Imperial Japanese Army

Unlike the personnel of the Wehrmacht, not much has been written on how Japanese soldiers perceived their atrocities. The acts of cruelty in Asia and the Pacific, such as the Rape of Nanjing, are told almost entirely from the perspective of the victims. This paper argues that while there were plenty of sadists of the Imperial Japanese Army in China, there were plenty who recoiled in horror at their acts, and who fell back on "self-discipline" and "self-mobilization" to keep themselves going.

This paper argues that the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanking, China in 1937 ('The Rape of Nanking') were the product of three causes: the organisational nature of the Japanese military itself, the dehumanisation of ethnic Chinese and their relegation to the status of 'homo sacer', and the development of the popular cultural trend of the 'erotic grotesque' in Japan.

The atrocities committed, as such, were the product of this specific combination of preconditions.

(This essay was submitted in part fulfillment of an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Manchester, for which it received a first)

From 1893 to 1924, the historical division of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff produced a thirteen-volume collection of campaign studies entitled Nihon Senshi (Military History of Japan). Each volume covered a battle of one of Japan’s “Three Unifiers” in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and as a whole were influential in shaping both Japanese and Western scholarly narratives of those campaigns. Why were these texts written at this time, and why were these particular battles from a span of fifty-five years chosen out of all recorded Japanese history? This paper situates these histories within a larger discourse of Meiji national identity formation. Comparison with the contemporary Japanese intellectual and institutional “invented traditions” that provided a nativist rationale for Japan’s emerging modernity suggests that Nihon Senshi was part of the Army’s attempt at creating a “modern” but also “Japanese” institutional history. By tying the new Imperial Japanese Army to examples from Japan’s “warring states” period, the Army staff participated in the same process of inventing history as scholars who created a feudal “medieval” in the Japanese past to fit into Western historiography, and intellectuals who discovered a “traditional” spirit called bushidō as a counterpart for English chivalry. Moreover, the interpretations of these campaigns placed a few important daimyō as not only paragons of “Japanese” military prowess, but global leaders in the modernization of military tactics and technology, ahead of even their European contemporaries. The Japanese Army desired to be seen as a “modern” military through its invented “institutional” history; it further used this history as a base for the inculcation of its members with bushidō spirit. The Imperial Japanese Army General Staff was thus an active participant in Meiji-era discourses drawing on foreign models to shape institutions, while also creating continuities with the past to reframe itself as a modern heir
to this “Japanese” historical tradition.

The government of collaboration, founded in 1940 by Wang Jingwei in Nanjing within the Japanese occupied area, was the result of a long process of negotiations that were secretly carried out from the beginning of the war. Quick to denounce the treachery of the collaborators and the hypocrisy of the Japanese, Chinese historians have long studied this process through a teleological lens. However, if one examines the period from the beginning of the negotiations for peace in January 1938 up until the departure of Wang for the occupied area in April 1939, it becomes apparent that the establishment of this government was less the fulfilment of a coherent plan than the result of a succession of choices made within the uncertain context of the war’s early years.

Nihon Senshi (Military History of Japan) was part of the new Imperial Japanese Army’s attempt to tie itself to examples from Japan’s “warring states” period, similar to scholars who created a feudal “medieval” time in the Japanese past to fit into Western historiography, and intellectuals who discovered a “traditional” spirit called bushidō as a counterpart for English chivalry. The interpretations of these campaigns, placing the “three unifiers” of the late sixteenth century as global leaders in the modernization of military tactics and technology, show the Imperial Japanese Army’s desire to be seen as a “modern” military through its invented “institutional” history.

This paper examines the role played by former members of the Japanese Imperial Army (IJA) and Navy (IJN) on Japan's postwar armed forces - the Self Defence Forces (SDF). Taking the Ground Self Defense Force's precursors, the National Police Reserve and National Safety Force as its main focus, the paper examines the role played by former IJA/IJN servicemen both the higher and lower echelons of the new forces. The attempts to influence the force from the outside by former high rank IJA/IJN members are also explored, with the actions of Hattori Takushiro, one of the most important of these, employed as a case study.  The paper will be of interest to those studying both the Imperial forces and Japan's postwar armed forces and adds a new perspective to the debates over the continuity between the SDF and IJA/IJN.

Much has been written about WWII in the South Pacific and the battle for Rabaul, but very little about the people Imperial Japan imprisoned there.  The six U.S. airmen and one Australian coast watcher who survived out of the 200 plus Allied airmen and coast watchers imprisoned at Rabaul were not alone.  Thousands of other Allied POWs,  hundreds of missionaries and  thousands of Korean laborers and "comfort women" shared a similar fate.  My father was one of the airmen who survived "paradise." Their saga is explored to better understand their captors' motives for treating their prisoners so inhumanely.

