Japanese and Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima?

MacArthur did not disrupt the Japanese concept of nation in the manner that Germany was overhauled after WW2. The civilians knew mostly that the US had bombed them brutally, they surrendered, food was very scarce for a while, and then the economy revived.

Japan had been at war one place or another since about 1930. At home the people got no uncensored world news. So hostilities with the US was just another fight somewhere.

Returning soldiers and sailors had little to tell, they had spent the war cut off from any news. They fought, things started well and went bad, they were told to surrender, they were just following orders.

Pearl Harbor was a distant battle. But Hiroshima was right there, visible, unique, and symbolic.

The bombings of Tokyo killed more but each blast was comprehensible. An atomic explosion defied the mind.