Pacific War Research Articles

Greedy for Effect: The Historiography of US Naval Logistics and the Pacific War

Abstract Naval and military historians have generally not focused on logistics, and this is true for Second World War naval historians and, more specifically, for United States Navy logistics of the Pacific War (1941–45). Naval logistics deserves more serious study as they circumscribe what surface fleets can accomplish. Recently, historians have started to treat this topic as an integral part of naval strategy, operations, and tactics, which is a step in the right direction. This article explores the current state of historical literature and demonstrates that further historical inquiry is necessary – the topic deserves more attention from historians and, indeed, today’s navies.

The Problem of Incredible Contracts for the Japanese Military Comfort Project during the Pacific War

Decades after the mobilization of comfort women from the late 1930s to 1945, disagreements over the issue continue to escalate, fueled by limited information and differing perspectives. This article aims to foster an academic consensus by employing a law and economics framework, contrasting with an opposing viewpoint. By examining the bilateral relationship between the Japanese authorities and comfort agents, previously overlooked aspects are brought to light. The analysis reveals varying levels of contractuality in different bilateral relationships, with comfort women lacking basic contractual requirements. However, the relationship between the Japanese authorities and comfort agents demonstrates greater fulfillment, albeit with an inherent imbalance. Notably, credible commitments between the authorities and agents, independent of written contracts, facilitate reciprocal agreements. Historical records shed light on this relationship, providing a basis for logical deduction. Resolving the current disagreements requires considering these perspectives, potentially alleviating longstanding antagonism and reconciling incompatible views surrounding the issue.

Inserting Japanese-American Memories into Japan’s War Narrative: National Identities, Divided Loyalty and Revisionism in Two Homelands

Engaging with the ‘transnational turn’ in collective memory studies, this article examines how national and transnational elements intersect in cultural memory-making of the Pacific War in contemporary Japan. Through a case study of a recent Japanese television drama (Two Homelands, 2019) about Japanese Americans who were caught up between two countries at war, it argues that the incorporation of transnational Nikkei memories into Japanese national war memory on a popular cultural level both challenges and reinforces the dominant war narratives in Japan. Ultimately, Two Homelands uses Nikkei voices and their wartime experience of racial discrimination and internment to reinterpret Japan’s role in the Pacific War and promote the revisionist-nationalist narrative of the war. As such, the drama exemplifies the desire within Japan to rehabilitate the persisting cultural trauma of the war and defeat.

유일한의 미주 독립운동과 고려경제회

Compared to other representative indepedence movements, Ilhan New’s activity as a chairman of the Korea Economic Society has received less attention than it deserves.
 In order to create positive public opinion about Korea in the U.S Ilhan New insisted on the necessity to utilize Korean military power during the Pacific War and on Korean’s capability of building and running their nation post-war. It played a positive role in encouraging the U.S. policy toward Korea to be more beneficial to Korea. However, Ilhan New judged that working through Planning and Research Board and the United Korean Committee in America Mission, to which he belonged, to be limited.
 Therefore, he created the Korea Economic Society as a non-profit organization.
 The Korea Economic Society’s main activity was to publish it’s own journal called Korea Economic Digest. It supplemented the limitations of Ilhan New’s previous press strategy that used only Korean activists and KED’s writers consisted of many American experts on Korea. These writers supported Ilhan New’s independence movement and attempted to persuade the U.S.
 government-related ministries and public-private agencies by citing Korea’s strengths and potential values as seen by non-Koreans.
 In other words, the Korea Economic Society could be considered a valuable association in that sense that defended and promoted Korea through journalism in response to the U.S. government’s tendency to draw negative conclusions through public researches on Korea during the Pacific War period. In addition, it was unique because it was a private association that reflected New Ilhan’s special independence movement strategy which was to promote Korea through the journalism.

카이로회담 전후 연합국 군사동맹의 비판적 검토

This paper tried to critically examine the military alliance between the U.S., Britain, and China through China’s role in the Cairo talks and changes in the Allied strategy against Japan before and after the talks. Immediately after the outbreak of the Pacific War, the national government proposed a military alliance to the West, and a military alliance was signed between the United States, Britain, and China. However, each country had a different view of the Allied military alliance. As a result, the difference in strategy between the US, UK, and Chinese military leaders resulted in Burma being occupied by the Japanese military in a short period of time. Since 1943, as the war has developed in favor of the Allies on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific, the Allies held Cairo talks for the post-war Asian initiative and the Japan-Japan strategy. Chiang Kai-shek’s participation in the Cairo conference led China to become one of the four major powers. But it was a semi-final in justification, not a real one.
 In Tehran, the Allies decided to end the war in Asia after ending the war in Europe first. Of course, the strategy agreed upon by the Allies at the Tehran talks may have been a way to quickly end World War II as a whole. However, this strategy could have a huge negative impact on Eastern Europe and Asia, even if the damage to the Chinese national government was left alone. First of all, in Europe, the Soviet Union advanced to Germany and influenced post-war Eastern Europe, and then in Northeast Asia, the Soviet Union exerted influence over Manchuria rather than other powers, which had a decisive impact on the outcome of the post-war civil war.

