When do spirit, tenacity, resilience and bravery cross into madness? When cities are incinerated? When suicide attacks become the norm? When atomic weapons are used? Japan's leaders test the limits of national endurance in the war's last year.
What you're about to hear is part six of a six part series on the Second World War in the Asia Pacific theater.
If you have not heard the earlier segments, please go check those out.
You probably want to hear this in order, but there's a few of you out there who don't care about that sort of stuff, in which case, well, catch up and join us, won't you?
For part six of the light and airy story that is supernova in the east.
December 7.
It's history, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.
It's hardcore history, people who are knowledgeable about the second World War, and many people are.
It's one of those subjects that fascinates human beings the world over.
Understandably so.
People who are aficionados of the second world War knows that the rhythm of the second world War reminds you of an opera or a musical theater production where the end is going to be like the end of the world, a ragnarok or a gotterdammerung.
And the whole last year of the war is whipping yourself up like a rollercoaster, going uphill, waiting for that giant dip where you're building up to that horrific ending.
The last year of the Second World War is the worst year of the Second World War, and the kind of numbers that demonstrate that are, for example, casualties, killings.
Look at the german deaths, for example, in January 1945.
That's a month that is mind blowing.
The Germans will have more than 400,000 of their soldiers.
Maybe closer to 450,000 of their soldiers die in that month alone.
For comparison purposes, that is more military deaths than the United States suffered.
All branches of service, all cause of mortality for the whole war.
Historian Neil Ferguson says the german military loses more soldiers in the last year of the war than the entire rest of the war put together.
And some of the latest estimates of casualty numbers suggest the Germans were losing, on average, 10,000 soldiers every day in 1945.