The Pacific War: China and Japan in WWII (1941-1945) Teacher Resource Guide East Asia National Resource Center By Kelly Hammond
The Triumph of the Militarists and the Road to War After the invasion of Manchuria and its withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, Japan was further isolated from the international community. In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with the Nazis while continuing to secure their interests on the mainland China. The tensions between the Japanese and the Chinese were running high since the Mukden Incident and fighting broke out on the morning of July 8, 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which we will explore in detail below, marks the beginning of WWII in Asia.
The Chinese army defending Marco Polo Bridge, 1937. Source: Chinafolio.com
The situation in Asia cannot be separated from developments in Europe around the same time. The outbreak of the war in Europe in 1939 had a large impact on the balance of power in the Pacific theater. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, European powers were too preoccupied
with the events in Europe and could not attend well to their colonies, especially those far afield in the Pacific. When Hitler conquered the Netherlands in May 1940, Japan quickly took control over oil-rich colonies in Southeast Asia in an attempt to secure fossil fuels for their military endeavours. Japan capitalized on opportunities to seize colonial possessions made available by Hitler’s war in Europe. As Japan, Italy, and Germany entered the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, the United States also began to mobilize its resources to resist them. The United States felt threatened by the Tripartite Pact and expanded their support to the Nationalists in China who had been fighting the Japanese since 1937. The U.S. government froze Japanese assets in the United States and revoked Japan’s permit to buy U.S. oil. This embargo meant that the Japanese could only purchase one month’s supply of oil at a time, making them fundamentally vulnerable in the case of a full-scale protracted war. It was under such circumstances that the Japanese Army strategists decided that war with America would be inevitable. They believed that launching pre-emptive blow on the United States would buy Japan some time to get its empire together in Asia. On December 5, 1941, the Japanese launched a preemptive strike on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The Pacific War was a new kind of war; it was a naval and an air war. The first transPacific flight had occurred nearly fifteen
years ago, and the war heavily relied on the use of aircraft to cover the vast swaths of land and ocean in the Pacific theater. For this reason, a primary focus of military strategy became securing and destroying air force bases. As well, tiny atolls, like Wake Island, became useful air bases and gained completely new strategic importance. By 1942, the tide had turned in the Pacific and at the Battle of Midway the United States had a decisive victory that put Japan on the defensive for the rest of the war. However, Japan was not about to surrender easily. The Japanese adopted the tactic known as “dig in and die,” meaning that they would fight to the last man in a battle. In 1944, as the situation for Japan became direr, the Japanese began to increase the number of kamikaze missions where pilots were “volun-told” to fly their planes or operate submarines on suicide missions. By early 1945, the B-29 bombers and other American aircrafts began large-scale bombing campaigns on Japanese cities, causing fires, panic, and the first thoughts among the Japanese civilians that they might lose the war.
Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, VA. Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Keeping in mind the Japanese motivations and justifications for imperial expansion on the mainland is key to thinking about how the war unfolded, especially in the early years. First, Japan needed resources—especially oil and food—to sustain its imperial ambitions. Second, the Japanese were very concerned about Soviet expansion into Siberia and wished to maintain Manchuria as a buffer against the Soviets. Third, racism and militarism cannot be underestimated as factors contributing to the war. Throughout the 1930s, the Japanese saw themselves as the leader among the Asian races and imagined that it was their duty to protect Asia from Western colonialism in whatever ways possible. Despite the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, Chiang Kai-shek continued to spend his political and military energies on suppressing the Communists, until as late as December 1936. Following the Mukden Incident (see the previous module on Republican China), the Japanese saw that the League of Nations would condemn them, so the Saito Cabinet approved the conquest of major strategic places in Manchuria and North China, including Jehol, Rehe, Chengde, and Shanghaiguan. On May 31, 1932, Japan and China signed the Tanggu Truce, which stipulated that Japan would retain Jehol and Shanghaiguan, and that there would be a demilitarized zone between the Great Wall and the Beijing/Tianjin corridor from which Chinese troops were barred. This allowed the Japanese to get closer to their ultimate goal, which was to draw Chinese recognition of Manchuria.
