Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

“Similarly, the preoccupation with their own misery that led most Japanese to ignore the suffering they had inflicted on others helps illuminate the ways in which victim consciousness colors the identities that all groups and peoples construct for themselves.”

The Japanese imperial army participated in many atrocities, such as the Rape of Nanking, and was known for its harsh treatment of its own soldiers. At the same time, the Japanese civilians suffered tremendously—from the firebombing of Tokyo to the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Allied bombing destroyed 40% of urban areas, leaving 30% of the Japanese without a home. After 1945, the Japanese faced starvation and homeless, and the streets were filled with orphans, among many other serious issues. Dower’s statement, therefore, raises the question of collective guilt and war reparations, considering that many Japanese did not participate in any military action or only participated indirectly by working in the industries that supplied the war effort. These civilians’ identities were thus complex; some were complicit in militaristic efforts but were also war victims themselves.

“A country that had celebrated its mythic ‘2,600-year anniversary’ in 1940, and prided itself on never having been invaded, was about to be inundated by white men.” 

Dower refers to the fact that Japan has been relatively closed off to the world throughout its existence. In the age of discovery and conquest, the Europeans, especially the Portuguese, came to Japan and established trade. In the mid-19th century, American warships arrived in Japan “to force the country to open” once again (19). Therefore, the American postwar occupation was a drastic change compared to the rest of Japan’s history. This occupation not only involved a significant foreign military presence but also the direct control of its political landscape and society. 

“The ravages of war can never be accurately quantified. Even when large bureaucracies are put to the task of calculating total casualties and estimating the extent of physical destruction, the results are typically a potpourri of implausibly precise numbers masking areas of uncertainty.”

Dower provides a realistic assessment of quantifying war losses and casualties. One may accurately calculate the number of destroyed buildings in an urban area. However, the numbers of missing soldiers and civilians complicate the question of exact human casualties, whereas psychological suffering may be immeasurable. To put things in perspective, WWII gravesites for unknown soldiers—the permanently missing—in such places as the former USSR, which lost approximately 27 million people, are still being discovered into the first quarter of the 21st century.

“He noted that enlisted men had died of starvation at a far greater rate than officers and asked how he could give comfort to the souls of his dead comrades who, in effect, had been killed by the tyranny of their own leaders. He quoted an old samurai saying about bringing a souvenir to hell, which originally had meant killing an enemy at the time of one’s own death. Most of his comrades, he said, died wishing to take not an enemy but one of their officers with them as their souvenir.” 

This quotation describes a letter by a Japanese veteran to a newspaper. This veteran details the horrific treatment that some Japanese soldiers endured at the hands of their superiors, which included both physical violence and psychological humiliation. Such testimonies demonstrate the complexities of analyzing war, in which the aggressor may simultaneously be a victim. The Japanese soldiers’ firsthand experiences also show the total inhumanity of war.

“Another woman, whose husband was still missing, complained that soldiers demobilized at home received severance pay, a rice ration, and clothing. She and her children, in contrast, could only anticipate death. Then, plaintively, she asked what the use of talking about such things as woman suffrage was when she and others like her were starving. This was a question that arose in many quarters, as people confronting shattered lives in a shattered land were asked to contemplate seemingly abstract political ideals.”

Dower provides detailed and graphic descriptions of the devastation in early postwar Japan. One key aspect of the country’s predicament was supply shortages, including food. This quotation compares the democratic ideals of women’s voting rights with the lack of basic survival necessities—necessities without which higher ideals are almost irrelevant.

“Hunger was not simply a product of defeat. Rather, it derived from the desperate prolongation of the emperor’s lost war, besides being compounded by a disastrous harvest and exacerbated by the confusion, corruption, and ineptitude of the postsurrender elites. A majority of Japanese already were malnourished at the time of surrender.” 

The loss of an overseas empire in the aftermath of the Second World War led to supply shortages for Japan. However, Japan’s problems were exacerbated by several other factors, not least of which was systemic corruption. Dower describes this corruption throughout his book, for instance, the police ineptitude when it came to controlling the black markets.

