say we're joined by Evan Mawdsley. He's the former professor of international history at the University of Glasgow and a historian of the Second World War. And he's going to help us unpack the final days of the Pacific War 80 years ago, and

• 3:25Dan Snow?

  those fateful choices made on all sides that shaped the course of modern history. Enjoy.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

• 4:00Dan Snow?

  Can you give me a sense of what Japan's war effort was capable of, or indeed what

• 4:00Speaker 02

  ...

• 4:06Dan Snow?

  the Japanese people were experiencing through the summer of 1945? Was Japan on its knees?

• 4:12Speaker 03

  It's important to see this situation kind of from a broader point of view than just the Pacific. I always think of it as the Asia-Pacific War. There's a lot more going on than I think we often think of, or American audiences think of. In many ways, yes, the Japanese war effort is going badly. Most of the Japanese navy has been destroyed, and the Americans are now really on the close approaches to Japan. On the other hand, most of the Japanese army is intact and is in China. The Japanese hold most of China. They held more China in 1945 than they held in 1944. They still hold most of Southeast Asia. They still hold, what, the Dutch East Indies, and they hold Malaya, although they've lost Burma. So, in some respects, although things are going badly

• 4:57Speaker 03

  from the Japanese point of view, one might think we shouldn't see it as being absolutely at the end of all possibilities. And also, the Japanese have been trying to rearm rapidly to deal with the approaching Americans, and possibly the approaching Russians. So they've expanded their army in 1944, 1945, and in the spring of 1945, they begin expanding the army in the homeland from about 12 divisions to 60. So there's a lot of expansion going on. You have to remember that although the war ended with Hiroshima, Japan wasn't being seriously bombed until March of 1945. And in fact, Japanese aircraft production peaks in September 1944. So there are a number of reasons why the Japanese think that we're

• 5:42Speaker 03

  not really at the absolute end of our possibilities.

• 5:45Dan Snow?

  Yeah, I was going to ask about that, because there's so much discussion, isn't there, around the Allied strategic bombing campaign on Germany, and whether or not it disrupted the German war economy. That debate presumably exists for Japan as well. I mean, how seriously were Japan, Japanese factories, munitions production, how significantly they were affected by the enormous firebombing attacks on Japan's cities through the summer of 1945?

• 6:07Speaker 03

  The Japanese population was being very badly affected when the bombing campaign really began in the spring of forty five. The original campaign, which began in June forty four, wasn't very successful because it involved high altitude bombing and wasn't very accurate. In forty five, they went back to what the British had done, which was large area bombings, which affected a lot more civilians. The idea was by doing that, you could indirectly affect things like the aircraft industry. But they were actually quite difficult. But I think they were coming towards the very end of the war. You know, this all kind of comes together, March, April, May, forty five is when the bombing really begins, the big Tokyo raid takes place. So until that time, you could be somewhat more optimistic. I think things really begin to fall apart at the summer of forty five.

• 6:48Dan Snow?

  Okay, and oil presumably, the whole thing began, if you like, because the Japanese Home Archipelago has not got enough indigenous oil. Am I right in thinking that because most of the merchant fleet's been destroyed by the summer forty five, so Japan presumably isn't getting much oil?

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I mean, because Japan had no oil and as you say, they went to war largely for things like oil and rubber, which they could get from Southeast Asia. The whole point of the American war effort, to some extent, has been cutting those lines of communications with the South. So, yeah, they're running low on oil, especially for aircraft is a big dilemma. The Japanese Navy was very badly damaged in a series of battles, but even if it hadn't been, they didn't have enough oil to sail. That's why they did one-way missions because there was no way of getting back. You know, there wasn't enough fuel for that. So that's desperately bad. Japan has some coal, but not an awful lot, and there's problems of getting rice and other things. So any defensive Japan will have to be done on a fairly primitive level. It won't be the kind of high-tech warfare that the Japanese did very well in nineteen

• 7:46Speaker 03

  forty one and nineteen forty two.

• 7:47Dan Snow?

  So it's interesting that the Japanese situation is, if you look at a map of Asia and the Pacific, that some policymakers could think there was a sort of salvageable position there, but it's getting quite rapidly worse. It's changing month to month and it's getting significantly worse through the late spring, summer of nineteen forty five.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, so if you were a Japanese general, you know, you might think that actually things aren't that bad. If you were a Japanese admiral, you probably feel a lot worse about it.

