What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story, broadcast on October 15, 1944, traces the rise of the Kwantung Army, Japan's elite land force, and its leaders' growing control over Japan's government and policy. It follows the army's role in seizing Manchuria, establishing a puppet government there, and staging incidents that drew Japan into war with China and tested Russia's position along the Amur River. Colonel Doihara, Colonel Hashimoto, Itagaki and Nishio appear as key figures, along with the Chinese official Mr. Ying, who is pressed to cooperate. The story moves through Hashimoto's attack on the American gunboat Panay, Itagaki's rise and promotion, the anti-Comintern pact, the Nazi-Soviet pact, and the eventual elevation of Tojo to premier. The episode closes by noting that Koiso succeeded Tojo.
Japan, Manchuria, and China, from the 1930s through the early 1940s, including the Amur River border with the Soviet Union, the Yangtze River at Nanking, and Tokyo.
Characters: Kuniyaki Kwantung Army, Colonel Kenji Doihara, Mr. Ying, Colonel Hashimoto, Colonel Itagaki, General Nishio, Tojo, General Tsugiyama
Listen for: The story of how the Kwantung Army came to control Japanese policy, and the fates of the officers who carried out its plans.
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.