Youngstown Vindicator (September 5, 1945)
Premier urges Japanese to admit defeat
TOKYO, Japan (UP) – Premier Prince Higashikuni called upon the Japanese nation today to admit defeat and to fulfill “manfully, faithfully and with broadmindedness” all Allied surrender terms.
“We are now tasting the bitter cup of defeat,” he told the Imperial Diet on the second and final day of its 88th extraordinary session.
He said the war had been brought to an end “solely through the benevolence of our sovereign” and warned the Japanese people that their duty now lay in “absolute obedience to the imperial will.”
Blames air raids
In tracing the factors that led to Japan’s capitulation, he revealed that:
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American air raids cut Japanese production to 25 percent of the pre-war figure long before the introduction of the atomic bomb.
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The coal shortage had become so acute in the final months of the war that many factories were in the point of closing down for that reason alone.
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Air raids and depreciation of rolling stock halved the carrying capacity of Japanese railroads in the past year.
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Ship losses and the American blockade reduced the carrying capacity of Japanese ships to 25 percent of the pre-war figure.
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Air raids killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of persons, burned 2,200,000 houses and gradually destroyed great, medium and even small cities with “calamitous consequences.”
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The ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, targets of the only two atomic bombs dropped during the war, were “too ghastly to look upon.”
Higashikuni said the causes of Japan’s defeat were so numerous that “all we can do is to appeal to his imperial magnanimity to pardon our unpardonable stupidity.”
“There is little use in going back to the past and trying to put the blame on one person or another,” he said.
“General repentance is demanded of the whole nation. No doubt we committed mistakes. Our methods were faulty in not a few respects, nor can it be said that our efforts were always exerted in the right direction.”
Higashikuni read the same speech before the House of Peers in the morning and before the House of Representatives in the afternoon. He spoke in a high-pitched voice without gestures, but occasionally somewhat passionately.