Timeline Japan 1941-1979
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1941 Feb 8,
Japanese armored barges crossed the Strait of Johore to attack
Singapore.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1941 Apr 13, A Russian-Japan
no-attack treaty went into effect.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1941 Jul 21, France accepted
Japan's demand for military control of Indochina.
(HN, 7/21/98)
1941 Jul 24, The U.S. government
denounced Japanese actions in Indochina.
(HN, 7/24/98)
1941 Jul 25, The U.S. government
froze Japanese and Chinese assets.
(HN, 7/25/98)
1941 Jul 27, Japanese forces
landed in Indo-China.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1941 Jul 28, A Japanese army
landed in Cochin, China (modern day Vietnam).
(HN, 7/28/98)
1941 Aug 27, The Prime Minister of
Japan, Fumimaro Konoye, issued an invitation for a meeting with
President Roosevelt.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1941 Sep 6, Emperor Hirohito gave
his sanction "with misgivings" to simultaneous efforts to negotiate
peace with the US and to prepare for an attack if the efforts failed.
(SFC, 10/3/00, p.A10)
1941 Oct 15, The Japanese Tojo
regime was formed. [see Oct 17]
(MC, 10/15/01)
1941 Oct 17, Gen'l. Hideki Toho
(1885-1948) became Premier and Minister of War in Japan. When the
bellicose war minister and most powerful man in Japan, Army General
Hideki Tojo, became prime minister, there no longer was a chance of
avoiding war with Britain and the United States.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(HN, 2/21/98)
1941 Oct 18, Spy Richard Sorge was
arrested in Tokyo.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1941 Nov 1, Japanese marine staff
officers Suzuki and Maejima arrived in Pearl Harbor.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1941 Nov 3, Hirohito's accord on
Yamamoto's attack plan on Pearl Harbor failed.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1941 Nov 5, Japanese marine staff
officers Suzuki and Maejima left Pearl Harbor.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1941 Nov 20, Ambassadors Nomura
and Kurusu handed over Japan's last diplomatic note.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1941 Nov 26, The Japanese fleet
departed from the Kurile Islands en route for its attack on Pearl
Harbor.
(HN, 11/26/98)
1941 Nov 26, The US issued an
edict that "the government of Japan will withdraw all military, naval,
air and police forces from China and Indochina."
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A19)
1941 Nov 30, Japanese Emperor
Hirohito consulted with admirals Shimada and Nagano.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1941 Dec 1, Japanese emperor
Hirohito signed a declaration of war. Japan's Tojo rejected U.S.
proposals for a Pacific settlement as fantastic and unrealistic.
(HN, 12/1/98)(MC, 12/1/01)
1941 Dec 1, British declared a
state of emergency in Malaya following reports of Japanese attacks.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1941 Dec 2, Naval Intelligence
ended the bugging of the Japanese consul.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1941 Dec 2, Yamamoto ordered his
fleet to Pearl Harbor.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1941 Dec 5, President Roosevelt
sent a message to Japanese Emperor Hirohito expressing hope that
gathering war clouds would be dispelled. Hirohito smiled enigmatically,
knowing that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor the next day.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 6, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt issued a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his
influence to avoid war.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1941 Dec 6, Dutch and British
pilots saw Japanese invasion fleet at Singapore.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1941 Dec. 7,
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1941 Dec 7, The 1st Japanese
submarine was sunk by a US ship, the USS Ward.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1941 Dec 7, Evidence arose in 1999
that one of five Japanese mini submarines penetrated Pearl Harbor and
hit at least one ship with torpedoes. In 1999 Robert B. Stinnett
published "Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor."
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)
1941 Dec 7, At 2:20 p.m. the
"Final Memorandum" document was delivered to Sec. of State Cordell Hull
in Washington DC. In it Japan notified the US that it was "impossible
to reach an agreement through further negotiations."
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.C2)
1941 Dec 8, Japan attacked the
Philippines. The United States entered World War II as Congress
declared war against Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T7)(AP,
12/8/97)
1941 Dec 8, Japanese troops
occupied Hong Kong.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1941 Dec 8, Japanese General
Yamashita began his attack against the British army at Singapore.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita earned the name "Tiger of Malaya" for his
masterful capture of Singapore and the whole Malay Peninsula from the
British, who had a superior number of troops. Yamashita's forces
landed on the northern Malay Peninsula and southern Thailand on
December 8, 1941, and moved rapidly southward toward Singapore, which
surrendered on February 15, 1942. The peninsula and Singapore remained
under Japanese control throughout the war. Later in the war, while
defending the Philippines from Gen. MacArthur's return, Yamashita's
troops wantonly slaughtered more than 100,000 Filipinos in Manila. He
was later tried and executed for war crimes.
(HN, 12/8/98)(HNQ, 4/5/00)
1941 Dec 9, China declared war on
Japan, Germany and Italy.
(AP, 12/9/97)
1941 Dec 10, Japanese troops
invaded the Filipino island of Luzon and overran Guam.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(HN, 12/10/98)(MC, 12/10/01)
1941 Dec 11, A Japanese invasion
fleet attacked Wake Island, which was defended by 439 US marines, 75
sailors and 6 soldiers. The defenders sank 4 Japanese ships, damaged 8
and destroyed a submarine.
(SFC, 12/12/01, p.A2)
1941 Dec 18, Defended by 610
fighting men, the American-held island of Guam fell to more than 5,000
Japanese invaders in a three-hour battle.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1941 Dec 18, Japanese troops
landed on Hong Kong. [see Dec 19]
(MC, 12/18/01)
1941 Dec 19, Japanese landed on
Hong Kong and clashed with British troops.
(HN, 12/19/98)
1941 Dec 20, Japanese troops
landed on Mindanao.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1941 Dec 20, The Flying Tigers,
American pilots in China, entered combat against the Japanese over
Kunming.
(HN, 12/20/98)
1941 Dec 22, Japanese troops made
an amphibious landing on the coast of Lingayen Gulf on Luzon, the
Philippines.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1941 Dec 23, US Marines and Navy
defenders on Wake Island capitulated to a second Japanese invasion. In
1995 Brig. Gen. John F. Kinney co-wrote “Wake Island Pilot: A World War
II Memoir.”
(AP, 12/23/97)(HN, 12/23/00)(SFC, 7/11/06, p.B5)
1941 Dec 23, The Japanese occupied
Hong Kong.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)
1941 Dec 23, The 440-foot tanker
Montebello was sunk off the California coast near Cambria by a Japanese
submarine. The crew of 38 survived and in 1996 it was found that the
4.1 million gallon cargo of crude oil appeared intact.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A19)`
1941 Dec 24, The 1st ships of
Admiral Nagumo's (Pearl Harbor) fleet returned to Japan.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1941 Dec 25, Japan announced the
surrender of the British-Canadian garrison at Hong Kong. Major John
Crawford (d.1997) and some 1,975 Canadian soldiers were captured and
incarcerated at the Sham Shui Po prison camp at Kowloon for 44 months.
(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(HN, 12/25/02)(AP, 12/25/07)
1941 Dec 27, Japanese bombers
attacked Manila, despite its claim as an open city.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1941 Japan invaded Indonesia and
ended the Dutch era of colonial power. East Timor, under Portuguese for
some 400 years, was also invaded.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)
1941 Japanese forces land in
Thailand. After negotiations Thailand allows Japanese to advance
towards British-controlled Malay Peninsula, Singapore and Burma.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm)
1941 Japan’s Tokai Bank was
founded. In 2001 it joined with Sanwa Bank and Tokyo Trust Bank to form
UFJ Holdings. In 2005 it became part of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial
Group.
(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.C1)
1941-1945 In 2006 Evan Thomas authored “Sea of
Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945,”
a study of the Pacific Campaign of World War II.
(WSJ, 12/16/06, p.P11)
1942 Jan 4, Japanese forces began
the evacuation of Guadalcanal
(HN, 1/4/00)
1942 Jan 11, Japan declared war
against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the
Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia).
(AP, 1/11/98)(HN, 1/11/99)
1942 Jan 16, Japan's advance into
Burma began.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1942 Jan 18, General MacArthur
repelled the Japanese in Bataan.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1942 Jan 19, Japanese forces
invaded Burma. [see Jan 16]
(MC, 1/19/02)
1942 Jan 20, There was a Japanese
air raid on Rabaul, New Britain.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1942 Feb 8, The Japanese landed on
Singapore. By 1941, Gen. Yamashita was the commanding general of
Japan's Twenty-Fifth Army. His plans for taking Singapore were already
underway.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1942 Feb 9, Chiang Kai-shek met
with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India. Detachment 101
harried the Japanese in Burma and provided close support for regular
Allied forces.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1942 Feb 9, Japanese troops landed
near Makassar, South Celebes.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1942 Feb 14, The Japanese attacked
Sumatra. Aidan MacCarthy's RAF unit flew to Palembang, in eastern
Sumatra, where 30 Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed A-28 Hudson
bombers were waiting. The elation was short-lived as Japanese soldiers
were parachuting into the jungle that surrounded the airfield.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1942 Feb 15, British forces in
Singapore surrendered to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Yamashita
prevailed, when British Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Percival and 130,000 Empire
troops surrendered. It was the largest surrender in British history.
(HN, 2/15/98)(AP, 2/15/98)
1942 Feb 16, Tojo outlined Japan's
war aims to the Diet, referring to "new order of coexistence" in East
Asia. During the Japanese war crimes trials, Tojo himself took
responsibility, as premier, for anything either he or his country had
done. He asserted, however, with the other defendants, that they--and
Japan--had made war only in "self-defense."
(HN, 2/16/98)
1942 Feb 18, Japanese troop landed
on Bali.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1942 Feb 19, Japanese troops
landed on Timor. Australian commandos battled the Japanese with support
from local people. Japanese reprisals killed 60,000 civilians, 13% of
the population.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A15)(MC, 2/19/02)
1942 Feb 19, Port Darwin, on the
northern coast of Australia, was bombed by about 150 Japanese
warplanes; at least 243 people were killed. General George C. Kenney,
who pioneered aerial warfare strategy and tactics in the Pacific
theater, ordered 3,000 parafrag bombs to be sent to Australia, where he
thought they might come in handy against the Japanese. Darwin was
virtually leveled by 64 bombing raids over 21 months.
(HN, 2/19/98)(SFEC, 9/10/00, p.T10)(AP, 2/19/08)
1942 Feb 23, A Japanese submarine
shelled an oil refinery at Ellwood, near Santa Barbara, Calif., the
first Axis bombs to hit American soil.
(HN, 2/23/98)(MC, 2/23/02)
1942 Feb 27, Battle of Java Sea
began. 13 US warships sank-2 Japanese.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1942 Feb 28, Japanese landed in
Java, the last Allied bastion in Dutch East Indies.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1942 Mar 1, The 3 day Battle of
Java Sea ended as US suffered a major naval defeat. Japanese troops
occupy Kalidjati airport in Java.
(HN, 3/1/98)(SC, 3/1/02)
1942 Mar 5, Japanese troop marched
into Batavia.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1942 Mar 7, Japanese troops landed
on New Guinea.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1942 Mar 8, Japanese captured
Rangoon, Burma, during World War II.
(AP, 3/8/98)(HN, 3/8/98)
1942 Mar 11, As Japanese forces
continued to advance in the Pacific during World War II Gen. Douglas
MacArthur left Corregidor in the Philippines for Australia. MacArthur,
who subsequently vowed, "I shall return," kept that promise more than 2
1/2 years later. MacArthur relinquished command in the Philippines to
Gen’l. Jonathon Wainwright.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T7)(AP,
3/11/98)(http://tinyurl.com/736ws)
1942 Mar 20, Gen MacArthur slipped
out of Corregidor and vowed: "I shall return." [see Mar 11]
(MC, 3/20/02)
1942 Mar 23, The Japanese occupied
the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.
(HN, 3/23/98)(SS, 3/23/02)
1942 Mar, Japan established
relations with the Vatican, the 1st non-Christian state to do so. The
first ambassador's name was Ken Harada.
(Econ, 7/21/07,
p.59)(www.reformation.org/vatican-and-japan.html)
1942 Apr 3, The Japanese began
their all-out assault on the U.S. and Filipino troops at Bataan.
