These Events in Early Showa Japan Led it to War

2. The birth of the Japanese military-industrial complex

As Hirohito come to power in 1926 the banking system in Japan was heavily influenced by what came to be known as the Big Four. Mitsubishi, Yasuda, Mitsui, and Sumitomo comprised the Big Four, each of them monopolies which dominated their industry and which were family-owned. All four maintained significant ties with the Japanese military and government, dominated the stock exchange, and enhanced their profits through stock and currency manipulation. In 1927 the Japanese economy collapsed, preceding the Great Depression which began in the west two years later. Unemployment skyrocketed.

The Big Four – the first zaibatsu, which means financial clique – were joined by smaller corporations which operated in a similar manner throughout the early Showa period. The number of zaibatsu expanded with the increase of Japanese-controlled territory in the 1930s. They were thoroughly entwined with the government, and controlled interest rates, currency value, and labor rates throughout Japanese society. They also controlled government expenditures, tax rates, and heavily influenced military procurement. While much of Japanese society suffered from the economic downturns the zaibatsu increased their profits and power within the Japanese government, giving significant control of Japan to a few wealthy families.

3. Japanese racial superiority was official government policy and taught in Japanese schools

In a reflection of Hirohito’s personal beliefs, the official policy of the Showa regime was that the Japanese were racially and spiritually superior to other Asians. As the growth of nationalism took hold in Japan, this belief extended to all of the world’s races. Japanese values and culture were defined by the Yamato-damashii or “Yamato Spirit”. It became propagandized by the exponents of nationalism in Showa Japan. Originally, the term carried religious and cultural connotations, but in the Showa period, it came to reflect the spirit of the Japanese people.

Unlike many terms linked with racism, Yamato-damashii came to be used not to denigrate other races and cultures, but to express the superiority of the Japanese. In this manner, it was reflective of the Aryan superiority and Master Race of the Nazis. Through its use, the Japanese considered themselves to be superior to all races. Which, by definition, made all other races inferior. The term was used to separate the knowledge and learning which had been imported from Japan in ancient times – and later from western culture – and make it superior through the infusion of the spirit of the Japanese people. Taught in all schools, children in Showa Japan were trained to believe that their race was superior to all others due to their Japanese spirit.

4. Showa Japan was poor in natural resources needed for modernization and industrialization

The modernization of Japan, which was still largely a feudal country less than a century before the Showa period, was a period of imitation more than innovation. Western methods of manufacturing Japanese products were well underway before the beginning of Hirohito’s reign. In order to support them, Japan needed to import the sinews of industrial muscle, steel, coal, oil, and rubber, none of which it could produce in quantity within the home islands. The Japanese empire was born out of the lack of these basic materials. To protect it the Japanese nationalists supported the expansion of the military, with the support of the Big Four.

Throughout the 1920s and well into the 1930s, the Japanese industrial base grew steadily, though the majority of its output was targeted to support military expansion. Industrialists profited from modernizing the Japanese armed forces, and the public were reminded of the essential nature of the military to the defense of the empire and by extension, the emperor. The leaders of the government and industry were in lockstep regarding the necessity of defending Japan’s imperial possessions. Without them, the western nations could easily prevent Japan from obtaining the raw materials it needed to dominate the regions within its sphere of influence.

5. Japan under Showa was officially a constitutional monarchy

Although Hirohito reigned as an emperor and demigod, the Japanese government was one of a constitutional monarchy, with the emperor as head of state. The government itself was run by a prime minister. Though universal suffrage was granted to men (above the age of 25) during the Showa period, in practice the power in Japan was in the hands of the nobility and the wealthiest families of the zaibatsu. During the early Showa period, labor groups and others arguing for social and political reforms were quashed by corrupt governments of both the left and right, fed by the financial rewards offered by the true ruling class. By the late 1920s the Japanese parliament, called the Diet, was controlled by supporters of the Japanese military.

By the early 1930s, the government was in the control of moderates and other political organizations which supported views which denied the traditional concept of the emperor’s godlike status, and other myths which the military supported. In Japan’s centers of higher learning, liberals and social critics questioned the view and the traditional religious significance of the emperor. The military and the industrialists who supported them moved to get rid of the rising tide of liberalism before it permeated Japanese society. One of the means of doing so was through the expansion of Japanese presence in China, and the creation in the minds of the people of the fear of Soviet hostility towards Japan.

