Imperial Japan S World War Two

Gruhl's narrative makes clear why Japan's World War II aggression still touches deep emotions with East Asians and Western ex-prisoners of war, and why there is justifiable sensitivity to the way modern Japan has dealt with this legacy. Knowledge of the enormity of Japan's total war is also necessary to assess the United States' and her allies' policies toward Japan, and their reactions to its actions, extending from Manchuria in 1931 to Hiroshima in 1945. Gruhl takes the view that World War II started in 1931 when Japan, crowded and poor in raw materials but with a sense of military invincibility, saw empire as her salvation and invaded China. Japan's imperial regime had volatile ambitions but limited resources, thus encouraging them to unleash a particularly brutal offensive against the peoples of Asia and surrounding ocean islands. Their 1931 to 1945 invasions and policies further added to Asia's pre-war woes, particularly in China, by badly disrupting marginal economies, leading to famines and epidemics. Altogether, the victims of Japan's World War Two aggression took many forms and were massive in number. Gruhl offers a survey and synthesis of the historical literature and documentation, statistical data, as well as personal interviews and first-hand accounts to provide a comprehensive overview analysis. The sequence of diplomatic and military events leading to Pearl Harbor, as well as those leading to the U.S. decision to drop the atom bomb, are explored here as well as Japan's war crimes and postwar revisionist/apologist views regarding them. This book will be of intense interest to Asian specialists, and those concerned with human rights issues in a historical context.

Informed Western understanding of Imperial Japan still often conjures up images of militarism, blind devotion to leaders, and fanatical pride in the country. But, as Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War reveals, Western imagination is often reductive in its explanation of the Japanese Empire and its collapse. In his analysis of the Emperor, Imperial Japanese Army and Navy during the Second World War, Peter Wetzler examines the disconnect between nation and state during wartime Japan and in doing so offers a much-needed nuanced and sensitive corrective to existing Western scholarship. Rooted in the perspective of the Japanese, Wetzler makes available to readers vital primary and secondary Japanese archival sources; most notably, this book provides the first English assessment of the recently-released Actual Record of the Showa Emperor. This book is an important advance in English-language studies of the Second World War in Asia, and is thus essential reading for all those wishing to understand this crucial period in Japanese history.

Nearly a century of Japanese Imperial rule, from the 1868 Meiji Restoration to the end of WWII, is explored in this sweeping history. Under Emperor Meiji’s rule, Imperial Japan established itself as a world power through rapid industrialization and militarization. Aligned with the Entente Powers during the First World War, Japan made a proposal for racial equality at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference—only to be overruled by American President Woodrow Wilson. In the 1920s, the empire began its military conquest of numerous countries and islands throughout Asia and the Pacific regions. Author Stephen Wynn examines Japan’s various military conflicts and colonial efforts, including its invasion of China that coincided with the Second World War. The book culminates with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which finally brought about Japan’s surrender and the end of the war in Asia and the Pacific.

Top-ranking Japanese officers offer their personal perspectives of the Pacific War. Lauded by historians and World War II buffs eager for the Japanese viewpoint, this collection of essays makes significant contributions to the field of World War II literature. This second edition, originally published in 1986, adds five articles to the original twelve to provide a full picture of the Japanese’s navy’s role in the war. Most of these moving accounts were written in the 1950s and retain the immediacy felt by the writers when they participated in the events. They provide valuable information on the strategy, tactics, and operations of the Japanese fleet, as well as insights into the personalities and motives of its leaders. Here, Vice Admiral Shigeru Fukudome comes to grips with allegations that the assault on Pearl Harbor represented strategic folly, political blundering, and tactical stupidity. Captain Mitsuo Fuchida describes how his bombing group unleashed “devils of doom” on Battleship Row, and Mitsuru Yoshida gives an eye-witness account of the sinking of the famous battleship Yamato. The new contributions to the volume, translated especially for this book by the editor, discuss operations in the Indian Ocean, the battle of the Philippine Sea, the protection of merchant shipping, submarine warfare, and Japan’s overll naval strategy. A brief introduction precedes each essay to set it in historical context, and a biographical summary of each contributor is included. A striking collection of photographs and maps, many of which are new to this edition, augment the text.

Imperial Japanese soldiers were notorious for blindly following orders, and their enemies in the Pacific War derided them as "cattle to the slaughter." But, in fact, the Japanese Army had a long history as one of the most disobedient armies in the world. Officers repeatedly staged coups d'états, violent insurrections, and political assassinations; their associates defied orders given by both the government and the general staff, launched independent military operations against other countries, and in two notorious cases conspired to assassinate foreign leaders despite direct orders to the contrary.In Curse on This Country, Danny Orbach explains the culture of rebellion in the Japanese armed forces. It was a culture created by a series of seemingly innocent decisions, each reasonable in its own right, which led to a gradual weakening of Japanese government control over its army and navy. The consequences were dire, as the armed forces dragged the government into more and more of China across the 1930s—a culture of rebellion that made the Pacific War possible. Orbach argues that brazen defiance, rather than blind obedience, was the motive force of modern Japanese history.Curse on This Country follows a series of dramatic events: assassinations in the dark corners of Tokyo, the famous rebellion of Saigō Takamori, the "accidental" invasion of Taiwan, the Japanese ambassador’s plot to murder the queen of Korea, and the military-political crisis in which the Japanese prime minister "changed colors." Finally, through the sinister plots of the clandestine Cherry Blossom Society, we follow the deterioration of Japan into chaos, fascism, and world war.

Among the major powers of World War II, the uniforms and equipment of the Japanese army have received the least coverage. This new, detailed volume presents the subject with a superb collection of actual vintage items, and rarely seen World War II era photographs. Among the subjects covered are: the Imperial Japanese army uniform series; undergarments; footwear; headwear; personal field equipment; extreme climate uniforms; work and specialty uniforms; soldier's personal items; and firearms. A short chapter examines reproductions.

An highly illustrated examination of the key ships, tactics and operations of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the War in the Pacific in World War II. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II, and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This was a remarkable turnaround for a navy that only began to modernize in 1868, although defeats inflicted on the Russians and Chinese in successive wars at the turn of the century gave a sense of the threat the IJN was to pose. Bringing together for the first time material previously published in Osprey series books, and with the addition of new writing making use of the most recent research, this book details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed and how effective they were in battle. The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War provides a history of the IJN's deployment and engagements, analysis of the evolution of strategy and tactics, and finally addresses the question of whether it truly was a modern navy, fully prepared for the rigors of combat in the Pacific. Illustrated throughout with photographs and detailed colour artworks, this is a valuable reference source for Pacific War enthusiasts and historians alike.