(HN, 4/3/99)
1942 Apr 9, In the Battle of
Bataan, some 70,000 soldiers gathered at the bottom of the Bataan
peninsula during World War II. American and Philippine defenders on
Bataan capitulated to Japanese forces; the surrender was followed by
the notorious 55-mile "Bataan Death March" which claimed nearly 10,000
lives. 12,000 American soldiers surrendered to the Japanese and some
1000 died on the march. [see Apr 10]
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T7)(AP, 4/9/97)(HN, 4/9/98)(SSFC,
6/17/01, Par p.4)
1942 Apr 10, The 65-mile Bataan
Death March began to a prison camp near Cabanatuan. The prisoners were
forced to march 85 miles in six days with only one meal of rice during
the entire journey. Some 10k-15k soldiers perished on the march. Bataan
is a peninsula of western Luzon in the Philippines. It was surrendered
to the Japanese in this year and retaken by American forces in 1945.
[see Apr 9]
(HFA, '96, p.28)(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T7)(SFC, 4/25/97,
p.A26)(MC, 4/10/02)
1942 Apr 12, Japan killed about
400 Filipino officers in Bataan.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1942 Apr 16, The Japanese
occupying army on Java installed film censorship.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1942 Apr 18, The first US air
strike against Japan, an air squadron from the USS Hornet led by Lt.
Col. James H. Doolittle (d.1993), raided Tokyo and other Japanese
cities. 16 U.S. Army B-25 bombers broke through Japanese defenses to
strike Tokyo and other cities in broad daylight. The North-American
B-25B Mitchells were launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier
Hornet, and after striking their targets, flew on to China. 2 of the 80
men drowned. 3 of 8 captured by the Japanese were executed and 1 died
in a prison camp. Doolittle later became the commander general of the
Eighth Air Force. In 1943 Ted Lawson authored “Thirty Seconds Over
Tokyo,” an account of the bombing of Tokyo.
(AP, 4/18/97)(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A23)(SSFC, 3/30/03,
p.A1)(SFC, 8/12/06, p.P8)
1942 Apr 18, The 16th plane of the
Doolittle air strike against Japan landed outside Vladivostok in the
Soviet Union following its mission. Nolan Herndon (1918-2007), the
bombardier, later reported that their plane was used to test the Soviet
resolve as an ally. The 5-man crew was held for over 13 months before
escaping to a British Embassy in what later became Iran.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.D8)
1942 Apr 29, Japanese troops
marched into Lashio and cut off the Burma Road.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1942 May 2, Japanese troops
occupied Mandalay Burma.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1942 May 7, In the Battle of the
Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attacked each other with
carrier planes. It was the first time in the history of naval warfare
where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other. This battle
stopped Japanese expansion.
(HN, 5/7/99)(MC, 5/7/02)
1942 May 8, Battle of the Coral
Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ended as a tactical
victory for the Japanese. They sank more tons of ships than the U.S.
did. It was a strategic victory for the U.S. in that the Japanese were
halted in their drive south. The aircraft carrier Lexington was sunk by
Japanese air attack at Coral Sea.
(HN, 5/8/99)(MC, 5/8/02)
1942 May 20, Japan completed the
conquest of Burma.
(HN, 5/20/98)
1942 May, Japanese documents in
1998 revealed that their military used poison gas in a northern China
battlefield. China claimed that poison gas was used 2,900 times.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A14)
1942 Jun 3, Japanese carrier-based
planes strafed Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands as a diversion of
the attack on Midway island.
(HN, 6/3/99)
1942 Jun 4, The Battle of Midway
began. It was Japan’s first major defeat in World War II. Four Japanese
carriers were lost. The carrier USS Yorktown was hit by 3 Japanese
bombs and put on tow to Pearl Harbor. It was torpedoed three days later
and sank in waters 16,650 deep. The Yorktown was found in 1998 by a
team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard, who had also found the
Titanic and the Bismarck. The story of the Battle of Midway was told by
Walter Lord in "Incredible Victory." In 2005 Alvin Kernan authored “The
Unknown Battle of Midway.”
(AP, 6/4/97)(HN, 6/4/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A3)(SFEC,
6/4/00, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/29/05, p.D8)
1942 Jun 6, Japanese troops landed
on Kiska, Aleutians.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1942 Jun 6, Japanese forces
retreated in the World War II Battle of Midway.
(AP, 6/6/97)
1942 Jun 7, The Japanese invaded
Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands.
(HN, 6/7/98)
1942 Jun 22, A Japanese submarine
shelled Fort Stevens, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River.
(HN, 6/22/98)(MC, 6/22/02)
1942 Aug 7, The U.S. 1st Marine
Division under General A. A. Vandegrift landed on the islands of
Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon islands. This was the first
American amphibious landing of the war and the start of the first major
allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II. The initial
landing party included Navajo Codetalkers. This was the 1st land
Japanese defeat of WWII; Japan was building an air base with designs on
isolating the Australian continent.
(AP, 8/7/97)(HN, 8/7/98)(WSJ, 10/12/99, p.A24)(MC,
8/7/02)
1942 Aug 8, U.S. Marines captured
the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal.
(HN, 8/8/98)
1942 Aug 15, The Japanese
submarine I-25 departed Japan with a floatplane in its hold. It was
assembled upon arriving off the West Coast of the US, and used to bomb
U.S. forests.
(HN, 8/15/99)
1942 Aug 18, Japan sent a crack
army to Guadalcanal to repulse the U.S. Marines fighting there.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1942 Aug 26, Japanese troops
landed on New Guinea, Milne Bay.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1942 Aug 27, Cuba declared war on
Germany, Japan and Italy.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1942 Aug 29, The American Red
Cross announced that Japan had refused to allow safe conduct for the
passage of ships with supplies for American prisoners of war.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1942 Sep 9, A Japanese float
plane, launched from a submarine, made its first bombing run on a U.S.
forest near Brookings, Oregon. Japanese planes drop incendiary bombs on
Oregon in an attempt to set fire to the forests of the Northwest. The
forests failed to ignite, but Pacific Coast citizens stepped-up their
blackout drills in preparation for future Japanese raids.
(HN, 9/9/99)(MC, 9/9/01)
1942 Sep 15, The USS Wasp was
torpedoed by a Japanese submarine at Guadalcanal; the US Navy ended up
sinking the badly damaged aircraft carrier.
(www.b-26marauderarchive.org/PM/PM2105/PM4223.htm)(AP, 9/15/07)
1942 Sep 16, The Japanese base at
Kiska in the Aleutian Islands was raided by American bombers.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1942 Sep 21, British forces
attacked the Japanese in Burma.
(HN, 9/21/98)
1942 Sep, More than 400 villagers
died of bubonic plague in China's eastern Zhejiang province after
Japanese warplanes of medical Unit 731 dropped germ bombs. Unit 731 was
stationed on the outskirts of Harbin, China, until the Soviet Union
entered the war. The unit deposited typhus into the water supply
flowing into Manchuria. In 2000 Yoshio Shinozuka testified to seeing
men infected with the plague and then being dissected while still
alive. Harbin had 26 affiliates across China and its germ bombs
(anthrax, cholera, typhus and bubonic plague) killed an estimated
270,000 people. Biological warfare activities of Unit 731 were unknown
to most Japanese citizens until 1981, when author Seiichi Morimura
exposed its dark history in a book, "The Devil's Gluttony".
(SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C8)(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)(SFC,
8/15/98, p.A12)(SFC, 12/22/00, p.D6)(SFC, 6/12/01, p.A8)(AP, 8/27/02)
1942 Oct 11, In the World War II
Battle of Cape Esperance in the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and
destroyers decisively defeated a Japanese task force in a night surface
encounter
(AP, 10/11/97)(HN, 10/11/98)
1942 Oct 12, US Navy defeated
Japanese in WW II Battle of Cape Esperance.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1942 Oct 19, The Japanese
submarine I-36 launched a floatplane for a reconnaissance flight over
Pearl Harbor. The pilot and crew reported on the ships in the harbor,
after which the aircraft was lost at sea.
(HN, 10/19/98)
1942 Oct 26, Japanese planes badly
damaged the US ship Hornet in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands, in the
South Pacific Solomon Islands. 300 survivors were rescued by the
destroyer Barton. The Hornet sank early the next morning.
(HN, 10/26/98)(AP, 10/26/07)(SFC, 10/14/05, p.B6)
1942 Oct 26, In the Battle of
Santa Cruz the USS South Dakota shot down a record 32 enemy planes
(MC, 10/26/01)
1942 Oct 26, On the 2nd day in the
Battle of Henderson Field. Mitchell Paige (1918-2003), US Marine
platoon sergeant, held his position against Japanese forces at
Guadalcanal as all his men were killed or wounded, until reinforcements
arrived. He received a battlefield commission and later a Medal of
Honor. In 1975 he authored the autobiography "A Marine Named Mitch."
(HN, 10/26/98)(SFC, 11/19/03, p.A29)
1942 Oct 26, The U.S. ship Hornet
was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands, in the South Pacific
during World War II.
(AP, 10/26/97)(HN, 10/26/98)
1942 Nov 12, The World War II
naval Battle of Guadalcanal began. The Allies eventually won a major
victory over the Japanese. The battle was described by Ira Wolfert in
news reports and his 1943 book "Battle for the Solomons."
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)(AP, 11/12/07)
1942 Nov 13-15, Japanese-US sea
battle at Savo-Island in Guadalcanal.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1942 Dec 19, British advanced 40
miles into Burma in a drive to oust the Japanese from the colony.
(HN, 12/19/98)
1942 Dec 20, 1st Japanese began
the bombing of Calcutta.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1942 Dec 27, The 1st Japanese
women camp at Ambarawa went into use.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1942 Dec 31, After five months of
battle, Emperor Hirohito allowed the Japanese commanders at Guadalcanal
to retreat.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1942-1945 J.G. Ballard, English novelist born in
Shanghai in 1930, was interned by the Japanese. His 1984
autobiographical novel "Empire of the Sun" described his experiences.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.10)
1942-1945 In Taiwan the Kinkaseki copper mine was
worked by prisoners of war under Japanese dictate. Of the 523 men who
went into the mine in Dec 1942, only about 100 were alive at the end of
the war.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A25)
1943 Jan 5, The Japanese began a
planned withdrawal from Guadalcanal.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1943 Jan 31, Chile broke contact
with Germany and Japan.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1943 Feb 8, British General
Wingate led a guerrilla force of "Chindits" behind the Japanese lines
in Burma. Detachment 101’s support of Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate’s Chindits
and Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill’s Marauders was crucial to the Allied
success in Burma and to the eventual victory in Southeast Asia.
(HN, 2/8/98)(www.chindits.info/)
1943 Feb 9, The World War II
battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied
victory over Japanese forces.
(AP, 2/9/08)
1943 Mar 2, The battle of the
Bismarck Sea began. US and Australian warplanes were able to inflict
heavy damage on a Japanese convoy.
(AP, 3/2/07)
1943 Mar 3, US defeated Japan in
the Battle of Bismarck Sea.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1943 Mar 13, Japanese forces ended
their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.
(HN, 3/13/99)
1943 Mar 26, Battle of Komandorski
Islands, Pacific Ocean.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1943 Apr 7, US Marine Lt. James
Swett (1920-2009), division leader of Squadron 221, shot down 7
Japanese bombers over the Solomon Islands. He was later awarded the
Medal of Honor for his actions on this day.
(SSFC, 1/25/09, p.B3)
1943 Apr 17, Admiral Yamamoto flew
from Truk to Rabaul. [see Apr 18]
(MC, 4/17/02)
1943 Apr 18, Traveling in a
bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the attack
on Pearl Harbor, was shot down by American P-38 fighters.
(HN, 4/18/99)
1943 Apr 21, President Roosevelt
announced that several Doolittle pilots were executed by Japanese.
(HN, 4/21/98)
1943 May 11, During World War II,
American forces landed on Japanese-held Attu island in the Aleutians.
The territory was retaken in three weeks.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1943 May 19, In an address to the
U.S. Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledged his
country's full support in the war against Japan.
(AP, 5/19/97)
1943 Jun 30, In Japan all stock
exchanges were merged under the wartime conditions as the Japan
Securities Exchange. This was dissolved after the war.
(WSJ, 3/15/07, p.C1)
1943 Jul 8, American B-24 bombers
struck Japanese-held Wake Island for the first time. An obscure U.S.
Navy fighter did yeoman duty when times were toughest early in World
War II.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1943 Oct 7, Approximately 100 U.S.
prisoners of war remaining on Wake Island were executed by the Japanese.
