National Archives of Japan, 2025, “International Archives Week” Commemorative Lectures: Talk Synopsis

Recording the “End of the War”

*This document is a synopsis of the talk delivered by Japan Center for Asian Historical Records Director-General Dr. Hatano Sumio for the “International Archives Week” Commemorative Lectures held by the National Archives of Japan on June 12, 2025.

Dr. Sumio Hatano, Director-General, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records

Introduction

A variety of events have been planned to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. However, in this talk, I want to extend that span from 80 to 100 years to think about what it means to “record the end of the war.” Unlike Germany, Japan avoided seeing its government being broken up and ceasing to exist. In light of this, I want to offer my personal thoughts focusing on three items from the perspective of what events Japan as a nation (government) should set down for posterity to be passed down to future generations.

The first is the matter of recording the process through which Japan’s highest government and military leaders finally decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration on August 14, 1945.

The second is the fact that the end of the war for Japan meant surrendering to the Allied powers and simultaneously dismantling the colonial empire.

The third is the matter of directly confronting around the time of Japan’s defeat an event unseen since the opening of the country, namely, veritable “sufferings of public records.” The experience of public records, whether national or regional, held by military and government organizations being dispersed or burned or seized and then returned by the Allied powers—those realities certainly comprise an event worth recording.

However inadequate this might be, I want to give some thought to the foregoing three items.

 

1.Silence and Heated Debate Among Government and Military Leaders: Discord Over “Preserv[ing] the Kokutai [national polity]”

Immediately after the war, the writer Shiga Naoya wrote the following in essay titled “Suzuki Kantarō.”

“We were aboard a raggedy ship that looked like it was about to sink. The military told us to ride it out to sea. Suzuki set it with only its bow pointed out to sea and unexpectedly put the ship in the harbor that was the end of the war . . .”

While I believe that this passage, perhaps, most clearly expresses how the general public perceived the event that was “the end of the war,” what is particularly important is the word “unexpectedly” (fui ni). That is to say, from the announcement of the Potsdam Declaration on July 26 that served as the U.S., Britain, and China’s demand for Japan’s surrender to the broadcast of the emperor’s announcement of that surrender on August 15, the Japanese people were told virtually nothing about what was being talked about among the highest government and military leaders and what the issues were. Without a doubt, the end of the war came “unexpectedly.”

 

Two Weeks of “Silence”

The Supreme Council for the Direction of the War was established in 1944 at the time of the Koiso Kuniaki Cabinet. When the Suzuki Kantarō Cabinet was formed in April 1945, a deliberative body in the form of a regular members-only meeting of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War was established. Restricted to the six regular members of the Council, these meetings would be held as the occasion demanded over important matters such as the end of the war and peace. The six were Prime Minister Suzuki Kantarō, Foreign Minister Tōgō Shigenori, Army Minister Anami Korechika, Navy Minister Yonai Mitsumasa, Chief of the Army General Staff Umezu Yoshijirō, and Chief of the Naval General Staff Toyoda Soemu.

Because full meetings of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War up to that point had also included secretaries (vice ministers, vice chiefs, etc.), leaks of the content of the proceedings to the outside world were frequent. To prevent this, the meetings were restricted to these six men, excluding secretaries and other assistants. This gathering is sometimes referred to as the “Roku Kyotō Kaidan,” or the “Big Six Conference.”

The Big Six met frequently from July 26 onward over whether to accept the Potsdam Declaration. However, it is not at all clear what was specifically discussed in their meetings about significant events that would control Japan’s fate—the “Mokusatsu” (No comment) statement, the dropping of the atomic bombs, the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, the first imperial decision (acceptance on the condition that the national polity be preserved), the Byrnes Note in response, the second imperial decision, the coup d’état plan, the drafting of the imperial rescript to end the war, and the emperor’s broadcast announcing Japan’s surrender—because, in fact, no records such as meeting minutes exist. However, after the war there would be numerous materials such as reflections and personal accounts from meeting participants who looked back on the discussions. Aside from the Big Six talks, there were other meetings that also frequently took place in parallel, including for example Cabinet meetings held to make formal national policy decisions and furthermore informal Cabinet discussions. In addition, more than 20 people attended meetings of the Imperial Conference under the emperor.

