Emperor Hirohito Quote

Hirohito (29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989), posthumously honored as Emperor Shōwa, was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigning emperor as well as one of the world's longest-reigning monarchs. As emperor during the Shōwa era, Hirohito oversaw the rise of Japanese militarism, Japan's expansionism in Asia, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, and the postwar Japanese economic miracle.
Hirohito was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Meiji, as the first child of the Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako (later Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei). When Emperor Meiji died in 1912, Hirohito's father ascended the throne, and Hirohito was proclaimed crown prince and heir apparent in 1916. In 1921, he made an official visit to Great Britain and Western Europe, marking the first time a Japanese crown prince traveled abroad. Owing to his father's ill health, Hirohito became his regent that year. In 1924, Hirohito married Princess Nagako Kuni, and they had seven children. He became emperor upon his father's death in 1926.
As Japan's head of state, Emperor Hirohito presided over the rise of militarism in Japanese politics. In 1931, he made no objection when Japan's Kwantung Army staged the Mukden incident as a pretext for its invasion of Manchuria. Following the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, tensions steadily grew between Japan and the United States. Once Hirohito formally sanctioned his government's decision to go to war against the U.S. and its allies on 1 December 1941, the Pacific War began one week later with a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as well as on other U.S. and British colonies in the region. After atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and the Soviet Union invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Hirohito called upon his country's forces to surrender in a radio broadcast on 15 August 1945. The extent of his involvement in military decision-making and wartime culpability remain subjects of historical debate.
Following the surrender of Japan, Emperor Hirohito was not prosecuted for war crimes at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal even though the Japanese had waged war in his name. The head of the Allied occupation of the country, Douglas MacArthur, believed that a cooperative emperor would facilitate a peaceful occupation and other U.S. postwar objectives. MacArthur therefore excluded any evidence from the tribunal which could have incriminated Hirohito or other members of the royal family. In 1946, Hirohito was pressured by the Allies into renouncing his divinity. Under Japan's new constitution drafted by U.S. officials, his role as emperor was redefined in 1947 as "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people". Upon his death in January 1989, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Akihito.