What happened to the Japanese SOLDIERS after WWII?

On August 15 1945 all the radio stations in Japan broadcast a message from Emperor Hirohito in unison the entire nation awaited those words with impatience and feared what they might come to mean days before the United States had bombarded the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons leaving hundreds of thousands dead and an unimaginable level of Destruction now the future of the country was at stake and if the emperor announced that the fighting would continue the population was aware that the Americans

would devastate them in a matter of hours however hero Vito’s announcement was forceful and said the following the war has lasted for almost four years and despite the fact that we have all done our best the situation has progressed to leave us at a disadvantage the tides of the world have turned against Japan on the other hand the enemy has used a new and cruel bomb with an incalculable power of damage which has claimed many innocent lives if we continue to fight the result will be not only the collapse of our nation

but also the extinction of the human race thank you in this way the emperor announced the unconditional surrender of the Japanese country the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had been mobilized could now leave their weapons behind and return to their homes however what these men did not know was that their life after the war would be a true hell don’t move from your screen because in this new episode of military history we’ll tell you everything about the fate of Japanese veterans after World War II are you ready

let’s begin the war between Japan and the Allies lasted three years and eight months a period of time during which the Pacific Ocean was stained with blood and the horrors of War shook the Asian continent in August 1945 after contemplating the power of nuclear bombs the emperor announced Japan’s capitulation over the radio although the message did not reach all soldiers immediately many were mobilized across Asia surrounded by their enemies and with little chance of communication with higher command the initial reaction to Monarch

hirohito’s message was ambiguous as some veterans recall in their memoirs on the one hand they were disappointed that they had failed despite all their efforts but at the same time they were relieved that the massacre would no longer continue by then with Hitler and Mussolini dead and Germany and Italy out of the picture going on with the fight would have been suicidal between 1945 and 1952 Japan was occupied by the Americans who administered the Japanese Nation as if it were a colony and placed a puppet government at the

Helm of the state the soldiers who returned home found a country that was no longer the same completely changed starting with the fact that it was no longer independent Imperial propaganda had taught them that there was nothing more dishonorable than defeat and that a true man must either die on the field of battle or take his own life before surrendering for this reason many soldiers hid from their families the fact that they had been taken prisoner by the allies during the war Japanese veterans were generally

regarded by the civilian population not as Heroes but as outcasts as cowards who had not done enough to ensure the glory of the empire they were not even treated well by the government which housed them in Barracks located in the port areas before sending them back to their homes as they suffered from cold and hunger the authorities forced them to hand over the foreign money they had obtained in the war and in return they were given Yen the then highly devalued Japanese national currency finally they were given food rations a

train ticket and were allowed to go back to their hometowns or villages a good part of the veterans were disabled by War wounds many lost arms or legs or suffered irreversible disfiguring injuries added to this was the fact that the psychological damage caused them traumas that would accompany them for the rest of their lives for a man there was nothing more terrifying than watching his comrades get mowed down by enemy bullets or artillery fire and having to leave them helpless on the ground the ex-solders had great difficulty

getting jobs though the Government tried to remedy this by employing them as builders on state works with the goal of restoring war-torn Japan however not all Japanese were able to return to their homes immediately those who were fighting in Manchuria were taken prisoner by the Soviet Union Army and sent to concentration camps or a harsh life awaited them Stalin ordered that they be stripped of all their possessions and left with nothing but their uniforms they were then put on trains and sent to detention centers in the cold region of

Siberia there the veterans soon forgot what heat was and the cruel Russian winter claimed the lives of hundreds of men since there was no means of heating the prisoners had to sleep on top of each other if they wanted to escape hypothermia it was not long before Stalin decided that the ex-japanese soldiers should pay for the damage and destruction caused he turned them into forced laborers and had them repair Bridges pave roads work in factory jobs or work as lumberjacks the only thing that mattered was that they collaborated with the material

reconstruction of the Soviet Union although the Japanese authorities negotiated the return of the prisoners they were not always successful in the cases in which they were released and returned to Japan these men were inserted into industrial or agricultural activity although as we said before their new lies were anything but easy meanwhile in Japan the trials of the military leaders responsible for administering the war were carried out this was a condition imposed by the Americans and 28 important officers were

arrested and taken to the witness stand where they had to testify for war crimes committed by the army one of them was the former Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo who upon learning that he would be arrested preferred to point a gun to his heart and shoot however the suicide attempt failed and Tojo survived after being saved by American medics in the trials that followed over the next few years Emperor Hirohito evaded all responsibility for the war and his reputation was relatively safe the full weight of the war failure fell

on his officers among them Hideki Tojo who was sentenced to death by hanging on December 23 1948 his request to be shot as befitted him by his military rank was ignored and he was executed as a common Criminal the same fate awaited six other Japanese leaders while the rest were sent to prison with the end of the Tokyo trials Japan entered a new phase in its history although it carried a terrible past behind it the war had ended in disaster the country was in Ruins and there were hundreds of thousands of War veterans

whose sacrifice was reviled by the population and the government as we can see the Japanese Nation had a serious challenge ahead we’ve reached the end of the video and we want to ask you do you think Japanese War veterans were treated fairly bus your answer in the comment box below and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to learn about many more military events that left their mark on history thank you