Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation PDF Author: Edgar A. Porter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789462989733
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book presents an unforgettably honest account of the effects of World War II and the ensuing American occupation in Japan's Oita prefecture, from the perspective of the Japanese citizens who experienced it. Through harrowing firsthand accounts from more than forty Japanese men and women who lived in the region, we get a strikingly detailed picture of the dreadful experiences of wartime life in Japan. The interviewees are wide-ranging and include students, housewives, nurses, teachers, journalists, soldiers, sailors, Kamikaze pilots, and munitions factory workers. And their collective stories range from early, spirited support for the war on to more reflective later views in the wake of the devastating losses of friends and family members to air raids, and finally into periods of hunger and fear of the American occupiers. Detailed archival materials buttress the personal accounts, and the result is an unprecedented picture of the war as felt in a single region of Japan.

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation PDF Author: Edgar A. Porter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789462989733
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
This book presents an unforgettably honest account of the effects of World War II and the ensuing American occupation in Japan's Oita prefecture, from the perspective of the Japanese citizens who experienced it. Through harrowing firsthand accounts from more than forty Japanese men and women who lived in the region, we get a strikingly detailed picture of the dreadful experiences of wartime life in Japan. The interviewees are wide-ranging and include students, housewives, nurses, teachers, journalists, soldiers, sailors, Kamikaze pilots, and munitions factory workers. And their collective stories range from early, spirited support for the war on to more reflective later views in the wake of the devastating losses of friends and family members to air raids, and finally into periods of hunger and fear of the American occupiers. Detailed archival materials buttress the personal accounts, and the result is an unprecedented picture of the war as felt in a single region of Japan.

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation PDF Author: Edgar A. Porter
Publisher: Asian History
ISBN: 9789462982598
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Occupation Plans -- Running to the Hills -- Bartering for Food -- The Passion of a Mother -- Suffering Together -- 16. The Devil Comes Ashore -- Getting Acquainted -- Working for the Americans -- Searching for Contraband -- Confusion in the Classroom -- 17. A Bitter Homecoming -- Demobilized -- Awkward Reunions -- 18. The Occupation Takes Hold -- Censorship and a New Order -- Baseball and Chocolate -- The Americans Were So Wasteful -- 19. Miss Beppu, Crazy Mary, and William Westmorland -- The Call for Volunteers -- Closing the Houses - Sort Of -- Crazy Mary and Miss Beppu -- The Korean War and Exit from Beppu -- Conclusion -- Chronology of Japanese Historical Events, 1905-1957 -- List of Interviewees -- Bibliography -- Index

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation PDF Author: Edgar A. Porter
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9048532639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book presents World War II and the American Occupation of Japan as experienced in Oita Prefecture through first-hand accounts of 40 Japanese men and women who lived through the war as students, midwives, nurses, teachers, journalists, soldiers, sailors, Kamikaze pilots, munitions factory workers, and housewives. Their stories of spirited support for the war, to loss of friends from American air raids, to hunger and fear of Americn occupiers are supplimented by local archives and newspaper reports from those years. Archival findings highlight the rarely chronicled training exercises for the attack on Pearl Harbor headquarted in Oita, the final Kamikaze attack against U.S. forces departing from Oita hours after the war ended, and the striking fact that the two Japanese representatives signing the surrender on the Battleship Missouri hailed from Oita. The book ends with the American Occupation forces and their interaction with the Japanese.

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation

Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation PDF Author: Edgar A. Porter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book presents an unforgettable up-close account of the effects of World War II and the subsequent American occupation on Oita prefecture, through firsthand accounts from more than forty Japanese men and women who lived there. The interviewees include students, housewives, nurses, midwives, teachers, journalists, soldiers, sailors, Kamikaze pilots, and munitions factory workers. Their stories range from early, spirited support for the war through the devastating losses of friends and family members to air raids and into periods of hunger and fear of the American occupiers. The personal accounts are buttressed by archival materials; the result is an unprecedented picture of the war as experienced in a single region of Japan.

Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940–1945

Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940–1945 PDF Author: Samuel Hideo Yamashita
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700624627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
The population of wartime Japan (1940–1945) has remained a largely faceless enemy to most Americans thanks to the distortions of US wartime propaganda, popular culture, and news reports. At a time when this country’s wartime experiences are slowly and belatedly coming into focus, this remarkable book by Samuel Yamashita offers an intimate picture of what life was like for ordinary Japanese during the war. Drawing upon diaries and letters written by servicemen, kamikaze pilots, evacuated children, and teenagers and adults mobilized for war work in the big cities, provincial towns, and rural communities, Yamashita lets us hear for the first time the rich mix of voices speaking in every register during the course of the war. Here is the housewife struggling to feed her family while supporting the war effort; the eager conscript from snow country enduring the harshest, most abusive training imaginable in order to learn how to fly; the Tokyo teenagers made to work in wartime factories; the children taken from cities to live in the countryside away from their families and with little food and no privacy; the Kyushu farmers pressured to grow ever more rice and wheat with fewer hands and less fertilizer; and the Kyoto octogenarian driven to thoughts of suicide by his inability to contribute to the war. How these ordinary Japanese coped with wartime hardships and dangers, and how their views changed over time as disillusionment, impatience, and sometimes despair set in, is the story that Yamashita’s book brings to the American reader. A history of life during war, Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940–1945 is also a glimpse of a now-vanished world.