• 8:10Dan Snow?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  But the army were more important politically, certainly in 1945.

• 8:14Dan Snow?

  And as you say, the army actually doing reasonably well in China, which many of them would have regarded as the sort of main theatre. So that's interesting.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, plus the Japanese think, you know, we have this Japanese spirit, which gives us an enormous edge and a readiness to sacrifice, which the West don't have.

• 8:27Dan Snow?

  Yes. You know, when you're talking about national spirit, I say this as a Brit, when people start appealing to just innate national spirit, you know, there's no plan. You know, there's no plan. Okay. So you mentioned admirals and generals, and I think you've given a sense there of this diffuse nature of Japanese decision making. Who's in charge of Japan? Is it the emperor? Like, who's making decisions? Who's thinking these things?

• 8:49Speaker 03

  A general point I'd like to make to start with is that Japan is not a totalitarian state, is almost the opposite of totalitarian state. Could argue that Italy and Germany were aspiring totalitarian states, and you could say that Russia was a totalitarian state in that it was highly centralized, that there was a centre that controlled everything, or attempted to control everything. The thing about Japan is it's kind of very dispersed. Everyone likes the emperor or, you know, worships the emperor, but the kind of civilian control over the armed forces is very limited. In theory, the emperor is in charge of everything, both the civilian side of things and the military side of things. But in effect, it means there's no centre. There was a lot of inter-service rivalry during the war. There were debates about how the economy would run that couldn't be resolved. And there

• 9:34Speaker 03

  was a highly authoritarian political system, but it was nothing like what was attempted in Europe or in Russia. It wasn't democratic and it wasn't very efficient, but it was at least a lack of centralisation that was important, almost dysfunctional in fact, in terms of making decisions. One issue is that someone who can be seen as the dictator, and that was, I think Tojo was the person who featured heavily in Western propaganda. But Tojo gets removed in July 1944, when the Japanese lose Saipan. He is ancient history after that. There's a kind of caretaker prime minister after that, but he's not particularly powerful. The army high command, the minister of the army, General Anami, and the chief of the army general staff, General Uetsu, are both powerful. But, you know, the army

• 10:19Speaker 03

  is not as strong as it was. They're quite inflexible about not surrendering, but their power is not limited in the political sense. There's no one politically, including the emperor. Who is ready to stand up to them. There's a big debate about Hirohito and what his role was. Did he have a responsibility for the war? Was he a war criminal in the same way as the generals were? And of course, the odd thing about the Japanese war is that the emperor survives the war and is in place for decades after that. This was not unconditional surrender. And I don't want to get into what we can say about the emperor's responsibility. What I think he was coming around to in 1944, 45 was some kind of negotiated peace. But he wanted a negotiated peace from a position of some strength.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  In some respects, in terms of fighting the Americans, it's been one defeat after another. So from that point of view, invasion of Okinawa in April 45 is for him very important. Let's defend Okinawa. Let's fight a full scale battle there, including mass kamikaze attacks, fighting to the death for the island, in the hope that we'll get a victory of some kind. And the Americans and the Allies in general will then decide that, okay, we will negotiate some kind of peace at the end of the war. It won't actually be a surrender. It won't be our victory, obviously, but it's going to be something where we survive. The problem is that the Allies are saying that we want complete control over what happens politically, and we can't tell you what it's going to be.

• 11:43Dan Snow?

  So the Allies, unlike the Iraq war perhaps, think that militarism in Japan is so deep rooted that there can be no peace in East Asia until the Allies have physically gone in and reordered the constitution and stamped it out, just like they want to stamp out Prussian militarism in Europe.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's regime change. I think that's the point. And it goes back to the Casablanca Conference in 1943 with unconditional surrender. It goes back to the Cairo Conference in November 1943, when the Chinese become involved, but makes clear that any post-war settlement will mean Japan giving up all its overseas gains, not just Manchuria, not just what it's gained in the course of the war from 1941, but also give up what it got from Russia in 1904, 1905, and what it got from China in 1895 from the Sino-Japanese War, when Japan got Formosa, Taiwan, as part of its territory. All of that has to go. And then when they talk about politics, they're really saying, well, yes, in effect, the country has been led by war criminals for the last five to 10 years. They have to go.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  That's the entire ruling elite, and it might be the emperor. But that's what is not made clear. It's quite tricky for the Americans, at least, maybe for the British as well, that although propaganda was mainly aimed at people like Tojo, you know, clearly the emperor was seen as being a figure of hatred, someone who, you know, featured in propaganda as an enemy of the Allies. It was very hard to say, okay, we want unconditional surrender, but the emperor can stay. You know, that's not really a regime change. You want, conceivably, not just the generals and the admirals, but also the emperor. The problem, again, who's making peace are the generals and the admirals. So it's like, you know, Turkey's voting for Christmas. If they approve the final Allied démarre, which is the Passe Saint Declaration in June forty-five, which basically says they all have to go, you know,

