Item — HN Reader

>American B-29 bombers dropped leaflets all over the city, warning us that Nagasaki would ‘fall to ashes’ on August 8. The leaflets were confiscated immediately by the kenpei (Imperial Japanese Army)

Yikes. Imagine living in a situation where the government of your own country has as much care for your life as the enemy.

4 comments

What else did you expect? It was wartime.

Controlling the propaganda and information and not letting the enemy direct their narrative was something each government wanted to fully own regardless of the outcome to civilians, even the allies:

The Londoners were told that the V2 rockets landing on their heads were "gas explosions" because it was better for population morale them not know the enemy has such advanced long range strike capabilities as that would increase fear and lower morale and we're less likely to support long time war attrition with this knowledge.

Same with the Japanese, why would they parrot the enemy narrative to the population, especially that until after the bomb blast was examined, Japan didn't believe that the US already had a nuclear weapon so soon.

"especially that until after the bomb blast was examined"

The first bomb had already been detonated in Hiroshima a few days prior. They had radio. Are you saying they still felt the threat was not credible?

I was talking about the first bomb.

Also, that was the second bomb, so it was a very credible threat.

Wasn't Nagasaki a secondary target, chosen because the first was clouded over?

They dropped leaflets stating "some or all of the cities named" would be destroyed in the coming days.

> ‘What did I do to the Americans?’ she would often say, ‘Why did they do this to me?’

Seems like they don’t blame their government all that much

Imperial Japan was something else, truly. I just finished Dan Carlin's six-part Hardcore History series called "supernova in the east" which covers a lot of context in an attempt to help people like us understand the zeitgeist in Japan at the time. I can't recommend it enough.