Pacific War Research Articles

Military Labourers and Sexual Violence in the New Guinea Campaign of the Pacific War, 1942–5

ABSTRACT Australia recruited tens of thousands of local military labourers in the New Guinea Campaign (1942–5) of the Pacific War. This article suggests that widespread Australian military incorporation of local people in the war effort rendered Papuan and New Guinean women vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation by the Japanese military. These abuses were sometimes facilitated by men organized in Australia’s labour indenturing scheme, both before and during the war. The article describes this historical connection in order to shed new light on the ‘comfort women’ system from an allied perspective. Its conclusions extend a trajectory of research forged by the late Hank Nelson in his groundbreaking 2008 article published in the Journal of Pacific History.

John T. Mason Jr., The Pacific War Remembered. An Oral History Collection (James R. Holmes)

John T. Mason Jr., The Pacific War Remembered. An Oral History Collection (James R. Holmes)

John Grehan and Alexander Nicoll, Saipan 1944: The Most Decisive Battle of the Pacific War (Joshua Shepherd)

John Grehan and Alexander Nicoll, Saipan 1944: The Most Decisive Battle of the Pacific War (Joshua Shepherd)

1930년대 후반 조선시단의 부흥과 『시건설』의 문학사적 의의

Sigeonseol (1936.11~1940.6) is a professional poetry magazine that published the 8th volume, participated in a total of 87 poets, and published about 269 works in the late 1930s. A recent study discussed the overall outline and main characteristics of the magazine. However, the character and performance of the magazine and its historical value still needed to be studied more abundantly. Therefore, based on the recently published original text, this study summarized basic matters such as determining the list of participating poets and cataloging works. And, I studied the cotrie of the first issue, which had not been discussed before, and discussed the meaning of its composition. And the major trends of works published in Sigeonseol were classified and their literary historical significance was considered. At the start of the magazine, based on Kim Hae-gang’s literary network, Kim Chang-sul, Kim Byeong-ho, and Kim Hae-gang, who were KAPF writers, and others such as Kim Nam-in and Jeong Kang-seo who maintained proletarian literary consciousness were formed. Through this, the magazine tried to have an identity as a progressive poetry magazine. In the socio-cultural situation of Joseon under the influence of Japanese imperialist fascism that led to the Sino-Japanese War (1937) and the Pacific War in the late 1930s, Sigeonseol attempted a new construction of progressive Joseon poetry. The lyrical poems that contained the inner self of the individual, published in the magazine, represent the sentiments of the time, and the creative imagination of the poets looking at the realities of the people’s life expressed the values of rural Joseon and the subjectivity of workers. Reflecting the historical experiences of ‘migration’ and ‘wandering’, the work revealed the plight of the migrants at the border and Manchuria in the late 1930s and the sufferings of living abroad. The works containing the symbols of youth and nature reflected the purpose and direction of Sigeonseol to revive Joseon literature, and clearly showed the response of Korean poetry to overcome the historical situation of the time and obtain a future prospect. In this way, various and dynamic works were published in Sigeonseol, which competed with other media and filled the gaps in the media, producing rich results of Joseon poetry literature in the late 1930s.

Jean Guiart’s Contacts culturels

J. Guiart’s analysis of the John Frum Movement, published as Un siècle et demi de contacts culturels à Tanna, was the first in a series of ethnographic monographs that tackled post-war social movements in the Southwest Pacific. Following the Pacific War, anthropological attention had shifted from the description of functionally coherent communities to investigation of crisis, breakdown, and social transformation. Guiart likewise turned to history and “culture contact” to explain post-war social agitation as the consequence of detrimental acculturation. This article explores the scholarship and professional contacts which influenced Guiart’s John Frum account and the broader historical context. Guiart’s ethnography on Tanna combined a description of island culture and a history of events that sparked the John Frum movement. Applying ethnographic research to inform colonial policy, Guiart diagnosed the causes of John Frum, prescribed therapy to remedy the movement, and offered several prognoses regarding its future. Culture contact triggered the movement, but more and better-designed culture contact might cure it.

