Posted on 09/02/2015 5:08:27 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
"The Japanese surrender at the end of WWII allowed U.S. troops to peacefully enter as an occupation force. What they found and how they transformed their former enemy is told through the work of a team of cameramen who recorded it all on color film. They were among the first to witness the devastation wrought by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They also captured on film the first free elections and the birth of Japanese democracy. It was a remarkable journey." History Channel (2006?)
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
My dad was part of this effort.
Japan was still mostly a ruin in the early 50’s when I arrived.
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My mother-in-law born in a small fishing village about an hour from Nagasaki just at the end of the war or shortly after says the only thing she really remembers is about once a month us servicemen would come by in a jeep and they would hand out hershey chocolate bars.
I’m sure they were checking in with the village heads and having meetings and making sure things were ok as well, but I thought it was a great example of how we also went in and won over hearts and minds and didn’t just lord over them.
BUMP. I’m hoping to watch this weekend. I love Pacific War history. Thanks for sharing.
My wife’s father also remembers the chocolate bars when he was a child. The servicemen of the occupation were good guys as far as I know. I don’t recall any horror stories of bad boys harassing the population, but I’m sure there are some. Those would be interesting accounts to read. Okinawa’s want America out of their Island because of all the bad publicity that rapes and fights and crime by servicemen causes.
True about Okinawa, but those have been a very recent issue (granted recent in my mind) as I understand. Most of those issues surfaced late 80’s and onward not in the time frame considered ‘occupation’.
I know I was in a Navy semi-legal role in the early 90s when some marines/sailors went rogue and it was a real outlier on the way things had been to that point.
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