On the night of August 14-15, 1945, Japanese Army officers stormed the Imperial Palace, killed a senior general, forged military orders, and searched desperately for the recordings of Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech — determined to destroy them and continue the war. They failed. At noon on August 15, Japan surrendered. This episode of Sidequests covers Japan's last days: the political deadlock that persisted even after Hiroshima, Soviet entry into the war, and Nagasaki; the emperor's unprecedented personal intervention to break it; and the attempted coup that reveals just how contested the surrender actually was — and what all of it tells us about the enduring debate over whether the atomic bombs were necessary to end World War Two.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}