relations between allied forces and the population of japan

383 Pages·2017·6.32 MB·English

RELATIONS BETWEEN
ALLIED FORCES
AND THE
POPULATION OF JAPAN
Bertrand M. Roehner
Institute for Theoretical and High Energy Physics, University of Paris 6
Laboratoire de Physique The´orique et Hautes E´nergies, UPMC, Paris
Working Report, 2009

AlleMenschen werden Bru¨derwo dein sanfterFlu¨gelweilt.
[Allpeoplebecomebrothersunderyourtenderwing.]
—FriedrichSchiller, Lied an dieFreude[OdetoJoy](1785)
“Is thereanypointto whichyouwouldwishto drawmy attention?”
“Yes, tothecuriousincidentofthedoginthenight-time.”
“Thedogdid nothinginthenight-time.”
“That was thecuriousincident,”remarked Sherlock Holmes.
—SirArthurConan Doyle,SilverBlaze(1892)
There is a strong family resemblance about the misdeeds, and if you have all the details
ofathousandatyourfingerends, itisodd ifyoucan’t unravelthethousandandfirst.
—SirArthurConan Doyle,The Valleyof Fear(1915)

RELATIONS BETWEEN ALLIED FORCES
AND
THE POPULATION OF JAPAN
15 August 1945–31 December 1960 (Okinawa: 1945–1972)
Bertrand M. Roehner, University ofParis6, [email protected]
Versionof26December2015. Commentsare welcome.
We hope that these notes will enable us to get in touch with Japanese scholars; need-
less to say, this is an essential condition for the success of this project. Please, if you
happen to know people who have a working interest in this kind of historiography
do not hesitate to send them a copy of the present draft.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction
2 Incidents
3 SCAP Instructions (SCAPINs)
4 Censorship
5 Economy and Black market
6 Chronology, Japan, 1945-1960
7 Chronology, Okinawa (*), 1945-1972
8 Quantitative evidence
9 Conclusion
10 Appendix A: Documents
11 Appendix B: Enduring US influence after 1952
12 Acknowledgments
13 Abbreviations
14 References
15 Other occupation episodes and analytical history
(*) Okinawa is treated in a separate chapter not only because it was not part of Japan during the period under
study,butalsoduetoseveralotherspecialfeatures,e.g. theextremepaucityofsourcesfortheperiod1945-1952
orthefactthattheperiodofstudyisextended untilreversion toJapanin1972.