“In responding to SCAP’s orders, Japanese bureaucrats revealed a rare and unusually fine appreciation of human rights. In December 1946, the Home Ministry declared that women had the right to become prostitutes, and this became the ostensible rationale behind designating ‘red-line’ districts in which it was understood by all parties that they would continue to ply their trade.” 

The Japanese government allowed the establishment of districts for sex workers after a failed attempt to regulate this industry through the Recreation and Amusement Association. Many women, especially the most vulnerable, turned to sex work that serviced American soldiers, specifically, in the difficult early postwar days fraught with hunger and homelessness. The Japanese government saw this industry as a way of preventing rapes of “reputable” women by American soldiers.

“In their embarrassing way, the panpan were the exemplary pioneer materialists and consumers of the postwar era. In those years of acute hunger and scarcity, the material comfort of the Americans was simply staggering to behold. What made America ‘great’ was that it was so rich; and, for many, what made ‘democracy’ appealing was that it apparently was the way to become prosperous. Among ordinary people, no group tapped the material treasures of the conquerors as blatantly as the panpan.”

Dower believes the panpan symbolize the time in many ways. One of those ways was the emphasis on materialism—which includes physical pleasure—a tendency that was typically associated with Americans. The panpan were associated with sensuality, and having access to such material comfort stood in stark contrast to the hardship of the wartime and early postwar era, making it all the more desirable.

“For almost a century, the Japanese had been socialized to anticipate and accommodate themselves to drastic change. When World War II ended, they were well prepared—not merely by the horrors and manifest failures of the war, but also by the socialization of the past and even the psychic thrust of wartime indoctrination—to carry on the quest for a ‘new’ Japan.”

The author explores continuities and breaks during the postwar occupation as Japan transformed from a militarist empire into a democracy. Paradoxically, the Japanese did not expect the status quo because they were conditioned to accept change. This acceptance made the country’s postwar transformation easier on a psychological level.

“These bridges of language, so crucial to maintaining a sense of identity and purpose, were awesome indeed, for they carried an ambiguous traffic. People used them to escape the past and move on to new destinations. At the same time, there was always the possibility—even the temptation—of crossing back.”

Communication and language are one of the central pillars of Dower’s analysis. Throughout this book, he examines pulp literature, classic texts, radio broadcasts, mainstream newspapers, letters to the editor, and documentary photography. Dower believes that all these diverse forms of communication are evidence of Japanese society’s transformation in the early postwar period.

“In numerous such ways, the contradictions of the democratic revolution from above were clear for all to see: while the victors preached democracy, they ruled by fiat; while they espoused equality, they themselves constituted an inviolate privileged caste. Their reformist agenda rested on the assumption that, virtually without exception, Western culture and its values were superior to those of ‘the Orient.’ At the same time, almost every interaction between victor and vanquished was infused with intimations of white supremacism.”

Embracing Defeat examines a paradox: a foreign occupying power forcibly transforming Japan into a democracy while also promoting the values of freedom of speech and popular representation. The American occupation deprived its victims of agency and representation in order to promote a representative form of government. This paradox existed within the neocolonial paradigm, in which the Americans perceived the Japanese in a paternalistic, condescending manner.

“Multiple traumas of identity were embedded in this quest for a ‘modern self’: acknowledging personal failure; repudiating one’s own history and culture; looking for models in a Western world that itself had engaged in repression, imperialism, and war.”

The trauma of identity is central to Dower’s analysis of postwar Japanese society. Japan’s defeat was traumatic not only because of the physical devastation of war but also because it completely negated the ideological paradigm of militarism that had extensively permeated Japanese society for over a decade. Reinventing Japan on the macrocosmic level—and how each individual Japanese citizen fit into this new identity—was one of the central tasks after 1945.