• 13:24Speaker 03

  we have to get rid of the entire elite and introduce a democratic Japan, whatever that is.

• 13:29Dan Snow?

  And then the elite, unfortunately, the ones holding the reins at present. Okay. So very, very few people in the United States of America, including the Vice President, we now know, knew about nuclear weapons, the nuclear programme. So what is the plan, and then naval staff, and the War Department, what is the plan for how to defeat Japan?

• 13:47Speaker 03

  It would seem to me that there are several plans on how to defeat Japan. Although I was saying there was disagreement in the Japanese government, there's also disagreement in the American government and the armed forces as well. I'm not myself totally clear on who knew what about the atomic bomb. In fact, everyone, even people designing the bomb, didn't necessarily know it was going to work until the summer of nineteen forty-five. So it's a very unclear, and obviously a very interesting factor in the war. The army seemed to feel that an invasion of Japan was necessary. There was no way of winning the war without an invasion. And General Marshall thought that the American population would not tolerate a protracted war into the late nineteen forties, you know, rather than have the invasion. I think Admiral King probably

• 14:30Speaker 03

  thought that blockade would have been another way in which the war could have been won, and would not have involved the same sacrifice of American lives. It would have been not very good for Japan, but that would have been another way. I think The Army Air Force also thought that strategic bombing, normal, not normal, but you know, heavy incendiary attacks could continue. This is kind of like, you know, with Vietnam bombing Japan and back into the Stone Age, possibly that was another alternative idea. But on the whole, I think that President Truman had come around to accept the idea that there was going to be an invasion. And the intention was that in November of 1945, which is actually three or four months after August, that would

• 15:13Speaker 03

  have been an invasion of the southern Japanese island Kyushu, supported by the bases that had been gained in Okinawa. And that it would be in the spring of 1946, that the main landings in Japan would be made in the area around Tokyo. So Kanto Plain, that would bring the war to an end. So that's what a lot of the argument is about, would that have been an exceptionally bloody campaign? Remember that had the war gone on much longer, there would have been quite a large British contingent in the invasion of Japan. I mean, there was already a large British task force cooperating with the Americans in 1945. There would have been elements of Bomber Command and also the British Army.

• 15:51Dan Snow?

  I like your comment you made a little while ago about the American Army Air Force, thinking they might be able to win it from the air. Because after all, ever since the invention of aviation, there's no war that an aviation practitioner hasn't thought could be won through bombing alone. So that stretches all the way back 80 years.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  I think it was true, both in Europe and in the war against Japan, that the possibilities of bombing were exaggerated, but they did have a lot to do with strategy. In the end, a lot of Allied strategy is getting air bases either in China to bomb Japan, or in the Pacific Islands to bomb Japan. That kind of drives things. But yeah, I would agree totally about aviators. I'm not sure the admirals are much better, but I think it's always a kind of, you know, quick fix with that. There are all kinds of moral issues as well, obviously.

• 16:32Dan Snow?

  And you mentioned that it would have been very bloody for the Americans, but the Allies and also for the Japanese people, as the fighting on Okinawa pointed out, and we've got a separate podcast that you can go and listen to on the Battle of Okinawa, and just how appalling that was for everyone involved, including the enormous civilian population who suffered terribly. But this is where we switch track to the atomic option. It's obviously a gigantic subject, but just give me a sense of the Manhattan Project. When does that? Well, it begins, its genesis in Britain, really, and then that British effort is amalgamated with that of the Americans in what about 1943?