Rivalry USA and China in The Pacific: Interpretation of Communication Theorities

Communication is a way of interacting with fellow human beings, because 
 communication is essentially a needfor each individual to exist as a society. In communicating,
 ethics must be considered whencommunicating with others.Thisstudy aims to provide an
 overview of the perspectives and impressions exchanged by the United States and China during
 the Pacific War. Methods of the writings is qualitative, which sources are taken from many of 
 Chinese and USA plus Australia and New Zealand’s policies in order to gain economic benefit
 from Pacific States. Superpowers have been put a lot of intentions in the Pacific regions, since its
 Colonial times. This writing only want to stressed the rivalty which had beenput in the region
 nowadays. This effort only tried to understand form of policies of the countries in the Pacific, to
 addressed these rivalries of ex colonial powers, USA and China, for least mentioned.

Why Not Mahan? Path Dependence in Modern Japanese Geostrategic Thinking of the Pacific

Abstract It is well known that during the 1930s and the 1940s intellectuals in Japan, an island state, devoured geopolitical theories constructed in a typical ‘land power’, Germany. Not only did this fad contradict the geographical reality of Japanese territory. It was also at odds with Japan’s contemporary national identity as a maritime state. This article highlights intellectual path dependence as the key to explaining this conundrum. The initial decision that paved the way for the adoption of the German tradition of geopolitics was made shortly before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War by political scientist Onozuka Kiheiji, who consciously opted for the geographical ideas of Friedrich Ratzel instead of the naval strategy of Alfred Thayer Mahan as a theoretical guide and justification for empire-building. This article illustrates how the choice made by Onozuka induced his students, who became leading intellectual figures after World War I, to follow the evolution of German geopolitics and to propagate the ideas of Karl Haushofer at the beginning of the Pacific War. The article ends by briefly describing how the Geopolitik tradition was overcome by the formation of a new maritime national identity after the war.

Seaweed modernity: Empire, state, and the Sino-Japanese relations

Seaweed, which had long been adopted by traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of inflammation and tumorous swelling, became a marine crop with increased political and economic importance in early 20th century China. Chinese consumers and manufacturers embraced a global discourse spread from Japan and the West that highlighted the dietary and industrial values of seaweed and its extracts. Chinese elites also identified the social value of seaweed in reducing nutrition disparities between coastal and inland China. The global circulatory processes of seaweed knowledge co-existed with the continued Japanese imperialism and growth of Chinese nationalism in the first half of the 20th century, which led to periodic boycotts of Japan-imported seaweed or increases in the tariffs levied on them. From the 1930s, the Kwantung Marine Productions Experimental Station based in Dalian began cultivating Laminaria Japonica, a type of brown seaweed, along the Yellow Sea in southern Manchuria. At the heart of this colonial scientific program was an attempt to mitigate Chinese nationalist sentiment with the “homegrown” marine products, overcome Japan’s wartime shortage of raw materials, and enhance the self-sufficiency of Manchuria following the outbreak of the Asia Pacific War.

The 1946 Cholera Pandemic in Pusan and Kyŏngnam, and the Post-Asian Pacific War Regional Politics of East Asia

The 1946 Cholera Pandemic in Pusan and Kyŏngnam, and the Post-Asian Pacific War Regional Politics of East Asia

일본군 ‘위안부’는 ‘영어로’ 말할 수 있는가

This article targets the movie “I Can Speak”, which was produced based on the actual case in which the “Resolution on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery (H. Res. 121)” was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007. Through the analysis of “I Can Speak”, this paper critically examines the discourse of ‘Comfort Women’ in the United States. Today, ‘Comfort Women’ issue is raised in the United States as a matter of human rights for universal women, but on the other hand, this discourse omits the issue of American intervention and (neo)colonialism in the Pacific War and post-war processing. At this time, 'universal value' means built by the state-knowledge power of the United States, and at the same time reproduces it. “I Can Speak” puts the U.S. outside the issue by erasing the U.S. political landscape surrounding the ‘Comfort Women’ issue and reducing it to just ‘Korea-Japan’ relations. In “I Can Speak,” the U.S. Congress is represented as a place where historical truth wins, and the victim receives an apology from the audience in a parliament surrounded by a statue of an American great man. This paper confirms that the U.S. Congress is also a powerful place to capture Servalton's speech with its ruling discourse by revealing the action of power that the word ‘universal value’ conceals. What is important is that these limitations are not only “I Can Speak,” but also our view of recognizing the ‘Comfort Women’ issue being publicized in the United States today. Therefore, the analysis of “I Can Speak” allows us to critically examine the discourse and movement that is ‘globalizing’ the ‘Comfort Women’ problem through the United States.