For the Chinese, the Tanggu Truce ended the Manchurian crisis in the immediate sense and gave them some breathing time to shift their focus to defeating the Communists. Chiang Kai-shek always claimed that once he firmly unified China under his leadership, he would be able to wage war against Japan on the mainland. However, in December 1936, Chiang was kidnapped in Xi’an by a former warlord. This event in Xi’an, also known as the Xi’an Incident, exposed disunity among the Chinese leadership.
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident The Marco Polo Bridge Incident began on July 7, 1937. Chinese troops clashed with Japanese troops, who were conducting war exercises in the de-militarized area outside of Beijing. When a Japanese soldier was declared missing in the morning following the night exercises, the local Chinese officer barred the Japanese from searching the walled city of Wanping. Consequently, small scale fighting ensued. At first, it was believed that a truce will soon be achieved. It was in Japan’s best interest at the time to defer war because they had to worry about later engagement against the Soviets or the Allies in Europe). Nonetheless, the Konoe Cabinet took the advice of the Kwantung Army and approved the dispatch of five army divisions to China. Although the Japanese and Chinese commanders in Wanping had already reached an agreement that could have settled the dispute, the Konoe Cabinet decided to send the troops and as
a result the war begun between Japan and China. Between July 1937 and 1939, the Japanese Army and Navy overran the most important and heavily populated regions of China, suffering few setbacks in an essentially unbroken string of victories. By mid-1939, Japan had conquered most of the densely populated, urbanized foreign trade-oriented parts of China that had previously been the lifeline of the Nationalists. Although Chinese leaders blamed defeat on inferior armament and equipment of Chinese army, Chiang Kaishek’s ineffective command practices, factional splits in the Chinese military, and the continued distrust between the Communists and the Nationalists were main contributing factors to Japan’s victory.
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Source: Cultural China
The Occupation of Shanghai On August 7, 1937, fighting broke out in Shanghai and the Japanese finally captured the city in November 1937. After
six months since the war began, the Japanese occupied the two most important cities in China—Beijing and Shanghai—and were on their way to capture the Nationalist capital of Nanjing. The Nationalists were opting for a fullscale war with the Japanese rather than negotiating with them. The Nationalists could have offered the Japanese a settlement in the north along with the recognition of Manchukuo. This is what the Japanese essentially wanted, but the Nationalists considered such option as humiliation. Unwilling to negotiate or to acknowledge the military supremacy of the Japanese army, Chiang Kai-shek sent 71 divisions of his elite German-trained soldiers to Shanghai. Chiang’s army experienced a decisive defeat. This campaign in Shanghai once again showed China’s limited ability to wage war against Japan. With their control over a significant number of Chinese cities, the Japanese were able to easily occupy the railway routes that were essential for moving supplies and troops across the mainland.
Japanese troops entering Nanjing. Source: The Memorial Hall of the Victims
This event is known in the West as the Rape of Nanjing. These terror tactics employed by the Japanese were meant to intimidate the Chinese into submission. However, such events only exacerbated anti-Japanese sentiment among the local Chinese, strengthening their resolve to fight the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek was also hoping for foreign intervention after the international community found out about the atrocities in Nanjing. There were many Western missionaries near Nanjing who documented and publicized these events.
Nanjing and the Rape of Nanjing In December 1937, Japanese troops marched into Nanjing. As the Japanese rapidly approached Nanjing at the end of November, Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalist government evacuated to Wuhan. On December 13, 1937, Japanese troops entered the undefended city and killed approximately 200,000-300,000 civilians (according to most estimates).
Victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Source: Murase Moriyasu
Furthermore, the Panay incident—when a U.S. river gunboat responsible for evacuating British and Americans from Nanjing was sunk by a Japanese air attack—forced Japan to apologize and pay a large compensation to Great Britain and the United States. However, the United States, in its isolationist phase, and Great Britain, preoccupied in Europe, accepted the Japanese government’s apology and the monetary compensation without any further involvement in what was going on in Nanjing. This was an indication to both the Japanese and the Chinese that Asia was low on American and British priorities, especially in relation to affairs in Europe.
