Emperor and Militarism
in Modern Japan
Ben-Amy Shillony
Unlike fascism, Nazism or communism, militarism is not an ideology, but a social and political structure, which we tend to use as a pejorative term. Unlike World War II in Europe and unlike the Cold War all over the world, the Pacific War was not an ideological war. In that war, Japan was a militaristic state, ruled by the military, but its militarism had no articles of faith, no founding father, no dictator, and no political party. Its object of loyalty was not a charismatic leader, but rather a sacred and symbolic emperor, who was not expected to lead.
Until the Meiji Restoration there was no link between the emperors, who presided over a civilian court in Kyoto, and the military, personified by the shogun and the feudal lords. Emperors did not wear uniforms, command troops or wage wars. It were only the leaders of the Meiji Restoration who militarized the Japanese emperor by making him commander in chief of the armed forces.
Yet, there was a gap between the modern emperors and the behavior expected of them. The Showa Emperor (Hirohito), who reigned in the prewar, wartime and postwar years, did not fit the ideal which he was supposed to impersonate. If we cut through the loyalist rhetoric of the time, we can discover critical attitudes toward him among military men and civilians, ranging from indifference and ridicule to reservation and defiance. The emperor did not, neither could he, fulfill all the expectations of his "loyal subjects". Thus, his concern over the fate of the dynasty led him to support the postponement of surrender, but later to hasten it. Japan's defeat opened a Pandora box of criticism of the emperor from both the Left and the Right, blaming him of being either too much or not enough of a war leader. The demise of militarism in postwar Japan and the change of emperors at the end of the 20th century severed again the institutional and ideological links between the emperors and the military.
Preparation for Total War
in 1920s Japan
Mori Yasuo
The First World War had an enormous effect on Japanese politics and society. Riding the wave of anti-militarism in Europe, Japan promoted political democratization. Interwar Japan has, however, also been regarded as a prelude to 1930s militarism. The "Total war system" (Kokka Sodoin Taisei) fashioned by the Japanese Army after World War I is typically seen as a milestone in the road to militarism. What was the "Total War System"? Was it, in fact, incompatible with Japanese democracy? Was it typical only of Japan? This paper compares war preparations in 1920s Japan to that in democratic Britain and America to reassess Japanese "militarism" in global context.
Naraoka Sochi
This presentation examines the impact that the First World War had on Japan. In particular, it focuses on the impact of the public opinion on Japan’s foreign policies and domestic politics, and asserts that this war triggered the start of a foreign policy based on international cooperation and the two-party political system in Japan.
The First World War and Japan:
From Territorial Expansionism to International Cooperation
Shimizu Yuichiro
近年、太平洋戦争中の議会について、その役割を捉え直す研究が数多く著されている。政 党は無力であったとする議論に対し、その積極的な戦争協力を論じるものと、戦争への抵抗 を明らかにするものが交錯している。そのどちらが正しいというのではない。そうした上京 こそが実態であったと見るべきだろう。
議会の行動を最も規定するものは、ほかでもない有権者である国民の意向である。もちろ ん、戦前においては民意以外の要因が議会を動かしたことも事実であろう。しかし、選挙を 通じてその政治生命を有権者に握られている以上、彼らにとって国民の意向が最大の行動 指針となることも議論の余地はない。
戦時期の選挙を語るうえで外すことができないのは 1942 年の第 21 回総選挙、すなわち 翼賛選挙であろう。他方、政党政治の終焉として捉えられるのは 1936 年の第 19 回総選挙、 いわゆる粛正選挙である。前者は戦争への協賛を担保したものとして、後者は腐敗しつつあ る政党を矯正するものとして知られている。
では、日米開戦時の議会はどうであったか。それは粛正選挙でも翼賛選挙でもない、1937 年の第 20 回総選挙によって選出された議員たちによる議会であった。この議会によって国 家総動員法が可決され、政党は自ら大政翼賛会へと改組した。
この議会に付託された民意はどのようなものであったのだろうか。本報告は、これまで詳 細に分析されてこなかった第 20 回総選挙において、いかなる政策が論じられ、支持をされ えたのかを明らかにすることで、太平洋戦争に至る世論と国策のありようを論じていく。
What Did Japanese Bureaucrats Learn from
the First World War?