• 17:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, in practical terms, 42, 43, yeah. I was just in Berlin at the Historical Museum doing a kind of what if exhibition? And one of the what ifs was what if the Americans had dropped the atomic bomb in Germany first rather than on Japan? And I think it's probably fair to say that the atomic bomb was developed in case the Germans themselves, who are quite hot on nuclear physics, were able to develop their own atomic bomb. So I think that was the key thing. But then just think about this exhibition in Germany. What they argue was that the bridge at Remagen is really, very important fact that the Allies were very quick to capture the bridge at Remagen.

• 17:42Dan Snow?

  That's the bridge across the Rhine.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Across the Rhine, yeah. If they hadn't captured that bridge and the war had lasted longer, then it would have been August or September, November, 1945, the war would still be going on. The atomic bomb would have been operational and the Americans were looking at possible targets which they could use in Germany. How far one can push that, I don't know. What I would say was that the atomic bomb wasn't developed to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's what happened. And anyone who's seen any of the films about the Manhattan Project will know that there was a lot of debate about what to bomb or where to bomb and what the ethics of that were. In fact, the actual atomic attack on Hiroshima was in effect a decision to kill 70 to 100,000 civilians in one event.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  The argument then becomes, well, yes, that was terrible, but would the alternative have been worse? But it was certainly not a simple decision and it was not an easy decision and it was not necessarily a moral decision. I'm not going to attempt now to argue for or against dropping the atomic bomb, but certainly it did involve. Seventy to a hundred thousand civilian deaths in one event.

• 18:50Dan Snow?

  Was there an element of the United States wishing to prove to the Soviets it had that technology, you know, some of that other kind of 3D chess that comes into it? What's your sense around the decision that was made to drop that bomb?

• 19:02Speaker 03

  One of the things about the bomb, of course, is that it existed. So therefore you couldn't un-invent the bomb at that stage. You couldn't say, well, there was some alternative. And I think certainly some people in the American government probably saw this as a kind of demonstration. I think more it was a sense of, well, what can we do to shock the Japanese into surrendering? And, you know, at one level, that's what works, you know? Does that in fact have the effect? It gives the emperor the power to intervene. But I'd stress that really, you know, the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, and peace is made on the 15th of August. I mean, and no one is actually very, in Japan, is very clear about what's actually happened. You know, Truman gives a kind of public discussion of what the bomb is, you know,

• 19:47Speaker 03

  what it can do, and that does filter through to the Japanese. But, you know, if you were an army commander, commanding an army in China, this doesn't necessarily have that much of an effect on you. You know, you don't really see, well, what's actually happened? I can't see it. Americans have been bombing us for six months. What is the difference between that and now? And the Americans probably don't have a lot of atomic bombs. You know, maybe these two bombs are all they've got, and that's when they've dropped them, there's no further thing. I mean, that's kind of why I think the Russian invasion is also important in that when the emperor eventually does say that we're going to make peace, and that's on the 15th of April, and he has this broadcast called the Rescript, which is, you know, a kind of proclamation by the emperor. He says that, well, they've dropped this terrible bomb on us, so we have to bring the war to an end.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  He didn't actually say we were surrendering, but he does say we're bringing the war to an end, and to do that, we have to stop fighting. Clearly, the bomb is used as a reason. For coming to making peace, but it's actually the first of two different rescripts that the emperor issues. The second rescript is one that he sends out on the 17th of August, two days later. And that one is saying kind of more at the Japanese army in Southeast Asia and China and everywhere else saying, look, guys, Russians have now entered the war. They entered the war on the 9th of August. You know what that means. That's why we have to surrender. So he was really saying in that statement to the army that the Russian entry in the war is actually more important. We hope the Russians might act as kind of intermediaries. That clearly isn't going to happen. The Russians have invaded

• 21:14Speaker 03

  us. We can't defend Manchuria. So really it's all over and we have to cease fighting. But again, the whole idea that the emperor ends the war but doesn't surrender, de facto, he is surrendering, but in effect, he's just bringing the war to an end.

• 21:29Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History, talking about the surrender of Japan and the end of the war, more coming up.

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• 24:43Dan Snow?