(HN, 10/7/98)
1943 Oct 11, The US submarine
Wahoo, Under the command of Dudley "Mush" Morton, was sunk by the
Japanese navy as it returned from its seventh patrol. All 79 crewmen
died. In 2006 Russian divers found the wreckage in the La Perouse
Strait.
(AP, 8/18/06)
1943 Oct 25, Japanese
forces held an official ceremony for the 415-km Thailand-Burma
railroad. The rail was completed Oct 17 at Konkuita, Thailand.
During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and
were buried along the “Death Railway.” An estimated 80,000 to 100,000
civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labor
brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam
(Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). The movie “The Bridge on the River
Kwai” (1957) was a part of this effort and is today a big tourist
attraction in Thailand.
(www.bmw.ukf.net/3pagodas/TBRandON.htm)
1943 Nov 20, U.S. Army and Marines
attacked Makin and Tarawa in the Central Pacific (part of the Gilbert
and Ellice Islands).
(HN, 11/20/98)
1943 The Japanese film "Sugata
Sanshiro" was directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was his first film.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1943 Slave laborers at the
Japanese NKK Corp. went on strike. Kim Kyung Suk (16) of Korea was
hanged from a ceiling by company employees and beaten with wooden and
bamboo swords for leading the strike against the steel giant. Suk filed
suit in 1991 and was awarded $33,900 in compensation in 1999.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.C3)
1943 A volcano erupted near
Sobetsucho, Japan, and formed a mountain, that was named Showa Shinzan.
(WSJ, 2/26/04, p.A1)
1943 Japanese authorities in
Shanghai, China, under pressure from Nazi allies, packed the city’s
Jewish population of some 20,000 people, into a 3-square-mile area in
Hongkou District.
(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.A7)
1944 Feb 3, The United States
shelled the Japanese homeland for the first time at Kurile Islands.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1944 Feb 4, The Japanese attacked
the Indian Seventh Army in Burma.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1944 Feb 6, Kwajalein Island in
the Central Pacific fell to U.S. Army troops.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1944 Feb 14, An anti-Japanese
revolt took place on Java.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1944 Feb 21, Hideki Tojo became
chief of staff of the Japanese army.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1944 Feb 24, Merrill's Marauders,
a specially trained group of American soldiers, began their ground
campaign against Japan into Burma. The were led by Brigadier General
Frank Merrill (b.1903-1955), the first US infantry combat force to
fight the Japanese on the mainland of Asia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill%27s_Marauders)(www.marauder.org/history.htm)
1944 Feb 25, U.S. forces destroyed
135 Japanese planes in Marianas and Guam.
(HN, 2/25/02)
1944 Feb 29, US forces caught
Japanese troops off-guard and easily took control of the Admiralty
Islands in Papua New Guinea.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1944 Mar 7, Japan began an
offensive in Burma.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1944 Apr 1, Japanese troops
conquered Jessami, East-India.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1944 Apr 26, First B-29 attacked
by Japanese fighters [in China?], one fighter shot down.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1944 May 27, Japanese advanced in
Hangkhou, China.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1944 Jun 5, The first B-29 bombing
raid struck the Japanese rail line in Bangkok, Thailand.
(HN, 6/5/98)
1944 Jun 11, U.C. carrier-based
planes attacked Japanese airfields on Guam, Rota, Saipan and Tinian
islands, preparing for the invasion of Saipan.
(HN, 6/11/99)
1944 Jun 14, B-29 bombers
conducted their first raid against mainland Japan.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1944 Jun 15, American forces began
their successful invasion of Saipan during World War II. Meanwhile,
B-29 Superfortresses made their first raids on Japan.
(AP, 6/15/97)
1944 Jun 19, The Battle of the
Philippine Sea (Battle of the Marianas), called the "Marianas Turkey
Shoot," began when Japanese naval forces attacked the stronger U.S.
naval forces. 280 Japanese planes were shot down by U.S. carrier- based
planes and anti-aircraft fire from U.S. ships. Americans shoot down 220
Japanese planes while only losing 20.
(BEP, 1994)(DT, 6/19/97)(HN, 6/19/98)
1944 Jul 4, The Japanese made
their first kamikaze (god wind) attack on a US fleet near Iwo Jima.
There is little evidence that these hits were more than accidental
collisions or last-minute decisions by pilots in doomed aircraft, of
the kind likely to happen in intense sea-air battles [see Oct 21].
(Maggio)(WSJ, 9/10/02,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze)
1944 Jul 5, The Japanese garrison
on Numfoor, New Guinea, tried to counterattack but was soon beaten back
by U.S. forces.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1944 Jul 7, There was a heavy
Japanese counter offensive on Saipan.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1944 Jul 8, Japanese kamikaze
attacked US lines at Saipan.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1944 Jul 9, American forces
secured Saipan as the last Japanese defenses fell during WW II.
(AP, 7/9/00)
1944 Jul 18, Hideki Tojo was
removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks
suffered by his country in World War II.
(AP, 7/18/97)
1944 Jul 20, US invaded Japanese
occupied Guam. Japanese aircraft carrier Hijo was sunk by US air attack.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 23, US forces invaded
Japanese-held Tinian.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1944 Jul 26, There was a Japanese
suicide attack on US lines in Guam.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1944 Jul, Guy Gabaldon
(1926-2006), US Marine private, talked some 800 Japanese soldiers into
surrendering and following him back to his US camp. In 1990 Gabaldon
authored the memoir “Saipan: Suicide Island.” The story became part of
the 1960 film “Hell to Eternity.”
(SFC, 9/8/06, p.B9)
1944 Aug 17, Japanese and Swiss
officials agreed to divert 40% of millions of dollars, paid by the US
and Britain for the care of prisoners of war held by the Japanese, to
pay off Japan's debts to Swiss businesses. The other 60% was for the
free disposal by the Japanese government.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A10)
1944 Aug 19, The last Japanese
troops were driven out of India.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1944 Sep 12, A US submarine patrol
that included the USS Pampanito, the Growler and the Sealion II, came
upon a Japanese convoy carrying war material. The Japanese transport
Kachidoki Maru, carrying over 900 British soldier, was sunk by the
Pampanito. Much of the convoy was sunk including most of some 2,000
Allied prisoners of war. The subs after chasing stragglers of the
convoy returned to find 159 British and Australian survivors clinging
to wreckage [see Sep 14]. Some 1000 POWs from Australia were on the
Japanese freighter Enoura Maru sunk by the USS Sealion. Alistair
Urquhart of Scotland, a prisoner on the Kachidoki Maru, was picked up 5
days later by a Japanese whaling ship and taken to Japan, where he was
forced to work in a coal mine. Kachidoki Maru had been captured earlier
in the war as the President Harrison home ported in SF. The Pampanito
was later berthed as a visitor attraction in SF. In 2008 Urquhart (89)
visited the Pampanito.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A17)(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)(SFC,
9/17/08, p.B1)
1944 Sep 14, The submarine USS
Pampanito picked up 73 allied prisoners left adrift following the Sep
12 submarine attack on a Japanese convoy that included the transport
ship Rakuyo Maru.
(SFC, 3/18/09, p.B2)
1944 Sep 18, British submarine
Tradewind torpedoed Junyo Maru: 5,600 killed. Tradewind, a twin-screw
Triton-class boat of the Royal Navy, attacked the Japanese merchant
ship Junyo Maru, killing an estimated 4,320 people--around 1,700
Western POWs, 500 Indonesian prisoners and thousands of Japanese slave
laborers. Tradewind's captain, Lt. Cmdr. S.L.C. Maydon, wasn't aware
until many years later that the ship he had sunk had been carrying
human cargo, including thousands of his own, and Allied, troops.
(MC, 9/18/01)(HNQ, 3/7/02)
1944 Sep 12, A US submarine patrol
that included the USS Pampanito, the Growler and the Sealion II, came
upon a Japanese convoy carrying war material. The Japanese transport
Kachidoki Maru, carrying over 900 British soldier, was sunk by the
Pampanito. Much of the convoy was sunk including most of some 2,000
Allied prisoners of war. The subs after chasing stragglers of the
convoy returned to find 159 British and Australian survivors clinging
to wreckage. Some 1000 POWs from Australia were on the Japanese
freighter Enoura Maru sunk by the USS Sealion. Alistair Urquhart of
Scotland, a prisoner on the Kachidoki Maru, was picked up 5 days later
by a Japanese whaling ship and taken to Japan, where he was forced to
work in a coal mine. Kachidoki Maru had been captured earlier in the
war as the President Harrison home ported in SF. The Pampanito was
later berthed as a visitor attraction in SF. In 2008 Urquhart (89)
visited the Pampanito.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A17)(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)(SFC,
9/17/08, p.B1)
1944 Oct 10, The US took Okinawa.
[see Jun 21, 1945]
(MC, 10/10/01)
1944 Oct 21, The 1st Japanese
kamikaze attack took place near Leyte Island; gunners from both the
flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, HMAS Australia, and HMAS
Shropshire fired at, and reportedly hit, an unidentified Japanese
aircraft. The plane then flew away from the ships, before turning and
flying into Australia, striking the ship's superstructure above the
bridge, and spewing burning fuel and debris over a large area. A 200 kg
(440 pound) bomb carried by the plane failed to explode. In 2002 Albert
Axell and Hideaki Kase authored "Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods." In
2006 Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney authored “Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of
Japanese Student Soldiers.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze)(Econ,
7/8/06, p.79)
1944 Oct 23, In the Philippines
the Battle of Leyte Gulf began. In 1947 C. Van Woodward authored "The
Battle of Leyte Gulf."
(AP, 10/23/97)(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.C14)
1944 Oct 24, The aircraft carrier
USS Princeton was sunk by a single Japanese plane during the Battle of
Leyte Gulf.
(HN, 10/24/98)(SFC, 6/22/01, p.D5)
1944 Oct 24, US air raid on
Japanese battleships and cruisers in Sibuya Sea sank the 65,000 ton
Musashi battleship.
(SFC, 4/2/04, p.B7)
1944 Oct 24, US submarines sank
the Japanese merchant ship Arisan Maru. The ship carried 1,800 American
POWs and 1,792 of them perished.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.B2)
1944 Oct 25-1944 Oct 26, The
Japanese were defeated in the Straits of Surigao in the Battle of Leyte
Gulf, the world's largest sea engagement. Japan lost 26 capital ships.
From this point on, the depleted Japanese Navy increasingly resorted to
the suicidal attacks of Kamikaze fighters.
(HN, 10/25/98)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1944 Oct 28, The first B-29
Superfortress bomber mission flew from the airfields in the Mariana
Islands in a strike against the Japanese base at Truk.
(HN, 10/28/98)
1944 Nov 7, Richard Sorge
and Ozaki Hozumi were hanged in Tokyo after being convicted as spies
for the Soviet Union.
(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Richard+Sorge)
1944 Nov 12, U.S. fighters wiped
out a Japanese convoy near Leyte, consisting of six destroyers, four
transports, and 8,000 troops.
(HN, 11/12/98)
1944 Nov 20, The 1st Japanese
suicide submarine attack was at Ulithi Atoll, Carolines.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1944 Nov 24, American B-29 bombers
based on Saipan attacked Tokyo in the first raid against the Japanese
capital by land-based planes.
(HN, 11/24/98)(AP, 11/24/05)
1944 Nov 25, Two Japanese planes
struck the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier in kamikaze attacks that left
69 dead and 35 injured.
(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W9)
1944 Dec 13, During World War II,
the U.S. cruiser Nashville was badly damaged in a Japanese kamikaze
suicide attack that claimed 138 lives.
(AP, 12/13/97)
1944 Dec 13, US carrier planes
bombed the Japanese transport ship Oryoku Maru off of Olongapo in the
Philippines. 300 POWs were killed.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.B2)
1944 Dec 18, The Japanese were
repelled from northern Burma by British troops.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1944 Dec 18, In a pair of rulings,
the US Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of
Japanese-Americans (Korematsu v. United States), but also said
undeniably loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry could not continue to
be detained (Ex parte Endo).
(AP, 12/18/07)
1944 The Japanese film "The Most
Beautiful" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1944 The Japanese shipped some
43,000 Korean workers to Sakalin Island as slave laborers for their
Imperial Army.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A10)
1944 Hundreds of natives died
during the US invasion of the Northern Marianas. 5,000 American troops
and 40,000 Japanese also died.
