Papers That Pushed The Pacific War Found In Safe

Above, the Hario Wireless Towers near Sasebo City.  It is said that the message to the Japanese
fleet giving the go-ahead for the December 12, 1941 attack on Pear Harbor, Hawaii was transmitted
from these towers.  One of them is now open to tours.  Photo by Armand Vaquer.

This is interesting. Papers that pushed for the Pacific War have been found in a safe.

According to The Japan Times:

The key was lost and the safe remained locked for 22 years after the 1989 death of its owner, former Lt. Gen. Teiichi Suzuki of the Imperial Japanese Army, who had been the last surviving Class-A war criminal of World War II. 

Suzuki, who died at the age of 100 in Shibayama, Chiba Prefecture, was among key Cabinet members when Japan started the Pacific War with the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Two years ago, Suzuki’s relatives had NHK open the safe. Inside were diaries, notebooks and other documents, including a 16-page typed manuscript that the general had read out in front of Emperor Hirohito and national leaders at an Imperial Conference on Nov. 5, 1941, to detail Japan’s logistical strengths. 

Suzuki, who headed the Planning Board, a government body in charge of allocating resources for the army, navy and civilians, concluded that Japan, which was already at war in China, would be able to still wage war against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.

The contents were known, but the manuscript that was used in the Imperial Conference is a new discovery.

Above, U.S. sailors pose in front of the Nijubashi Bridge at
 the Imperial Palace in 1945 during the occupation of Japan.

To read the full article, go here.