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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
In May 1947 Japan, under the influence of its US occupiers, adopted a new constitution which stated, ‘aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.’ Yet, just two years after this proclamation of lasting peace (and only five years after their defeat in the Asia-Pacific War) thousands of Japanese citizens were once again in a war zone, engaged in combat-related tasks in their newly liberated former colony of Korea; and this engagement was initiated and overseen by the United States, the very country which had ensured the inclusion of the peace clause in the Japanese constitution.
1 Cited from the Constitution of Japan, English version reproduced in Glenn D. Hook and Gavan McCormack eds., Japan's Contested Constitution: Documents and Analysis, London and New York: Routledge, 2001, p. 191.
2 See Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981, ch. 5; Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War: The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947-1950, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990, chs. 2 and 5; Reinhardt Drifte, ‘Japan's Involvement in the Korean War’, in J. Cotton and I. Neary eds., The Korean War in History, Manchester, University of Manchester Press, 1989, pp. 20-34; Wada Haruki, Chosen Senso Zenshi, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 2002, pp. 160-167; Nishimura Hideki, Osaka de Tatakatta Chosen Senso: Suita Hirakata Jiken no Seishun Gunzo, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 2004; Onuma Hisao ed., Chosen Senso to Nihon, Tokyo, Shinkansha, 2006; and Ishimaru Yasuzo, ‘Chosen Senso to Nihon no Kakawari: Wasuresarareta Kaijo Yuso’, Senshi Kenkyu Nenpo, no. 11, March 2008.
3 Hajimu Masuda, ‘Fear of World War III: Social Politics of Japan's Rearmament and Peace Movements’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 47, no.3, 2012, pp. 551-571.
4 To give just a couple of examples, the postwar volume of Kodansha's multivolume Nihon no Rekishi contains not a single reference to any Japanese involvement or death in the Korean War. Indeed, it discusses the war only in passing, in terms of its effects on Japanese rearmament, the creation of the US-Japan alliance and the dismissal of General MacArthur; see Kawano Yasuko, Sengo to Kodo Seicho no Shuen: Nihon no Rekishi 24, Tokyo, Kodansha, 2002. The more recently published Senryoka Nihon, coauthored by four prominent public commentators who lived through the occupation, contains a chapter on the Korean War, but although this emphasizes the impact of the US military presence on Japanese society, it depicts Japan as standing ‘outside’ the conflict and reaping the collateral advantages and disadvantages of a war fought by others in a foreign land; see Hando Kazutoshi, Takeuchi Shuji, Hosaka Masayasu and Matsumoto Kenichi, Senryoka Nihon, Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo, 2009, ch. 15; A similar pattern is found in many standard texts on the Korean War. For example, Michael Varhola's 2000 overview of the war, Fire and Ice, for example, meticulously details the 339 Australians, 121 Ethiopians, 101 Belgians, 46 New Zealanders, 12 Greeks, 2 citizens of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and others killed in the conflict, but makes no mention of any Japanese involvement in the war at all; see Michael J. Varhola, Fire and Ice ： The Korean War 1950-1953, Savas, 2000, particularly ch. 7. On Yoshida's comment, see John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, New York, W. W. Norton, 1999, p. 541.
5 One of the very few general histories of postwar Japan that does acknowledge the formative impact of military involvement in the Korean War is Nakamura Masanori's Sengoshi, Tokyo, Iwanami Shinsho, 2005.
6 ‘Chosen de Senshi shita Ichinihonjin’, Asahi Shimbun, 13 November 1952; ‘No Compensation Given Father of Nippon Youth Killed in Korea’, Nippon Times, 14 November 1952; see also Nishimura, Osaka de Tatakatta Chosen Senso, pp.111-116.
7 ‘Onaji Kesu wa mada aru: Neo Hiratsuka no Senshi Mondai’, Asahi Shimbun, 14 November 1952.
8 On the Pravda report, see Onuma Hisao, Chosen Senso to Nihon, p. 101.
9 Concerns about this point were repeatedly expressed by Americans Korean War allies. See, for example, telegram from Department of External Affairs to Australian Mission Tokyo, 7 July 1950, in National Archives of Australia, series no. A1838, control symbol 3123/7/27 ‘Korean War - Japan - Policy
10 See, for example, Drifte, ‘Japan's Involvement in the Korean Wať, p.129.
11 ‘Move to Recruit Japanese Veterans,’ Canberra Times, 7 August 1950; ‘Japanese, Germans may soon Join US Forces’, Japan News, 12 August 1950.
12 ‘SCAP Expresses Doubt over Use of Japanese Volunteers for Korea’, Japan News, 10 August 1950.
13 Draft telegram from Department of External Affairs, Canberra, to Australian High Commissioner's Office, London, 18 July 1950, in National Archives of Australia, series no. A1838, control symbol 3123/7/27 ‘Korean War - Japan - Policy’.
14 Memo from office of Major General Weible to Commanding Officer, US Army Hospital, 8162nd Army Unit, Fukuoka, 31 December 1951, ‘Missing Person’, in National Archives and Records Administration [hereafter NARA], College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
15 L. J. Shurtleff, ‘Report of Investigation Concerning the Transportation and/or Utilization of Japanese Nationals by Units of this Command in Korea’, 20-26 January 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 4.