When we pull the personal accounts and recollections of these participants together, we can get a general sense of the flow of talks among the Big Six. If we broadly break that flow up into two parts, the period from July 27 to August 8 may be termed as “silence.”

At the time, Japan pinned its hopes reaching a peace with the U.S. and Great Britain through the mediation of the Soviet Union as a neutral country and called on the latter through diplomatic channels. They had faint hopes that, through the Soviet Union’s mediation, they might be able to make peace on somewhat favorable terms or at the very least be able to avoid an unconditional surrender. Because the Soviet Union had not joined in the Potsdam Declaration of the U.S., Great Britain, and China (this made sense since the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan), they waited steadfastly for the Soviet response. Accordingly, the debate in the Bix Six talks did not run deep at all.

 

One Week of “Heated Debate” (Gekiron)

Then, just before dawn on August 9, the Red Army’s invasion of Manchuria began and the possibility of Soviet mediation disappeared. When this happened, fierce arguments unfolded even in spaces outside of the discussions among the Big Six. Now, the issues at hand included several questions: What surrender conditions should be asked of the Allied powers in order to preserve the kokutai? Would just asking for the one condition of preserving the kokutai be enough? Might not the kokutai itself be jeopardized if Japan did not also ask for such conditions as voluntary disarmament and avoid a guarantee occupation? In short, in contrast to what had gone before, a heated debate arose from August 9 to August 14 over preserving the kokutai.

However, when it comes to the substance of this “heated debate,” what gets exclusive emphasis are the heated arguments between Foreign Minister Tōgō and Army Minister Anami. Tōgō left behind a detailed personal account, and so this is to a considerable degree influenced by that. On the other hand, what the other leaders said is extremely unclear, and more than a few of their testimonies are mutually contradictory. Assessments differ even among scholars.

For example, it is well-known hearsay that the emperor, speaking at the final Imperial Conference on August 14, said, “No matter what happens to me, I want to save the lives of my people. At this time, I will do whatever I can. I will even stand before the microphone.” However, many writings about the end of the war disavow this, saying such a statement was inconceivable and never happened.

Yet, Oikawa Shōichi rejects this disavowal in his work Shūsen shōsho to Nihon seiji [The imperial rescript on the end of the war and Japanese politics], which was based on such materials as the writings of Sakomizu Hisatsune, who was Chief Cabinet Secretary, and interviews with Hoshina Zenshirō, who at the time was chief of the Navy Ministry’s Military Affairs Bureau. He argues that, when the phrase “I will even stand before the microphone” is read with the phrase that preceded it, which was “Regardless of what becomes of me,” they confirm that this was a statement meant to let those in attendance know of the emperor’s own firm resolve.

While we are at it, when touching on the factors that led to the end of the war, the emphasis has been on external pressure, whether it be the atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war, or both. However, the view has been expressed more recently that the emperor, the Imperial Court, and senior statesmen had been informed about the inadequacies in the system for defending the Japanese mainland, and, at the very least, when it came to the emperor’s decision, this may have been the main factor that spurred it. The “sudden external pressure” of the atomic bombings or the Soviet entry into the conflict were used as pretexts for ending the war.

Incidentally, Prime Minister Suzuki had made frequent use of radio broadcasts to appeal to the people. In his final broadcast delivered at 7 p.m. on August 15 and titled, “Faithful Observance of the Imperial Rescript,” he looked back on the life and death struggle between the Japanese and U.S. militaries on the Pacific front since the fall of Saipan and stressed the “invention of the revolutionary atomic bomb” as the cause for Japan’s defeat.

 

2.The Loss of “Overseas Territories”: The Breakup of the Occupied Territories and Colonies

“Our Great Empire of Japan is located in the eastern part of the Asian continent and is comprised of the Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula. . . . Our total number of people is around 100 million. The majority are of the Yamato race, but there are also around 23 million Koreans in Korea, around 5 million ethnic Chinese in Taiwan, and 100,000-plus native aboriginals [sic., dojin]. There are also a small number of Ainu in Hokkaido, and a small number of Ainu and other aboriginals in Karafuto [Sakhalin]. The number of members of the Yamato race that have emigrated to other countries is around one million.”

