Occupied Japan The Surrender Of Japan Accomplishments Of The

Representatives of Japan stand aboard the USS Missouri prior to signing of the Instrument of Surrender At Potsdam, United States President Harry Truman and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had agreed on how the Allied occupation of the Japanese Empire would be carried out. The Soviet Union would be responsible for North KoreaThe Democratic People's Republic of Korea DPRK Korean: Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk Hangul: ; Hanja: ), commonly known as North Korea is a country in eastern Asia, covering the northern half of the peninsula of Korea. To the south it borders South Ko, SakhalinSakhalin ( Russian: , also Saghalien (Ku Ye Dao, Chinese), or Karafuto ( Japanese: is a large elongated island in the North Pacific, lying between 45° 50' and 54° 24' N, in East Siberia, Russia. The capital of Sakhalin is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ( Russian: Japa, and the Kuril IslandsThe Kuril Islands ( Russian: ), also known as Kurile Islands stretch northeast from Hokkaido, Japan, to Kamchatka, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. They are part of Russia's Sakhalin Oblast. The islands are known in Japanese as, while the United States would have the main responsibility for Japan, South KoreaThe Republic of Korea (ROK; Korean: Daehan Minguk ( Hangul: ; Hanja: )), commonly known as South Korea is a country in East Asia, covering the southern half of the Korean peninsula. To the north, the Republic of Korea borders North Korea, with which it fo, and Japan's remaining possessions in OceaniaFor the fictional superstate in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four see Oceania (fiction . Oceania is a name used for varying groups of islands of the Pacific Ocean. In its narrow usage it refers to Polynesia (including New Zealand), Melanesia (inc.

On V-J Day, Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur GCB ( January 26, 1880— April 5, 1964) was an American military leader. He served in the U. Army his entire life, taking part in three major wars ( World War I, World War II, Korean War) and rising to the rank of General of the Army, one as SCAPSCAP short for Supreme Commander Allied Powers was the title for Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan following WWII. SCAP also referred to the offices of the occupation, including a staff of several hundred American civil servants as well as, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, to supervise the occupation of Japan. Japanese officials left for ManilaFor other meanings of the word, see Manila (disambiguation). Manila Maynila in Filipino) is the capital city of the Philippines. The city stands on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on the island of Luzon. Despite pockets of grinding poverty, it is one of t on August 19 to meet MacArthur and to be briefed on his plans for the occupation: on August 28, 150 US personnel flew to Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, and became the first Allied troops to land on Japanese soil. They were followed by the USS Missouri, which landed the US 4th Marine Division on the southern coast of Kanagawa.

MacArthur himself arrived in Tokyo on August 30, and immediately set several laws. No Allied personnel were to fraternize with Japanese people. No Allied personnel were to assault Japanese people. No Allied personnel were to eat Japanese food.

On September 2, Japan formally surrendered, signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, and the occupation began. MacArthur was technically supposed to defer to an advisory council set up by the Allied powers, but in practice did everything himself. His first priority was to set up a food distribution network: following the collapse of the ruling government, and the wholesale destruction of most major cities, virtually everyone was starving.

Once the food network was in place, at a cost of up to US$1 million a day, MacArthur set out to win the support of Hirohito. The two men met for the first time on September 28: the photograph of the two together is one of the most famous in Japanese history. With the sanction of Japan's reigning monarch, MacArthur now had the ammunition he needed to begin the real work of the Occupation. While other Allied political and military leaders pushed for Hirohito to be tried as war criminal, MacArthur resisted such calls, arguing that any such prosecution would be overwhelmingly unpopular with the Japanese people.

By the end of 1945, more than 350,000 US personnel were stationed throughout Japan.

A British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), comprised of Australian, British, Indian and New Zealand personnel, was deployed from February 21, 1946. While US forces were responsible for military government, BCOF was responsible for supervising demilitarisation and the disposal of Japan's war industries.[1] BCOF was also responsible for occupation of the western prefectures of Shimane, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Okayama, Hiroshima and Shikoku Island. BCOF headquarters was at Kure. At its peak, the force numbered about 40,000 personnel. For most of the occupation period, BCOF was comprised mostly of Australian Army personnel, and the position of commanding officer was always filled by an Australian. The British Pacific Fleet provided naval forces, and the Royal Australian Air Force an air presence. During 1947, the BCOF began to wind down its presence in Japan.

2 Accomplishments of the Occupation

2.1 Disarmament

Shortly after his arrival, MacArthur ordered that all Japanese personnel give up their daito and shoto: seven tons of swords were confiscated and sent to San Francisco. MacArthur dissolved the national police force and added a "peace clause" in Japan's new constitution that specifically forbade Japan from waging war. It also restricted Japan to spending no more than 1% of its budget on defenses, effectively ensuring that it would never be a military power again (although as of 2004 there was an active movement to repeal the clause).

2.2 Liberalization

The Allies dismantled Japan's zaibatsu: only their factories remained, in the hands of a wide array of corporations which eventually coalesced into what are now known as keiretsu. Five million acres (20,000 km²) of land were taken out of the hands of nobles and given to the farmers who worked them.

2.3 Democratization

In 1946, MacArthur completed a new, US-style Constitution of Japan, which was actually ratified as an amendment to the old British- German style Meiji Constitution. The new constitiution guaranteed basic freedoms and civil liberties, abolished nobility, and, perhaps most importantly, made the emperor the "spiritual ruler" of Japan, taking away virtually all of his political powers. Shinto was abolished as a state religion, and Christianity reappeared in the open for the first time in decades. Women gained the right to vote, and in April of that year, 14 million turned out to elect Japan's first modern prime minister, Yoshida Shigeru.

2.4 Unionization

This turned out to be one of the greatest hurdles of the occupation, as communism had become increasingly popular among the Japanese proletariat for several decades, and took advantage Japan's new liberal atmosphere. In February 1947, Japan's workers were ready to call a general strike, in an attempt to take over their factories; MacArthur warned that he would not allow such a strike to take place, and the unions eventually relented, making them lose face and effectively subduing them for the remainder of the occupation.

2.5 Education reform

Before and during the war, Japanese education was based on the German system, with gymnasiums and universities to train students after primary school. MacArthur changed Japan's secondary education system to incorporate three-year junior high schools and senior high schools similar to those in the US: junior high became compulsory, but senior high remained optional. The Imperial Rescript on Education was repealed, and the Imperial University system reorganized. Even written Japanese was drastically reorganized: the Toyo Kanji , predecessors of today's Joyo Kanji , were selected, and grammar was greatly altered to reflect conversational usage.

2.6 Purging of war leaders

While these other reforms were taking place, various military tribunals, most notably the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Ichigaya , were trying Japan's war criminals and sentencing many to death and imprisonment. Once Japan's wartime leaders were weeded out, a generation of junior officers was ready to take command of the country.

3 The end of the occupation

In 1949, MacArthur rubber-stamped a sweeping change in the SCAP power structure that greatly increased the power of Japan's native rulers, and as his attention (and that of the White House) gradually diverted to the Korean War, the occupation began to draw to a close. The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed on September 8, 1951, marked the end of the Allied occupation, and when it went into effect on April 28, 1952, Japan was once again an independent state. Nevertheless, many thousands of US military personnel would remain based in Japan over the following decades.

4 Cultural reaction

The occupation was satirised in the 1956 American film The Teahouse of the August Moon.

5 See also

Military rule

This period is part of the Showa period of Japanese History

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1 The Surrender of Japan