(SFEC, 3/7/99,Z1 p.4)
1944-1945 The US war with Japan during this period
was covered by Max Hastings in his 2008 book “Retribution: The Battle
for Japan.”
(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1945 Jan 3, US aircraft carriers
attacked Okinawa.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1945 Jan 6, B-29's in the Pacific
struck new blows on Tokyo and Nanking.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1945 Jan 9, US carrier planes
bombed the Japanese ship Enoura Maru and 316 US POWs were killed.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.B2)
1945 Jan 12, US Task Force 38
destroyed 41 Japanese ships in Battle of South China Sea.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1945 Jan 22, There was a heavy US
air raid on Okinawa.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1945 Feb 10, B-29s hit the Tokyo
area. It was a B-29 that dropped the bomb that ended World War II.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1945 Feb 17, Gen. MacArthur's
troops landed on Corregidor in the Philippines. General Tomoyuki
Yamashita was the Japanese general opposing MacArthur.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1945 Feb 19, On Ramree Island off
the coast of old Burma, some 900 Japanese soldiers retreated from
British soldiers into an alligator filled swamp. Only about 20 men
survived.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, Z1 p.2)(MC, 2/19/02)
1945 Feb 19, During World War II,
some 30,000 US Marines landed on Iwo Jima, an 8-sq. mile island of
rock, volcanic ash and black sand, where they began a month-long battle
to seize control of the island from Japanese forces. The 36-day battle
took the lives of 7,000 Americans and about 20,000 of 22,000 Japanese
defenders.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A20)(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C6)(AP,
2/19/08)
1945 Feb 23, Turkey declared war
on Germany and Japan.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1945 Feb 24, American soldiers
liberated the Philippine capital of Manila from Japanese control during
World War II.
(AP, 2/24/98)
1945 Feb 26, Syria declared war on
Germany and Japan.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1945 Mar 9, During World War II,
334 U.S. B29 bombers launched incendiary bomb attacks against Tokyo,
Japan, causing widespread devastation.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(AP, 3/9/98)(Econ, 10/7/06, p.52)
1945 Mar 10, Some 300 American
B-29s bombed Tokyo at night with almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries
killing 100,000.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1945 Mar 16, During World War II,
the island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Ocean was declared secured by the
Allies. The U.S. defeated Japan at Iwo Jima. Small pockets of Japanese
resistance still exist.
(AP, 3/16/97)(HN, 3/16/99)
1945 Mar 18, US Task Force 58
attacked targets on Kyushu.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1945 Mar 19, US Task Force 58
attacked ships near Kobe and Kure.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1945 Mar 19, Kamikaze planes
attacked the US carrier Franklin off Japan killing 724 people; the
ship, however, was saved.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1945 Mar 23, Largest operation in
Pacific war: 1,500 US Navy ships bombed Okinawa.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1945 Mar 26, Japanese resistance
ended on Iwo Jima.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1945 Mar 26, Kamikazes attacked US
battle fleet near Kerama Retto.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1945 Mar 31, US artillery landed
on Keise Shima and began firing on Okinawa.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1945 Mar, American B-29 attacks on
Tokyo caused some 83,703 deaths.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.B1)
1945 Apr 1, Easter Sunday, the
American assault on Okinawa began with 150,000 army and marine
soldiers. It was the last campaign of World War II. The island was
defended by 100,000 Japanese troops and auxiliaries. It took three
months of heavy fighting to secure the island. US casualties numbered
68,000 with 8,000 dead. Japanese civilian casualties are estimated at
100-200 thousand killed. A book was published in 1995 by Col. Hiromishi
Yahara, chief Japanese strategist of Okinawa titled "The Battle for
Okinawa." A counterpoint to the colonel's account is a collection of
first hand accounts from US soldiers in Gerold Astor's "Operation
Iceberg."
(WSJ, 8/29/95, p.A-12) (AP, 4/1/98)(HN, 4/1/98)
1945 Apr 2, 1st US units reached
the east coast of Okinawa.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1945 Apr 4, US
troops on Okinawa encountered the first significant resistance from
Japanese forces at the Machinato Line.
(AP, 4/4/07)
1945 Apr 6, During World War II,
the Japanese warship Yamato and nine other vessels sailed on a suicide
mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted
the next day.
(AP, 4/6/99)
1945 Apr 7,
During World War II, American planes intercepted a Japanese fleet
that was headed for Okinawa on a suicide mission. The Japanese
battleship Yamato, the world's largest battleship, was sunk during the
battle for Okinawa along with 4 Japanese destroyers.
(AP, 4/7/97)(HN, 4/7/99)(MC, 4/7/02)
1945 Apr 10, US troops landed on
Tsugen Shima, Okinawa.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1945 Apr 11, The US battleship
Missouri was struck by a kamikaze pilot while it was operating off the
coast of Okinawa.
(www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/bb63-l.htm)
1945 Apr 13, US marines conquered
Minna Shima off Okinawa.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1945 Apr 14, US forces conquered
Motobu peninsula on Okinawa.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1945 Apr 14, B-29's damaged the
Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.
(HN, 4/14/98)
1945 Apr 16, US troops landed on
He Shima, Okinawa.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1945 Apr 19, US aircraft carrier
Franklin was heavily damaged in Japanese air raid.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1945 Apr 20, US forces conquered
Motobu peninsula on Okinawa.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1945 Apr 21, He Shima, Okinawa,
was conquered in 5 days with 5,000 dead.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1945 Apr 29, Japanese army
evacuated Rangoon.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1945 Apr, In the Battle for
Okinawa 35 American ships were sunk and over 300 damaged. 5,000
American sailors were killed. Much of the damage was due to Japanese
kamikaze operations. [see Apr 1]
(WSJ, 9/10/02, p.D8)
1945 May 3, Japanese forces on
Okinawa launched their only major counter-offensive, but failed to
break the American lines.
(AP, 5/3/05)
1945 May 3, The US Submarine
Lagarto (SS-371) sank in the Gulf of Thailand following depth charges
from the Japanese mine-layer Hatsutaka. 85 sailors died. In 2005 the
wreck of the Lagarto was found. The USS Hawksbill sank the Hatsutaka on
May 15.
(SSFC, 6/18/06,
p.A5)(www.thaiwreckdiver.com/lagarto.htm)
1945 May 3, Indian forces captured
Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1945 May 5, A Japanese balloon
bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing Mrs. Elsie
Mitchell, the pregnant wife of a minister, and five children after they
attempted to drag it out the woods in Lakeview, Oregon. The balloon was
armed, and exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They
became the 1st and only known American civilians to be killed in the
continental US during World War II.
(AP, 5/5/97)(MC, 5/5/02)
1945 May 10, Allies captured
Rangoon from the Japanese.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1945 May 11, Kiyoshi Ogawa,
Japanese pilot, crashed his plane into the US carrier Bunker Hill near
Okinawa. 496 Americans died with him and the ship was knocked out of
the war.
(SFC, 3/29/01, p.A15)
1945 May 13, US troops conquered
Dakeshi, Okinawa.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1945 May 13, The Baya, US
submarine SS-318 under the command of Capt. Benjamin C. Jarvis (d.2008
at age 91), sank a Japanese tanker and left 2 other ships severely
disable off of French Indochina. Capt. Jarvis received a Navy Cross for
his action.
(SFC, 3/22/08, p.B5)(www.ussbaya.com/history.html)
1945 May 14, A Kamikaze Zero
struck the US aircraft carrier Enterprise.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1945 May 14, US offensive on
Okinawa. Sugar Loaf was conquered.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1945 May 26, US dropped fire bombs
on Tokyo.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1945 May 29, US 1st Marine
division conquered Shuri-castle in Okinawa.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1945 Jun 3-1945 Jun 14, Koki
Hirota, Japanese envoy, met with Russian ambassador in Tokyo to propose
a new relationship between the two countries and divide up Asia.
(WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)
1945 Jun 5, US air raids on Kobe,
Japan, destroyed over 50% of the city. Some 3,614 Japanese were killed
and 51,399 buildings were demolished in 3 air raids.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.B2)
1945 Jun 9, Japanese Premier
Kantaro Suzuki declared that Japan will fight to the last rather than
accept unconditional surrender.
(HN 6/9/98)
1945 Jun 18, Organized Japanese
resistance ended on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
(HN, 6/18/98)
1945 Jun 21, Japanese forces on
Okinawa surrendered to the Americans. American soldiers on Okinawa
found the body of the Japanese commander, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima,
who had committed suicide. The embattled destroyer USS Laffey survived
horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.
[see Jun 22]
(HN, 6/21/98)(AP, 6/21/99)
1945 Jun 22, The World War II
battle for Okinawa officially ended; 12,520 Americans and 90,000
Japanese soldiers, plus 130,000 civilians were killed in the 81-day
campaign. The battle for Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest in the
Pacific Theater. A huge assemblage of American forces from both Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz's Central Pacific drive and General Douglas
MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific thrust converged on Okinawa--over 180,000
troops. For three months they faced more than 100,000 Japanese troops
of Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima's Thirty-Second Army. Tokyo needed time to
prepare for the expected American invasion of the home islands, so
Ushijima wanted to make his adversary wrench each hill and ridge from
his well-armed men.
(HN, 6/27/01)(AP, 6/22/07)
1945 Jun 23, Lt Gen Ushijima,
Japanese commander, committed suicide at Okinawa.
(MC, 6/23/02)
1945 Jun 25, Imperial General
Headquarters in Tokyo announced the fall of Okinawa.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1945 Jun 28, General Douglas
MacArthur announced the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1945 Jun 30, Chinese slave workers
rebelled against harsh conditions at the Hanaoka copper mine and 4
Japanese guards were killed along with 1 worker. In 2000 Kajima Corp.
established a $4.6 million fund to compensate wartime mine laborers and
their survivors.
(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C6)
1945 Jun, The Japanese army, faced
with an impending US invasion, handed out grenades to residents in
Okinawa and ordered them to kill themselves rather than surrender to
the Americans. About 500 people committed suicide.
(AP, 9/29/07)
1945 Jul 6, B-29 Superfortress
bombers attacked Honshu, Japan, using new fire-bombing techniques.
(HN, 7/6/98)
1945 Jul 11, Napalm was first used.
(HFA, '96, p.34)
1945 Jul 14, American battleships
and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time.
The battleship USS South Dakota was 1st US ship to bombard Japan
(HN, 7/14/98)(MC, 7/14/02)
1945 Jul 24, U.S. Navy bombers
sank the Japanese battleship-carrier Hyuga in shallow waters off Kure,
Japan.
(HN, 7/24/00)
1945 Jul 26, The US, Britain and
China issued the Potsdam Declaration to Japan that she surrender
unconditionally. Two days later Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki
announced to the Japanese press that the Potsdam declaration is to be
ignored. In 1961 Herbert Feis authored “Japan Subdued.”
(WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.P8)
1945 Jul 26, US cruiser
Indianapolis reached Tinian with atom bomb.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1945 Jul 29, After delivering
parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the U.S.S.
Indianapolis was hit and sunk by the I-58 Japanese submarine around
midnight. Some 879 survivors jumped into the sea and were adrift for 4
days. Nearly 600 died before help arrived. In 1958 Richard F. Newcomb
authored "Abandon Ship," the story of the Indianapolis and the
subsequent court-martial of Capt. Charles Butler McVey III. [see Jul
30] Charles B. McVay III was exonerated in 2001.
(HN, 7/29/98)(SFEC, 8/20/00, Par p.4)(SFC, 7/14/01,
p.A9)
1945 Jul 30, The USS Indianapolis,
which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to
the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.
Only 317 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested
waters. [see Jul 29] In 2001 Doug Stanton authored "In Harm’s Way," an
account of the sinking and trial of Capt. McVey. In 2001 the Navy
exonerated the Indianapolis’ captain, Charles Butler McVay the Third,
who was court-martialed and convicted for failing to evade the
submarine that sank his ship.
(AP, 7/30/97)(SFEC, 8/20/00, Par p.4)(WSJ, 4/6/01,
p.W9)(AP, 7/29/01)
1945 Jul, During this time,
General Curtis LeMay had been firebombing Japanese cities daily,
dropping napalm-filled bombs. In one three-day period, Tokyo, Nagoya,
Kobe and Osaka had been destroyed.
