Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1945 SCREWING UP THEIR COURAGE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 12 June 1945, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1945 SCREWING UP THEIR COURAGE

ADMIRAL Suzuki’s speech to the Japanese Diet is a somewhat pale imitation o’f Hitler’s whinings and threetenings when he was at bay anjl knew it. The sacred person of the Son of Heaven has temporarily divested himself of some of mis divine isolation to take the almost unprecedented step of opening the Japanese Parliament in person and, if his Prime Minister is to be believed, it is remarkable how deeply concerned Emperor Hirohito has become over world peace. Hitler had the same kind of remorseful reaction when ruin stared him in the face; he complained bitterly of the harsh methods employed by his enemies and vowed that there would never be any unconditional surrender. The bitter pill of progressive Allied supremacy is having a similar effect on the stomachs of the Japanese war lords; In a rescript to a Bill asking for almost complete power over production and transport the Mhkado transforms a blatant act of aggression into a holy war. The aged Suzuki charges Britain and the United States with brutal and inhuman acts which have spiked Japan’s design to “follow out a national policy based on justice and righteousness.” Therefore she must fight on to the last “to uphold the principle of human justice.” The Prime Minister twice repeated the “fight on” part, as if to reassure himself. Encompassed as they are by the forces of retribution; and with Allied air power reducing their great cities to rubble and ash-heaps, the Japanese will not find it difficult to imagine themselves in Germany’s shoes when, she was at this stage of defeat. The prospect is anything but reassuring since the undivided might of United Nations—minus Russia—will soon be marshalled against her. Had the. war lords looked far enough ahead they would not have missed the salient fact of history; that, once a nation submits its destiny to the grim, arbitrament of war; then decision will generally issue only from the contest of arms. Unconditional surrender terms rule out the possibility of an alternative outcome. That is not td say, however, that the Japanese may not fight fanatically until the whole nation is in extremis. The desperation of the “suicide” airmen can be expected to be paralleled on land by special squads of men and Japanese amazons fighting from their homes and in the streets. Very few prisoners have been taken on Okinawa. To the Japanese the exhortation of “fight to the death” has a literal significance hot found in the language and code of most other nations. The expressed intention of crushing Ihe invaders of the homeland by concentrating great armies

is a salutary reminder that only the fringe of Japanese manpower has been touched so far in the island campaigns and the war in China and Burma. Whether the Imperial army can match numbers with modern armbur and equipment has yet to be discovered. Okinawa has produced some of the most torrid struggles of this war. The Philippines campaign has been no walk-over and is not yet ended. Wherever the Allies go from there Japanese fanaticism will be found on its mettle. The consoling fact is that it has no hope of resisting indefinitely the mobilised AngloAmerican might which will be systematically thrown in. The tone of the Japanese leaders shows that they realise there is no escape from the inevitable.