6. Japan had extensive holdings in China before the invasion of Manchuria

During the First World War, Japan was one of the Allies, and as a consequence of Germany’s defeat, the latter country’s extensive holdings in China were granted to Japan as war reparations. Japan moved to occupy them militarily, an action which caused concern among the western nations, particularly Great Britain and the United States. In 1929 a dispute between China and the Soviet Union over control of the Chinese Eastern Railway led to the Chinese seizing the railroad. The Soviets responded with a military force of over 150,000 men, which deployed along the border with Manchuria.

The Soviets won a quick victory, established the principle of status quo ante Bellum, and withdrew. Most of the western world supported the Soviet actions. The Japanese military took note of the capabilities of the modernized Soviet army and the relative ease with which they had defeated the Chinese. Senior Japanese military leaders and their industrial and nationalist supporters saw an opportunity to expand their influence within the government and the Japanese empire in the name of the emperor. What was needed was an excuse to act without appearing to the League of Nations (of which Japan was a member) to be the aggressor.

7. The Japanese expanded their presence in Manchuria throughout the 1920s

Japan had, since the end of the Russo-Japanese War, retained a lease on the South Manchuria Railway, granted to them in the Treaty of Portsmouth. The Japanese Showa government interpreted this to mean that Japan exercised all control of the region which the railway serviced. The Showa government, as had its predecessors, stationed Japanese troops along the railway, reporting them as railway guards to the League of Nations and the Chinese government. Japan also encouraged the settlement of Japanese immigrants to the region, as farmers and businessmen. These immigrants also included settlers from Taiwan and Korea, both Japanese possessions at the time.

In the late 1920s, the Chinese government began to assert its authority nationally, to the detriment of independent Chinese warlords. They also began to deny the Japanese settlers their property, or rather what they thought were their property, and refused compensation. This created tension between the governments of the two Asian nations which the nationalists in Japan decided to turn to their advantage. Japanese troops’ levels were increased at the end of the decade, with military units drilling in full view in the territories which the Japanese occupied. While the Chinese prepared to appeal to the League of Nations to resolve the dispute, the Japanese Army prepared a casus belli.

8. The Mukden incident was staged by the Japanese Army in 1931

The Japanese troops in Manchuria were known as the Kwantung Army. In the spring of 1931 officers from the Kwantung Army decided (with or without the support of officers in Japan remains debated) to stage an incident in which it appeared Chinese troops had created an act of sabotage against Japanese interests in the railway. Their plan was carried out in September 1931, though the damage as a result of the explosion the Japanese planted along the railway was minimal. The following day, in “retaliation” for the alleged Chinese sabotage, Japanese artillery shelled a nearby Chinese army installation. After the commander of the Kwantung Army endorsed the shelling (initially he was hesitant to do so) he requested reinforcements from Japan.

The incident was the excuse for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and drew international condemnation when Japan refused to accept a settlement proposed by the League of Nations. It also had ramifications within Japan, as the military moved to seize control of the Diet and the machinery of government. To the Japanese militarists and their supporters, the invasion and occupation of Manchuria was an act of defense in the face of Chinese aggression and the violation of an existing treaty. The Mukden incident allowed the military to seize control of the government of Japan, under the auspices of the Emperor to whom they owed their loyalty.

9. There was no civilian control of the military in Showa Japan

The Japanese military practiced the art of imitation when it modernized as well, forming the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff in the late 19^th century, using the model of the Prussian General Staff as its guide. The Japanese General Staff organized itself as an entity wholly independent from the Japanese Ministry of War, and by the 1930s was in effect ranked above the latter, reporting directly to the emperor. Envious of the authority of their compatriots in the army, the Japanese Navy followed suit, creating their own General Staff, bypassing the War Ministry, and thus avoiding any civilian control over their operations.

Japanese law required that the cabinet posts for both the army and navy be occupied by officers from the respective services. It also dictated that a prime minister must resign if any cabinet post remained unfilled. This in effect gave both the army and the navy the ability to force the resignation of any prime minister, bringing down the existing government, simply by refusing to allow an officer of their branch to serve in the cabinet. Cooperation between the army and the navy was frequently problematic, but the military during the Showa period gained complete control of the government, which allowed them to dictate Japanese policy and law.

