* war and social upheaval: World War II Japan home front the children








World War II: Japanese Home Front--The Children

World War II Japanese children
Figure 1.--These Japanese schoolboys are engaged in combat drill. The photo was taken during 1943 in Neagari, Ishikawa Prefecture. By this time the War had clearly shifted against Japan, although the military was hiding the truth from the people. Notice that the children here are not teenagers. Thy look to be about 9-10 years old. The drill looks very similar to the Ketsugo training that would soon begin. It would have been conducted by a soldier assigned to the school, not a teacher.

Japanese children were affected in many ways by the War and participated in th war effort. The schools were affected by the increased militarization of Jpanese society througout the early-20th century, espcially during the 1920s and 30s. The Japanese military played a much larger role in education than was the case in Germany both t the time of World War I and II. In the lead up to World War II, military officers were assigned to schools to supervise and conduct military acivities there. As the War begn to go against Japa, teen agers were mobilized, inclusing younger teens. They were pulled out od the schools and sent into the factories to replced the men conscripted for military service. Child labor bcme an important element in Japanese war industries. We do not yet have much information about the role of Japanese youth organuzations during World War II. We do note Japanese Boy Scouts after the invasion of China, preparing to collect funds for the National Defense Fund. The Scouts were a small, vountary group. Among the militarists they wre suspected of being influenced by the Americans. We are not sure yet what happened to them once the War began. The Japanese closely followed the War in Europe, including the Allied strategic bombing campaign. They also knew that the Americans were building the long-range B-29 Superfortress. And with battlefield reverses, they began to consider the possibility for the Allied bombardment of the Home Islands. The Japanese Government began preparing evacuation plans (late-1943). The Ichii-Go offensive suceded in taking areas in China that the Americans oplanned to use to bomb the Home Islands. The fall of the Marianas (June-July 1944), howver, gave the United States possession of air field that brought the Home Islands in range of the B-29s. The Japanese began evacuating entire schools from the cities. They relocated 450,000 children with their teachers (but not their parents) to the countryside (1944). When the United States air campaign began to increase in effectuiveness (late-1944), an estimated 10 million people fled the cities. As the possibility of invasion became a reality, military drills in the schools became formalized by the military as Ketsugo. The Japanese military was going to send children with sharpened bmboo poles gainst American soldirs. Mass suiside was also possible. It had taken plce on the islands with Japanese civilins. The childrn were not to kill themselvs. This was to be done by their parents and soldiers.

Schools

Building a modern public school system was a part of the Meiji reforms. Japan became the first Asian country to create a public school system. There were still major differences between rural and urban schools. Japanese education in the early-20th century was noatable for hypernationalism which by the time of World War II was full-blown xeneohobia. Students were inculcated with a racist, nationalist agenda. The children were taught other races were inferior and the Emperor was a god to which his subject cowed absolute obedience. Just as the military seized cointrol of the Government, it extended its influence in other areas of Japanese life--including the schools. Soldiers were assigned to the schools to make sure the teachers were sufficently patriotic. They also ran military drill sessions which continued to be part of Japanese education after it had declined in the West. With the War, drill became a form of combat training, all run by mikitary personnel. Eventually the military began dradting the older students. Funally the schools were closed. Children old enough to eork (girls and the boys not dradted) were sent to work in factories. The younger children were evscuted to safe areas in the countryside.

Industrial Mobilization: Child Labor

Japan mobilized the country's industrial capacity. The bulk of the Japanese Army was deployed in China, but the vast expansion of the Japanese Empire required more men to garison. And as the Allies recovered from the initial Japanese offensives, more men were needed to fight the increasingly powerful Allied thrusts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and thus workers and middle-aged men were drafted. Women and children were ordered to work in factories as well as on farms. As the military made increasing demands on manpower, school children were drafted to replace men drafted into military service on far-flung battlefields. Factories were put on a 7-day work day (summer 1944). Trains were increasingly crowded, largely because because fuel was becoming increasinly scarce. Japan had gone to War to obrain peteroleum and other resources, but by 1943, the American submarine campaign was methodically destroying the Japanese maru (merchant) fleet. Japan was left with the oil fields in Southeast Asia, but no way to get it back to the Home Islands. Petroleum was the biggest problem, but shortages of other raw materials also developed, including rubber, nickel, tin, and others were increasingly duifficult to obtain. The same was true of other cruitical raw materials. Japanese industry, however, proved totally incapable of matching America production in quantity or quality. A good example was the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. It was an extrordinarily effective aurcraft against Allied aircraft (1941-42). The Americans rapidly introduced new advanced aircraft types. The Japanese were still using the Zero, albeit with some modifications) at the end of the War. Even running their factories 7 days a week, the Japanese could not begin to match the output of the United States which was rapidly expanding. Even before the strategic bombing campaign, Japan's industry was producing only a small fraction of Anmerican output asnd was severly impacted by raw material shortages.