Conservative Nationalism in Japan on the Eve of War:
Yasuoka Masahiro, Global Confrontation, and Japan’s ‘Divine Mandate.’
Roger Brown
This presentation examines the political and strategic perspective of the nationalist ideologue Yasuoka Masahiro (1898-1983) on the eve of the Second World War. Remembered primarily for his activities in the post-World War I nationalist movement, discourse on “Oriental thought”, and role as an ideological advisor to members of the political elite, particularly within the bureaucracy, Yasuoka also possessed longstanding ties to officers of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. These connections, rather intriguingly, stretched from General Araki Sadao (1877-1966), hardline doyen of the army’s Imperial Way faction, to Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (1884-1943), the comparatively moderate commander of the Combined Fleet and opponent of war with the United States.
A conservative nationalist, Yasuoka confronted the global crisis of the late 1930s convinced of Japan’s “divine mandate” to lead Asia yet reticent about the potential consequences of a major war for the Japanese polity. Moreover, within Japan he looked with unease at the ideological character of the movement for radical political and economic renovation that culminated in the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.
Indeed, the intertwined political and ideological confrontations attending the drive for a “new order” both at home and abroad constituted a fundamental dynamic in Japanese politics in the late 1930s and early 1940s. This presentation will consider the ideological character and strategic thinking behind Yasuoka’s perspective on these developments in order to shed light on conservative thinking on the cusp of a war often remembered as a consequence of conservative “ultranationalism” and militarism.
Border Crossing between the
Russian Far East and Manchuria
Mark Gamsa
This paper addresses the conference’s interest in Asian and world military history by focusing on the Amur and the Ussuri River borders between China and Russia. The paper has three parts.
The first part outlines the history of border crossing in this region from the acquisition of the Amur and Maritime provinces by tsarist Russia from the weakened Qing Empire in the treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). It demonstrates that movement of people (settlers, work migrants, migrants, refugees) across the two river borders was in both directions.
The second part raises the question at which point in the twentieth century the formerly porous river borders became sealed through strengthened military control; it concludes that maximal (although never hermetic) closure of the borders was achieved in the early 1930s, and as the result of Soviet rather than Chinese measures.
The third part analyses the mechanics of border crossing – despite increased military vigilance – through a unique body of documentation on the escape of Mennonites, members of a German-speaking Protestant sect that had settled in Russia in the late eighteenth century, from Soviet territory into Chinese Manchuria over the Amur in 1930. These self-published and manuscript sources in German and English, which have been recently made available to the author, have not been studied by historians of China or Russia so far.
Inside the Kwantung Army
Bjorn Koolen
Kantogun, the Kwantung Army. The name still stirs emotions of dismay amongst the peoples of northern China. From its strategic headquarters in southern Manchuria the Kwantung Army exercised an unprecedented influence over the state of affairs in the region and many of its elite personnel would in later years be promoted to high ranking position in the military as well as the government. Amongst these names we find men such as Hideki Tōjō; Seishirō Itagaki; Yoshijirō Umezu and Akira Mutō all of whom were convicted of war crimes following the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Despite the important role of the Kwantung Army in many critical events that led Japan to war against the Republic of China and eventually the West, the organizational culture has eluded thorough research.
A greater understanding of the dominant norms and values during the early years of the Kwantung Army does however promise insights into its ultranationalistic associations such as the Kōdōha, the Imperial Way Faction, and the background of those elites that would later lead Japan into total war. Was it the lack of organisational structure within the Kwantung Army that was responsible for fostering ultra-militarism amongst its elites or were it these elites themselves who created such an environment to advance their career? It are these overlooked yet fundamental insights that this paper seeks to explore by expatiating and profiling its historical origins, structure and most elite members.
