Japan’s war surrender speech released
Print Edition
The 4 minute 30 second speech that has reverberated throughout Japan’s modern history since it was delivered by Emperor Hirohito at the end of World War II has come back to life in digital form.
Hirohito’s “jewel voice” — muffled and nearly inaudible due to poor sound quality — was broadcast on August 15, 1945, announcing Japan’s surrender.
On Saturday, the Imperial Household Agency released the digital version of the original sound ahead of the 70th anniversary of the speech and the war’s end. In it, the emperor’s voice appears clearer, slightly higher and more intense, but, Japanese today would have trouble understanding the arcane language used by Hirohito.
“The language was extremely difficult,” said Tomie Kondo, 92, who listened to the 1945 broadcast in a monitoring room at public broadcaster NHK, where she worked as a newscaster. “It’s well written if you read it, but I’m afraid not many people understood what he said.”
“Poor reception and sound quality of the radio made it even worse,” she said. “I heard some people even thought they were supposed to fight even more. I think the speech would be incomprehensible to young people today.”
Every Japanese knows a part of the speech where Hirohito refers to his resolve for peace by “enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable,” a phrase repeatedly used in news and dramas about the war.
When people heard that part 70 years ago, they understood the situation, Kondo says. But the rest is little known, largely because the text Hirohito read was deliberately written in arcane language making him sound authoritative.
Amid growing concern among many Japanese over nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to expand Japan’s military role, the current Emperor Akihito is increasingly seen as liberal and pacifist, and the effort by his father, Hirohito, to end the war has captured national attention.
Hirohito expresses “the deepest sense of regret” to Asian countries that cooperated with Japan to gain “emancipation” from Western colonization.
Japan itself colonized the Korean Peninsula and brutally occupied parts of China, before and during World War II.
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