Youth Organizations

We do not yet have much information about Japanese youth organuzations. We know that some existed. There was, for example, a Boy Scout movement. We note Japanese Boy Scouts after the invasion of China, preparing to collect funds for the National Defense Fund. The Scouts were a small, vouluntary group. Among the militarists, however, the Scouts were suspected of being influenced by the Americans and British. Japan as it prepared for war decided to combine all youth groups into the Great Japan Youth Organization (GJYO). As a result, Scoutiung activities as best we can tell ceased. The GJYO was a scgool-based group and conducted a range od programs to assist the war effort. These include sending letters and oackages to soldiers. They also collected mnoney to aid the soldiers posted abroad. Other activities inck=luded helping to mmaintain shriues and temoles as well as other community projects the schools might adopt.

Evacuations

The Japanese closely followed the War in Europe, including the Allied strategic bombing campaign. They also knew that the Americans were building the long-range B-29 Superfortress. And with battlefield reverses, they began to consider the possibility for the Allied bombardment of the Home Islands. The Japanese Government began preparing evacuation plans (late-1943). The Ichii-Go offensive suceded in taking areas in China that the Americans oplanned to use to bomb the Home Islands. The fall of the Marianas (June-July 1944), howver, gave the United States possession of air field that brought the Home Islands in range of the B-29s. The Japanese began evacuating entire schools from the cities. They relocated 450,000 children with their teachers (but not their parents) to the countryside (1944). When the United States air campaign began to increase in effectuiveness (late-1944), an estimated 10 million people fled the cities. An estimated two-thirds of the population of major cities fled. Those that remained including the munitions and other war workers along with Government officials.

Ketsugo

The Emperor and the Japanese military were determined to resist. The military conveived the strategy of Ketsugo (April 1945). This was part of the overall strategy of bleeding the Americans to force a negoytiated peace. Ketsugo meant self defense, As a national defense policy it meant preparing civilans to fight an American invasion. It was a refinement of Japan's Shosango victory plan which envisioned defending the home islands to the last man. The plan was to prepare the Japanese people psychologically to fight the Americans and die defending their homeland. THere was to be no surrender, even civilians were not to surrender. Some Japanese sources claim that Japan was defeated and ready to surrender. Such claims are starkly disproved by what happened to civilians on Okinawa. The military there actively prevented civilians from surrendering and incouraged civilians to kill themselves. Ketsugo went a step further. It involved training civilns to actively resist an American invasion. The plan included training children, boys as well as girls, to fight with improvised weapns. Soldiers were assigned to schools to train even primary-level children in the use of weapons like bamboo spears. I am not sure how widespread this effort was and how intensive the training. I have noted Japanese adults describing such traing they received in schools. Japanese officials warned that the Americans would kill men who surrendered instantly and rape women. Not only were Japanese soldiers not to surrender, but neither would civilians. Others Japanese sources have reported their was no serious training in their schools. A peace faction led by Foreign Minister Togo complained that Ketsugo would destroy the nation. General Anami retorted that those who can not fulfill their resonsibilities to the Emperor should commit hari-kiri. He was intent that the entire nation should resist the Americans to the death,

Suicide

As unvelievable as it may seem, national suicide including the children is what major military figures in charge of the Japanese Governmnt were contemplsting. Mass suicide was also possible and with the case of the children mean murder. It had actually taken place on the islands with Japanese civilians. This was the work of the militay, not the civilan authority. The children were not to kill themselvs. This was to be done by their parents and soldiers. The soldiers were necessary because not all of the parentsere willing to comit suicide. As far as we know, this was never explained to the childre, We are not entirely sure why. Perhaps they not believe the children could b trusted to kill themselves. Or perhaps they knew very well that th Americansere not going tonkill and rape. Higher military authorities had access to information as o what was happning in Europe. This suggests to us that they were well aware of what an evil ghing they were doiung.







HBC






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Created: 8:11 PM 12/28/2017
Last updated: 2:51 AM 10/14/2020