The Flooding of the Yellow River In 1938, the Japanese pushed down to the Yellow River with little Chinese opposition. The Chinese units they faced either fled in panic or disbanded into predatory guerrilla bands, mostly because there was no central command to tell them what to do. Chiang Kai-shek thus became extremely concerned about the Japanese advance and ordered that the dikes of the Yellow River be blown up to prevent the Japanese from advancing. The course of the river shifted and flooded much of Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. As a result, millions of people died from either the flood itself or because the floods deprived them of food and other resources. This deliberate strategy to shift the course of the Yellow River to stop the Japanese advancement led to the death of millions of Chinese. Such disregard for the lives of
peasants by Chiang’s Nationalists contributed to winning the Communists more popular support.
The Chinese Nationalist soldiers during the flood.
In the meantime, the Japanese could not seize the Beijing-Hankou railways as a result of the flooding of the Yellow River. This meant that their attack on Wuhan depended on an advance westward up the Yangtze River. Breaking of the dikes of the Yellow River had prevented the Japanese from taking the Henan railway junction in Zhengzhou. Historians thus call this event the “largest act of environmental warfare in history,” though the strategic value of the flood has been questioned by many. Japan’s advance towards Zhengzhou was halted, but the Japanese took Wuhan in October by attacking from a different direction.
Stalemate after the capture of Wuhan As the Japanese troops advanced towards Wuhan, Chinese troops abandoned their posts, leaving civilian populations completely vulnerable to rape and murder
by the advancing Japanese army. By the time the Japanese were approaching Wuhan and millions of Chinese and Japanese lives had been lost in the process, Chiang Kai-shek packed again and fled to Chongqing. Chiang’s abandonment of Wuhan further demoralized the Chinese. After the capture of Wuhan, the Japanese began to focus on modernizing their armed forces (as opposed to prioritizing advancement deeper into China) because they feared the possibility of war with the Soviet Union.
United States. However, they were in operation only for a few months because the United States sent non-volunteer air force officers to China when it entered the war.
The Flying Tigers Until the Americans got involved in the war after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese ran the show in the air. The Nationalists had an air force of 500 planes and only about 150 of them were in operation. Chiang got his wife, Soong May-Ling (known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek) to use her connections to American contacts to get them pilots to fly the working planes. They hired Claire L. Chennault, who was still only a captain in the air force after twenty years of service and lacked skills. Chiang and Chennault trusted each other with blind enthusiasm. Although they managed to derive small successes, the balance of attritional losses favored the Japanese since the Chinese had lost their flying school and their aircraft factory in Hangzhou and Nanchang to the Japanese. The American Volunteer Group (AVG) also joined the Chinese air force along with 100 planes that were bought in an arrangement by Soong’s brother from the
A Chinese guard is guiding one of the Flying Tigers. Source: U.S. Army Archives
Although the group operated only for a few months, it completely captivated the imagination of the American public. The AVG painted their planes to look like sharks and tigers and were thus nicknamed “the Flying Tigers.” Yet, the problem was that their limited successes created the false impression that given material aid and technical advice, China might become a major player in the war against Japan.
1940 and the Burma Road By February 1939, the Japanese had control of the entire China coast. There were only two supply lines to get materials into China. Both were very tenuous and treacherous. Supplies could only trickle
into China on the Burma Road or from Russia through Xinjiang, which was known as “Fly the Hump� over the Himalayas. It was thus imperative that the Nationalists keep southwest under their control; the newly opened Burma Road provided their only real access to the outside world.
1940, was re-opened in October 1940 when the United States shifted its policy from remaining neutral to supporting Great Britain. Between July and October 1940, the Nationalists in China did not have access to supplies and the situation got quite dire for them.
Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War On the morning of Sunday, December 5, 1941, Japan sent 356 planes to attack Pearl Harbor. The mission sank four of the eight U.S. battleships stationed in the harbor and destroyed 200 planes on the ground. Japan lost twenty-nine planes in the attack. During the attack, the U.S. carriers were not at port, so none of them were destroyed, leaving a long-term impact on the outcome of the war with favorable consequences for the United States. Two days after attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked the Philippines and British Malaya (Burma). By 1942, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma and Thailand were under Japanese control.
