Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

by John W. Dower

For a great many ex-soldiers and sailors, the greatest shock of returning home lay in finding themselves treated, after all their travails, as pariahs in their native land. By 1946, when the tide of repatriates became a flood, those at home were already being exposed to a steady flow of information concerning the shocking range of atrocities committed by the imperial forces in China, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines, as well as against Allied prisoners generally. As a result, many ex-servicemen found themselves regarded not just as men who had failed disastrously to accomplish their mission, but also as individuals who had, it was assumed, participated in unspeakable acts. References to the reproachful glances that acquaintances and strangers alike directed at them became a familiar refrain in veterans’ letters to the press. Some frankly and sincerely expressed regret for their crimes. Others protested their innocence and the injustice of being treated as war criminals. They pleaded that the public had to make distinctions between soldiers or military men (gunjin) and the “military cliques” (gunbatsu) who were ultimately responsible for the war and its conduct.