1
Chapter
Introduction
There is an abundant literature about the occupation period in Japan but three ques-
tions of key importance have been largely ignored.
• How were the occupation troops accepted and what was the frequency of the
incidents between the Japanese population and the troops?
• What degree of autonomy did the Japanese government have with respect to
General MacArthur’s General Headquarters (GHQ)?
• What was for Japan the cost of the occupation and of the reparations.
On these points the reading which still prevails nowadays is not much different from
the picture that GHQ tried to impose and which can be summarized by saying that:
• the troops were welcomed and there were few if any incidents.
• GHQ had only an advisory role and there was a friendly cooperation between
the Military Government and the Japanese administration.
• Japan paid only minimal reparations.
How do we know what kind of picture GHQ tried to force on the Japanese? Burton
Crane, a New York Time journalist, was able to examine 60 stories which were
censored by SCAP (Supreme Command of Allied Powers). He found out that the
Japanese were not to know how great a hand SCAP has had in shaping their future;
they were not allowed to know the cost of the occupation and they were not allowed
to know the plans for reparations. He concludes by saying: “SCAP’s public relations
policy was to convince America [and the rest of the world] that the democratization
of Japan had achieved unprecended success and that the Japanese government had
furthered this process voluntarily. The first premise is debatable and the second is
contrary to fact” (Lauterbach 1947, p. 50).
This was written in 1947. In the 65 years that followed the State Department was
able to sell the distorted historical account not only to the Japanese people and to the
American public (including American scholars) but to the whole world. In short, the
public relations operation was a tremendous success.
No incidents?
With respect to the first point mentioned above, we will see that the archive records
2 Chapter1
which would be required in order to get a complete picture are not yet available,
but that the evidence based on accessible sources does hardly support the notion of
an occupation without incidents. As a matter of fact we will see that according to
American military statistics there were several hundred serious incidents.
Was it “friendly cooperation”?
One can get a glimpse of the kind of relation which existed between SCAP and
the Japanese government by considering the following cases which occurred in late
1951.
• The Bureau of the Prime Minister had to get the approval of SCAP for depurg-
ing any Japanese citizen. Moreover it had to ask permission for paying their pension
to such depurged persons. (Chronology chapter, date of 10 September 1951)
• The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to ask SCAP’s authorization
before it could give the status of permanent resident to immigrants from Okinawa.
Similarly, it had to ask permission from SCAP before authorizing some of this cit-
izens to travel abroad. (Chronology chapter, dates of 10 September and 4 October
1951)
• The Japanese Ministry of Transportation had to get the approval of SCAP be-
fore Japanese merchant ships could be scrapped. (Chronology chapter, dates of 10
September and 4 October 1951)
In short, even for the smallest things the Japanese government could not act without
the approval of SCAP.
The subservience of the Japanese government was well recognized by people which
followed closely the occupation. Thus, in 1948 Lindesay Parrott, who was Tokyo
bureau chief for the New York Times from 1945 to 19551, wrote:
“As the fourth year of occupation begins, all major policy still is made by the
occupation authorities and even the most minor detail is checked and coun-
terchecked on local levels by Military Government teams in all prefectures.
Parliament remains largely a rubber stamp for the Cabinet it elects which in
turn is a rubber stamp for the occupation authorities”. (NYT 8 Aug. 1948, The
Week in Review, p. E4).
In the following chapters (e.g. in chapters 3 and 6) we will see that this judgment is
indeed confirmed by many documents particularly by the numerous instructions to
the Japanese government, the so-called SCAPINs and SCAPIN-As. But, as in the
case of the incidents, many documents which would allow us to get a more com-
prehensive view are not accessible currently. For instance, we would need sources
documenting the way SCAP instructions were enforced at the local level of prefec-
1DuringhisyearsinTokyoParrottwroteoveronethousandpapersseveralofwhicharecitedinthechronologysection
below.
Introduction 3
tures, corporations, schools and so on. According to replies that we received from
their archivists, Japanese prefectural archives seem to hold very few documents per-
taining to the activity of Military Government teams in their respective areas.
Naturally, the aforementioned issues are related in the sense that among some dis-
gruntled and defiant sections of the population opposition to reforms imposed from
above translated into resentment, anger and various forms of resistance.
Non-compliance with GHQ instructions or overt offenses against occupation forces
were disciplined through various means: dismissals from jobs especially for govern-
ment personnel or trials either by Japanese courts or by military tribunals.
Prefectures and largestcities, from north to south:
01: Hokkaido, 02: Aomori, 03: Iwate, 04: Miyagi, 05: Akita, 06: Yamagata, 07: Fukushima, 08:
Ibaraki,09: Tochigi,10: Gunma,11: Saitama,12: Chiba,13: Tokyo,14: Kanagawa,15: Niigata,16:
Toyama, 17: Ishikawa, 18: Kukui, 19: Yamanashi, 20: Nagano, 21: Gifu, 22: Shizuoka, 23: Aichi,
24: Mie, 25: Shiga, 26: Kyoto, 27: Osaka, 28: Hyogo, 29: Nara, 30: Wakayama, 31: Tottori, 32:
Shimane, 33: Okayama, 34: Hiroshima, 35: Yamaguchi, 36: Tokushima, 37: Kagawa, 38: Ehime,
39: Kochi, 40: Fukuoka, 41: Saga, 42: Kumamoto, 44: Oita, 45: Miyazaki, 46: Kagoshima, 50:
Tokyo (city), 51: Yokohama (city), 52: Nagoya (city), 53: Kyoto (city) , 54: Osaka (city), 55: Kobe
(city), 56: Kitakyusyu(city).
Prefectures and largestcities, alphabetical ordering:
Aichi (23) Akita (05) Aomori (02) Chiba (12) Ehime (38) Fukuoka (40) Fukushima (07) Gifu (21)
Gunma(10)Hiroshima(34)Hokkaido(01)Hyogo(28)Ibaraki(08)Ishikawa(17)Iwate(03)Kagawa
(37)Kagoshima(46)Kanagawa(14)Kitakyusyu,city(56)Kobe,city(55)Kochi(39)Kukui(18)Ku-
mamoto (42) Kyoto (26) Kyoto, city (53) Mie (24) Miyagi (04) Miyazaki (45) Nagano (20) Nagoya,
city (52) Nara (29) Niigata (15) Oita (44) Okayama (33) Osaka (27) Osaka, city (54) Saga (41)
Saitama(11)Shiga(25)Shimane,32: Shizuoka(22)Tochigi(09)Tokushima(36)Tokyo(13)Tokyo
(city)(50) Tottori(31)Toyama(16) Wakayama(30) Yamagata(06)Yamaguchi (35)Yamanashi (19)
Yokohama,city(51)
In a sense the thesis that the occupation was well accepted may at first sight seem
fairly plausible. As a matter of fact, Japan has a long tradition of friendship with
America. For instance in an article of the Japan Times published on 9 May 1935
one reads that “the US sailor base-ball team of the USS Augusta, the flagship of the
American Asiatic Fleet, beat the Tokyo Agriculture College”. Even as late as 29 July
1938 another article of the Japan Times was entitled “Japan still likes America”. It
say: “Though many actions in the past proved unkind, this nation still considers her
neighbor across the Pacific a true friend. Among the people of Japan the United
4 Chapter1
Fig.1.1 Map of Japan: prefectures and largest cities. The correspondence between the numbers and the
namesoftheprefectures isgiveninthetext. Source: VitalStatistics ofJapan, 1964-1968.
States is probably the most popular of all foreign powers”. Yet, this did not prevent
Japan from having to face a long and harsh occupation.
Facts can be kept secret even in democracies
One may think that it would be difficult to keep hidden an incident that created a
crater about 4 meter deep and 8 meter in diameter which occurred near Albuquerque,
some 7 km south of Kirtland Air Force Base in the US state of New Mexico. Yet this
is what happened on 22 May 1957 and was revealed only 29 years later by an article
in the Los Angeles Times (27 August 1986, Associated Press dispatch). A Mark 17