10. The military leaders fostered hostility towards the western powers

The Japanese military leadership, supported by other militarists and nationalists, believed that the Japanese empire was ringed by western imperialists; the British in Hong Kong and India, the United States in the Philippines, and the French in Indochina. They also resented the presence of the Dutch colonies in the South Pacific. They preached the exploitation of the Asian races by the western powers, and that Asia should be united under Japanese control. The militarists believed that all Asia would prosper by being united under Japanese rule, and that their ancient enemy – China – was supported by the western powers in opposition.

Hostility towards the United States became more fervid following the adoption of the London Naval Treaty in 1930, which the Japanese government accepted. The treaty further restricted the expansion of the Japanese Navy in comparison to the United States Navy. The Japanese concept of a unified Asia was joined with the racial beliefs of Japanese superiority against the western nations, reinforced in schools, radio commentary, and propaganda devices. The Japanese were reminded daily that the western empires, particularly that of the United States, were a fundamental threat to the very existence of Japan and its emperor.

11. Domestic terrorism gradually eroded civilian confidence in the government

Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s radical organizations and secret societies in Japan carried out several assassinations, attempted assassinations, violent demonstrations, terror bombings, and other activities which weakened the confidence of the people in elected government. It appeared to many that the government was incapable of protecting itself and the people it was elected to serve. Trade restrictions imposed on Japan by western governments wary of its growing strength weakened the economy, a pinch felt by the lower classes for the most part. Military demonstrations and parades stressing loyalty to the emperor gained popularity as the Diet and cabinet lost support.

In 1932, aware of the impotence of the civilian government, the Japanese military attacked Shanghai. Under the pretext of protecting Japanese citizens and property in Shanghai, the Japanese used aircraft carrier-based bombers to strike targets in and around the city. Over the next three months, Japanese and Chinese troops engaged in an undeclared war. The League of Nations eventually brokered a cease-fire agreement, which allowed Japanese troops to remain in Shanghai, denied Chinese troops access to the city, and further enhanced the image of the army and navy in the eyes of the Japanese people.

12. The military used their police forces to intimidate the civilian population

The Japanese Army military police, the kenpeitai (sometimes rendered Kempetai) continually enlarged and expanded throughout the home islands and the occupied territories during the early Showa period. It consisted of uniformed police forces, often recruited from the region it patrolled, as well as secret police forces, modeled during the Showa period on the German Gestapo, with which it exchanged officers and information. It also worked with the Italian secret police. The kenpeitai was used by the militarists to suppress dissent, carry out assassinations and sabotage operations, and in general ensure compliance with the designs of the militarists.

Officially a civilian arrested by the Kempetai was to be turned over to civil authorities for trial and custody, but the practice was seldom followed in occupied territories such as Korea and Manchuria. By the end of the 1930s, it was seldom seen in the home islands as well. In the occupied territories the Kempetai used extortion to fund its own operations, with many of its senior officers also using it to enrich themselves, operating in a manner similar to an organized crime protection racket. It was primarily a terrorist organization, used to ensure that the Japanese people and others under Japanese authority remained loyal to the emperor and the desires of the militarists who ruled over Japan.

13. The Black Dragon Society operated around the world

The Black Dragon Society was formed long before the beginning of the Showa period (1901) initially as a paramilitary and espionage organization. By the 1920s it was an organization of relatively small size, but among its members were senior military officers and members of the Diet and cabinet. Many of Japan’s most influential and wealthy businessmen also supported the society. During the early Showa period, it publicly attacked liberals and others who opposed Japan’s evolving militarism, at the same time conducting espionage and other activities against them. By the 1930s it was operating covertly in China, Korea, and the Soviet Union.

During the 1930s it also expanded its espionage activities in Singapore, Burma, India, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, and in the mainland United States. Black Dragon activities expanded to Europe during the latter years of the 1930s. Especially in the United States, Black Dragon agents were used to foment racial tensions and unrest, and were a large factor in the decision to isolate Japanese Americans in detention camps at the beginning of American involvement in World War II. They often worked in conjunction with Kempetai agents overseas, involved in espionage and sabotage activities.

14. The Imperial Way Faction in the Japanese Army

The Imperial Way Faction was a group of officers within the Japanese Army which developed in the early Showa period, out of the belief that modernization and industrialization were evils corrupting the Japanese people and military. They espoused a return to the Bushido code of the Samurai, with the emperor ruling as an absolute monarch, supported by the army. They also believed that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable as well as desirable to protect Japan from the infiltration of communism. During the 1930s plots of political assassination were developed by members of the faction, though most were uncovered before they were carried out.