Map of the Burma Road. Source: U.S. Army Center of Military History
However, when Japan entered Indo-China, the British decided to close the Burma Road. Given the circumstances in Europe, Great Britain was not willing to fight the Japanese. The Burma Road, closed in July
Pearl Harbor under Japanese attack. Source: The History Place
The outcome of Pearl Harbor sowed the seeds of Japanese defeat. The United States had a far greater industrial capacity than Japan and the Japanese attack on U.S. soil strengthened American resolve to enter the war. However, from Japan’s point of view, it was a gamble they had to take.
However, it was a lack of objectives on the part of the Japanese owing to their relative indifference about the overwhelming amount of territory that had come under their control. It was not until the Ichigo offensive (see below) in 1944 that the Americans realized how incompetent the Chinese army was, because during the offensive the Japanese trampled the Chinese. In reality, between 1941 and 1945, the Japanese had more territory than they knew what to do with in China and were primarily worried about the Americans.
U.S. anti-Japan propaganda after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Source: Mike King
The outbreak of WWII in Europe relieved Japan of the Russian threat but also left Japan with more Chinese territory than what it could successfully occupy. The attack on Pearl Harbor did not immediately alter the stalemate that had developed in Asia. Interestingly, when the United States entered the war, it was under the impression that the Chinese were holding off the Japanese in the south.
Gen. Joseph Stillwell. Source: U.S. Department of Defense
In 1942, the U.S. government appointed Joseph Stillwell, influential military officer, as Major-General to lead operations in China. By sending such an important figure, the United States signaled to China
that the Americans were taking the situation in Asia seriously. Stillwell personally did not get along with Chiang Kai-shek and often called Chiang the “peanut,” even in official correspondence. Previously in 1941, Roosevelt had signed the Land-Lease allocations that became Stillwell’s largest bargaining chip with the Nationalists. This meant that the Chinese could gain access to U.S. industrial and military products through the re-opened Burma Road. Yet, Stillwell was frequently frustrated by Chiang and the corruption among the Chinese generals. In 1942, Stillwell sent 100,000 Chinese troops to India to train properly with Land-Lease equipment and also wished to reorganize the army, but Chiang opposed. The growing importance of the south of China and their connections to Southeast Asia became a strategic consideration in the war. The region, known as the ChinaBurma-India theater (or the CBI), was initially low in terms of priority for Great Britain and the United States. In the meantime, Chiang tried to maintain his legitimacy and status as China’s sole legitimate leader and wished to prove this to the international community.
seventeen divisions, supported by 12,000 vehicles and 70,000 horses. The operation had three major objectives: 1) to control the entire length of the railroad between Beijing and Hong Kong, 2) to link up the forces in China and those in French Indochina, and 3) to gain control of Allied air fields in southern China. The Japanese succeeded in achieving all three of their goals. However, in late 1944, the U.S. Pacific offensive succeeded and the Japanese Navy lost, leaving Okinawa on the horizon. This meant that the Americans would not need to launch a battle against Japan in China.
Yalta, Roosevelt, and Stalin
Ichigo Offensive In 1944, there was growing concern among the Japanese that they were losing the war. They thus implemented a plan called the Ichigo Offensive. The Nationalists quickly abandoned territories they had defended staunchly from the beginning of the war. On April 19, 1944, the Japanese forces launched Operation Ichigo with 400,000 men organized in
From left to right: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Tehran and had Stalin agree to enter the war against Japan in the Pacific. After the Germans lost in Europe, the United States believed that the Soviet entrance would
ensure the Japanese defeat in north China. This meant that the United States no longer had to commit as much to a land battle on mainland China, something that the Americans wanted to avoid from the beginning. Stalin was also interested in regaining the former Russian possessions in Port Arthur that they lost to the Japanese earlier. The end of the war came suddenly. Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the Soviets invaded Manchuria—as per their agreement with Roosevelt in Yalta—and destroyed Japan’s Kwantung Army in less than a week. Nagasaki was bombed on August 9, and Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on August 15.
would surrender. The sudden end of the war left the Russians in control of Manchuria, and the Chinese communists in control of south and west. Chiang therefore ordered the Japanese to hold their positions until they could surrender to officers designated by Chiang himself, and asked the United States to airlift his troops north.
The Manhattan Project: Little Boy and Fat Man ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ are the codenames of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. President Roosevelt died in April 1945 and then Vice President Harry Truman became the next U.S. President. Truman was much more willing to use the atomic bombs to end the war than Roosevelt had been, and soon after he assumed the presidency, Truman put a plan in action to end the war using nuclear power.
