3. Japan’s Leaders Were Determined Upon National Suicide
The use of atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, instead of in the planned invasion of Japan later that year, shocked the Japanese government to its senses. It abruptly ended the war, and eliminated the necessity for Operations Olympic, Coronet, and their expected butcher’s bills. Japan’s leaders were morally bankrupt and cowardly and had refused to confront the fact that they had taken their country into an unwinnable war and lost. Ethical leaders would have shouldered the responsibility for getting their country into such a fix.
Unfortunately, Japan’s leaders were not ethical. They sought to escape the burden of their responsibility via histrionics and determined to immolate themselves and their country with them. So they sought to save face by training women to fight off heavily armed invaders with bamboo spears and training little boys and girls to fight soldiers with pointy sticks. Rather than sacrifice themselves in order to spare their country, Japan’s leaders sought to sacrifice their country in order to spare their egos from the humiliation of surrender.