On February 26, 1936, an attempted coup d’etat was triggered by members of the faction, which included several assassinations carried out by mostly junior army officers. When the coup failed to overthrow the government, 19 officers involved were tried and executed. Many others were imprisoned and senior officers were forced to resign. The end result was the Imperial Way faction largely vanished, but the army increased its control over the machinery of government. Although the coup failed it led directly to the resignation of the Prime Minister and the formation of a new government less than two weeks after the coup. Under the new government, only active duty military officers could serve as Ministers for the Army and Navy, reinforcing the power of the military to dissolve a government whenever it so chose.

15. The formation of the Great Japan Youth Party

In 1937 former Japanese Army Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto, who had been forced to retire from his post following the February 26 attempted coup, founded the Great Japan Youth Party. It was based directly on the Nazi Hitler Youth organization, with uniforms modeled after the Germans’. Although its announced intention was to provide training in survival skills, life skills, and other areas leading to healthy young men in Japan, it was instead organized to rebuild the Imperial Way faction and its goals. Members were taught the benefits of a single-party system of government in Japan, with the Emperor performing the duties of an absolute monarch.

The formation of the Japanese version of the Hitler Youth took place too late for it to be as much of a factor as similar organizations in Germany and Italy. By the time it was formed Japan was mired in the ongoing war in China, and its membership never exceeded a few thousand. Most of the young men targeted by the Youth Party were already subject to conscription. Hashimoto later went to China to attempt to create another Youth Party among the Japanese population there, with little success.

16. Consolidation of the various nationalist groups

By the late 1930s, there were over 100 nationalist and ultranationalist groups in Japan and Prime Minister Kanoe moved to consolidate them in 1937. His purpose was to ensure that the policies of Japanese nationalism were to be heard through one voice, and that voice was to be the government’s, by then firmly under the control of the Japanese military. The National Spiritual Mobilization Movement consolidated over 90 separate movements, placing them under the control of the cabinet departments of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Home Affairs. The new organization was headed by Admiral Ryokitsu Arima.

Individual newsletters by the member organizations were supplanted by those promulgated by the government. Two magazines were published weekly, one based on photographs for those unable to read sufficiently to understand the printed messages. The consolidation of the groups was intended to generate public support and commitment to the war against China. Radio broadcasts, public lectures, and other organized activities, often presented by celebrities, delivered the militaristic propaganda of the government to the citizens of Japan, replacing any dissenting views. The Japanese were exhorted to sacrifice for the benefit of the war effort, and heard only of the successes of the Japanese forces.

17. The influence of the emperor’s younger brother, Yasuhito

Yasuhito, who bore the title Prince Chichibu, was the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito. During the early years of the emperor’s reign, Yasuhito was in sympathy with the views of the factions which wanted to establish a military dictatorship in Japan, with the emperor exercising direct control as an absolute monarch. Whether he was actively involved in the coup attempt of February 1936 is argued among historians, but there is no debate that he argued forcefully with the emperor over suspending the constitution in its wake, and assuming direct control of the machinery of government. Yasuhito was a commissioned officer of the army and served in China before traveling to Europe in the late 1930s.

While touring Europe Yasuhito visited Germany without his usual entourage, meeting with Adolf Hitler in Nuremberg. From his meeting and observations in Nazi Germany, the prince took back to Japan a belief that an alliance with the Germans was to the empire’s benefit. At the time the emperor did not agree, and Yasuhito’s views were unwelcome at first, but he gradually persuaded the leaders of the army and navy, who supported his arguments with his older brother. Gradually Hirohito was led to accept their views and endorse the alliance with Germany and Italy. Though Yasuhito was familiar with, and likely complicit, in the many war crimes committed by the Japanese in China, he was never charged or brought to trial for any of them.

18. The Japanese were told Japan was in China to free Asians from western domination

By the late 1930s, Japan was involved in a war in China which became a strain on the morale of the Japanese people. The people were told that the war was being fought to bring all Asians under the rule of a single entity – the Emperor of Japan – and that the use of military force against those who opposed such a policy was divinely justified. The Chinese who were fighting were being supported by the western nations who exploited them, according to the Japanese militarists who controlled the government. This included the French in Indochina, the United States in the Philippines, the British in Malaysia, and the Dutch in their Pacific colonies.

