Richard B. Finn

The Japanese people heard the voice of their emperor for the first time when he broadcast to the nation on August 15. Despite the stilted court language used by the man known as Tenno to his subjects and as Hirohito to the outside world, his meaning was unmistakable. Speaking of the Allied powers’ statement at Potsdam, he said, “Our Empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration.” He did not use the word surrender. He added, perhaps optimistically, that Japan had “been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the imperial state.
The willingness of the Japanese to respond to “the voice of the crane” by abandoning a policy of militant nationalism and calmly facing an unknown and frightening future was strikingly illustrated that day. Historians debate what caused Japan to surrender, but the intervention of the emperor was crucial.