The Yasukuni Shrine and U.S. Objective (1)

 

 

 

 

U.S. (then white-ruled nation) president Franklin D. Roosevelt had harbored his fearsome determination to eliminate a major obstacle “Japan” to the white advancement into Asia, evidently observed since the Casablanca Conference held in Casablanca, Morocco (then a French protectorate) from January 14, to 24, 1943.

 

However, on June 9, 1945, Prime Minister Suzuki Kantaro elucidated in his policy speech delivered at the 88^th Diet Session of the Great Imperial Japan that Japan would never accept “unconditional surrender” U.S. had called for since the Casablanca Conference.

                          42^nd Prime Minister of Japan from 7 April to 17 August, 1945

On July 26, 1945, U.S. and its allies made a statement “so-called the Potsdam Declaration” calling for “conditional surrender” although U.S. had craved to achieve “unconditional surrender of Japan” under “Orange Plan=a long-term strategy against Japan” formulated just before Japan-Russia War (1904-1905). U.S. had to devise a tactic of deceiving Japan by altering the original plan of demanding Japan to accept “unconditional surrender”.

 

U.S. deeply regretted over, after successful blasts of two nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, its hastiness in having offered Japan “conditional surrender=the Potsdam Declaration”.

                                    

On September 2, 1945, Japan inked “the instrument of surrender” in compliance with the Imperial Rescript on the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration ordering 2,963,300 strong Japanese Army and 381,000 strong Japanese Navy stationed throughout the Asia-Pacific to ceasefire without fail. This miraculous achievement of the complete surrender was, some Japanese scholars recalled, due to the Japanese tradition of honoring the Imperial Rescript.

 

However, MacArthur suddenly changed his attitude toward Japan when no other nations were around after the signing ceremony of “the instrument of surrender”, which some Japanese scholars defined as “a ceasefire agreement”.  

 

MacArthur told Japan that U.S. would flagrantly execute the most severe and merciless occupation, thereby possibly achieving its original objective of “unconditional surrender”, forcing Japan not only to completely disarm Japan but also to deprive of her mind nurtured based on the long-preserved tradition and culture.

 

MacArthur assumed that U.S. would achieve complete disarmament of Japan as she would most probably execute her obligations prescribed in the Potsdam Declaration but nothing would prevent her from maintaining her mental strength against the white-ruled nations.

 

Since U.S. had to carry out its original plan called “Orange Plan”, under which U.S. would transform Japan into the state completely harmless to the white-ruled nations, U.S. altered its schedule of executing the Orange Plan, delaying some of its planned activities such as the abolishment of “Yasukuni Shrine”.