아시아태평양전쟁 말기 일본의 군수동원법제 정비와 조선인 동원의 강화

This paper studied on the legislation process for national mobilization of the company and laborers, especially focused on Munitions Companies Act(Gunjukaishaho), and its legal operations both in japan and Korea, which led to intensive mobilization of colonial Koreans. The results of studies are as follows. 1. Legislative process - The concept of national mobilization originated from the Munitions Industry Mobilization Law in 1918, which was made after the model of German wartime mobilization system, and was actualized by legislation of National Mobilization Law in 1938 just after the Sino-Japanese War, finally reinforced by the legislation of the Munitions Companies Act in October of 1943, which was made for the reverse the tide in the Pacific war by producing munitions including air fighters in a high speed, which led to more intensive mobilization of women and adolescents as well as japanese men. 2. Logistics mobilization in colonial Korea - The Japanese Government General in korea initiated a logistic mobilization policy in October of 1944, which was similar to Munitions Companies Act in Japan, which was the result of the enormous pressure from the japanese government, munitions corporate group(Zaibatsu), and military powers. This was the very crucial trigger to intensify the nation-wide forced mobilization(Choyo) 3. Influence on korean mobilization - After the introduction of Munitions Companies Act in korea, koreans mobilized into munitions company in north area of korean peninsula and japanese islands increased in a high speed, which brought about under population in south korea. Nevertheless, The Japanese Government General in korea mobilized more koreans including women and adolescents in the name of Jyosei Kinro Teishintai or Kinrohokokutai to fill up the labor shortage in japan. The mobilized koreans were put mainly into japanese munitions companies, which were granted a number of favors for their pains and cooperations. That is the reason why the japanese munitions companies as well as japanese government won’t be free from the responsibility and compensation for mobilized koreans.

아시아태평양전쟁 말기 일본의 군수동원법제 정비와 조선인 동원의 강화

This paper studied on the legislation process for national mobilization of the company and laborers, especially focused on Munitions Companies Act(Gunjukaishaho), and its legal operations both in japan and Korea, which led to intensive mobilization of colonial Koreans. The results of studies are as follows. 1. Legislative process - The concept of national mobilization originated from the Munitions Industry Mobilization Law in 1918, which was made after the model of German wartime mobilization system, and was actualized by legislation of National Mobilization Law in 1938 just after the Sino-Japanese War, finally reinforced by the legislation of the Munitions Companies Act in October of 1943, which was made for the reverse the tide in the Pacific war by producing munitions including air fighters in a high speed, which led to more intensive mobilization of women and adolescents as well as japanese men. 2. Logistics mobilization in colonial Korea - The Japanese Government General in korea initiated a logistic mobilization policy in October of 1944, which was similar to Munitions Companies Act in Japan, which was the result of the enormous pressure from the japanese government, munitions corporate group(Zaibatsu), and military powers. This was the very crucial trigger to intensify the nation-wide forced mobilization(Choyo) 3. Influence on korean mobilization - After the introduction of Munitions Companies Act in korea, koreans mobilized into munitions company in north area of korean peninsula and japanese islands increased in a high speed, which brought about under population in south korea. Nevertheless, The Japanese Government General in korea mobilized more koreans including women and adolescents in the name of Jyosei Kinro Teishintai or Kinrohokokutai to fill up the labor shortage in japan. The mobilized koreans were put mainly into japanese munitions companies, which were granted a number of favors for their pains and cooperations. That is the reason why the japanese munitions companies as well as japanese government won’t be free from the responsibility and compensation for mobilized koreans.

Past and Present in Japanese Historiography: Four Versions of Presentism

For many intellectual historians, presentism is viewed as a cardinal sin—linked to unreflective anachronism and the inappropriate projection of present-day values onto a very different past context. However, by embracing the ways in which the present inevitably shapes our modes of inquiry, our historical interests, and even the moral underpinnings of our analysis, we can find in the present tools that can make our history better, and help make sense of historical debates and controversies. This essay gives an account of Japanese historiography organized around four versions of presentism. The first is political presentism, an analytic lens that emerged in the “objectivity debate” over what constituted politicized scholarship and reflected the political antagonisms of the Cold War in Asia. Consciously or unconsciously, political convictions shape our scholarship. The second version is the presentism of social context. Each decade that followed the Asia–Pacific War possessed its particular zeitgeist, and histories written during those moments were products of their time. The third form of presentism is the connection between past and present via analogy or likeness: using a past event or person to understand the present and vice versa. To analogize past and present means finding a correspondence that makes the past feel familiar and less “other.” The fourth version of presentism is the project of contemporary history: the past in the present, the past leading to the present, the present as the starting point for historical inquiry.

American Isolationists: Pro-Japan Anti-Interventionists and the FBI on the Eve of the Pacific War, 1939–1941 By Roger B. Jeans. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. 233 pp. ISBN: 9781538143087 (cloth).