It is my pleasure to invite expressions of interest/proposals for chapters to be considered for inclusion in the following edited volume, and involvement in its supporting research project:

“Old Friends, New Partners: New Perspectives on Anglo Japanese Military Relations in the Modern Era”

Link: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-18K12734/

This project (supported by JSPS ‘Kakenhi’ and the University of East Anglia) examines the contemporary and historical military ties between Japan and the United Kingdom and their various influences (political, technical, strategic, cultural, social, etc) upon the two countries. Although the principal focus of the project is upon peacetime links between Japan and the UK, topics related to the Second World War may be considered.

Aside contributing to the planned edited volume the participants will be invited to dedicated symposia in the UK (Q2/Q3 2020), and Kyoto, Japan (Q4 2021 / Q1 2022), attendance at these, while not essential, is highly encouraged.

This stage of the project represents the initial phase and it is expected to continue on a potentially larger scale from 2022. Alongside its core initial objectives the project will also seek to organise panels at major international conferences and disseminate its findings through other publications and media.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

General:
Arms procurement / technical exchanges
Training and exercises
Policy / political links
Inter-service links / exchanges
Military attaches, observers and exchanges (in both peacetime and during conflict with third powers)
Anglo-Japanese links within the context of relations with third powers
Anglo-Japanese links within regional / strategic contexts
Practitioner / participant accounts and experiences
Cultural, social and organisational legacies and influences (inside the armed forces and within broader society)

Historical:
Bakumatsu / Meiji era connections
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance
The Tracey Mission
The Douglas Mission
The Sempill Mission
Links to broader histories of empire and imperialism
Military planning
Japan and Britain in the First World War
Path to, events of, and legacy of the Second World War
The British Commonwealth Occupation Force
Britain and the Allied Occupation of Japan
Prisoners of War
Postwar co-operation and resistance in South East Asia
Mid to late 20th century links

Contemporary:
Contemporary strategy and policy
Current links and exchanges
Future possibilities


Initial expressions of interest, ideally accompanied by a draft abstract and brief biography, are sought by 1 October 2019.

Contact:

T French

french@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp

O prawie, obyczajach i społeczeństwie. Prace Instytutu Stosowanych Nauk Społecznych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Nr 5, Warszawa 2003.
Bushi w II wojnie światowej, ss. 349-378

On Law, Customs and Society. Works of the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, Warsaw University, Nr 5, Warsaw 2003.

Bushi in the Second World War, pp. 349-378.

Tianjin’s Place in History and Historiography
Some Historiographical Remarks: A Call for an International Dialogue on the Question of Imperialism in the East Asian Region
Early Collaboration and Cooperation amongst Occupiers
Entering the Warlord Era and Elaborating a Closer Collaboration Between Colonizers
The 1923-1924 Combined Action Plan in Northern China
The 1930 Combined Action Plan in Northern China
Japan’s Rising Power in Northern China and International Imperialistic Solidarity
The Place of Japan in Tianjin after 1931: Redefining the Paradigme

Hopson, Nathan. “‘A Bad Peace?’ – The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition.” Japanese Studies, September 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2018.1467730.

Originally planned as a city branding and regional promotion event, the March-May 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition (NPPPE) was supposed to showcase Nagoya as an industrial and cultural center of the empire, prospering in free-trade, capitalist peace. Concessions made to the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) to ensure the survival of the NPPPE—from a national defense hall to live-fire demonstrations—made the event appear a cynical misappropriation of the concept of “peace.” The expo was a “mega-event,” intended to disseminate elite ideologies but ultimately large, inclusive, and complex enough to permit alternative interpretations, resistance, and even discord. Looking past Nagoya’s accommodations to the IJA suggests that even on the eve of all-out war, local business and government elites clung to a 1920s-style vision of peace through international trade and intercourse rather than through autarky and military force. While Nagoya was unable to prevent military interference in the peace expo, the city’s commitment to an agenda that did not square with that of the IJA or Tokyo is an indication of the continued internal diversity of Japan in the 1930s.

10.1080/10371397.2018.1467730

This paper employs previously unused archival sources to highlight some of the misconceptions and debates which surround the Japanese National Police Reserve (1950–1952), the precursor to today’s Ground Self Defense Force. The paper, which is the first on the National Police Reserve in English, examines much of the current historiography’s categorisation of the Reserve as an army, based on a very thin set of sources, and contrasts this with the content of the primary sources in an attempt to reveal the true character of the force. In doing so it also attempts to assess the relative importance of the internal and external influences behind the NPR’s creation. The article and its conclusions will be valuable in deepening the understanding of the character of the NPR and its position in the broader histories of the Occupation of Japan, Japanese security policy and Japan’s Cold War(s).