Word: showa
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Hirohito stepped stiffly from his car at the Showa Electrical Co. plant near Yokohama. Past officials and workers standing at attention with Sunday smiles, he pattered like a not-quite-recuperated invalid treading on eggshells. While functionaries droned through tedious reports, Hirohito clasped and unclasped his hands, shifted from foot to foot, blinked and nodded. When it was all over, he sighed, "Ah so." Then His Majesty wandered like a scared mouse through the maze of plant wreckage. Before one of the workers, lined up to get their first imperial glimpse, he paused nervously. "How long have you been working...
General Cho had left his own epitaph: "Twenty-second day, sixth month, 20th year of Showa era. I depart without regret, fear, shame or obligation. Age on departure 51 years...
Then he buckled down, with clerklike industry, to the job of God-Emperor. As custom decreed, he chose a name for his reign. It was Showa, or Enlightened Peace. He explained his selection: "I have visited the battlefields of the World War, and in the presence of such devastation, I understand the need of concord among nations...
...Japanese, who call this era Showa ("Enlightened Peace"), the immediate prospect promised more enlightenment than peace...
...Boomtown. The target was a group of war factories in the Jap boomtown of Anshan, 53 miles south-southwest of Mukden, where the Japs began their conquest of China 13 years ago. Dominating the forest of chimneys which rose from the Manchurian plain were the stacks of the Showa Steel Works, largest in the conquered provinces, Japan's No. 2 producer of pig iron, No. 3 producer of rolled steel and steel ingots...