“The campaign to dress Emperor Hirohito in new clothes and turn him into a symbol of peace and democracy was conducted on several fronts. Immense care was taken to exempt him from indictment in the impending showcase war-crimes trials in Tokyo. Although his formal exoneration from war responsibility did not actually come until June 1946, well before that date the emperor cast aside his commander-in-chief’s uniform, donned a Western-style suit, and embarked on a series of tours that eventually would take him to almost every prefecture in the country.”

Dower details why Hirohito never faced war responsibilities—either criminally or morally—unlike his underlings. He believes that the American occupying forces and the Japanese royal circles came to an agreement to keep the emperor as a public figure after rebranding him as a symbol of peace and democracy—quite the change from his militarist wartime-era status. The Japanese displayed great reverence toward their emperor, who also symbolized continuity and stability while being legitimized by—and legitimizing—the American conquerors. His tours served as a public-relations campaign in his new status.

“Before the war crimes trials actually convened, SCAP, the IPS, and Japanese officials worked behind the scenes not only to prevent Emperor Hirohito from being indicted, but also to slant the testimony of the defendants to ensure that no one implicated him.”

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East took place between 1946 and 1948. This tribunal was the Pacific counterpart of the European Nuremberg trials. Some high-ranking Japanese military leaders received death sentences for war crimes such as the Rape of Nanking. The extent of the emperor’s role in war responsibility was debated in Japanese political circles. However, the MacArthur-led American occupation force decided to transform the militarist Hirohito into a postwar symbol of peace and democracy. Considering his importance to the ordinary Japanese, this decision was also one of stabilizing that country’s social fabric. In light of his new status, it was important for both the American conquerors and the Japanese elites to ensure that the emperor is as far removed from the war-crime trials as possible.

“The rationale for constitutional revision lay in several ambiguous sections of the Potsdam Proclamation. Section 6 declared, ‘There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest.’ Primarily, this provided justification for war-crimes trials and an extensive purge of individuals associated with militaristic and ultranationalistic activities and organizations. It could, however, also be interpreted as requiring the establishment of constitutional protections against future abuses of authority.” 

The Allied Potsdam Declaration (July 26, 1945) came in the wake of the German surrender and announced the surrender terms for Japan. The author believes that the specific language about the demilitarization of Japan was vague. This ambiguity initially created a number of issues for the war-crime trials and for the language used in Article 9 of Japan’s new constitution, which renounced war.

“Cynics would say that this near-unanimous embrace of the conqueror’s principles merely confirmed what condescending American and British analysts had been arguing all along: that the Japanese had an ‘ingrained feudalistic tendency’ to follow authority—that, as the State Department’s George Atcheson had put it at the beginning of 1946, this was the dawn of ‘the age of Japan’s imitation of things American—not only of American machines but also American ideas.’” 

Embracing Defeat underscores the American occupiers’ neocolonial, supremacist attitude toward the conquered Japanese. Many Americans in the top tier of the leadership considered the Japanese too tribalist and obsequious to be able to effectively self-govern. As a result, the GHQ believed that it was necessary for American ideals to be instilled in the Japanese as a modern-day “civilizing” initiative.

“SCAP’s war-guilt campaign played an important role in the psychological demilitarization of the Japanese. The ‘Class A’ Allied war-crimes tribunal, in particular, with its voluminous written evidence and oral testimony, revealed a secret history of intrigue and atrocity that could never have been so effectively exposed otherwise.”

The American postwar occupation of Japan had two key objectives: demilitarization and democratization. Dower believes that the latter objective surpassed the physical limits placed on the weapons and armed forces. Demilitarization also had an important psychological aspect, such as the exposure of war crimes. “Class A” war crimes were crimes against peace—that is, organizing war. The political intrigue behind organizing war was very revealing for the ordinary Japanese.

“The same rationale that prohibited fundamental criticism of occupation policies extended to criticism of the Allied powers in general, for to speak badly of the victors would undermine their moral authority. This meant that the outside world, too, had to be sanitized for Japanese consumption.”