The fighting in China was explained to the people through the government-controlled propaganda machinery as a holy war. The ancient concept of hakko ichiu (eight directions) was presented to the people as the necessity of expansion to cover all peoples under one ruler, linked to the divine creation of Japan. The year 1940 was designated by the government to be the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of Japan and the initiation of its destiny to expand to cover all races, beginning with the Asian races. That year Prime Minster Kanoe issued a statement which described Japan’s goal of “world peace in conformity with the very spirit in which our nation was founded”.

19. Loyalty to the Emperor was instilled as a duty to the divine

From the earliest age, the Japanese people were taught the necessity of loyalty to the Emperor, not only from them, but from all of the world’s races. Those who did not express such loyalty were to be subject to correction or elimination. The ultimate duty of the Japanese people was to bring all races under the benevolent rule of the Emperor in a form of universal brotherhood. Those who opposed were akin to a disobedient sibling, subject to the discipline administered by an elder brother. Thus the fighting in China was justified by the government to the Japanese people.

The atrocities committed by the Japanese in China were hidden from the people by the government and the media in Japan, which was by the mid-1930s wholly controlled by the militarists. They were instead told that the troops and ships of the Empire were engaged in a divinely inspired quest. In practice, the racism which was rife in Japanese society, at all levels, led to the many atrocities which were committed by the Japanese in all theaters of the Pacific War, against all of their enemies. The racism against other races, including the Asian races, was evident in the press as the war in China drew on, and was reflected in official government documents.

20. The Japanese government put its racial policies in writing in 1943

After the invasion of China, the Japanese government began a study which resulted in a document being published, though highly classified, in 1943. The study was intended to fully address Japanese racial policies, as more Japanese people settled in the conquered territories. The issues of assimilation with the local population were areas of concern for the Japanese, whose leadership wanted to maintain their formally adopted policy of Japanese racial supremacy. The resulting document consisted of six volumes with over 3,500 pages. It provided justification for the Japanese seizure of lands, including Asian and those held by the west, as “securing the living space of the Yamato race”.

Much of the document mirrored the concepts of the Nazis, including calls for improving all races through eugenic experimentation. The document used the metaphor of the family for the races of the earth, described the Japanese as the head of the family, duty bound to the rest of the family to lead it and provide its protection. It explained the Japanese duty to rule first all of Asia, and then all of the world, as head of the global family of all races, with each race assigned to its “proper place” in the hierarchy. It was also claimed that the Japanese people, being superior to all others, had the duty of improving all other races through selective breeding and the elimination of undesirables.

21. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was announced in 1940

During a radio address to the Japanese people on June 29, 1940, Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita announced a policy which was an expansion of the New Order in East Asia than in effect. Arita, who was a general in the Japanese Army, envisioned using the Army to create the “sphere”, which would unite all of Asia under the rule of the Emperor, excluding the western nations from their colonies and territories. The intent of the Japanese military was to use the populations and industrial/agricultural capabilities of the lands which it occupied to produce materials to support Japan’s war effort. It was little concerned with the prosperity of the nations which were forced into Japan’s Empire.

At the same time, the Co-Prosperity Sphere was being formulated within the Japanese government negotiations were underway to join in an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Japanese prepared, but kept to themselves, proposals to present to their future allies, once the Tripartite Pact became a fact. These included a dividing line which would separate the Asian landmass available for Japanese expansion and the part which was available to the Europeans. The Japanese envisioned extending their Empire, through a series of conflicts, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and even as far from Japan as the sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean.

22. Isolating Japan from western ideas and culture

In the 1920s much of western culture was appreciated in Japan, including the game of baseball (introduced in 1872), motion pictures, music, and other activities. As Japanese militarism rose in the 1930s, bringing protests from the United States, the government in Japan began to severely curtail western products and behaviors. Motion pictures began to undergo severe censorship, particularly those from the United States. Western texts were removed from the schools, and replaced with government-approved works which stressed the duties of all Japanese citizens. In 1937, increasing tensions with the United States led to the Japanese freezing American assets throughout the Japanese Empire.

In 1941, before the attack on Pearl Harbor led to war with Great Britain and the United States, the Japanese government issued a pamphlet entitled Way of Subjects. It described the proper behavior and attitudes of the Japanese people. The book roundly condemned western attitudes and behavior, especially those of the United States and described the war in China, which it called the China Affair as, “a step toward the construction of a world of moral principles by Japan”. The pamphlet, which was called a “Bible for the Japanese people” by Prime Minister Konoe, further read, “Japan is the fountain source of the Yamato race, Manchukuo its reservoir, and East Asia is its paddy field”.

