Wednesday 7 December

On 7th December 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States' Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was to bring the US into the Second World War, after more than two years at the sidelines of the conflict. This move signalled the beginning of the end for the Japanese Empire: one of its leaders observed that we have wakened a giant. Three years and eight months later, an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and another one on Nagasaki prompted the surrender of Japan. The war in the Pacific was brutal, and indescribably atrocities were visited upon those under Japanese occupation, not to mention upon any prisoners, or prisoners of war.

The Japanese emperor was stripped of his status as a deity in exchange for not having to face war crimes charges. Japan has never apologised, for whatever good that would have done, for its actions during WW2; and its neighbours, like Korea and China, still regard the land of the Rising Sun with suspicion.