They epitomized hierarchy—not merely vis-à-vis the defeated enemy, but within their own rigidly layered ranks as well as by their white-men’s rule. One of the most pernicious aspects of the occupation was that the Asian peoples who had suffered most from imperial Japan’s depredations—the Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Filipinos—had no serious role, no influential presence at all in the defeated land. They became invisible. Asian contributions to defeating the emperor’s soldiers and sailors were displaced by an all-consuming focus on the American victory in the “Pacific War.” By this same
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