Empire of the Sun

The next day, Jim wakes up to discover that all the Japanese soldiers are gone, having “vanished during the night” (231). Jim sees that Mr. Maxted is dead; in lying beside him, Jim saved himself from going on the march forced upon the other survivors who could still stand. A man enters the stadium and tells Jim that the war is over, and that the US have dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Jim now realizes that the strange, silent flash of intense light he saw the previous night was the flash from one of these bombs exploding on Nagasaki.

Jim leaves the stadium and, believing it is too dangerous to walk alone to Shanghai given his weakened state, walks back to Lunghua airfield. There, as he searches among the planes, he sees a teenage kamikaze pilot. Jim follows the pilot who gives him a mango before striking Jim and directing him toward the perimeter fence.

Jim sees some B-29 American bombers dropping food supplies around the airfield. Jim recovers one of the packages, finding spam, chocolate, powdered milk, and copies of Reader’s Digest. He sees former British prisoners with rifles chasing two Japanese soldiers, one of whom he recognizes as Private Kimura from the camp.