This is part of the description of “Imperial territories” as depicted in a prewar elementary school geography textbook (Jinjō shōgaku chirisho) from 1938.

Japan’s defeat by the Allied powers also meant the breakup of its colonial empire. The colonies and occupied territories referred to at the time as “overseas territories”—Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and Karafuto (during the war, it was included in as a “home territory”)—were all lost in a single stroke thanks to the defeat.

The inhabitants of the “overseas territories” were assigned the status of “Japanese subjects” and played a role of giving major support in terms of labor and logistics to Japan’s total war regime. Their numbers amounted to some 30 percent of the roughly 100 million total number of Japanese (“Imperial subjects”). There were also more than 200,000 Koreans and Taiwanese who went to the battlefield as “Japanese soldiers.” Even in the plan for the decisive battle on the mainland at the end of the war, it was expected that Korea, Taiwan, and Karafuto would engage in all-out resistance just like the mainland when the enemy attacked.

The way that Japan’s colonies and occupied territories were ruled differed from those of Europe. They were governed “annexation-style,” which pushed the political, economic, and social integration of the neighboring Asian region under a single power (Japan). In particular, the reciprocal “movements of people” among Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria were frequent, and their economics were deeply blended together to form a single, quasi “national economic bloc.”

The break of the colonial empire that occurred with defeat thus all the more delivered a major shock to the “Japanese subjects” of the overseas territories. Koreans and Taiwanese would lose their Japanese nationality and tread through a postwar period of hardship that differed from what Japanese experienced.

Memories of this “multi-ethnic nation” whose population included more than 30% of its peoples from different ethnic groups are growing more distant along with those of defeat, but it strikes me that this is a history of the nation that should not be forgotten.

 

3.The “Sufferings of Public Records”: Evacuation and Burning, Seizure and Return

It is well-known that, around the end of the war, a large number of public records were destroyed or burned at central government institutions and local governments, but the true state of this is still not yet fully grasped. Here, I will discuss this briefly based on the state of previous studies and research with a focus mainly on diplomatic and military documents, including those documents that were evacuated, or confiscated and then returned by the Occupation forces.

 

①Document Evacuation

The evacuation of Army and Navy documents began in December 1944, when the air raids intensified. The Army is known to have evacuated such permanent records as the Dai-Nikki rui (“Great daily record,” i.e., the document files of the Army Ministry) to the Army Ministry’s underground warehouse in Minami-Tama District, Tokyo, while the Navy evacuated its own permanent records such as the Kōbun bikō (“Notes of official papers,” i.e., the document files of the Navy Ministry) to the Navy Ministry’s Nirasaki Annex in Kitakoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture.

Meanwhile, even earlier than the Army and Navy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs transported the original copies of various treaties to the underground warehouse of the main branch of the Bank of Japan in February 1944 on the grounds that it was “of vital importance that these be preserved safely during the present conflict.” That April, it shipped 30,000 volumes of important documents to the warehouse at the Satte Branch of Saitama Bank in Saitama Prefecture and also to a privately owned warehouse in Saitama District. Furthermore, the Foreign Ministry building was completely destroyed by fire in the air raid of May 25, 1945, incinerating 20,000 volumes of documents and 30,000 books.

 

②Burning and Disposal

It was decided at a Cabinet meeting held August 14, 1945, that classified documents would be destroyed, and the systematic burning of documents was to be carried out at every ministry and agency. In the case of the Army, the Army Minister that same day ordered all Army units to promptly burn all classified documents. It was the same in the case of the Navy.

In terms of what was to be burned, priority was given to such items as records from which national power could be determined and materials related to foreign affairs and counter-espionage. Documents related to personnel matters such as muster rolls and lists of the names of civil servants were left behind. On the other hand, the Army had been thoroughgoing in its management of documents since the Satsuma Rebellion. As part of this, it had set down a specific regulation on the handling of classified documents. This regulation stipulated that it would adopt “emergency measures in times of crisis” to prevent the leak of classified documents such as operations, tactics, mobilizations, and codes. It is also important that many of the burn orders for classified documents at the end of war were issued as an extensions of this emergency measures stipulation.

