Under the close scrutiny of an omnipotent police state, the Japanese people offered no organized resistance during the war, and precious little public dissent of any kind. Indeed, they gave signs of continued support for the war and its aims. Since the nation’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the great mass of Japanese had grown accustomed to war as a natural and quasi-permanent condition. Many did not think it strange or immoral to conquer and subjugate foreigners, and they took hotblooded pride in the overseas triumphs of their military forces. But by the late summer of 1944, they were
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