American Isolationists: Pro-Japan Anti-Interventionists and the FBI on the Eve of the Pacific War, 1939–1941 By Roger B. Jeans. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. 233 pp. ISBN: 9781538143087 (cloth). - Volume 81 Issue 2

State Immunity as applied to the Japanese Military as Purchaser and Joint Tortfeasor : Case of Korean ‘comfort women’

The redress and reparation efforts for the “comfort women” of the Japanese military during the Pacific War have been hampered in their home countries by the state immunity doctrine. In this paper, we first evaluate the current state of jurisprudence on state immunity doctrine, especially as expressed in the seminal 2012 Ferrini ICJ decision. There the concept of “armed forces” has been emphatically commandeered to bolster the strict application of state immunity, and a full legal analysis under the state immunity doctrine, namely, that of the putative exception of “territorial torts,” was cut short by the court upon their finding of the element of “armed conflicts”, “armed forces”. However, the reason for making exceptions to state immunity is that state actions are sometimes not exercises of sovereignty but private commercial acts such as e.g., hiring, contracting, property owning or private civil acts such as negligently causing damages inside the forum state, etc. Japan’s mobilization and maintenance of ‘comfort women’ and ‘comfort stations’ does not constitute ‘armed conflicts’, the quintessential exercises of sovereignty. It was the result of colonialism whereby men and women of occupied territories within the empire were forced into most subservient and inhumane roles in the intra-empire economy supplying its imperial war efforts. The evolution of jurisprudence on exceptions to state immunity should not be shut down easily with respect to ‘comfort women’ issues on the ground of a nexus to “armed forces”, “armed conflicts.” For subject matter relevance, the less well-known 1992 Weltover decision of the US Supreme Court interpreting the American codification of the state immunity doctrine is instructive, where it characterized purchase of bullets and other military supplies as a commercial act exempt from state immunity. Such shut-down of the full analysis is especially worrying because it is during ‘armed conflicts’ that worst tragedies especially against women take place and they happen at the hands of ‘armed forces’. The Japanese military, as the end-customer of ‘comfort services’, solicited/procured and paid for ‘comfort services’ to reduce the cost of the war. These private legal acts incentivized the private contractors into recruiting Korean women already impoverished under colonialism by deceit and into treating the Korean women thus recruited harshly and inhumanely during the ‘comfort services’. Throughout the relevant periods, the Japanese military set the specifications of the services to be delivered, exercising its prerogative as the end-customer and primary contractor. It is for this role as a joint tortfeasor in the “territorial tort” of fraudulent human trafficking and also as a purchaser in the “commercial activity “ of purchasing ‘comfort services’ that the modern Japanese government should be held accountable in a Korean court of law despite state immunity.

Kelly A. Hammond. China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II.

Over the last few years, scholars have shown a rapidly growing interest in the global history of the Second World War. Going beyond traditional military histories of the “Desert War,” the “Pacific War,” or the “Jungle War” in Southeast Asia, they have begun to look at the impact of the conflict on the civilians in these war zones, the military deployment of millions of colonial soldiers, and the role of anti-imperial movements. At the same time, they have paid greater attention to South-South relations during the war years. An important part of this body of literature form studies of Japan’s conquest and occupation of East and Southeast Asia. These studies have exposed the brutality of Japanese rule as well as Tokyo’s efforts to win over populations across the continent, from Manchuria in the north to the Dutch East Indies in the south, using pan-Asian, anti-imperialist, and anti-Soviet propaganda. Works on...

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.

Dance and Ideology in North Korea: Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi and Her Response to Criticism

Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi (J. Sai Shōki) was the most celebrated Korean dancer of the twentieth century. In the 1930s, she developed a set of dances for the new stages of urban Korea, Japan, and beyond that showcased elements taken from Korean tradition, particularly from “folk” dances (minsok muyong). In 1946, after Korea’s division at the end of the Pacific War, she moved to Pyongyang, where her dances became the foundations of North Korea’s “national” dances (minjok muyong). She rose to prominence, until in 1957, together with her husband An Mak, she was attacked for being bourgeois. She was stripped of her seat on the Supreme People’s Assembly. Ch’oe’s experience shines light on how national dances were established as ideological control was rolled out in North Korea. But there is a second side to her story: in 1957 and 1958, in her response to criticism, she adopted a blinkered approach. She resisted control and the mechanism—later known as “literary art theory” (munye iron)—of its delivery, and this sealed her fate. Although tempo- rarily reprieved, her name disappeared completely from North Korean programs and from newspaper and journal accounts about dance in the early 1960s, and within a few years she was dead.

