LONDON: With dust still towering over atom-bombed Nagasaki, and Admiral William Halsey’s armada of carrier-borne planes returning from yet another onslaught against the Japanese home islands, Japanese broadcasts today [Aug 10] abandoned the theme of outraged humanitarianism for threats of “atomic retribution”, says Reuter.

The Japanese-controlled Singapore Radio … said: “Japan is fully aware of the true aspects of atomic energy for military purposes. If Japan were to retaliate in kind and also employ weapons like [the] atomic bomb, she was fully determined to use them to the utmost against United States military personnel”. Japan did not intend to use such weapons “in deliberate massacre of innocent civilians”, but Allied invasion fleets, the radio hinted, could be attacked by suicide planes loaded with some atomic explosive. …

[Meanwhile, as reported from New York,] A Domei broadcast recorded by the Associated Press of America announced today [Aug 10] that the Japanese government was ready to accept the terms of the Potsdam Conference with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogative of His Majesty as sovereign ruler.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2020