Tobe Ryoichi
なぜ、日本軍人は政治化したのか。多くの人はおそらく次のように答えるだろう。統帥権の独立という制度がその原因だ、と。しかし、統帥権独立とは、軍人が政治に介入するために創られた制度ではない。そもそも特定の制度が軍人の政治化の原因になる、などということはあり得ない。何らかの原因が軍人の政治化を動機づけ、統帥権独立がその政治化を容易にしたと見るべきだろう。
近年の研究は、「軍政」優位の陸軍統制システムと、協調的な陸相を通じた政府の軍に対するコントロールとが、満洲事変後に崩壊したことを、1930年代の軍人の政治化の原因であると論じている。しかし、これは形を変えた制度原因論なのではないだろうか。そのシステムあるいは制度運用の慣行の崩壊は軍人政治化の原因ではなくて、その結果だったのではないだろうか。また、このシステムの崩壊という理由だけでは、軍人がテロやクーデターに訴えたことを充分に説明することができない。
では、日本の軍人政治化の本当の原因は何なのか。本研究は、それを軍人の意識構造から探ってみる。
Why Did Japanese Soldiers Become Politicized?
An analysis of the Development of Soldiers' Consciousness
Rotem Kowner
Mainstream postwar historiography of Japanese militarism has often bifurcated the prewar actors into bellicose and irrational soldiers (who frequently became politicians) on the one hand and sensible, moderate statesmen on the other hand. In this presentation I argue that this bisection is far-fetched and that the misperception is the product of postwar Japanese self-serving writings and American need to restore order. Instead, I suggest that the very two polar attitudes towards militarism and expansion could be found in individuals of both groups, especially since pacifists and hardcore militarists alike grew more committed to militarism as the war in the Pacific drew near. Taking the political career of three-time Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro (1891–1945) as a case study, this presentation seeks to show that even seemingly moderate politicians harbored radical visions of military expansion and new world order alongside “rational” and moderate worldview. Moreover, in crucial junctures, such as on the eve of wars, radical visions often affected their decision-making process more than their moderate façade.
The Pacifist-Militarist Statesman:
The “Multiple Personality” of Konoe Fumimaro and the Nature of Japanese Prewar Militarism
Bruce Grover
Commenting on the controversial publication of the 1934 Army pamphlet the Principles of National Defense during the tenure of Hayashi Senjūrō as War Minister, Marxist-influenced writer Murobuse Kōshin noted in the Yomiuri Shinbun that the pamphlet’s attack on capitalism and its call for an economic system based on morality had brought attention to issues the left had long promoted and exclaimed that “the era of the political parties has gone and the era of the military has come”.
General and Prime Minister Hayashi Senjūrō is remembered largely for his role in assisting Ishiwara Kanji as the ‘border-crossing general” during the Manchurian Incident, his purging of the ‘Imperial Way’ faction as War Minister and his short-lived cabinet as Prime Minister. However, as a result of the publicity-averse commander’s tendency to cautiously work behind the scenes, the scholarly literature has not fully recognized Hayashi’s pivotal role in the prewar period as one of the most active promoters of a vision of national renovation interweaving Pan-Asian leadership with national economic, social and cultural reconstruction which appealed to both left and right. In fact, as a network and institution builder, Hayashi created new coalitions among not only military planners, but also industrialists, politicians, religious groups, and academics setting precedents for the Konoe administration and ultimately helping to make Pan-Asian integration and domestic social mobilization appear as a viable and compelling alternative modernity to the Meiji consensus on government and empire.
By analyzing Hayashi’s domestic policies as well as his establishment of the Zenrin Kyōkai in Mongolia which built schools and clinics to win local support, the Greater Japan Muslim League which pursued economic and cultural diplomacy, and his political and religious organizations, this paper will seek to show the fundamental significance attributed to social and cultural thought in military ideology, while drawing parallels and contrasts with the thought and policies of Hayashi’s contemporaries such as Araki Sadao, Hiranuma Kiichirō, and Konoe Fumimaro.
Visions of National Reconstruction and Asian Leadership in Pre-war Japanese Military Ideology:
The Cultural Thought and Political Action of General Hayashi Senjūrō.
Andrew Gordon
In this talk, I will talk about what became of “imperial democracy” after World War II. I’ll start by introducing the term and the way I used it in my earlier work. That book ended with a rather weak gesture at postwar history, suggesting that the aspirations for empire were in the postwar era displaced into aspirations for economic growth. While that is an arguable position, it is a rather bland one. Pending some further research this spring, in the talk I will do two things. First, introduce John Dower’s concept of “imperial democracy” which he used to characterize the era of the US/Allied occupation of Japan, and critique that interpretation from the perspective of my own use of the term. Second, I will look into ways in which a relative militant spirit, or militarized rhetoric, continued to characterize Japanese political and economic culture, at least in some quarters, into the early postwar decades.