Dower describes the substantial degree of American-led censorship during their formal postwar occupation. This censorship affected print, film, and even personal communication. One of the prohibited subjects was the activities of the occupation powers as well as their WWII Allies.

“When World War II ended in Asia, the consuming sentiments of the victorious Allies were hatred and hope; and the tangle of these emotions was nowhere more apparent than in the war-crimes trials the victors conducted. The atrocities Japanese forces had committed in all theaters provoked a fierce desire for vengeance, and it was taken for granted that harsh punishment would be meted out to those found guilty of violating the established rules and conventions governing conduct in war.” 

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was the counterpart of the Nuremberg trials in Europe. High-ranking Japanese officials, military officers, and soldiers were tried for “Class A,” “Class B,” and “Class C” war crimes—crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and other types of war crimes such as executing POWs. Dower dedicates Chapters 15 and 16 to the complexities of this war-crime tribunal, including the Allies’ desire for justice and vengeance before the Tribunal commenced.

“The plight of the Koreans was, in its way, emblematic of the larger anomaly of victor’s justice as practiced in Tokyo. It called attention to the fact that the recent war in Asia had taken place not among free and independent nations, but rather on a map overwhelmingly demarcated by the colors of colonialism. Colonialism, and imperialism more generally, defined the twentieth-century Asian world in which Japan was accused of having conspired to wage aggressive war. Japan’s colonial and neocolonial domain (Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria) existed alongside the Asian overseas possessions of four of the powers that now sat in judgment: Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the United States.” 

In a chapter about the Tokyo war-crime trials, Dower explores the way in which colonialism—and neocolonialism—affected the proceedings. All the countries Japan occupied during its war of aggression were Asian. Also, this war of aggression did not take place between free and sovereign nations but in the context of colonialism. Still, Asians were underrepresented as judges, and the Japanese themselves were excluded from even contributing to the investigation and prosecution, which the author calls shortsighted.

“Just as every fighting man on the winning side became a hero, so no supreme sacrifice in the victorious struggle had been in vain. Triumph gave a measure of closure to grief. Defeat left the meaning of these war deaths—of kin, acquaintances, one’s compatriots in general—raw and open.”

It is often said that winners write the history books. Dower voices that sentiment with his comment about the heroification of every soldier on the victorious side. In contrast, defeat in war not only leaves the losing side grieving the dead, but it also raises many complicated questions about the meaning of war and the cost of human sacrifice seemingly for nothing—without closure.

“While surviving war criminals were being pampered, projects were also under way to honor the memories of those who had been executed and restore to them a modicum of the individuality that had been stripped away when they were given the blanket label ‘war criminal.’ In a remarkably effective conservative publishing endeavor, the last written testaments of these men, their final letters to their families, their death poems and parting words were collected and made public. Between 1950 and 1954, more than fifteen edited books of this nature were published. Their compatriots were giving these men the last word in the most effective manner possible, by letting them speak as if from the grave.”

Following the Tokyo war-crime trials, certain segments of the Japanese society unofficially rehabilitated many war criminals in various ways. Some of these criminals, like Masanobu Tsuji, were even elected to politics. Others appeared in publications like the ones Dower describes. While publishing the final words of men staring death in the face may have humanized these war criminals, these publications demonstrated a certain lack of self-reflection about the causes and Japan’s role in the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII.

“Notwithstanding this, the overall impression of collections of posthumous writings such as Testaments of the Century was not so much anger or even apologia, but rather of an overwhelming feeling of waste, regret, and sorrow. The final words of the war criminals were not so different as might be imagined from those of the student conscripts killed in the war that were collected and published by liberal and left-wing academics.”

In a chapter on the war-crimes tribunal, Dower investigates the ways in which the Japanese society dealt with defeat. Whereas publishing the final words of war criminals may have been perplexing, the overall tone of those publications’ reception is that of sadness. Dower believes that defeat left a lack of closure.