End of the War in Asia

On l4 August 1945, the emperor of Japan broke the deadlock of his beleaguered Supreme Council and Cabinet:.., for the happiness of our nation and people, and to save millions of lives, we must endure the unendurable, bear the unbearable... The Second World War was at an end. But for many Japanese in China, Burma, Korea and other parts of Japan\'s far-flung empire, all was not over. This book vividly describes the impact of the surrender on the Japanese forces overseas, their reactions to the imperial summons to lay down their arms, and the effect their surrender had on the peoples whose territory they occupied. It shows how countries which Japan had conquered, or forced to collaborate, dealt with the problem of stripping themselves of the Japanese connection and assumed the burden of their independence. Out of this uneasy peace was born the present political condition of east and south-east Asia; and much of what has happened since then-the tragic conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, the struggle for Indian independence, the Chinese revolution, the Russian presence in Asia during the Cold War and after-is here foreshadowed and illuminated. Louis Allen has written a book about men and their influence on events: the negotiations, disagreements, the individual ambitions and idiosyncrasies which determine history. He has attempted-for the first time in English-to see events as the Japanese saw them, through extended personal narratives and occasional curious sidelights; in doing so he has brought a crucial era to life.