Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

by John W. Dower

The materials looted by men of position and privilege were obviously of enormous value. They were, after all, being stockpiled to supply a gigantic home army for a protracted “decisive battle.” They were also, in many cases, materials capable of being concealed indefinitely. Large quantities of diamonds and other personal jewelry that patriotic women had donated to support the war effort were among the items stolen; so were drugs and rare precious metals such as titanium brought back from overseas. The sporadic hoards of goods that investigators did manage to track down provided an ongoing menu of tantalizing tidbits for the general public. In April 1946, for instance, a cache of silver ingots was found sunk near the shoreline in Tokyo Bay. Almost a year later, a raid on a single chemical company uncovered “10 tons of naphthalene, 26 tons of caustic soda, 45 tons of lubrication oil, 150 tons of edible oil, 16 tons of industrial salt, 50 tons of steel tube, 50 tons of steel bars, 30 tons of iron sheet, 45 electric motors and other miscellaneous iron, textile and rubber goods.” Although the absence of reliable records makes an accurate calculation of the scale and worth of the diverted goods impossible, a patchwork estimate of a very rough sort suggests that their value in 1947 may have exceeded 300 billion yen. The significance of this sum becomes apparent when it is set against the regular national budget for that year, in which total government expenditures were placed at...