Behind Japanese Lines

Behind Japanese Lines PDF Author: Ray C. Hunt
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081314602X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
This WWII combat memoir offers a rare firsthand account of the Allied guerilla forces fighting the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. In the Spring of 1942, US and Philippine forces lost the Battle of Bataan, leaving control of the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor to the Japanese. After the devastating loss, the Allied forces stationed across the Philippine Archipelago were supposed to surrender. Yet many of them refused, escaping into the mountains and jungles to form guerilla units. In Behind Japanese Lines one of those brave soldiers, Ray Hunt, recounts his experiences as part of the Allied resistance against the Japanese occupation. After escaping the Bataan Death March, Ray organized a troop of guerillas who went on to make noteworthy contributions to the Filipino-American reconquest of the Philippines. Ray’s story sheds important light on US-Filipino relations during World War II, as well as the realities of fighting both the Imperial Japanese Army and the Hukbalahap communist guerillas. "Stands out for the vividness of its detail, its effort to sort fact from legend, and its tribute to the heroism of the resistance movement, which was almost entirely Filipino.” —Choice

The Economics of World War II in Southeast Asia

The Economics of World War II in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Gregg Huff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107099331
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 555

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Book Description
The first comprehensive account of the impact of Japanese occupation on Southeast Asian economies and societies during World War II.

The Anguish of Surrender

The Anguish of Surrender PDF Author: Ulrich A. Straus
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295802558
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
On December 6, 1941, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki was one of a handful of men selected to skipper midget subs on a suicide mission to breach Pearl Harbor’s defenses. When his equipment malfunctioned, he couldn’t find the entrance to the harbor. He hit several reefs, eventually splitting the sub, and swam to shore some miles from Pearl Harbor. In the early dawn of December 8, he was picked up on the beach by two Japanese American MPs on patrol. Sakamaki became Prisoner No. 1 of the Pacific War. Japan’s no-surrender policy did not permit becoming a POW. Sakamaki and his fellow soldiers and sailors had been indoctrinated to choose between victory and a heroic death. While his comrades had perished, he had survived. By becoming a prisoner of war, Sakamaki believed he had brought shame and dishonor on himself, his family, his community, and his nation, in effect relinquishing his citizenship. Sakamaki fell into despair and, like so many Japanese POWs, begged his captors to kill him. Based on the author’s interviews with dozens of former Japanese POWs along with memoirs only recently coming to light, The Anguish of Surrender tells one of the great unknown stories of World War II. Beginning with an examination of Japan’s prewar ultranationalist climate and the harsh code that precluded the possibility of capture, the author investigates the circumstances of surrender and capture of men like Sakamaki and their experiences in POW camps. Many POWs, ill and starving after days wandering in the jungles or hiding out in caves, were astonished at the superior quality of food and medical treatment they received. Contrary to expectations, most Japanese POWs, psychologically unprepared to deal with interrogations, provided information to their captors. Trained Allied linguists, especially Japanese Americans, learned how to extract intelligence by treating the POWs humanely. Allied intelligence personnel took advantage of lax Japanese security precautions to gain extensive information from captured documents. A few POWs, recognizing Japan’s certain defeat, even assisted the Allied war effort to shorten the war. Far larger numbers staged uprisings in an effort to commit suicide. Most sought to survive, suffered mental anguish, and feared what awaited them in their homeland. These deeply human stories follow Japanese prisoners through their camp experiences to their return to their welcoming families and reintegration into postwar society. These stories are told here for the first time in English.

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II PDF Author: Herbert Feis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400868262
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
This book discusses the decision to use the atomic bomb. Libraries and scholars will find it a necessary adjunct to their other studies by Pulitzer-Prize author Herbert Feis on World War II. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Making of Modern Japan

The Making of Modern Japan PDF Author: Marius B. Jansen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 933

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Book Description
Magisterial in vision, sweeping in scope, this monumental work presents a seamless account of Japanese society during the modern era, from 1600 to the present. A distillation of more than fifty years’ engagement with Japan and its history, it is the crowning work of our leading interpreter of the modern Japanese experience. Since 1600 Japan has undergone three periods of wrenching social and institutional change, following the imposition of hegemonic order on feudal society by the Tokugawa shogun; the opening of Japan’s ports by Commodore Perry; and defeat in World War II. The Making of Modern Japan charts these changes: the social engineering begun with the founding of the shogunate in 1600, the emergence of village and castle towns with consumer populations, and the diffusion of samurai values in the culture. Marius Jansen covers the making of the modern state, the adaptation of Western models, growing international trade, the broadening opportunity in Japanese society with industrialization, and the postwar occupation reforms imposed by General MacArthur. Throughout, the book gives voice to the individuals and views that have shaped the actions and beliefs of the Japanese, with writers, artists, and thinkers, as well as political leaders given their due. The story this book tells, though marked by profound changes, is also one of remarkable consistency, in which continuities outweigh upheavals in the development of society, and successive waves of outside influence have only served to strengthen a sense of what is unique and native to Japanese experience. The Making of Modern Japan takes us to the core of this experience as it illuminates one of the contemporary world’s most compelling transformations.