I just watched this video last night. I think it's the first time I ever watched it. It was fairly commensurate with what I've seen or read in other documentaries and books, with one exception; the actual detonation of a nuclear device. The first question I found myself wrestling with was if I believed it or not. All the sources I had seen or read suggested that the Japanese were years behind the U.S. in the research and developement of The Bomb. Nothing I had previously heard suggested that the Japanese were capable (at that time) of anything more than a "dirty" bomb or device.
Essentially, it all boiled down to the newly disclosed document and the interrogations of a lone intelligence officer. I got the impression that, although the document has resurfaced (allegedly) after all these years, no one accounted it as proof that a detonation had occurred or was capable of occurring strictly on the strength of the document's contents. For me, that left the sole proof in the hands of the intelligence officer. That also posed another question for me.
Did I believe the interrogator? Yes.
Did I believe the Intelligence Officer? This one was a little harder for me and this documentary provided some of the clues that I considered in my equation. One of those clues was the lead physicist who was so distraught at losing face to the Allies (
who completed the bomb first), he wanted himself and his colleagues to commit seppuku. Like the Bushido code, or individual warrior spirit, "saving face" was deeply imbued into Japanese culture. So much so, that the Japanese would fabricate stories about their accomplishments. This might very well account for a single, solitary, witness who was the only person thus far claiming to have witnessed a successful Japanese nuclear detonation.
At the same time, this doesn't preclude the possibility that one occurred, it's simply not enough evidence to raise anything more than speculation in my mind.
I think it's fair to say that the news of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki spread rather quickly throughout the Japanese Empire considering the communications channels of the era. This
might explain both the (possible) fabrication of a story implying that the Japanese were equally capable of such a weapon, but it also raises the question of how an atomic detonation (or explosion) could remain so secret after all these years. Yes, I believe the Japanese completed a crude cyclotron but this is not proof of a successful detonation.
I'm also taking into account that, despite having spies keeping timely accounts of U.S. developements and advances in creating an Atomic Bomb for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, it took the Soviet Union until August 29, 1949 to detonate their first nuclear device, and this after starting their program in 1942.
Oh well, anyway, I thought it was a very intriguing video. I'm surprised that I don't recall seeing it before.
The jury is still deliberating this one in my mind.