  Let's talk quickly about that Soviet invasion. It's difficult for people perhaps to get their heads around the fact that technically... The Soviets and the Japanese stated neutrality existed between those two countries. Despite Hitler's efforts to get Japan to enter the war, to invade the USSR from a different direction, which could have been game changing, the Japanese decided not to. And it's only with the end of the war in Europe that the Soviets decide they're going to pivot to the east and invade Japanese possessions in northern China, that kind of Manchuria area.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  It's before that, I think that they've agreed in forty four that they'll go into the war once the European war ends, and then they agree at the Ulta Pact that they'll do it three months after war ends. So yeah, they have an interest in that. But yeah, it's important to bear in mind that Japan and Russia signed a neutrality pact in the spring of nineteen forty one, and they adhered to that right the way through. I mean, the Japanese were tempted from time to time, but what they did do was they allowed a very large amount of landless shipping to go through what were in effect Japanese waters to Russian ports in the Pacific. So there was this position where Russia was, it wasn't doing a lot for Japan, but it was certainly Japan was doing a lot for Russia. You know, there was a, the Japanese were aware that they had to keep Russia sweet. There was a danger.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  By the time you get to the winter of nineteen forty two, forty three, it's pretty clear that the Russians aren't going to lose the war against Germany. And by the time you get to the summer of forty four, the Japanese are advancing very rapidly. One thing, by the way, we haven't mentioned, which is actually quite important, is that in May nineteen forty five, Germany is defeated. Until that time, the Japanese position is slightly different. You know, the, okay, the Allies are now fighting two wars in two different places. Now with Germany gone, it's now the entire world fundamentally, you know, Russia, America, Britain and China, all against Japan. It's a tough game to play.

• 26:33Dan Snow?

  The Soviet invasion of Manchuria is fascinating, isn't it? I mean, it is like the Soviets have had their warm up. They defeated the Wehrmacht in Europe and they just turn around and employ those same deep penetration, massive artillery, vast numbers of men and tanks. And it's just an absolute rout, isn't it? I mean, it's a complete disaster for the Japanese.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  I mean, the problem has been that the Japanese have been thinning out the defence of Manchuria for the last three or four years. You know, in 1944, they're moving lots of divisions into the Pacific or back to the homeland. That was the cream of the Japanese army. You know, the Japanese army throughout the 1930s has only one enemy, and that's Russia. Russia is always seen as the most dangerous enemy. America, in terms of the Japanese army, is not seen as a serious threat. Britain isn't seen as a serious threat. China isn't seen as a serious threat. Russia really is. Russia is rearming. Russia is industrializing. We fought a war with Russia in 1905, you know, so it's a very dangerous thing. They are very aware of that, even in 44, 45. They never underestimate the Russian army in the same way that the Germans do.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Because the Russian army actually fights fairly well in 1905. I mean, it's defeated, nevertheless, it's not totally defeated. And Russia is very big and very powerful. But when the invasion comes, I mean, it takes a long time to move forces from Europe to North Asia. You know, there's only one major rail line and it's harder than you might think, but there's over 100 divisions by the time they actually get going. And unlike the Japanese army, they're used to fighting a war of movement. So when it does start, the Japanese army is overwhelmed. It also results in 600,000 Japanese soldiers being captured by the Russians and put into POW camps at the end of the war. It's a much bigger event than is often thought. It would be wrong to see it as Stalin being opportunistic.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  The Americans are very keen that Russia join the war in the Far East, that is, especially before the atomic bomb works.

• 28:27Dan Snow?

  Given its intensity, you know, over a million and a half Soviet troops, 5,000 tanks, 600,000 Japanese, given its intensity and scale, it's got to be one of the shortest wars in history. I mean, it's good pub quiz question that the Soviet-Japanese War of 1945 is absolutely astonishing, isn't it? It's over in the space of a few days. Because, as you said earlier, On the back of Nagasaki, Japan is out of this war.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's actually interesting. In scale, it's kind of like the German invasion of Poland in 1939 in terms of, you know, the number of troops involved. In fact, the number of Russian casualties is about as high as Polish casualties were in 1939. It wasn't just a walkover. There was a lot of fighting, especially in the eastern part of Manchuria. But in the west, the Russian just swept through. This, again, may be possibly American trucks. We should never fail to mention Studebaker, who I'm talking about World War II. But it certainly meant this, the possibility of it advancing rapidly across terrain, which the Japanese thought was impassable. I wouldn't see it as opportunistic that the Russians have been

• 29:29Speaker 03

  worried about Japan for a very long time. And, you know, when Stalin does rearm or begins this massive industrialization program and modernization of the Red Army in the 1930s, it's with Japan in mind.