Units in overseas territories were ordered to destroy or burn those public and private records that they could not transport under their own power to prevent their being seized by the enemy. Furthermore, they were also ordered to burn documents related to prisoners of war, national power, and public order on the grounds that it would be damaging if they fell into enemy hands.

That said, we also know of an instance where a general affairs officer in the Army Ministry’s Military Affairs Bureau secretly preserved some documents rather than burn them. These include valuable precious documents that have been extremely important to postwar historical research, including such items as Kimitsu sensō nisshi [Secret war diary], Daihon’ei seifu renraku kaigi gijiroku [Minutes of the Imperial General Headquarters-Government liaison conference], Jūyō kokusaku kettei tsuzuri [Collected important national policy decisions], and Gozen Kaigi gijiroku [Imperial Conference minutes].

Meanwhile, on August 7, 1945, the Foreign Ministry laid down the “Gaimushō bunsho shori hōshin” [Ministry of Foreign Affairs policy on the handling of documents]. Under it, the “emergency incineration” of important documents was carried out for the specific reason that “the viewing of the contents within [these] recorded documents by entrusting them to a third party should be prevented.”

The number of Foreign Ministry records that remained (in terms of file collections) as of February 1948 stood at 48,000 volumes; thus, 28,000 of the 76,000 volumes that had been on hand at the end of the war were lost either due to wartime damage or emergency incinerations.

 

③Seizure and Return: Documents That Still Have Yet to Be Returned

Led mainly by the Washington Document Center (WDC), over 1945 and 1946, a large-scale seizure of Japanese documents took place. It is said that some 450,000 records and printed materials related to military affairs were confiscated and shipped to the United States. In file collection terms, 41,000 volumes of Army and Navy documents were seized in all.

Seized Army, Navy, Foreign Ministry, and other documents were returned in batches in 1958 and 1974 through diplomatic negotiations. However, 46% of the Foreign Ministry documents and 41% of the Army’s “Great daily record” have yet to be returned. Furthermore, according to the then-Defense Agency’s Military History Office in 1974, some 5% to 6% of seized records related to “the Greater East Asia War” remained unreturned.

According to investigations conducted by Tanaka Hiromi, who is an expert in this matter, there are more than 400,000 unreturned items in the United States at present.

 

④The Situation in the Provinces

Among local government institutions such as prefectural offices and town offices, it was mainly military and policy-related items that were targeted for destruction. Quite a few local government documents escaped war damage due to having been evacuated. For example, in the case of the Hiroshima Prefectural Government Building, although that structure was destroyed by the atomic bomb, it is said that many important documents remained because they had been evacuated prior to that.

 

⑤The Situation Abroad (“Overseas Territories”)

Most documents in Soviet-occupied territories (Manchuria, Karafuto, and Kwangtung Leased Territory) were lost due to burning or looting, but we know that in Korea and Taiwan, large numbers of documents from the respective governors-general are held at local archival institutions. Furthermore, the Guomindang (Kuomintang) government seized large numbers of documents and other materials from Japanese diplomatic offices in Nanjing and Beijing, but the whereabouts of many of them are unknown.

Although I have taken up a mere fraction of the examples in this lecture, we can still see that we need to revise the view that the destruction and burning of public records around the end of the war was thoroughgoing.

From the perspective of what was targeted for destruction and what was preserved, it may be noted that priority for preservation was given to documents related to personnel matters—an area that could be termed central to Japanese administrative management—and that also, in some instances, documents were preserved with a view to compiling histories after the war. These two categories seem to suggest many things when it comes to talking about “the form of the nation” of Japan.

 

Conclusion

In the course of modern Japan’s history, the three events that I have introduced here are not ones to be regarded as unprecedented, “unique experiences.” Rather, they may be thought of as valuable experiences that future generations should continue to be told about as lessons to be applied to managing government and administration in the times of crisis that sooner or later they will have to confront. “Accountability” to the future, which Japan’s governmental institutions are seen as lacking, will be put to the test precisely in crises.

 

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