Imperial Democracies
in Twentieth Century Japan
The Military-Adventurous Complex
and the Roots of Japanese Imperialism
Danny Orbach
In the last few decades, scholars of Japanese imperialism focused not only on decision makers in Tokyo and elsewhere, but also on the role of grassroots actors. One group of such actors were the so-called continental adventurers (tairiku rōnin). These people, typically young men in their 20s and 30s, had been travelling to Korea, Manchuria and mainland China since the early 1880s, first in a trickle and then in significant numbers. They moved around, often employed by the army as part-time translators, spies and special operatives. The continental adventurers, and the patriotic societies to which they belonged, have been studied as prime movers of Japanese imperial expansion. However, the existing accounts fail to present a convincing model of the mechanism that made their schemes effective. The goal of this presentation is to fill this gap.
This mechanism, which I shall hereafter call the military-adventurous complex, was a lobby of officers, continental adventurers, businessmen, politicians, criminal elements, as well as Chinese, Manchurian and Mongolian revolutionaries. The interests of these contingents were unique but nevertheless intertwining. Despite its decentralized character, the military-adventurous complex had a significant impact on foreign policy over an extended period. Below, we shall explore the contours, structure and modus operandi of that complex, its ambivalent relationship with the Japanese state, as well as two examples of its operations in the early Twentieth Century – the so-called Manchurian Independence Movements in 1912 and 1916. Finally, we shall dwell on the ramifications the complex had on the development of Japanese imperialism.
The relations between non-institutional agents
and military intelligence: The Institutionalization of the expansionist ideology
Gregoire Sastre
In my PHD thesis, I defined the term Tairiku Rōnin, which I chose to translate as “noninstitutional agents of influence”, and discussed their role in the making of Japanese foreign policies, especially Japanese expansionism. In this communication, I will show how they contributed to modifying the place of the Army in Japan’s political system, and their role in the making of expansionist policies.
In this paper, I will interrogate the relations between these non-institutional agents and the military in general, as well as with the Army intelligence, in particular. Through the analysis of the relations and networks these agents established with Army officers, I will shed light on the circulation of ideas and the process through which the agents’ personal ideological agendas ended up being institutionalized, and the influence of individuals on Japan’s expansionist policies.
Thu Nguyen
Japanese Sea Adventurers in Vietnam
During the 17th and 18th Centuries
Unlike the later tairiku rounin (lit. continental adventurers) who usually had well-defined agendas, Japanese sea adventurers of the 16th and 17th centuries were merchants and pirates who at times, while seeking wealth and adventure, unwittingly became important political tools of their sovereigns and foreign local powers in the process. Coming to Dang Trong (the south part of Vietnam or Dai Viet, then ruled independently by Nguyen Lords) at a conventional moment, when Nguyen Lords sorely needed new sources of wealth and political legitimacy, and the Chinese imposed ban on sea trade, they helped to shape an era of prosperous trade as well as a long lasting cultural bond between Vietnam and Japan.
The two merchants Funamoto Yabeiji and Araki Soutaro became respectively, son and adopted son-in-law, of the Nguyen Lords, while the pirate Shirama Kenki’s attacks and imprisonment became a pretext for the establishment of the Japanese Red Seal Trade System for regulating trade with Vietnam. Relations with Trinh Lords in the North were more fragile, but the Japanese also came and were accepted as merchants, advisors or translators.
Relying upon old Vietnamese and Japanese texts like Dai Nam thuc luc, Gaiban Tsusho, Rekidai Houan…etc as well as the previous scholarship on this subject, this paper will delve into the nature and impact of the players in these important encounters from political and cultural points of view, stressing comparative aspects of the Japanese adventurers and the Western adventurers who came to Vietnam during the same period.
Reut Harari
Imperial Medicine?
