1945.08.03 “ ‘His Majesty’s Shield’ - Domei”
by Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
14 x 22 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection
Ralph Lee was an editorial cartoonist for the Portland Oregonian. He died suddenly, at 41, in January 1947. His cousin, Art Bimrose, was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. Following Lee’s death, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist.
This date lands in the final days of WW2 in the Pacific, and it is a poignant moment, just three days before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (August 6) and five days before the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan (August 8). Japan had not yet surrendered, but its defeat was increasingly inevitable.
By August 3, Japan’s cities had been devastated by months of conventional firebombing, the US had issued the Potsdam Declaration (July 26), demanding unconditional surrender, and frustration with Japanese militarism and the use of the Emperor as a political shield was peaking.
Tojo, on behalf of the imperium, is wielding the press (Domei) for propaganda and using civilians as a buffer, both physically (to delay Allied invasion or bombing) and morally (to claim victimhood or righteousness).
The cartoon highlights that the Japanese people (elderly, women, children) are already suffering gravely from a leadership unwilling to surrender. On August 3, many in the US believed that Japan might not surrender for months or even years, and an invasion of the home islands would cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
“Enough. The only thing standing between peace and continued suffering is Japan’s refusal to surrender… and those making that decision are hiding behind the very people they’re supposed to protect.”
