World War II
Kawai warned Curtin at the conclusion of the American–Japanese talks in Washington, D.C. that "the momentum may have gone too far" to prevent war, prompting Curtin to recall his War Cabinet on December 5, 1941. Kawai was kept under house arrest at the Japanese embassy at the outbreak of the Pacific War and deported to Japan in August 1942, taking with him the ashes of four of the Japanese submariners killed in the attack on Sydney Harbour.
Kawai was ostracised in Japan when he called on Japanese not to hate Australians and was sacked from the Foreign Ministry. Towards the end of the war he secretly worked for peace with Shigeru Yoshida. Immediately after the war he became vice foreign minister under Yoshida.
Read more about this topic: Tatsuo Kawai
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
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—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red:
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:—
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”
—Francis Miles Finch (1827–1907)