(WSJ, 7/19/95, p.A-12)
1945 Aug 3, Chinese troops under
American General Joseph Stilwell took the town of Myitkyina from the
Japanese.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1945 Aug 6, Hiroshima, Japan, was
struck with the uranium bomb, Little Boy, from the B-29 airplane, Enola
Gay, piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets (1915-2007) of the US Air Force along
with 11 other men. The 9,600 pound bomb had a 2-part core of enriched
uranium-235. It killed an estimated 140,000 people in the first use of
a nuclear weapon in warfare. Major Thomas Wilson Ferebee (d.2000 at 81)
was the bombardier. Richard Nelson (d.2003) was the radio operator. In
1946 John Hersey authored “Hiroshima,” an account of the bombing based
on interviews with 6 survivors.
(AP, 8/6/97)(SSFC, 7/31/05, p.B2)(WSJ, 8/12/06,
p.P8)(SFC, 11/2/07, p.A23)
1945 Aug 8, The Soviet Union
declared war against Japan. 1.5 million Soviet troops launched a
massive surprise attack (August Storm) against Japanese occupation
forces in northern China and Korea. Within days, Tokyo's million-man
army in the region had collapsed in one of the greatest military
defeats in history.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A19)(AP, 8/8/97)(AP, 8/6/05)
1945 Aug 9, The 10,000 lb.
plutonium bomb, Fat Man, was dropped over Nagasaki after the primary
objective of Kokura was passed due to visibility problems. It killed an
estimated 74,000 people. The B-29 bomber plane Bock's Car so named for
its assigned pilot, Fred Bock, was piloted by Captain Charles W.
Sweeney (d.2004). Kermit Beahan (d.1989) was the bombardier.
(WSJ, 7/19/95, p.A-12)(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)(SFC,
3/17/00, p.D6)(HNQ, 3/31/00)
1945 Aug 10, Japan announced its
willingness to surrender to Allies provided that the status of Emperor
Hirohito remains unchanged. Yosuke Yamahata photographed the aftermath
of the bombing of Nagasaki. He was dispatched by the Japanese military,
but did not turn over the pictures to the military authorities.
(HFA, ‘96, p.36)(WSJ, 8/1/95, p.A-8)(MC, 8/10/02)
1945 Aug 14, President Truman
announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War
II. Shaken by the atomic destruction wreaked on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and faced with the daunting prospect of Allied invasion, the Japanese
Emperor Hirohito met with his ministers on the morning of August 14 and
announced, "We cannot continue the war any longer." Japan accepted the
Allies "Potsdam Declaration," a cease-fire. In 1999 Prof. John W. Dower
published "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II." Dower
earlier published "War Without Mercy," a study of the war in the
Pacific.
(WSJ, 8/14/95, p. A-11)(AP, 8/14/97)(HN,
8/14/98)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A20)(AP, 8/14/08)
1945 Aug 14, Japanese occupation
of Hong Kong ended.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.A14)
1945 Aug 15, Emperor Hirohito
announced to his subjects in a pre-recorded radio address that Japan
had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II. This day was
proclaimed "V-J Day" by the Allies, a day after Japan agreed to
surrender unconditionally. At 7 p.m. reporters gathered in the Oval
Office to hear President Harry S. Truman announce the unconditional
surrender of Japan.
(HNPD, 8/13/98)(AP, 8/15/07)
1945 Aug 16, Takijiro Ohnishi,
leader of Japanese kamikaze pilots, died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1945 Aug 24, A blast aboard a
Japanese Navy transport carrying 4,000 Koreans home killed at least 524
Koreans and 25 Japanese crew members in Maizuru port in Kyoto. In 2001
a Japanese court awarded $375,000 to 15 Korean survivors of the
explosion.
(SFC, 8/24/01, p.A16)
1945 Aug 26, Japanese diplomats
boarded the Missouri to receive instructions on Japan's surrender at
the end of WW II.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1945 Aug 27, American troops began
landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in
World War II.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1945 Aug 28, US forces under
General George Marshall landed in Japan.
(HTNet, 8/28/99)
1945 Aug 29, Gen MacArthur was
named the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1945 Aug 29, U.S. airborne troops
landed in transport planes at Atsugi airfield, southwest of Tokyo,
beginning the occupation of Japan.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1945 Aug 29, British liberated
Hong Kong from Japan.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1945 Aug 30, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur arrived in Japan and set up Allied occupation headquarters.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1945 Sep 2, The Japanese surrender
delegation boarded the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay to formally
sign documents of surrender, ending World War II.
(WSJ, 8/31/95, p.A-10)(AP, 9/2/97)(HN, 9/2/98)
1945 Sep 3, General Tomoyuki
Yamashita, the Japanese commander of the Philippines, surrendered to
Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright at Baguio.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1945 Sep 5, Iva Toguri D'Aquino
(1916-2006), a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio
propagandist "Tokyo Rose," was arrested in Yokohama. In 1949 she was
tried in San Francisco and convicted for having spoken “into a
microphone concerning the loss of ships.” Toguri was sentenced to 10
years in prison but was released after six years for good behavior; she
was pardoned in 1977 by President Ford.
(AP, 9/5/99)(SFC, 9/28/06, p.A18)(SFC, 9/28/06,
p.A18)
1945 Sep 6, George Weller
(d.2002), a Chicago Daily News journalist, wrote his 1st story on the
bombing of Nagasaki. Posing as a US Army colonel Weller had slipped
into Nagasaki in early September. His stories infuriated MacArthur so
much he personally ordered that they be quashed, and the originals were
never returned. Carbon copies of his stories, running to about 25,000
words on 75 typed pages, along with more than two dozen photos, were
discovered by his son, Anthony, in 2004 at Weller's apartment in Rome,
Italy. In 2005 the national Mainichi newspaper began serializing the
stories and photographs for the first time since they were rejected by
US military censors. In 2007 Weller’s son Anthony edited “First Into
Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and
Its Prisoners of War.”
(AP, 6/19/05)(WSJ, 3/1/07, p.D5)
1945 Sep 8, Hideki Tojo, Japanese
PM during most of WW II, failed in his attempted suicide rather than
face war crimes tribunal attempt. He was later hanged.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1945 Sep 9, The Japanese in S.
Korea, Taiwan, China and Indochina surrendered to Allies.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1945 Sep 16, Japan surrendered
Hong Kong to Britain.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1945 Oct 25, Japanese surrendered
Taiwan to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1945 Nov 15, A report issued by
General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, offered
a detailed account of Japanese military brothels run as "comfort
stations."
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.A19)
1945 Emperor Hirohito composed a
poem months after Japan's defeat that included the line: "Undaunted
stands the pine tree in mounting snowdrifts."
(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A7)
1945 The Japanese film "The Men
Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1945 The Japanese film "Sugata
Sanshiro II" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1945 In the Philippines the US
recaptured the island of Corregidor and nearly 6,000 Japanese soldiers
leapt to their death off a ridge rather than face capture and dishonor.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, p.T6)
1945 American occupiers broke up
Japan’s national power company into 9 privately-owned utilities. After
the Americans left the government set up a 10th, publicly owned
utility, J-Power.
(Econ, 9/4/04, p.60)
1945 In 1999 Prof. John W. Dower
published "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II." Dower
earlier published "War Without Mercy," a study of the war in the
Pacific.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A20)
1945 The Soviet Union seized the
Kurile islands from Japan.
(SFC, 8/14/01, p.A7)
c1945 After the war Japan began
planting large numbers of evergreen trees called sugi, Cryptomeria
japonica (aka Japanese cedar), to produce timber. The mature trees
later produced large amounts of pollen and caused severe hay fever
amongst the populace.
(WSJ, 4/18/05, p.A1)
1945 Some 760,000 Japanese were
imprisoned in Soviet labor camps after WWII. Records of their
internment were discovered in 2009 at a national archive in Moscow.
(SSFC, 7/26/09, p.A4)
1945-1952 Allied forces occupy Japan and institute a
variety of reforms.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1946 Jan 1, Emperor Hirohito
rejected the notion that the emperor is a living god and the notion
that the Japanese are superior to other races and destined to govern
the world.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.36)
1946 Feb 23, Japanese General
Tomoyuki Yamashita was hanged in Manila, the Philippines, after being
found guilty by a US military commission of war crimes.
(AH, 2/06, p.15)
1946 Apr 3, Lt. General Masaharu
Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March,
was executed outside Manila in the Philippines.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1946 Apr 28, Allies indicted
Hideki Tojo, former premier and war minister of Japan, with 55 counts
of war crimes. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East
meted out justice to Japanese war criminals at locations throughout
Asia.
(AP, 11/12/97)(HN, 4/28/98)
1946 Apr 28, Kazue Katz became the
1st Japanese woman to marry an American following WW II. Her marriage
to Sgt. Frederick Katz in Tokyo required 29 endorsements.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1946 Apr 29, In Japan 28 former
leaders were indicted in Tokyo as war criminals; seven ended up being
sentenced to death.
(HN, 4/29/98)(AP, 4/29/07)
1946 Apr, In Japan the Tokyo War
Crimes Trial began. Gen'l. Matsui Iwane, one of the military leaders of
the 1937 "Rape of Nanking" was convicted and hung. [see May 3, 1946]
(WSJ, 12/29/97, p.A9)
1946 May 3, The International
Military Tribunal for the Far East convened in Tokyo for Japanese War
Crimes. 28 defendants were tried. Radhabinod Pal, the judge from India,
was the only judge with an international law background and the only
judge to find all the defendants innocent on all counts.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A15)(MC, 5/3/02)
1946 Jun 3, Intl. Military
Tribunal opened in Tokyo against 28 accused Japanese war criminals.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1946 Nov 3, Emperor Hirohito
proclaimed a new Japanese constitution.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1946 Dec 21, An earthquake and
tidal wave killed 1,086 in Japan.
(HN, 12/21/98)(MC, 12/21/01)
1946 The Japanese film "No Regrets
for Our Youth" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1946 Parliamentary elections were
held and women were allowed to vote for the first time. 39 female
legislators were elected.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1946 In Japan the Keidanren
(Business Federation) was formed to be the mouthpiece of business
interests. The Keizai Doyukai (Association of Corporate Executives)
also formed.
(Econ, 5/31/08, p.68)
1946 Tokyo Telecommunications, the
precursor to Sony Corp., was established in Japan.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1946-1947 The Noritake Co., manufacturers of China,
produced a lower quality china due to supply shortages caused by the
war.
(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.4)
1947 May 3, Japan's postwar
constitution took effect.
(AP, 5/3/07)
1947 May 7, General MacArthur
approved the Japanese constitution.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1947 Jun, Mount Asama erupted and
left 11 people dead.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)
1947 The Japanese film "Our
Wonderful Sunday" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1947 The Japanese film "To the End
of the Silver-Capped Mountains" (Ginrei no hate) starred Toshiro Mifune.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)
1948 Nov 4, The International
Military Tribunal for the Far East was concluded.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A15)
1948 Nov 12, Hideki Tojo, former
Japanese premier and military dictator through World War II, and
several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by
an international war crimes tribunal. In 1998 a film about Gen'. Tojo
was produced titled: "Pride, the Fateful Moment."
(HFA, '96, p.20)(AHD, p.1351) (AP, 11/12/97) (WSJ,
4/30/98, p.A15) (HN, 11/12/98)
1948 Dec 20, U.S. Supreme Court
announced that it had no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese
war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
(HN, 12/20/98)
1948 Dec 21, Seishiro Itagaki,
Japanese General and minister of War, was hanged.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1948 Dec 23, Hideki Tojo, Japanese
Prime Minister and military dictator through World War II, and six
other Japanese war leaders were executed by Hanging in Tokyo. In 1998 a
film about Gen'. Tojo was produced titled: "Pride, the Fateful Moment."
(HFA, '96, p.20)(AHD, p.1351)(WSJ, 4/30/98,
p.A15)(AP, 12/23/98)
1948 The Japanese film "Drunken
Angel" (Yoidore tenchi) starred Toshiro Mifune as a rakish tubercular
gangster." It was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1948 The Japanese film "The Silent
Duel" starred Toshiro Mifune as a young man accidentally infected with
venereal disease."