• 29:41Dan Snow?

  And so we have the Japanese surrender. It's a little bit difficult, isn't it? Because there must have been concern that diehard Japanese generals elsewhere in what was still a very far-flung empire would fail to get the message from their imperial palace. Was there some nerves around that?

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think they were worried about that. They were worried about POWs as well, that POWs would be massacred if people didn't make peace. So it was very important that the emperor was on board, I think. Because, I mean, on the whole, the one thing which everyone kind of agreed about was the emperor that was a central figure, a godlike figure, who they had to adhere to. That wasn't entirely the case. And the emperor was always wary about using his power. Maybe partly he agreed with the program, you know, with the wartime program. But, I mean, by 1944, 45, he was an intelligent man. He realizes that they were going to lose the war, or they weren't going to win the war. And unlike the generals, he had a more realistic view and he had less to lose. But certainly, he was important.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  That's also very important after the war. I mean, I think the idea of keeping the emperor is important, both for getting the peace, the right kind of peace, but also for transforming Japan from this kind of militarist mess in the 30s and 40s into something, you know, that was really quite close to a functioning Western-style government.

• 31:01Dan Snow?

  As the Japanese flag came down across this great empire, former European colonial troops returned, you know, the Brits to Hong Kong, the Brits to Singapore, the Dutch, the French to Indochina. But Japan's astonishing disruption of 1941, 1942, it changed Asia for good. I mean, the European powers would never fully reestablish themselves.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's extremely important, I think. There's the Dutch Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire. They don't, they don't survive that. In some respects, Singapore for the British is more important than almost anything else that happens in Europe, not than Dunkirk, but it certainly spells the end of British power in the Far East eventually, but also the rise of American power in the Far East as well. So from that time, that the power of the European empires and Europe in general declines massively. Also, the post-war period in Asia is really very interesting. In China, the Allies insist that Japanese troops stay in place to maintain order. You know, there's, there's a long time where the people holding things together, both

• 32:04Speaker 03

  in Japan and say, in Indonesia, Japanese are also important in Vietnam for a while, you know, and holding things together. So what goes on is really remarkable, but also it happens in China especially. But what I think is the strange thing about all this is that it's not expected. You know, it's, it's not expected the world end the way that it does. You know, all of a sudden, you know, the war ends in like two weeks because of an event that nobody knows about. You know, it's not really, it's, it's that which brings the war to an end. The Japanese just capitulate, there's no long-term fight to hold their possessions in East Asia. Once the emperor says war has ended, everybody accepts that. And there's nothing really in place to deal with that. No one's got occupation plans for how will we deal with China or whatever.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  And they kind of, for example, they improvise with what they're going to do about Korea. They decide quite rapidly to divide Korea, Korea was part of Japan at that stage, to divide Korea into two zones very quickly. They have to send troops into Russian troops and American troops to do that. But it's not done with any long-term invasion, clear-cut plans in, in place. So I would stress that that period in Asia, when Japan suddenly surrenders and this is a power vacuum, is a really very interesting one.

• 33:14Dan Snow?

  Certainly is, and we can talk more about it in the years to come for all the 80th anniversaries of the big events.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Well, thank you so much for listening to me and asking questions that were really decisive and trying to understand what's going on and how things seemed to the Japanese.

• 33:26Dan Snow?

  Well, thank you very much, Evan Mawdsley, for coming on.

• 33:33Dan Snow?

  Thanks very much for listening, everyone. Before we go, I'll tell you that ever at the cutting edge, the bleeding edge of what's new and exciting, after 10 years of the podcast, you can finally watch it on YouTube. We are moving fast and breaking things here, folks. Our Friday episodes each week will be available to watch on YouTube, and you can see me, you can see what we're talking about. I'd love it if you could subscribe to that channel over there. Just click the link in the show notes below, and you can watch it on your phone, your tablet, or even a TV, or even a giant cinema movie screen, if you have one in your underground lair. See you next time, folks.

• 34:18Speaker 01

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• 35:09Dan Snow?

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