Memories of August part-4

1st September 1945

Dear Diary.

                   The last month has been very tedious on me. As I languish in a military prison after being arrested by the Americans, I, Hideki Tojo, the former prime minister of Imperial Japan want to think about what could have been if we had won the war. We lost the war comprehensively, they used atomic bombs on us because of which we had to surrender unconditionally. We could not continue to fight after such an attack. It was an attack which finally destroyed us. But before that how well we fought. From that first day in Pearl Harbor to those last few days in Okinawa and Iwo Jima, we showed stomach and ensured that the Americans had a hard time in winning the war. 

                But now that we have lost, it is time to think about our future. We know that victors own the spoils of war and force the losers to accept their terms and conditions. We may have to change our political system, we will definitely lose our vast Empire, our soldiers will be tried for war crimes and our people will be ridiculed as losers. We may even have a constitution forced upon us by the West which will have severe restrictions on our military capabilities as the West is clever and they would ensure that we can never challenge them again.

               But one thing is for certain, it is that we have proven that it is not only the West that is valiant and brave and mighty. The East can also fight on equal terms with them and we the Asians are not people who can be so easily ridiculed by the Westerners. This should come as a big blow to the Western idea of white superiority which looks down upon Asians as an inferior race and as lands where people are addicted to opium. Now the Asians show that when it comes to war, we are just as brave as the Whites. I know that I will be tried and sentenced and killed by the Americans. I know that I will be remembered as a war criminal but I am proud of the fact that the Americans had to invent a completely new weapon to defeat us. Even after they firebombed our cities every day we did not give up. Yes we the Japanese, the residents of a tiny little island posed a challenge to the mighty and still undefeated America. I am proud of that as I am proud to be an Asian, a race which is never inferior to the whites. They may defeat us in a war but they can never kill our spirit. I know that my homeland, Japan will rise again!