Japan – USA Miltary Alliance
https://youtu.be/WTy5MOPY_tM?t=8 In January 1960 the US and Japan signed a treaty of mutual cooperation and security that formalized a US-Japanese military alliance. Left-wing protests roiled the government of Nobosuke Kishi as he pushed through the revised security...
Deadly Typhoon Vera Strikes Japan
https://youtu.be/6mrtXkCjX9w Typhoon Vera (Isewan Typhoon), was an unusually powerful tropical cyclone that struck Japan in September 1959. Vera was the strongest and deadliest typhoon on record to make landfall in Japan. The storm caused...
The Bridge on the River Kwai
https://youtu.be/RlC7XBayj0s At the 30th Academy Awards in 1958, The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven awards, including best picture of 1957. Its director, David Lean, and star Alec Guinness also received Oscars. The Bridge on the River Kwai was based on...
Remember Pearl Harbor
https://youtu.be/A2kSnlS4xX8 On Dec. 7, 1941 2,403 service members and civilians were killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 1,178 people were injured in the attack, which permanently sank two U.S. Navy battleships (the USS Arizona and the...
Armed Forces Radio Service
After WWII, the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) employed mobile radio vans and commandeered Japanese stations on the mainland, Korea, the Marianas, and the Ryukyus. After the Korean War broke out, broadcasts to Korea from Japan were transmitted from the Far...
Bảo Đại
https://youtu.be/rfzHg9wEXV0 Bảo Đại, the last of the Nguyễn dynasty, was the Emperor of Annam (a protectorate within French Indochina) from 1926 to 1945. After the Japanese ousted the Vichy-French administration in March 1945 Bảo Đại was named ruler. He soon renamed...
First North Korean Movie
https://youtu.be/Y-UPCSf6WkQ In 1949, with Soviet financial and technical assistance, Kang Hong-sik directed My Home Village, the first film made in the new Democratic People’s People’s Republic of Korea. Gwan Pil, a poor farmer is deprived of his land by an evil...
Tojo Sentenced to Death
https://youtu.be/2HgdXDkmV60 Hideki Tojo, a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, was Minister for War from 1940 to 1941 and Prime Minister of Japan from October 1941 to July 1944. Tojo was best known for ordering the attack on Pearl Harbor (although planning...
Drunken Angel
The 1948 Japanese film Drunken Angel (醉いどれ天使), about and alcoholic physician and his yakuza patient, was the first collaboration between the director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune. Released during the American occupation in Japan, the screenplay was...
New Japanese Constitution
Based on American models, the Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur directed an effective restoration of the industry and society of occupied Japan. The majority of the Japanese people apparently welcomed his progressive reforms. Most important, after...
Tsunami Japan
On December 21, 1946 an 8.1-.4 magnitude undersea earthquake initiated a powerful tsunami in the Nankai Trough off Japan's largest island Honshū. When 20-foot waves hit shore, buildings were obliterated and ~2,000 ships were capsized. 60,000...
Postwar Hiroshima & Nagasaki
This home movie really took me there. Although grainy, watch this short film clip of 8mm home movies taken by U.S. Army Major Morris Hall during a 3-month tour of Japan less than a year after surrender. Filming with an 8mm home movie camera, Major Hall documented the...
An Artist of the Floating World
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro presents the viewpoint of an elderly artist Masuji Ono in postwar Japan. His wife and son have been killed in the war, and many young people blame their elders for leading the country into disaster. As Ono recalls his...
Japanese Women Vote
In the April 1946 Japanese elections, women had the right to vote for the first time. 39 women were elected to office. After WWII, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association caucus broke up and three major political parties emerged: Liberal Party - right-wing, founded...
Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
Press this link for more photos published by Alex Q. Arbuckle that are rare and interesting from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7. 1941.
Hirohito’s Not the Sun God Anymore
As the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the Shinto religion disestablished and its concept that the Emperor Hirohito was descended from Japan's sun goddess to be disavowed. The Humanity Declaration was an...
Understanding Korea
Ancient Korea Gojoseon, Korea's legendary first kingdom, was founded in 2333 B.C.E. After its collapse, several small kingdoms coalesced into the Three Kingdoms Period (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla) around the year zero C.E. Gradually assuming power, Silla consolidated...
Tokyo Trials
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) conducted the Tokyo War Crimes Trials from May 1946 to November 1948. 28 Imperial Japanese military and government leaders were charged with Class A war crimes - participating in a joint conspiracy to start...
Our Job in Japan
https://youtu.be/fEZW_6EM1Ms Our Job in Japan, a training film for American soldiers assigned to occupation forces in Japan, begins with a description of the Japanese brain that has been duped by military leaders. The film details Japanese barbarity during the war and...
After the War
September 1945 - the war is over! ...You'll never know how many dreams I've dreamed about you Or how empty they all seem without you So kiss me once...and kiss me twice And kiss me once again It's been a long...long time It's been a mighty, mighty long time ...
Burmese Harp / Grave of the Fireflies
Adapted from the novel by Michio Takeyama, this 1956 film directed by Ichikawa Kon, involves a company of Japanese Imperial Army troops who finally surrender in the last desperate stages of the Burma campaign. When their company commander begins to lead them in songs...
A-Bomb Morality
Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd The concept of a nuclear chain reaction reportedly came to the physicist Leó Szilárd as an epiphany while waiting to cross a London street in 1933. “...It suddenly occurred to me that if we could find an element which is split by...
Japan Surrenders
After the bombing of Hiroshima, some members of Japan’s supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. Things grew worse when the USSR declared war against Japan. Then, a second atomic bomb was...
Nagasaki
President Harry Truman approved but did not specify the dates for use of atomic bombs.The Target Committee identified the targets and determined the best opportunities for attack based on logistics and weather. After the bombing of Hiroshima produced no Japanese...
Operation August Storm 1945
On August 8, 1945, after refusing to mediate a Japanese surrender with the United States and its allies, the USSR declared war on Japan. On August 9, 1945, Russian troops invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Operation August Storm. On August 14, 1945 a...