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)
1948 Japan enacted a Eugenics
Protection Law to "avoid the birth of defective offspring." The law was
rescinded in 1996 after some 844,939 people were sterilized.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A12)
1948 Occupation authorities gave
Japan's financial markets a Glass-Steagall act, in the form of Article
65 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1948. Article 65 prohibited
banks from participating in the domestic securities industry, from
holding more than five percent of a securities company, and from
selling equity or underwriting securities.
(www.ny.frb.org/newsevents/speeches/1998/ep980427.html)
1948 Momofuku Ando (d.2007)
founded Nissan Food Products. In 1958 the company introduced Chicken
Ramen, the first instant noodle.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.B6)
1949 Apr 1, The modern Tokyo Stock
Exchange opened.
(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.C1)
1949 The Japanese film "The Quiet
Duel" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1949 The Japanese film "Stray Dog"
(Norainu) by Akira Kurosawa was produced.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, DB p.64)
1949 Hediki Yukawa (b.1907),
Japanese physicist, won the Nobel Prize.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1950 Sep 4, A heavy typhoon struck
Japan and killed about 250 people.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1950 The film "Rashomon" starred
Toshiro Mifune and was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1950 The Japanese film "Scandal"
was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1950 Japan enacted the tax
proposals of Carl S. Shoup (d.2000 at 97). Shoup, an economist from
Colombia Univ., had been invited to Japan by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in
1949 to overhaul the tax system. The system eliminated the need for
some 80% of the population to file tax individual tax returns.
(SFC, 4/1/00, p.A26)
1950 Hiroshi Yamauchi took over
control and refocused Nintendo along modern business lines. He first
consolidated automated manufacturing and then began to mass produce
plastic playing cards.
(Hem, 4/96, p.29)
1950 Kazuo Shimada (1907-1996),
Japanese mystery writer, won the Mystery Writer Of Japan award for his
book "Shakai-bu Kisha" (City Reporter).
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A17)
1950-1970 Japan staged an economic miracle with a
growth rate of 9.2% in the 50s and 10.7% in the 60s.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1951 Sep 8, A formal Treaty of
Peace was signed by 48 nations of the United Nations and Japan at the
War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. On the same day the US and
Japan signed a Joint Security Pact at the Presidio. The Soviet
delegation refused to sign and said the deal provided for the exclusive
existence of American military bases in Japan.
(Park, Spring/95, p.2)(AP, 9/8/97)(Ind, 9/8/01, 5A)
1951 The film "The Idiot"
(Hakuchi) starred Toshiro Mifune. It was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC,
9/7/98, p.A21)
1951 A CIA assessment of Japanese
agents said: "Frequently they resorted to padding or outright
fabrication of information for the purposes of prestige or profit."
Among the agents was Col. Masanobu Tsuji, a fanatical Japanese
militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres
of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. Other
agents in US-funded operations included mob boss and war profiteer
Yoshio Kodama, and Takushiro Hattori, former private secretary to
Hideki Tojo. Documents with this information were declassified in 2005
and 2006.
(AP, 2/24/07)
1952 Apr 15, President Harry
Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1952 Apr 28, War with Japan
officially ended as a treaty that had been signed by the United States
and 47 other countries took effect. Japan regained independence. The
government immediately revoked Japanese nationality from ethnic
Koreans, called zainichi. Those loyal to north Korea were called Soren
and those loyal to South Korea were called Mindan.
(AP, 4/28/00)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(Econ, 6/3/06,
p.40)
1952 Oct 31, A CIA report,
declassified in 2005, said ex-Colonel Hattori Takushiro had led plans
since the beginning of July for a coup d'etat against Japan’s PM
Shigeru Yoshida. Hattori’s colleague Masanobu Tsuji talked the group
out of the coup.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A11)
1952 The film "Ikiru" was directed
by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1952 Osamu Tezuka, Japanese
cartoonist, dreamed up Astro Boy and put his b-day at April 7, 2003.
His features soon defined the Japanese style called anime. In 1963
Astro Boy was imported to the US and 10-min. episodes ran until 1967.
(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.C4)(WSJ, 1/15/04, p.B1)
1952 In Japan cross-shareholdings
originated after someone tried to take over Mitsubishi Estate, a huge
property concern tied to the Mitsubishi trading house. 11 companies
linked to Mitsubishi bought shares to block the outsider. Zin the 1960s
cross-shareholdings were adopted as a general defensive measure as
foreigners began buying shares as Japan liberalized its financial
markets.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.80)
1953 Sep 27, A typhoon destroyed
1/3 of Nagoya, Japan.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1953 Miyozo Yamagashi, a chicken
farmer, founded the Yamagishi cult to create a rural utopia.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A14)
1953 A Leprosy Prevention Law
banished lepers to small islands and remote areas. It was repealed in
1996.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C3)(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A1)
1954 Mar 1, The No. 5 Fukuryu-maru
was trolling for tuna off the Bikini atoll in the Pacific during the
Bravo hydrogen bomb test. 11 crew members died in the half-century
since the exposure, at least six of them from liver cancer. Between
1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 66 nuclear tests at Bikini
as part of "Operation Crossroads."
(AP, 2/28/04)
1954 Sep 26, A typhoon hit Japan.
5 ferryboats sank killing about 1,600. The Japanese ferry boat Toya
Maru sank in the Strait of Tsugaru and 1172 died.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1954 Nov 3, The film "Godzilla,
King of the Monsters" was released. It was produced by Japan's Toho
Co., headed by Tomoyuki Tanaka (d.1997). Godzilla went on to star in 22
films.
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.C2)(MC, 11/3/01)
1954 Nov 7, A US spy plane was
shot down North of Japan.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1954 Dec 10, In Japan PM Shigeru
Yoshida (1868-1967), post-reconstruction statesman and 2-time prime
minister, was unseated by Ichiro Hatoyama.
(Econ, 7/18/09,
p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Yoshida)
1954 The Japanese film "Sansho the
Bailiff" was produced.
(SFC, 10/12/97, DB p.53)
1954 The Japanese film "Seven
Samurai" (Shichinin no samurai) starred Toshiro Mifune. It was directed
by Akira Kurosawa. It was the basis for the American film "The
magnificent Seven."
(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC,
9/7/98, p.A21)
1955 The Japanese film "Record of
a Living Being" (Ikimono no kiroku) starred Toshiro Mifune. It was
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC,
9/7/98, p.A21)
1955 Shusaku Endo (1923-1996)
wrote "Shiroi Hito" (White Man) and won the Akutagawa Prize for
literature.
(SFEC, 9/30/96, p.A23)
1955 The Japanese film "I Live in
Fear" starred Toshiro Mifune as an elderly nuclear protestor.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)
1955 In Japan the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) was founded following the merger of the Liberal
Party (led by Shigeru Yoshida) with the Japan Democratic Party (led by
Ichiro Hatoyama), both right-wing conservative parties, as a united
front against the then popular Japan Socialist Party.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan))(Econ,
7/18/09, p.42)
1955 Toshiba introduced the
world’s first automatic electric rice cooker. In 2006 Mitsubishi
introduced an upscale rice cooker selling for $1000.
(WSJ, 6/4/07, p.A12)
1955 Dr. Tomin Harada (d.1999 at
87) led a group of some 200 female survivors of the Hiroshima bombing,
the Hiroshima Maidens, to the US for plastic surgery under a program
led by Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review. Harada spent his
life treating victims of "atomic illness" who often displayed raised
scars called keloids.
(SFC, 6/29/99, p.A19)
1955 Kaiko, a Japanese deep-sea
research submarine, dove 36,008 feet to the bottom of the Challenger
Deep, the ocean's deepest point. In 2003 it was lost in a typhoon.
(SFC, 7/1/03, p.A5)
1956 Japan began building a
national highway system with money borrowed from the World Bank. Fees
were originally impose to pay for the 4,350-mile project. When the
loans were retired the tolls were continued to pay off some $358
billion from public works projects.
(WSJ, 9/15/03, p.A1)
1956 In Japan the term Minamata
Disease was coined to identify villagers suffering dizzy spells with
troubles walking and speaking. Growing numbers fell into convulsions,
wasted away and died. Chisso Corp. had polluted Minamata Bay and the
Shiranui Sea with deadly methylmercury. By 2007 at least 2,000 people
had died from eating tainted fish.
(AP, 9/30/07)
1956 Kenzi Mizoguchi, Japanese
film director, died. His films included "Ugetsu," "The Life of Oharu,"
"Crucified Lovers," "Sansho the Bailiff," "A Geisha," "Street of Shame"
and just before he died "Red Light District."
(SFEC, 9/29/96, DB p.60,64)
1956-1959 Some 1,300 Japanese made a 30-day, 8,000
mile voyage across the oceans to settle on free land offered by
Dominican Republic dictator Gen. Rafael Trujillo. In 2000 more than 170
immigrants sued the Japanese government, claiming they were deceived
into leaving Japan and taking bad land. In 2006 Japan settled the
lawsuit, promising to pay up to $17,000 to each plaintiff as well as
$10,000 to emigrants who did not take part in the suit.
(AP, 7/25/06)
1956-1961 Douglas MacArthur II (d.1997 at 88) served
as US ambassador to Japan.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A23)
1956-1966 In 1999 declassified documents revealed
that the US stored coreless nuclear weapons in Okinawa, and on the
islands of Chichi-Jima and Iwo Jima and other places.
(SFEC, 12/12/99, p.A24)
1957 Jun 30, The American
occupation headquarters in Japan was dissolved.
(HN, 6/30/98)
1957 Aug 6, The Japanese Nikkei
Index pulled ahead of the Dow Jones Index. The Nikkei peaked at 38,915
on Dec 31, 1989. The Nikkei did not fall back behind the Dow until 2002.
(WSJ, 9/5/01, p.C1)(WSJ, 2/4/02, p.C1)
1957 Dec 9, Japan [announced?] its
1st ambassador to Israel.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1957 Shusaku Endo (1923-1996)
wrote "Umi to Dokuyaku." It was published in English as "The Sea and
Poison" in 1972.
(SFEC, 9/30/96, p.A23)
1957 Saburo Sakai (d.2000 at 84)
authored "Samurai." Sakai, a fighter pilot, reportedly shot down as
many as 64 allied planes during WW II.
(SFC, 10/10/00, p.A21)
1957 The Japanese film “Black
River” starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Masaki Kobayashi.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1957 The film "Kisses" by Yasuzo
Masumura (d.1986 at 62) marked the director's debut.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.E1)
1957 The film "The Lower Depths"
starred Toshiro Mifune in a version of the Gorky story. It was directed
by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1957 The Japanese film "Throne of
Blood" (Kumonosujo) starred Toshiro Mifune in the Kurosawa directed
reworking of Macbeth in the stylized manner of Noh drama. It was
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, DB p.44)(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC,
9/7/98, p.A21)
1957 The Japanese film “Untamed”
starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Mikio Naruse.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1957 Dr. Tomin Harada successfully
pressed the government to enact a law to provide medical treatment to
atomic bomb survivors.
(SFC, 6/29/99, p.A19)
1958 Jun, Mount Aso erupted and
left 12 people dead.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)
1958 Aug 25, Momofuku Ando (48),
head of Japan’s Nissin Food Products, announced that he had finally
perfected his flash-frying method and therefore invented the instant
noodle.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momofuku_Ando)
1958 Sue Sumii published the first
volume of her novel "The River With No Bridge." It was about the plight
of the burakumin (the untouchables) of Japan. She died working on the
8th volume in 1997 (95).
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A19)
1958 The Japanese film "The Hidden
Fortress" starred Toshiro Mifune and was directed by Akira Kurosawa. It
served as an inspiration for "Star Wars."
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)
1958 The Tokyo Tower was erected
in the capital city as a relay for radio and TV signals. In 1998 it
faced replacement.
(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D4)
1958 Masudaya, a Japanese toy
maker, introduced Radicon, a battery powered mechanical robot. Radicon
was followed by Nonstop, Sonic, Target and Machine Man.
(WSJ, 8/6/99, p.W12)
1958 Japan’s Tokyo
Telecommunications changed its name to Sony Corp.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1958-1970 Japan achieves economic superpower status.
Restrictions on foreign travel are removed and huge numbers of Japanese
begin to travel abroad.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1959 Apr 10, Japan's Crown Prince
Akihito married a commoner, Michiko Shoda.