Japanese Military Medics in War-Torn China
As Japanese forces advanced, building the “Japanese Empire,” they discovered the challenges of maintaining their grasp over new territories and populations. Works by scholars, such as David Arnold, Ruth Rogaski, and Warwick Anderson revealed the particular importance of medicine for solidifying imperial rule. In addition to serving as a “tool of empire,” imperial medicine also created a space of encounter between occupier and occupied, which differed in nature from the violent interaction of war. In my paper I will examine encounters between Japanese medical servicemen and local populations. The Japanese Army defined the role of medical servicemen, or “medics” (eiseihei 衛生 兵) as centered on maintaining the health of Japanese soldiers, preventing diseases of different kinds, providing emergency care in battle, and tending soldier-patients in various settings. As such, medics were trained to deal specifically with the male body of the Japanese soldier. Yet, as the Army moved deeper into local populations around the empire, medics found themselves treating a completely different population than that which the Army trained them for. Focusing on post-1937 China, this paper will explore how medics treated local men, women and children of different ages, language and background, either through planned “pacification campaigns,” or under spontaneous circumstances created by occupation.
While the history of colonial medicine is usually told through the eyes of physicians and bureaucrats, this paper will show how the Japanese Army made particular use of lower ranking medics in far-off areas; away from the major centers, such as Shanghai and Tianjin, medics became the sole care-providers of the troops, as well as tools for maintaining the peace in between violent bursts of military action. The story of “imperial medics” thus reveals a different perspective on the intricate dynamics of Japanese military rule and its daily reality on the ground.
Cathal Nolan
The Allure of Battle
Discrete battles seldom determined the final outcome of the major wars in which they were fought. Nor did the so-called "genius" of generals play the major role. Modern wars among the great powers have for the most part been decided by attrition. That has not stopped militarist politicians and hordes of generals from succumbing to the allure of battle, most often with the result that they tumbled their nations and, twice, the entire world into drawn-out war.
The two exemplars of "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief, were Germany and Japan in the first half of the 20th century. Each plunged into what it planned as a short war because it feared it could not win a long one, as it was overmatched in matériel by
a grand coalition it helped bring into being by its policies of aggression. Each succumbed to military superstitions and invented cultural myths that said “race will” or seishin spirit would overcome the vast gulf in enemy strength. Each sought to win an opening battle of annihilation, and was instead annihilated in long wars that by the end look indistinguishable from nihilism.
C. Christine Fair
Pakistan's Way of War:
Militarism and Strategic Culture
This report analyzes four key concepts undergirding the Pakistan Army’s strategic culture and considers the implications for U.S. and Indian efforts to manage the threat from Pakistan.
Pakistan remains a staunchly revisionist state that both continues to assert territorial equities in Kashmir and seeks to resist India’s rise in the international system. Its revisionism motivated it to start wars in 1947–48, 1965, and 1999, all of which it failed to win, as well as to sustain a proxy war in Kashmir, the most recent campaign of which began in 1989. Pakistan has adopted several strategies to manage its security environment, including ideological tools, the pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan, and the use of proxy fighters under its expanding nuclear umbrella. Pakistan continues to pursue these strategies even though they are very unlikely to succeed and have imposed a high cost on the state. Much of its behavior, however, can be explained by the strategic culture of the Pakistan Army. This culture is characterized by four beliefs: (1) that Pakistan is an insecure and incomplete state, (2) that Afghanistan is a source of instability, (3) that India rejects the two-nation theory and seeks to dominate or destroy Pakistan, and (4) that India is a regional hegemon that must be resisted. The Pakistan Army controls most levers of power with respect to national security and foreign policy, as well as domestic policies that influence these domains. Moreover, this strategic culture is enduring and unlikely to change, as will be demonstrated by a study of Pakistani military publications. POLICY IMPLICATIONS • Pakistan’s security perceptions are deeply entrenched within the army, which has successfully cultivated support among wide swathes of Pakistanis. • Past U.S. efforts to induce Pakistan to be less dangerous have failed principally because they have relied on inducements that have actually rewarded the country for its reckless behavior. The challenge for the U.S., therefore, is to devise a suite of compellent strategies that can alter Pakistan’s cost-benefit calculus in using nonstate actors. • For the U.S. to fail to adopt such compellent strategies would be to accept that Pakistan will become ever more dangerous while being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers and multilateral institutions.
