Word: anami
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Dates: during 1945-1945
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Died. General Korechika Anami, Army bureaucrat and War Minister in the Suzuki Cabinet; and Vice Admiral Takejiro Onishi, originator of Kamikaze ("divine wind," i.e., suicide) tactics; both by harakiri, induced by the Japanese surrender; in Tokyo...
...General Anami was a military mystic. He once called on Japan's soldiers "to defend the Imperial land even after death with your souls." When he heard the news of his son's death in battle, his only visible emotion was to crush a flower bud in his hand. He held out against surrender. Before committing harakiri, he wrote a farewell to his Emperor ("I humbly beg . . . pardon ... for my great sins") and a poem...
There is a right and a wrong way to commit harakiri. In the case of General Anami and Vice Admiral Onishi, it is presumed that they donned the usual ceremonial robes, knelt on a dais, surrounded by friends and officials. When the jeweled hara-kiri dagger had been handed to them, they would have made many bows to the Emperor. Then they would have plunged the razor-like dagger into the left side below the waist, at the same time drawing it toward the right. They would thus have fulfilled the hara-kiri command: to die with honor, when...
Last-Ditch Stand. But no news of the surrender proposal was announced to the 70 million Japanese people. Instead War Minister General Korechika Anami called for last-ditch resistance...
Deeper Darkness. Almost nothing could be clearly discerned as the darkness of Japan's darkest hour grew deeper. But there were rumors of a struggle between War Minister Anami and the diehard war lords, on one side, and an unofficial, pro-peace "Committee of 21." There were rumors that Crown Prince Akihito, 11, might succeed his father...