23. The war in China drew to a stalemate by the end of the 1930s

The war in China, which by the direction of the Emperor in Japan was referred to as an “incident’ or an “affair” rather than acknowledging it was a war, was a three-way battle. Chinese Nationalists fought Chinese Communists, and both fought the Japanese. The Japanese Army seized most of the major cities but from remote areas, the war raged on. Propaganda in Japan told the people that Japan was winning the war, but casualties continued to rise, well before the war with the western allies began. From the outset of the war in China, negotiations with the Germans for an alliance between Showa Japan and Nazi Germany were underway, kept secret from the Japanese people.

By the time of the alliance with Italy and Germany, creating the Axis of World War II, the Japanese Army had expanded in China to 27 divisions out of its total strength of 38 divisions. As discussions began with the Emperor over attacking the United States and Great Britain, he expressed concern over the ongoing war with China and the Army’s failure to bring it to a successful conclusion. As planning for war with the United States and its allies began in earnest, the Imperial Japanese Navy and its fleet air arm rose in the esteem of the Emperor, and the Army correspondingly lost prestige, though senior Army officers continued to hold many of the most important positions within the government.

24. Japanese society was fully militarized by the beginning of 1941

When the 1940s dawned Showa Japan was a fully militarized state, in the home islands and in the occupied territories of the empire. Industry was geared fully to support the Army and Navy. The products of the occupied territories were used not to benefit the local populations but to be sent to Japan to support the military. Wages were frozen for most workers. In 1940, Japan imposed rationing on most foods, including less than 2 ounces of meat per day for adults. Similar amounts were allotted for fish. Farmers began to reduce the amount of food they sent to markets, keeping it for themselves and their families, and the kenpeitai began examining the output from farms.

The low levels allotted at the start of the 1940s were reduced throughout the war which followed, and black markets were the inevitable result. Food production continued to drop from 1940 through 1945, and the movement of food throughout the empire grew more difficult as the war went on. Both the amount of available food and what was allotted daily were reduced throughout the war, until by 1945 a child’s ration in the Japanese Empire was reduced to less than fifteen ounces of total food per day. Nonetheless, the Japanese people were told that they must sacrifice out of loyalty to the Emperor, and those caught participating in black market activities, or hoarding food, were dealt with harshly.

25. The creation of a single political party system in Showa Japan

On October 12, 1940, Prime Minister Fumimaro Kanoe created the Imperial Rule Assistance Association as part of his implementation of the New Order movement (Shintaisei). By then Japan had nationalized all industries necessary to support the war in China, as well as the media and all labor unions. In November, the Photographic Weekly Report informed the Japanese people, “the New Order movement…will in a word, place One Hundred Million into one body under this new organization that will conduct all of our energies and abilities for the sake of the nation”. All women’s organizations were merged into one, under government control. So were all youth organizations.

Following the general elections in 1942, all members of the Diet were forced to join the Imperial Rule Assistance Association as a condition of taking their seats. The IRAA became the only political party in Japan, and made the Diet little more than an advisory body. The Japanese government had already passed the National Service Draft Ordinance, which enabled the government to conscript workers and assign them to critical war industries as needed. Before the war ended the IRAA was militarized, its members uniformed, and assigned to support the militia and Army in the defense of the home islands during the anticipated invasion of Japan.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

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“The House of Nomura”. Albert J. Alletzhauer. 1991

“Hirohito and the making of modern Japan”. Herbert P. Bix. 2009

“Japan: The Making of Modern Japan”. Marius B. Jansen. 2002

“Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy”. Eri Hotta. 2013

“The Japanese Colonial Empire 1895-1945”. Chapter 5, The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 6. Mark R. Peattie. 1988

“The Showa Emperor’s ‘Monologue’ and the Problem of War Responsibility”. Herbert P. Bix, Journal of Japanese Studies. 1992

“The Mudken Incident: September 18-19, 1931”. Robert H. Ferrell, Journal of Modern History. March, 1955

“A Military History of Japan: From the Age of the Samurai to the 21^st Century”. John T. Kuehn. 2014

“Japan at War: An Oral History”. Haruko Taya Cook & Theodore F. Cook, Eds. 1993

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“Kenpetai: Japan’s had its very own dreaded ‘Gestapo'”. Warfare History Network, National Interest.org. Online

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“The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire”. John Toland. 1970

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