Surrender of Japan. Source: Naval Historical Center
After Germany’s surrender, the United States had accorded Chiang Kai-shek the right of the commander-in-chief in the China theatre. With this right, Chiang was allowed to designate the officers to whom the commanders of Japanese formations
Hiroshima after the bombing. Source: Boston.com
Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
On August 6, 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was bombed, killing around 60,000 people instantly. Three days later, Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki inflicting about the same level of immediate devastation onto Nagasaki as Little Boy did to Hiroshima. The Japanese offered their unconditional surrender five days later on August 14, 1945, bringing WWII to an end (the war in Europe had ended on May 8, 1945, with Germany’s unconditional surrender).
The Impact of the War on People in Asia The war had a profound impact on the Asia Pacific. First of all, Asian populations were devastated: 2.5 million Japanese died; 1.5 million Chinese soldiers died along with tens of millions of Chinese civilians; small Pacific islands suffered grievously. The war also had a profound impact on Asian Americans. The position and status of Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and Asian Indians residing in the United States improved because their mother
countries were U.S. allies, whereas the Japanese were seen and portrayed as enemies and interned in camps along the west coast. During the war, more than 40,000 Japanese, along with 70,000 American citizens of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps. In 1942, Japanese were culled and removed from their homes for relocation. The U.S. government claimed that in some cases, the relocation was for the protection of the Japanese themselves.
Japanese relocation camps during WWII.
Although most of the Japanese Americans living on the continental United States were forced to live in camps during the war, in Hawaii, there were simply too many Japanese Americans, making such relocation impossible. Also, more than 25,000 Japanese Americans joined the U.S. army, mostly as interpreters and translators. Famously, the One Hundredth Battalion was an all-Japanese American battalion from Hawaii that served in South Africa and Italy. The battalion has 18,000 decoration and 3,000 purple hearts among them. Their distinguished service in the American Army did much to ease
the anti-Japanese discrimination that was still prevalent at the end of the war.
and soldiers alike, can be considered to be part of the belligerent effort.
Japanese imperial propaganda. Map of Imperial Japan in 1942.
The way the war unfolded in China cannot be divorced from the global political climate of the time. The international climate did in many ways dictate the direction and progress of the war. It is also important to keep in mind that the Europeans were quite happy to let the Chinese and the Japanese fight it out on the mainland and were not that interested in the Pacific theater until the Americans got involved and they began losing their colonies to Japan. Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population. In the mid-nineteenth century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, there is less differentiation between combatants and civilians than in other conflicts, and sometimes no such differentiation at all, as nearly every human resource, civilians
Similar to the notion of total war, there is the idea of “total empire,” which was developed by Louise Young (see the accompanying bibliography for more information). In her book, Young explores the social and cultural history of Japan’s construction of Manchukuo as well as the nature of Japanese imperialism. Young focuses on the domestic impact of Japan’s activities in Northeast China between 1931 and 1945, mostly looking at “metropolitan effects” of empire building—how people at home imagined and experienced the empire they called Manchukuo. Contrary to the conventional assumption that a few overzealous army officers and bureaucrats were responsible for Japan’s expansion, Young finds that a variety of organizations helped to mobilize popular support for Manchukuo—the mass media, the academy, chambers of commerce, women’s organizations, youth groups, and agricultural cooperatives—leading to broad-based support among diverse groups of Japanese. As the Japanese empire was being built in Chinese
mainland, Young shows, an imagined Manchukuo was emerging at home, consisting of visions of a defensive lifeline, a developing economy, and a settler’s paradise.
Useful Websites U.S. War Department Propaganda Video about Japan in 1945 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlQ3BrzQO4 Information about the Pacific War hosted by the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php? ModuleId=10005155 Documentary about China in WWII—mostly assembled from newsreels from the war http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnhwd0v vj78 History Channel—China in WWII http://www.history.co.uk/explorehistory/ww2/china.html Timeline of the Pacific War http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/p acificwar/timeline.htm The National Museum of the Pacific War site—focuses on U.S. involvement in the War http://www.pacificwarmuseum.org/OurMissi on_History.asp
Japanese imperial propaganda designed to educate Japanese youth. Source: Po-ru.com
The question, then, is: when did “total war” and “total empire” start on the mainland of China? Was it 1931 or 1937? What marked these changes? How did Japan’s imperial ambitions in Asia play into the development of the war? These are some questions that are open to different interpretations, but all of them are essential in thinking about the ways in which the war is remembered in Asia.
