5. Japan’s Surrender Left Many Japanese Soldiers Confused
When Japan threw in the towel in 1945, millions of Japanese military personnel were spread across East Asia and the Pacific. Most overcame the shock of defeat and duly obeyed the orders to surrender, broadcast by their emperor and relayed through their superiors. However, a minority did not. Their motives varied. Some had been cut off from communications with their chain of command, and so never received notice that the war was over and that they should surrender to Allied military personnel.
Others received the orders to surrender but did not trust their veracity because they had been strongly indoctrinated with their military’s bushido-based ethos. The duty to fight to the death and avoid the ignominy and dishonor of surrender had been drilled into them so often by their leaders, that it was inconceivable that those same leaders had actually gone ahead and accepted the ignominy and dishonor of surrender. That being so, it followed that the orders instructing them to surrender could not have possibly come from their government, but were an enemy trick or ruse of war.