“Esigenza ‘G’”: the planning for the Italian expeditionary corps for the invasion of Japan, 1944-1945

ABSTRACT Between 1944-45, Italian political leaders requested the Italian military to prepare plans for an Italian expeditionary corps that would help the Allies in the planned invasion of Japan in late 1945. They hoped that Italy’s participation in the Pacific War would persuade the Allies to grant it a favorable Peace Treaty and the country’s re-insertion as an equal power in post-war Europe. However, while Italian military planners attempted to draft feasible plans that considered the practical challenges, Italy’s material limitations, and Italian public opinion, the Italian political leadership focused only on the potential political rewards. Within a strategy-making system that sidelined the military leadership, the Italian government insisted on plans that were overly ambitious, revolving around the dispatchment of a large combat force made up of all branches of the Italian military half-way across the world to engage in active combat against the Japanese. In the end, Italian leaders’ insistence on grandiose military plans that were impossible to reconcile with the national capabilities, along with their indecisiveness in declaring war against Japan, exhausted all the available time. Japan’s surrender in August 1945 made any potential Italian contribution superfluous, Italy wasted the opportunity to contribute to the war in the Far East and, in doing so, was unable to improve its own postwar prospects.

World War II in John Ford’s films

John Fords films show how the cultural context of the Pacific War and the image of the war in combat films of 19411945 change. By the time the USA entered the World War II, Hollywood and Washington had a long if not estranged relationship. They were both well versed in the use of propaganda and had readily employed it on the citizens of the United States. J. Fords films are a good example of this cooperation. This paper is about a reflection of the image of the Pacific war, and about the key moments of glorification of the World War II history in the USA cinema and media. The paper analyzes the connection between the images of the war in the film December 7 with the images of the war in newspapers, cartoons, politicians speeches this will help to study the problem of visualizing the war in a wide socio-cultural context rather than in isolation. The nature and mechanisms of mutual influence of these images of the war have been determined: for example, how the materials of periodicals influenced the film; how the speeches of American politicians were refracted and reflected in Fords film; how the visual images of cartoons influenced the directors work.

On Mishima Yukio’s <i>Tōka no Kiku</i> ：The Images of Imperial Japanese Soldiers

<i>Tōka no Kiku</i>, published by MishimaYukio in 1961, is considered the second play of his “Trilogy on the February 26 Incident”. It is loosely based on a specific element of the assassination of Makino Nobuaki, and highlights the non-violent instincts of the young Imperial Japanese Army officers who organized the attack. On the other hand, the image of the surviving soldier in this play, created by Mishima, who attempted to represent the historical continuity of the Shôwa era, is a device that expresses the twin, contradictory aspects of the Asia– Pacific War. The image accentuates the resistance against the imperialism that was led by Europe and the United States, while concealing the aggressiveness of the war against Asian colonies, and it ultimately dissolves The Empire of Japan’s responsibility for the Asia–Pacific War.

The Transformation of Taiwanese Women’s Physical Education in Schools During the Japanese Colonial Period (1895–1945)

This study explores the development of women’s physical education (PE) in Taiwanese schools during the Japanese colonial period. It seeks to understand how Japanese colonizers cultivated and shaped Taiwanese women’s bodies through PE in schools. First, Japanese colonizers faced the challenge of dismantling footbinding customs when implementing women’s PE and body engineering policies. However, when women were liberated from footbinding and the concept of natural feet emerged among the population, women’s PE came out of the shadow of footbinding. Second, as the natural feet generation arose, Taiwanese women started participating in physical activities and competitive sports while still abiding by the canons of the “Japanese woman.” Third, during the Pacific War, improving one’s physique and developing PE policies became part of a national defense strategy and the main focus in the process of producing imperial citizens. The body was given different meanings, yet its control and standardization were omnipresent under colonial governance.

Hong Kong in Transition: Photography and Liberation at the End of the Pacific War

Abstract This article thinks with and against photographs taken by British military photographers in Hong Kong at the end of World War II, during the transition from Japanese back to British colonial rule. Building on Lisa Yoneyama's account of the “postwar settlements” through which “the war's meaning” was defined and contained, I situate the photographs as part of a broader British effort to reassert the legitimacy of colonial rule at a crisis point for empire by refiguring Asian liberation as an affordance, or synonym, of British (re)occupation. At the same time, I read the photographs for what they can tell us about the liberatory knowledges that Asian colonial subjects had cultivated, or might have, throughout years of war and occupation. In this way, the article meditates on the predicaments of liberation in an Asian place where the horizon of decolonization continues to be difficult to discern, focusing on the care work necessary for survival as a crucial site and practice of liberatory political imagining.

