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JAPAN: Thoughts on the War

2 minute read
TIME

From the 13,243 Japanese civilians captured on Saipan last summer, U.S. soldiers picked 500, polled them Gallup fashion. Purpose: to get an approximation of what the Jap in the street thinks about the war, the U.S., democracy.

¶ 412 of the 500 thought that, industrially, the U.S. is stronger than Japan, but that Japan is stronger “spiritually.” Three hundred and thirty thought Americans “soft, luxury-loving, rich, spiritually weak.”

¶ More than half of the 500 believed that the Japanese Navy is the most powerful in the world. One hundred believed that the U. S. Navy has been sunk.

¶ Who runs Japan? Said 114: “Don’t know.” Said 195: “The Emperor.” Said 136: “The military.” Said 55: “The Cabinet.” All who knew anything agreed that no government could be successful without the Emperor’s leadership, but 138 said that the Emperor was against the war.

¶ 281 Japs said that Japanese civilians would fight to the last if their homeland was invaded. Twenty-seven said that they would fight until it looked hopeless. Seventy-nine thought that they would not fight at all.

¶ Most of the Japanese thought that Japan would win the war (“I think Japan will win since I am a Japanese”). They agreed that the war would be long.

¶ Most of the Japanese were more fearful than fanatic about capture: 348 had been afraid to surrender; only 79 were “ashamed” that they had to.

Tokyo radio reported a more violent expression of opinion. Forty-three years ago the grateful Japanese erected a stone monument, near Yokohama, to Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who opened up Japan to western trade and influence. Last fortnight members of the Imperial Rule Assistance Youth Corps, “amidst yo-heave-ho shouts,” tore it down. Replacing the Perry Monument is a wooden monolith with inscriptions “to stimulate the spirit to defend the fatherland.”

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