Japanese Home Front

Learn about the Japanese home front of W.W. II with these old magazine articles. Find information concerning everyday life in W.W. II Japan.

”The New Order” in Japan
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

After reading this 1941 article you will come away with a full understanding as to how misguided Imperial Japan was to enter into a war with the United States and the British Empire. At the time of the printing, Japan had been engaged in its second war with a very underdeveloped China; even though Japan had held the momentum in that war, it had still driven the Japanese into a life of highly uncomfortable rationing, which would only get worse as their new war expanded.

Looking for Spies on the Japanese Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

“The spy phobia possesses all inhabitants of Nippon. No one believes a foreigner can possibly be living in or visiting Japan for any simple reason such as business or pleasure. He must be in the pay of a foreign government. This entails a counterespionage system in which every Japanese joins with enthusiasm.”

Shortages
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The Japanese now are permitted fuel for their homes for only two months of the year and the prices are so high that many homes are without heat the year around.

The Japanese Home Front
(American Magazine, 1943)

This article was written by Max Hill, who was serving as the Tokyo bureau chief for the Associated Press at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The column consists of his observations as to how the Japanese home front operated during his seven month incarceration.


Click here to read about the Japanese home front during the early period of the Sino-Japanese War.


Click here to read about the W.W. II German home front.

How Americans Were Seen by The Japanese
(American Magazine, 1942)

In this article, photographer Frederick L. Hamilton recalled his two years in Japan prior to the Pearl Harbor attack; he let’s lose with all he learned concerning how the Japanese perceived the Americans:

They think we are soft, wasteful, irreverent and stupid…Most serious of all to the Japanese is their belief that we have no spiritual quality, no sense of honor.

Taro Yashima
(Direction Magazine, 1944)

Many are the names of the refugee-artists who fled Hitler’s Germany for the United States – but few are the Japanese artists we remember who departed fascist Japan for America. This slim article tells the story of Taro Yashima (born Atsushi Iwamatsu, 1908 – 1994) who was brutalized by the militarists in his homeland and fled in 1939.

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