Shusen Shiroku. [Documents of the Termination of the War].

Tokyo: Shinbun Gekkansha, Showa 27 [1952]. First edition. 4to, variously paginated, numerous illustrations from photographs & facsimiles. Publisher's tan cloth backed in gilt-lettered brown pigskin. Text mostly in Japanese.

Small loss at the top of the spine, binding lightly soiled & rubbed, corners bumped, previous owner's name & chop at rear blank page, good or better.

A massive volume of over a thousand pages compiled by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is a compendium of mostly Japanese documents relating to the Pacific War. Special attention is focused on the final months, focusing on peace feelers in May, 1945 through Moscow, the Battle of Okinawa, the demand for "unconditional surrender," the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the final fateful War Council in the Imperial Presence in which the Emperor spoke for peace, and the decision to have the Emperor announce the surrender on radio to his subjects. The work is organized into 60 sections beginning with war plans and the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 to the arrival of General MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Tokyo Bay on the U.S.S. Missouri to officiate at the surrender ceromony on September 2, 1945. Changes in war leadership and cabinets, as well as in war policy, political, diplomatic, social, and economic conditions are covered in intervening sections.