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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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