Clinton Godart
Rethinking Religious Militarism
in Pre-War Japan
In this paper, I want to bridge the fields of religious and military history, and reconsider how religio-ideological factors shaped thinking in the armed forces in Japan, and conversely, how officers used religious ideas, by focusing on the case of Nichirenism. Were religio-ideological ideas merely tools for military figures to advance secular goals, or did they reflect larger changes? How should we understand the role of both Army and Navy in shaping the ideological landscape of pre-war Japan? Ishiwara Kanji (1889-1949), architect of the Manchurian intervention in 1931, is the most well-known proponent for Nichirenism in the Army, especially for his “theory of the final war”, which combined Nichiren’s mystical idea of Japan’s mission in the world with a theory of the evolution of warfare to predict a culminating clash between Western civilization, led by the United States, and Asia, led by Japan. Together with incidents of terrorism and revolts, the story of Ishiwara Kanji has led to the association of Nichirenism with violent and revolutionary action. In this paper, I want to firstly, reconsider Ishiwara Kanji’s views and influence; secondly, balance this history of radicalism with a largely unknown but important network of high-ranking Nichirenist officers in the establishment of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which included among others admirals Satō Tetsutarō (1866-1942), the “Mahan of Japan,” and Ogasawara Naganari (1867-1958), both who were particularly active in navalist propaganda and in shaping the image of the Navy. Morevover, it was through modern lay Buddhist networks that these Navy officers were connected with radical ideologues and figures in the Army. How did IJN officers factor Nichirenism in their strategic visions, the place of Japan in the world, and the role of the
armed forces in Japanese society? Investigating the roles of religion and Nichirenism will add a different dimension to the question of how to understand “militarism” in pre-war Japan.
Japanese Militarism Reexamined
Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti
History is usually written by the winners and in their spirit. Thus, it is common to describe Japan’s political arena of the 1930s and until 1945 in black and white colors: the right wing – including rightist socialists - as pro-militaristic, the leftist socialists as a group that remained silence, while the illegal communists who were severely oppressed, were the only activists to protest against militarism. Yet, when examining to the depth different circles of politicians and even the American postwar documentation, we find out that things were much more complicated and in all circles there were top politicians that expressed reservation from the Japanese militarism and main militaristic expeditions. Given this background, the actual paper would describe who were the political circles that expressed critics against the Japanese militarism and what were their stances vis-à-vis Japan’s main stream politics at the end of the 1930s and along WWII.
Militarism in Japanese School Songs
Ury Eppstein
Schoolsongs (shooka) were an innovation of the Meiji period in Japan. Unlike Western countries, where any song could qualify as a scchoolsong if selected by a music teacher or a songbook editor, in Meiji Japan shooka were determined, commissioned or at least approved by the governmeent's Ministry of Education, and therefore represemted the government's official policy or intention regarding any schoolsong subject. In the 1930s there was nothing innovative in shooka as far as militarism is concerned, but a direct continuation and intensification of the militaristic policy emphasized in shooka already beore the Sino-Japanese war. While in the early Meiji period shooka encouraged peace, harmony, friendliness and love of nature, an abrupt change occured in 1891, when for the first time the term "teki" (enemy) appeared, still three years before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, when Japan was not yet at war with any country. This tendency intensified throughout the 1930s up to the Pacific War. It was based on the understanding that today's schoolchildren would be tomorrow's soldiers who would fight more vehemently if indoctrinated systematically, inter alia, by schoolsngs. This preseentation will include translated examples of relevant shooka texts.
To most Americans, it is perfectly obvious that the two atomic bombs ended World War II. Yet at least four other developments helped persuade Japanese leaders to surrender. The Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan on August 8 may have been more decisive, some historians argue. However, the other three factors are rarely discussed. The Allied blockade increasingly deprived the Japanese home front of food and fuel. In its final phase called “Operation Starvation, the U.S. aerial mining campaign stopped nearly all food imports, resulting in widespread malnutrition. Nor have historians fully considered the expansion of the U.S. firebombing campaign to nearly 60 small and medium cities during summer 1945. Bombing and food shortages led millions to flee the cities, crippling Japan’s capacity to wage total war. Finally, Japanese officials and industrialists closely followed the recent defeat of Nazi Germany, which had fought to the finish. Influential elites passionately wished to avoid a similar Allied invasion, and they pressed top leaders to end the war before Japan’s infrastructure and its people were obliterated.
Sheldon Garon
Five Things You'd Want to Know in Explaining
Japan's Surrender in 1945