Japanese Authorities, the ‘Comfort Project’, and Tacit Contracts under Militaristic Rule during the Pacific War

ABSTRACT The comfort women issue (also known as the Japanese military sexual slavery issue), which occurred during the Pacific War from the late 1930s to 1945, has continued to negatively impact the present and future of East Asia for more than seven decades. Even today this issue is the source of multiple and serious disagreements between governments, scholars, and citizens from across the region. This article seeks to contribute to research on the comfort women issue by shifting the focus from the relationship between the Japanese authorities and comfort women to that between these authorities and the comfort agents. It uses archival records, and in particular documents from the Japanese military and police, to illustrate that the ‘comfort project’ was not driven by the choices of the women who were caught in its midst, but rather by a hierarchical structure of wartime militaristic rule, with the Japanese authorities as the principal and the brothel-owners/recruiters as their agents. Further, the article argues that the relationship between the authorities and brothel-owners/recruiters was a tacit contract of agency: both parties had to carry out their commitments because these commitments were so credible, even in the absence of physical contracts.

Pacific Fleet to Singapore?: Deterrence, Warfighting, and Anglo-American Planning for the Defense of Southeast Asia, 1937-1941

ABSTRACT For the 20 years before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Great Britain based its grand strategy in the Far East around the presence – and potential – of the Singapore Naval Base. The Americans, for a time, agreed in the project’s potential in the face of increasing Japanese belligerence. This analysis examines the place of the Singapore Naval Base in Anglo-American planning for the defence of Southeast Asia. It focuses on British efforts to lobby the Americans to deploy the Pacific Fleet to Singapore to deter Japan, the evolution of American plans for the defence of the Far East, and how all these interacted. It argues that the British desire to use the Pacific Fleet as a deterrent force based at Singapore, and the American assessments of how the Pacific Fleet would actually fight Japan from Singapore, represented a conceptual disconnect they could not overcome until faced with imminent hostilities. Scrutinizing the discussions and plans related to this understudied episode provides additional understanding not only how the aspirant allies viewed the growing threat from Japan, but also how they viewed each other.

Un-Australian? White Australia’s Visions of Identity and the Racialisation of the Pacific War

This article investigates white Australia’s racialisation of the Pacific War. Specifically, it focuses on contemporary disputes over racialised depictions of the conflict, and how such contentions figured in understandings of Australian identity. By looking at wartime newspaper and magazine articles, wartime propaganda, and the public responses to them, this article demonstrates the diversity and complexity of white Australia’s racialisation of the Pacific War. Though the view of the Pacific War as a ‘race war’ was certainly common among white Australians, it was not universal. That said, most white Australians at the time, regardless of whether they supported the racialisation of the conflict, upheld a racialised worldview.

Menace to empire: anticolonial solidarities and the transpacific origins of the US security state

As the United States escalates its military presence in the Asia–Pacific to ‘contain’ an ascendant China, Menace to empire reminds us that earlier US imperial aspirations in the region had deadly consequences. Moon-Ho Jung explores how the US actually encouraged the growth of anti-colonial movements that it tried to counteract, and eventually provoked the Pacific War with Japan. The book includes an insightful discussion about how nativist immigration policies during the early twentieth century resulted largely from American efforts to keep out the political activists who were radicalized through their experiences of US and British imperialism. Building on Alfred W. McCoy's pioneering study, Policing America's empire (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), Jung details how the draconian surveillance methods adopted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Cold War had their origins in the US colonization of the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century. At the time, US military intelligence set up an unprecedented surveillance state that was part of what Moon calls a ‘budding transpacific security apparatus’—encompassing the Philippine Constabulary, the Military Information Division, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Immigration. Its racist intent was epitomized in the use of the term ‘gook’ [a euphemism for subhuman] to characterize the Filipinos. Moreover, the celebration of killing illustrated the extent of racist thinking. Constabulary officer Jack Daly wrote in his diary in August 1902: ‘It was such fun to shoot them [Filipinos] and kill them where they lay’ (p. 26).

Politics of the Visible and the Invisible

Abstract In this article, we analyze and compare photographic images from some of the most widely circulated Japanese and American high school history textbooks regarding their treatment of the Pacific War. We focus on the visual component of war technology, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the visibility or invisibility of women, especially regarding the comfort women issue. We argue that images in the textbooks are articulated by a dialectic relationship between the visible and the invisible as a political question, thinking about the “off-screen space” as the structural principle of what we see. The textbooks’ visual memories about the Pacific War are not only influenced by what is shown but also by what is omitted and virtually depicted in the surrounding media.