What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story examines the men and institutions that drove Japan into war in the Pacific, which it calls Japan's old order. The narration profiles figures such as Sadao Araki, Kenji Doihara, Sashiro Itagaki, Tetsuzan Nishio, Goro Hashimoto and Hideki Tojo, tracing their rise through the Manchurian affairs of the 1930s and into the government and army of the early 1940s. It also describes the Privy Council and the Imperial Household Department as parts of the same system. The program draws on named statements and an interview with an admiral and an imperial household minister. It was broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company on 1945-09-30 and is presented in the program's usual narrated documentary style.
Japan, Manchuria and China in the 1930s and early 1940s, with the aftermath of Japan's surrender in 1945.
Characters: Sadao Araki, Kenji Doihara, Sashiro Itagaki, Tetsuzan Nishio, Goro Hashimoto, Hideki Tojo, Admiral Nomura, Hamaguchi
Listen for: The narrator's account of how a small group of army officers and officials shaped Japanese policy, and the description of the Privy Council and the Imperial Household Department.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.