(AP, 4/9/97)
1959 Sep 17, Typhoon Sara killed
2,000 in Japan & Korea. 840 people were left dead or missing in
South Korea. [see Japan Sep 27]
(MC, 9/17/01)(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A3)
1959 Sep 26, Vera, Japan, was hit
by a typhoon; about 5,000 died. [see Sep 17,27]
(MC, 9/26/01)
1959 Sep 27, Typhoon Vera battered
the main Japanese island of Honshu, killing nearly 5,000 people. [see
Sep 17,26]
(AP, 9/27/97)(MC, 9/27/01)
1959 Nov 27, Demonstrators marched
in Tokyo to protest a defense treaty with the US.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1959 The Japanese film “Odd
Obsession” starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Kon Ichikawa.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1959 Tatsumi Hijikata (d.1984)
founded the Butoh dance style with the introduction of the "Dance of
Darkness."
(SFEC, 8/9/98, DB p.11)
1959 Japan’s Tokyo Trust Bank was
founded. In 2001 it joined with Sanwa Bank and Tokai Bank to form UFJ
Holdings. In 2005 it became part of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.C1)
1959-1961 The Japanese tripartite film “The Human
Condition” starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Masaki Kobayashi.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1960 Feb 23, Naruhito, crown
prince of Japan, was born.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1960 May 22, Chile experienced a
9.5 earthquake. A slow earthquake was detected just before the big one.
It caused tsunamis in every coastal town between the 36th and 44th
parallels with a death toll of some 1000 people.
(PCh, 1992, p.977)(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A11)
1960 May 23, A tidal wave, due to
a 9.5 earthquake off Chile, hit Hilo, Hawaii. It killed 61 people,
wiped out the beaches and destroyed 537 buildings. It went on to hit
Japan.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.T4)(SSFC, 8/25/02, p.C14)
1960 Yukio Mishima (1925-1970),
Japanese writer, authored “Utage No Ato “After the Banquet), a somewhat
disguised account of certain aspects of an actual political campaign.
(Econ, 8/22/09, p.35)
1960 The Japanese film "The Bad
Sleep Well" (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru) starred Toshiro Mifune as a
shrewd, vengeance seeking businessman. It was directed by Akira
Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1960 The Japanese film “When a
Woman Ascends the Stairs” starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by
Mikio Naruse.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1960 Okada Kotama founded the
Sukyo Mahikari (True Light) cult. The group's core belief was that the
"primary soul" lies 10 centimeters behind the forehead and that people
inherit bad karma that can be purged in special sessions.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A14)
1960 Japan’s PM Nobusuke Kishi
strengthened Japan’s alliance with America. His grandson, Shinzo Abe,
became PM of Japan in 2006. During the 1930s Kishi had run industrial
policy in Manchuria and in the 1940s oversaw forced-labor programs.
(Econ, 10/7/06, p.31)
1960 The US-Japan Security Treaty
formalized a US-Japanese alliance.
(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.14)
1960-1970 The Toyota Motor Company, formed as a
division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in the 30s, acquired several
competing companies including Hino, Nippondenso and Daihitsu during the
60s and 70s in a huge expansion that included marketing more cars
overseas. The “Toyota Way,” its corporate culture, embodied 5 elements:
Kaizen (continuous improvement), Genchi genbutsu (go to the source for
facts), Challenge, Teamwork, and Respect for other people.
(HNQ, 9/28/00)(Econ, 1/21/06, Survey p.11)
1961 Mar 9, A mine cave-in in
Japan killed 72.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1961 The film "Yojimbo" starred
Toshiro Mifune and was directed by Akira Kurosawa. The US Western film
"For a Few Dollars More" by Sergio Leone in 1964 was a remake of
"Yojimbo."
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)
1961 Merril Lynch Securities under
Michael McCarthy (d.1998 at 94) was the first American firm to
establish a securities office in Tokyo.
(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A24)
1962 The Japanese film “Harakiri”
starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Masaki Kobayashi.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1962 The film "Sanjuro" (Tsubaki
sanjuro) starred Toshiro Mifune. It was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1962 Ryoichi Sasakawa (d.1995),
billionaire boat racing tycoon, founded a foundation to support
Japanese nationalistic projects. It came to be called the Nippon
Foundation.
(WSJ, 2/16/05, p.A11)
c1962 Macaque monkeys began
bathing in the hot springs near Nagano.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C10)
1962 Oceanographers sailed to view
the predicted eruption of Myojin, an undersea volcano south of Japan.
It blew beneath them and nobody survived.
(SFEC, 9/10/00, Z1 p.2)
1963 Nov 9, Twin disasters struck
Japan as some 450 miners were killed in a coal-dust explosion, and 160
people died in a train crash.
(AP, 11/9/97)
1963 The film "High and Low"
(Tengoku to jigoku) starred Toshiro Mifune as a factory owner standing
up to his son's kidnapper. It was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)(SFC,
9/7/98, p.A21)
1963 Akio Morita, co-founder of
Sony Corp., moved his family to NYC to learn American ways.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)
1964 Apr 5, Army Gen. Douglas
MacArthur (b.1880) died in Washington, D.C. In 1978 William Manchester
authored: "American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur." In 2006 Robert Harvey
authored “American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures,” which includes a
biography of Japan’s Emp. Hirohito in parallel with MacArthur.
(AP, 4/5/97)(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(WSJ, 8/3/06, p.D5)
1964 Oct 10, The XVIII Olympiad
opened in Tokyo, Japan. The summer Olympics closing ceremonies were
held on Oct 24.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Summer_Olympics)
1964 Kenzabuto Oe, Japanese
novelist, published his novel "A Personal Matter." He won the Nobel
Prize in literature in 1994.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, BR p.9)
1964 Bob Hayes (d.2002 at
59), sprinter, won gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics in the 100
meters and 4x100 relay.
(WSJ, 9/20/02, p.A1)(NW, 9/30/02, p.15)
1964 Eisaku Sato of the LDP became
prime minister of Japan. He served to 1972.
(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.10)
1964 Japan’s Shinkansen Bullet
Train began operation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen)(SFEC,
10/1/00, p.T5)
1964 Koji Kobayashi (1907-1996)
began serving as the president of NEC. In 1976 he became the chairman
until 1988. He pushed for separation from the Sumitomo Bank and
supported the United Nations Univ., based in Tokyo. He was also a
member of the Club of Rome, and int'l. group of businessmen and
academics who discussed limits to the Earth's Resources.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.D2)
1965 The film "Red Beard"
(Akahige) starred Toshiro Mifune as a pioneering physician. It was
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1965 The government of Japan
signed a peace treaty with South Korea that covered reparation claims
of South Korean women used as sex slaves.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A11)
1965 Japan’s PM Eisaku Sato told
US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that American military forces
could launch a nuclear attack on China by sea if needed. This
information was not made public until 2008.
(AP, 12/21/08)
1965 Saburo Ienaga began a crusade
for truth in the nation's textbooks. He was vindicated in a 1997 ruling
by the Supreme Court.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)
1966 Mar 4, Canadian Pacific
airliner exploded on landing in Tokyo and 64 died.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1966 Mar 5, 75 MPH air currents
caused a BOAC 707 to crash into Mount Fuji and 124 died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1966 Jul 12, D.T. Suzuki (96), Zen
Buddhism scholar, died in Tokyo, Japan.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1966 The Japanese film “The Face
of Another” starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Hiroshi
Teshigahara.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1966 The Japanese film “The Sword
of Doom” starred Tatsuya Nakadai and was directed by Kihachi Okamoto.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.B13)
1966 In Japan Iwao Hakamada was
accused of killing a family and setting fire to its house after a
robbery. After 19 days of 12-hour interrogations he confessed. At his
trial he said the confession was coerced. In 2008 Japan’s Supreme Court
turned down a retrial plea.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.56)
1968 Oct 19, Yasonari Kawabata
(1899-1972), Japanese novelist (Thousand Cranes) won the Nobel Prize in
Literature.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1968/kawabata-docu.html)
1968 CBS established a 50-50 joint
venture with Sony Corp.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1969 Apr 26, Morihei Ueshiba
(b.1883), Japanese martial arts master, died. He evolved aikido through
a synthesis and repatterning of various Japanese martial arts forms.
Ueshiba is remembered by his pupils as a master of the martial arts,
whose studies transcended technical matters to include a moral and
philosophical view of the world based around harmony in the face of
aggression.
(SFC, 5/25/09,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba)
1969 Jul 1, The Tokyo Stock Price
Index (TOPIX) was inaugurated.
(WSJ, 3/15/07, p.C1)
1969 In Japan the New Star
Orchestra was formed as a part-time avocation by young musicians. In
2000 it merged with the Tokyo Philharmonic.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A1)
1969 In Japan the Ichihara Prison
opened to serve dangerously irresponsible drivers. Japan had
agreed to adhere to UN standards for more lenient correctional
institutions for lesser offenders.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A20)
1969 In Japan Nissan introduced
its Skyline GT-R muscle car. The car was initially introduced by the
Prince Motor Co. in June, 1957. It was discontinued in 2002. A new
version was introduced in 2007.
(WSJ, 10/24/07,
p.B1)(www.driftclub.com/SkylineHistory.htm)
1969 The first case of karoshi, a
Japanese term for death from overwork, was reported with the death from
a stroke of a male worker (29) in the shipping department of Japan's
largest newspaper company. In 1987, as public concern increased, the
Japanese Ministry of Labour began to publish statistics on karoshi.
(Econ, 1/5/08,
p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi)
1970 Feb 11, Japan launched its
first satellite, Ohsumi-1. That launch made Japan the fourth nation
with a space rocket powerful enough to launch satellites to Earth
orbit, after the USSR, the U.S. and France. Later that year, China
launched its first satellite, Mao-1, to Earth orbit April 24, 1970, on
a Long March rocket.
(www.spacetoday.org/Japan/Japan/History.html)
1970 Mar 15, Expo '70, promoting
"Progress and Harmony for Mankind," opened in Osaka, Japan. The ‘70
Expo featured the Multiscreen Corporation production of the film Tiger
Child.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(Hem., 3/97, p.81)(AP,
3/15/08)
1970 Apr 5, Six Nepalese Sherpas
died in an avalanche during a Japanese skiing expedition on Everest.
(SFC, 5/15/96,
A-10)(www.everestsummiteersassociation.org/listofdeadoneverst.htm)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and a
group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi,
seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in Japan's
first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced to 12 years
in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP,
6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1970 May 6, Yuichiro Miura
(b.1932) of Japan skied down Mt. Everest.
(http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090978/index.htm)
1970 Nov 25, Yukio Mishima (45),
Japanese author and nationalist (Hara-kiri), invaded military
headquarters in Tokyo and committed ritual suicide samurai-style. His
death was an act of protest after he failed to persuade the country's
Self Defense Force to stage a coup and renounce the US-imposed postwar
constitution that banned Japanese aggressive military action. His books
included "The Sound of Waves" and "The Temple and the Golden Pavilion."
In 1998 Jiro Fukushima published a memoir that contained 15 letters
from Mishima and descriptions of a sexual liaison with Mishima. A
lawsuit soon halted book sales.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 10/21/99, p.B7)
1970 The Japanese film "Dodes
ka-den" was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1970 In Japan the Kigenkai sect
was founded based on the indigenous Shinto religion. Members sold
expensive purified water to cure diseases. In 2007 police arrested 20
women of the 400-member sect, for beating a member to death for failing
to carry out religious rites.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A3)
1971 Feb, Fusako Shigenobu broke
from the Japanese Communist league and founded a faction of The
Japanese Red Army with the goal of worldwide communist revolution. She
entered Lebanon and linked with the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine. Shigenobu was arrested in 2000 and in 2006 was sentenced to
20 years in prison.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)(AP,
2/22/06)(www.fas.org/irp/world/para/jra.htm)
1971 May 3, John Toland
(1912-2004), American author and historian, won a Pulitzer prize
for “Rising Sun” (1970) which chronicles Imperial Japan from its
Manchurian involvement following World War I to the end of World War II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Toland_(author))
1971 Jun 17, The United States and
Japan signed a treaty under which the United States would return
control of the island of Okinawa in 1972.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(AP,
6/17/97)
1971 Jul 30, A Japanese 727
collided with a jet fighter. 162 people were killed.
(WUD, 1994, p.
1688)(www.airdisaster.com/features/top100/top100.shtml)
1971 Oct 25, Midori Goto, Japanese
violinist, was born in Osaka.