The role of reconstruction planning and shop owners’ contribution in the post-war transformation and revival of vitality in Hiroshima Hondōri Shōtengai

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Pacific War, Japan launched a national effort to rebuild war-damaged areas in over a hundred cities. One unique example is the reconstruction of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing and its revival as a peace memorial city despite the city-wide destruction. While Hiroshima was able to restore vitality to its once-razed city centre, more recent reconstruction cases, especially neoliberal ones, have failed to do so. Therefore, this study analyses planning and historical documents to clarify the roles of pre-war shop owners and local planning authorities which were involved in the reconstruction of Hiroshima Hondōri Commercial Street and highlights their contributions to the revival of the street’s vitality. The study utilised field and archival surveys to trace the post-transformation and rebuilding of shops in Hiroshima Hondōri Commercial Street after the atomic bombing. Based on that, the post-war planning maintained Hondōri’s function and structure, shop owners from pre-war time have contributed to the reconstruction by joining planning deliberation meetings and organising themselves to encourage the return of businesses and visitors. The findings of this study highlight the role of reconstruction planning and local citizens’ initiatives in restoring livelihood to war-torn areas.

(Mis)-Interpretations of the 1943 Cairo Conference: The Cairo Communiqué and Its Legacy among Koreans During and After World War II

In December of 1943, three leaders of the Allied forces gathered in Cairo, Egypt to discuss wartime and postwar issues. The Communiqué that they completed in the last of the four-days of meetings, however, reflected issues related to the postwar fate of the Japanese empire, rather than the wartime issues that had dominated their discussions. The rather obtuse phrase, “in due course,” inserted to qualify the leaders’ promise to deliver Korea its independence would gather significant importance only after the conference. It served as a cornerstone for Allied occupation policy planning and execution for future gatherings, while Koreans used it as a rallying point around which they protested Allied trusteeship policy both during and after the Pacific War. This disagreement contributed to the failure that the U.S. and Soviet experienced in their efforts to reunite the peninsula during their three-year occupations of southern and northern Korea. The legacy of this phrase continues in the divided peninsula to this day.

Trends of Geosciences after the Pacific War in Japan, 1945 to 1965 Part 7

Developments in geology, historical geology, sedimentology, and paleontology in Japan after the Second World War, from 1945 to 1965 are described. The Geological Society of Japan was reconstructed soon after the war and established the foundations for geological studies. The Tokyo Geographical Society compiled documents on geological research in East Asia before and during the war. The Coal Exploration Advisory Committee (CEAC) and the Petroleum Exploration Advancement Committee (PEAC) made progress on research related to oil and coal. New geological maps were compiled; the nomenclature of strata was formulated; and, regional geologies were summarized. Studies of Precambrian and Paleozoic strata continued to advance, while investigations on the geology of the Mesozoic challenged to establish theories posited before the war. Areas of studies such as “Green tuff,” radiocarbon measurement, tephrochronology, and neotectonics in the Cenozoic strata were opened up. Around 1950, sedimentological themes emerged; the Sedimentology Institute was founded at the University of Tokyo in 1951; and a sedimentology research group was formed in 1957. Research, for example, on recent sediments in Tokyo Bay were started. Soon after the war, the Palaeontological Society of Japan collated data on type species and their descriptions collected since 1868 for the development of palaeontological studies in Japan. Studies on Desmostylus, Naumann elephant, and Metasequoia fossils were launched. Micropaleontology including foraminifera studies made remarkable contributions.

On Ramseyer’s Response to the Critics of “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War”

Abstract A controversial paper by Ramseyer, “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War,” which argued that the victims of sexual slavery (“the comfort women”) perpetrated by the Japanese military during World War II were voluntary prostitutes under contract, has raised substantial controversy around the world. This argument has provoked a public outcry, and thousands of scholars, including Nobel laureates, have criticized this paper and denounced it. Ramseyer has subsequently published a response to these critics in a non peer-reviewed, publicly accessible paper series disseminated by the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard University. His response does not remedy fundamental flaws and inaccuracies in his original paper. This essay discusses these flaws and inaccuracies and also points out the problematic manner in which the author mischaracterizes and omits key materials, misleading readers. The war may have ended several decades ago, but its trauma continues today, exacerbated by the troubling denials of the atrocities.

Editor's Introduction

Editor's Introduction

Response to ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’ by J. Mark Ramseyer

Response to ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’ by J. Mark Ramseyer

Forced Migration due to Building Evacuations in Kyoto City During the Pacific War: An Analysis of Relationship Between Household Characteristics and Relocation Destinations

Forced Migration due to Building Evacuations in Kyoto City During the Pacific War: An Analysis of Relationship Between Household Characteristics and Relocation Destinations