Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 184, Lifting the Lost, Part 2.

On August 15, 1945, something truly unprecedented happened in Tokyo. For the first time ever,

Emperor Hirohito addressed his people, calling on them to endure the unendurable, and to maintain

the belief in the invincibility of their divine country. Despite never actually using the word in his

address, the meaning was clear. Surrender. Reactions, as you might imagine, were somewhat varied.

In the United States, news that World War II was finally over, four months after Germany had surrendered, was greeted with jubilation.

There's a fantastic photo of enlisted men at Pearl Harbor celebrating right as they got the news, and their joy and enthusiasm shines through clearly,

even after 70 years.

On the other side, the best possible Japanese response to the news was one of exhaustion.

Probably the most iconic image of the surrender is of Japanese civilians gathering outside the imperial palace to bow and

acceptance of the end. Others responded with rage that their chance for revenge against the

Americans who had destroyed so much of Japan was now gone. Or, in the case of a few military

officers, they responded with suicide.

In the wake of war's end, it was now an open question how people on both sides, both

Japanese and Americans, would respond to the new reality, occupation.

Both sides had to deal with a lack of understanding of the other compounded by each government's wartime propaganda.

The Allies and the Americans in particular had gone to some lengths to try and bridge that lack of understanding,

commissioning anthropologists like Ruth Benedict of Columbia University to engage in wartime studies

that would enable American commanders to

understand the Japanese psyche. These studies were, of course, largely useless, not least of all

because they were predicated on the idea that there was some kind of shared Japanese psyche

that could be applied to millions of distinct individuals.

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