(HN,
10/25/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_Goto)
1971 Donald Richie authored his
novel ""The Inland Sea," about a lonely American island-hopping across
Japan's Inland Sea.
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.C8)
1971 The Kodo drummers from Sado
Island formed into a performance company. Kodo means "heartbeat" and
"children of the drum."
(SFEC, 1/19/96, DB p.9)
1971 The film "Red Sun" starred
Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon and Charles Bronson.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C3)
1971 Akio Morita became the
president of Sony Corp.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)
1971 Dai-Ichi Bank merged with
Nippon Kangyo Bank.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A1)
1972 Jan 24, In Guam Shoichi
Yokoi (d.1997 at 82), a WWII Japanese soldier, was found by hunters
near the Talofofo River. He had survived since 1944 in adherence to his
army code of never surrendering. Yokoi returned to Japan as a national
hero: "It is with much embarrassment that I return."
(SFC, 9/23/97,
p.A19)(http://ns.gov.gu/scrollapplet/sergeant.html)
1972 Feb 2, Winter Olympics began
in Sapporo, Japan.
(HN, 2/2/01)
1972 Apr 16, In Japan Yasunari
Kawabata (b.1899), a Nobel laureate in literature (1968), committed
suicide without explanation.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasunari_Kawabata)
1972 May 13, In Osaka,
Japan, 118 died in a nightclub atop the 7-story Sennichi dept store.
(http://shippai.jst.go.jp/en/Detail?fn=0&id=CD1000133)
1972 May 30, Three militants of
the Japanese Red Army (PFL) staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade
attack at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100
injured. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they
were arrested. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in
Israel. In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other
Japanese Red Army members were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)
1972 Sep 26, Richard M. Nixon met
with Emperor Hirohito in Anchorage, Alaska, the first-ever meeting of a
U.S. President and a Japanese Monarch.
(HN, 9/26/99)
1972 Sep 28, Japan and Communist
China agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1972 Japan began administering
Senkaku Island between Okinawa and Taiwan in 1895. The US took over
after WW II but returned them to Japan in 1972.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A8)
1972 Militants of the Japanese Red
Army staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade attack at the Lod Airport in
Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100 injured. The terrorists found
refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they were arrested.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)
1973 Mar 3, Japan disclosed its
first defense plan since World War II.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red Army
and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over the
Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya where the
hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00,
p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 Aug 8, Secret agents of the
Korean Central Intelligence Agency kidnapped Kim Dae-jung from a Tokyo
hotel, just days before he was to launch a coalition of Japan-based
South Korean organizations to work for their country's democratization.
In 2007 a fact-finding panel of the National Intelligence Service said
it cannot rule out the possibility that former President Park Chung-hee
may have directly ordered the kidnapping of Kim, then his main
political rival.
(AP, 10/24/07)
1973 Nov 23, Sessue Hayakawa
(b.1889), Japanese film and TV actor, died in Tokyo of cerebral
thrombosis. His films included “Tokyo Joe” and “Bridge Over the
River Kwai.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa)
1973 Leo Esaki (b.1925), [Esaki
Reona], Japanese-born physicist, won the Nobel Prize.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Esaki)
1973 Japan experiences its first
oil crises with the Middle East war.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1973 Dr. Akira Endo of Japan
discovered the 1st anticholesterol statin from a mold that grows on
oranges. By 2006 the statin market reached $25 billion a year.
(WSJ, 1/9/06, p.A1)
1973 Kikkoman became the first
Japanese food company to open a factory in America.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.68)
1974 Mar 9, Officer Hiroo Onoda,
the last Japanese soldier operating in the Philippines, surrendered, 29
years after World War II ended.
(www.einsteinsfrig.com/onoda/index.html)
1974 Sep 13, In the Netherlands
the French embassy at the Hague was taken over by Haruo Wako and 2
other Japanese Red Army militants. A 4-day standoff ended with the
release of comrade Yutaka Suyaka from a French jail. The attack was
linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. In 2005 a Tokyo
District Court sentenced Wako to life imprisonment.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(SFC, 11/9/00,
p.C2)(http://my-my-miyuki.blogspot.com/)
1974 Nov 1, Yuko Shimizu, Sanrio
designer and creator of Hello Kitty, set Nov 1 as Hello Kitty’s
birthday and her parents as George and Mary White of London.
(SSFC, 12/26/04, p.M2)
1974 Dec 24, An oil spill polluted
1,600 square miles of scenic Inland Sea in Japan.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1974 Empress Nagako published a
collection of her 31-syllable waka poetry. She also did traditional
Japanese paintings and signed her artwork Toen (Peach Garden).
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A20)
1974 The film "Wife to Be
Sacrificed" starred Naomi Tani and was directed by Masaru Onuma.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.C9)
1974 Eisaku Sato (b.1901), premier
of Japan, and Ireland’s Sean MacBride, president of the Int’l. Peace
Bureau, won the Nobel Peace Prize.
(www.almaz.com/nobel/nobel.html)
1974 Jerome Lemelson (d. 1997 at
74) licensed patents for his audio cassette drive mechanism to Sony
Corp. Sony was founded after the war by Masaru Ibuka (d.1997 at 89),
Akio Morita and others as a radio shop that was later renamed Sony.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)
1975 May 16, Japanese climber
Junko Tabei (b.1939) became the first woman to reach the summit of
Mount Everest.
(AP, 5/16/97)
1975 Aug 4, In Malaysia the
Japanese Red Army raided a building in Kuala Lumpur that housed US,
Swedish, Japanese and Canadian embassies. 52 hostages were exchanged
for Red Army members.
(http://www.ioss.gov/docs/julytodecember.html)
1975 Sep 13, Shiko Munakata
(b.1903), renowned Japanese artist and printmaker, died in Tokyo from
liver cancer.
(SFC, 8/8/02,
p.D9)(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/397376/Munakata-Shiko)
1975 Oct 2, President Ford
welcomed Japan's Emperor Hirohito to the United States.
(AP, 10/2/00)
1975 The film "A Woman Called Sada
Abe" starred Junko Miyashita and was directed by Noburu Tanaka.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.C9)
1975 Japan’s Shimano Corp.
conceived the systems engineering approach to component development in
bicycle part manufacturing.
(Hem, 8/96, p.33)
1975 Japan’s Sony Corp. launched a
home use ½ inch Betamax VCR.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1975 Japan’s Subaru, a division of
Fuji Heavy Industries, rolled out its 1st 4-wheel-drive car in the US
market.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1976 Apr 26, Pan Am began non-stop
flights between NYC and Tokyo.
(www.wingnet.org/rtw/rtw006hh.htm)
1976 Jul 27, Kakuei Tanaka, former
PM (1972-1974) of Japan, was arrested for accepting a bribe from the US
Lockheed Corp. Tanaka was convicted in 1983 but continued to fight the
charges. A. Carl Kotchian (d.2008 at 94), a Lockheed salesman, had
testified that Lockheed had paid $12.6 million in bribes to Japanese
businessmen and government officials.
(www.international.ucla.edu/eas/restricted/lockheed.htm)(Jap.
Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(SFC, 12/24/08, p.B7)
1976 Sep 6, A Soviet pilot landed
his MIG-25 in Tokyo and asked for political asylum in the United States.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1976 Dec 23, In Japan Takeo Fukuda
was chosen as the 8th LDP President and formed his cabinet in the midst
of high public expectations for the Party's revitalization and the
country's economic recovery.
(www.jimin.jp/jimin/english/history/chap8.html)
1976 Ryu Murakami won the
Akutagawa literary award for his novel "Almost Transparent Blue." It
was about partying druggies.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A6)
1976 The Japanese film "Dersu
Uzala" was directed by Akira Kurosawa and featured in the SF film
festival.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, DB p.42)
1976 The film "In the Realm of the
Senses" was directed by Nagisa Oshima. It was about a geisha who
engages in a 2-week fest of lovemaking, that she "cuts short" in the
end.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.C9)
1976 Japan completed a nuclear
power plant in Fukui prefecture.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.54)
1976 Akio Morita became the
chairman and CEO of Sony Corp.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)
1976-2005 Household saving in Japan began to fall
from a peak this year of 23% of disposable income to around 6% in 2005.
(Econ, 9/24/05, Sur. p.12)
1977 Apr, Pres. Carter named
Montana Senator Mike Mansfield (1903-2001) ambassador to Japan.
Mansfield had planned to retire but held the post for 10 years.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.E1)
1977 Aug, Japan’s PM Fukuda
visited 5 ASEAN nations and in Manila promised SE Asia that Japan
forever renounced aggression against its neighbors. This became known
as the Fukuda doctrine.
(Econ, 12/15/07,
p.52)(www.jimin.jp/jimin/english/history/chap8.html)
1977 Sep 3, Japan's Sadaharu Oh
hit his 756th HR to surpass Hank Aaron's total.
(www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Sadaharu_Oh)
1977 Sep 27, Japan Airlines Flight
715, a DC-8, crashed into a hill in bad weather while attempting to
land at the Kuala Lumpur Subang Airport. 34 people, including 8 of the
10 crew members and 26 of the 69 passengers, were killed when the
aircraft broke on impact.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines)
1977 Sep 28, The Japanese Red Army
hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over India. The Douglas DC-8, en route
from Paris to Haneda Airport in Tokyo with 156 people on board, stopped
in Mumbai, India. After taking off from Mumbai, five armed JRA members
hijacked the aircraft and ordered it flown to Dhaka, Bangladesh. The
Japanese government freed 6 imprisoned members of the group and paid $6
million in ransom. On October 2 the hijackers released 118 passengers
and crewmembers. The remaining hostages were freed later.
(SFC, 11/9/00,
p.C2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines)
1977 Nov 15, Megumi Yokota (13)
disappeared after school in Niigata, Japan. It was later suspected that
she, and possibly 9 others, had been kidnapped by North Korea. In 2002
N. Korea admitted the kidnapping.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.A25)(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A10)
1978 Jan 14, In Japan the 7.0
Izu-Oshima earthquake damaged nine railway and four road tunnels in a
limited area. 25 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/2uz9wg)
1978 Feb 16, China and Japan
signed a $20 billion trade pact, which was the most important move
since the 1972 resumption of diplomatic ties.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1978 May 20, The Tokyo
International Airport at Narita opened on a 2,632 acre site on Chiba
Peninsula. The opening was 8 years after it was built due to opposition
by local farmers and univ. students.
(Hem, 8/95,
p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narita_International_Airport)
1978 Jul, Yasushi Chimura (23) and
Fukie Hamamoto (23) disappeared from Japan. In 2002 they were listed
among those kidnapped by N. Korea.
(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A10)
1978 Jul, Kaoru Hasuike (20) and
Yukiko Okudo (22) disappeared from Japan. In 2002 they were listed
among those kidnapped by N. Korea.
(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A10)
1978 Aug 12, China and Japan
normalized relations. Japan signed a Peace and Friendship Treaty with
China in Beijing.
(www.taiwandocuments.org/beijing.htm)(Econ, 8/23/03,
p.34)
1978 Oct 23, China and Japan
exchanged treaty ratification documents in Tokyo, formally ending four
decades of hostility.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1978 Oct 24, Mount Usu, 475 miles
north of Tokyo, erupted. Mud flows killed 2 people and 196 homes were
destroyed.
(SFC, 3/30/00,
p.C3)(http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110004665764/en/)
1979 Toshio Hara, heir to a lumber
and paper fortune, opened the Hara Museum in Tokyo.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.D8)
1979 Prof. Ezra Vogel of Harvard
authored "Japan as Number One."
(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.A1)
1979 The Japanese anime film
"Lupin III, Castle of Cogliostro" was the debut feature by Hayao
Miyazaki.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1979 A summit of leading
industrial nations, Group of Seven or G-7, was held in Tokyo.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A16)
1979 Controls on capital
movement across borders were abandoned by the U.K. and Japan.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-44)
1979 Raymond Bushnell (d.1998 at
87), lawyer, organized a netsuke display at a private gallery. Netsuke
are miniature sculptures formerly used as toggles for the strings of
purses worn suspended from kimono sashes. He later wrote 7 books on
netsuke including: "Collector's Netsuke" and "Netsuke Familiar and
Unfamiliar."
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A21)
1979 Ford bought a stake in Mazda.
(HNQ, 11/26/00)
1979 Japan’s Sony Corp. introduced
the Walkman, the 1st personal headphone stereo.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
Go to 1980s
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Subject = Japan