Rethinking Postwar Reconciliation between the UK, US, and Japan from the Perspective of Friendship and Interaction

TSUJI, Hirohito ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9625-6742 (2023) Rethinking Postwar Reconciliation between the UK, US, and Japan from the Perspective of Friendship and Interaction. In: 2nd Air Division History Seminar, 2023-11-18, American Library, Memorial to the 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force, United States Army Air Forces.

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Abstract

Often a detriment to the post-WWII rapprochement between Japan and the former Allies is the issue over the treatment of non-combatants, such as prisoners of war and civilians. For example, the large number of casualties among POWs, including those from Norfolk, who were sent to build the Burma-Thailand railway, has long been a factor in anti-Japanese sentiment in Britain. This was also the case on the Japanese side, someones often complained that the indiscriminate massacres of civilians, such as the atomic bombings, never been tried. On the other hand, few people know that there was also a miracle: in 1942, 422 crew members of the British destroyers, which had been sunk in the Second Battle of the Java Sea, were rescued by Japan's destroyer Ikazuchi. The number of rescued sailors was more than double that of the Ikazuchi crew, and at the time, any ships engaged in rescue operations were often attacked by US units in the surrounding waters. Rescuing enemy soldiers under such dangerous conditions was an extremely unusual event. These facts came to light largely due to the influence of Sir Samuel Falle, a former British diplomat who was rescued at the time. It has been suggested that his articles about it in British newspapers and the American Navy's official newspaper helped to reconcile veterans of both countries with their feelings towards Japan. While there have been many examples of post-war reconciliation facilitated by the Japanese, there are few instances where the activities of former Allied POWs have advanced post-war reconciliation. Recently, archives on Ikazuchi have been published and the details of this rescue operation are becoming clearer. Based on Japanese historiographies and fieldworks, this paper rethinks post-war reconciliation between the UK, US, and Japan from the perspective of friendship and interaction between Falle and the people involved.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	arts and humanities(all) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	16 Jan 2024 01:16
Last Modified:	13 May 2024 08:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/94172
DOI:	10.13140/RG.2.2.17299.45603/1

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