Documentary on YouTube—War in the Pacific http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QOlxW3 5I4k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3paxkNa 2WC0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XpoS7U pQmk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-c8KNxMZY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMAVi4 VDg1o Bibliography of the Second Sino-Japanese War from Oxford University Press http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/ document/obo-9780199743292/obo9780199743292-0141.xml Exhibit from the Hoover Archives of documents and artifacts from the China War
http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/China/P olitical%20Evolution/1932-49/ History Channel—the Nanjing Massacre with links to numerous videos http://www.history.com/topics/nanjingmassacre Yale University Project about the Nanjing Massacre http://www.library.yale.edu/div/Nanking/ Highly politicized site about the Nanjing Massacre ***WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES*** http://www.nanking-massacre.com/ First hand account of the Nanjing Massacre hosted by Fordham University http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nanki ng.asp Full explaination of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident From Princeton University http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/w iki100k/docs/Marco_Polo_Bridge_Incident. html History Channel—Sino-Japanese War (with links to numerous great videos) http://www.history.co.uk/explorehistory/ww2/sino-japanese-war.html
Columbia University East Asia for Educators—Japan and China, 1937-1945 http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpc t/kp_japanchina.htm U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian primary source documents from Pacific Theatre http://history.state.gov/milestones/19371945 History Channel—Japan and WWII http://www.history.co.uk/explorehistory/ww2/imperial-japan.html Columbia University East Asia for Educators—Japan’s Quest for Power and WWII http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_ 1900_power.htm
Suggestions for Further Reading Alen, G. C. Appointment in Japan. London: Althone Press, 1983. Allen, Louis. The End of the War in Asia. London: Hart-Davis, 1976.
Documentary on YouTube—WWII and Japan’s Pacific War http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo4Bgu Q9Mvk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e8bbjos bsY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUTFcVoeZ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xWHjHTSs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tlmgYjQ PBQ
Atkins, Taylor E. Primitive Selves: Koreans in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010.
Documentary on YouTube—Japan’s War Documentary 1937-1945 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxTzwQ GQY0c
Barnhart, Michael A. Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Ballard, J.G. Empire in the Sun. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Barker, Robert. Hiroshima Maidens: A Story of Courage, Compassion, and Survival. New York: Viking, 1985.
Bernstein, Andrew. Modern Passings: Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial Japan. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. Bi, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Borg, Dorothy, and Shumpei Okamoto eds., Pearl Harbour as History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973. Borg, Dorothy. The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Brandon, James R. Kabuki’s Forgotten War, 1931-1945. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2008. Brook, Timothy. Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Brownlee, John s. Japanese Historians and the National Myths: 1600-1945. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997. Buckley, Sandra. Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. Calichman, Ricard F., ed. and trans. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Caprio, Mark E. Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009. Carlile, Lonny E. Divisions of Labor: Globality, Ideology, and War in the Shaping of the Japanese Labor
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Fogel, Joshua A. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography. Berkeley: University of Calfornia Press, 2000.
Irokawa Daikichi. The Age of Hirohito: In Search of Modern Japan. New York: Diane Publishing Company, 1995.
Fujitani, T. Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
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Gallicchio, Marc, ed. The Unpredictability of the Past: Memories of the Asia-Pacific War in US-East Asian Relations. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Gluck, Carol and Stephen R. Graudard, eds. Showa: the Japan of Hirohito. New York: Newton, 1992. Hotta, Eri. Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007. Howarth, Stephen. The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun. New York: Atheneum, 1983.
Jansen, Marius B., ed. Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965. Jones, Francis. Japan’s New Order in East Asia: Its Rise and Fall, 1937-1945. London: Oxford University Press, 1954. Kano, Ayako. Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Kawahara Toshiaki. Hirohito and His Times: A Japanese Perspective. New York: Kodansha American Inc., 1990.
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