16 Memo from Commanding General 8th Army, 5 January 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
17 The figure of 46 Japanese repatriated to 12 February 1951 is derived from telegram from 8th Army to 2nd Logistic Command, 12 February 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1. The figure of 72 others is calculated from records contained in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46 and Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 11,shelf 2, container 46, folder 105.
18 Tsutsui Kiyoto from Tokushima Prefecture was repatriated in August 1953 after being a prisoner of war in North Korea for about three years. Another Japanese national, Tanigawa Yoshio, and a Korean born in Japan, Yasui Hirofumi, were also reported in the Japanese media as being prisoners of war, but their ultimate fates are not clear. UN figures for prisoners of war exchanged during the Korean War ‘Big Switch’ and ‘Little Switch’ list only one Japanese national being returned by North Korea and China; see ‘Nihonjin Horyo Sokan suru’, Asahi Shimbun, 17 August 1953; ‘“Hitogoto Hazukashii yo”: Horyo no Tsutsui kun yatto Kaeru’, Asahi Shimbun, 24 August 1953; ‘“Nihonjin Horyo wa Genki”‘, Asahi Shimbun, 5 September 1953
19 Onuma, Chosen Senso to Nihon, pp. 104-107; Suzuki Hidetaka, ‘Chosen Kaiiki ni Shitsugeki shita Nihon Tokubetsu Sokaitai: Sono Hikari to Kage’, Senshi Kenkyu Nenpo, no 8, March 2005, pp. 26-46.
20 Ishimaru, ‘Chosen Senso to Nihon no Kakawari’.
21 Record of debate of the National Diet Lower House Labour Committee, 7 March 1951, Kokkai Gijiroku, available online at http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/
22 Ishimaru, ‘Chosen Senso to Nihon no Kakawari’, p. 34.
23 ‘Chosen Kichi ni Nihonjin Romusha’, Asahi Shimbun, 25 January 1953.
24 Ishimaru, ‘Chosen Senso to Nihon no Kakawari’, p. 35.
25 Testimony (recall) of Marvin R. Kohler, 1st Cavalry Division, 27 January 1951, in L. J. Shurtleff, ‘Report of Investigation Concerning the Transportation and/or Utilization of Japanese Nationals’.
26 Record of Interview of T. Kato, n.d., in NARA,
College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1. NB Names of the Japanese concerned are spelled as in the records of interview throughout this article.
27 Record of interview of T. Ueno, 17 Feb. 1951, in in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
28 Record of interview of S. Nagano, 22 February 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
29 Record of interview of T. Kato, n.d., in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
30 Record of interview of T. Takayama, 23 February 1951, and record of interview of S. Kobayashi, 23 February 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
31 Record of interview of T. Ueno, 17 Feb. 1951
32 Record of interview of K. Takatsu, 18 December 1950, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 3.
33 Statement of T. Katoda, 14 March 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
34 Record of interview of T. Ito, 7 July 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 2.
35 Record of interview of N. Yamada, 17 February 1951, in L. J. Shurtleff, ‘Report of Investigation Concerning the Transportation and/or Utilization of Japanese Nationals’.
36 Testimony of Sgt. D. Goldberg, in L. J. Shurtleff, ‘Report of Investigation Concerning the Transportation and/or Utilization of Japanese Nationals’.
37 Kim Chan-jung, Zainichi Giyuhei Kikan sezu: Chosen Senso Hishi, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 2007, p. 6.
38 Onuma, Chosen Senso to Nihon, pp. 98-99; see also Kim, Zainichi Giyuhei, pp. 12-14.
39 Telegram to Commanding General EUSAK, January 1951 (day not given), in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
40 See Kim, Zainichi Giyuhei; Tessa Morris- Suzuki, Borderline Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Postwar Era, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, particularly pp. 140-142.
41 Record of interview of T. Ohara, 22 February 1951, and telegram from Capt. C. D. Armentrout to Commanding Officer 7th Infantry Division, 1 January 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
42 Record of interview of T. Kato, n.d.
43 Kawamura Kiichiro, Nihonjin Senin ga Mita Chosen Senso, Tokyo, Asahi Communications, 2007, pp. 39-43
44 1951, Record of interview of T. Kiyama, 25 August 1951, and memo from HQ 24th Infantry Division to Commanding General EUSAK, 19 August in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 2.
45 See Mariko Tamanoi, Memory Maps: The State and Manchuria in Postwar Japan, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2009; Lori Watt, When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2009
46 Taira's story is narrated in record of interview of T. Taira, 1 February 1952, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 11, shelf 2, container 105, and testimony of Major Gordon L. Staker, 30 January 1952, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 2.
47 Record of interview of T. Taira, 1 February 1952.
48 See Furukawa Mantaro, Chugokujin Zanryu Nihonhei no Kiroku, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1994; Gomi Yoji, ‘Nihonjin mo Sansen shita Chosen Senso’, Hikari Sase! Kita Chosen Shuyojo Kokka kara no Kaiho o Mezasu Rironshi, no. 6, December 2010, pp. 109-117. See also Mariko Asano Tamanoi, “Japanese War Orphans and the Challenges of Repatriation in Post-Colonial East Asia.”
49 Furukawa, Chugokujin Zanryu Nihonhei, pp. 94-97.
50 Furukawa, Chugokujin Zanryu Nihonhei, p. 98.
51 ‘Kokufu - Chukyo - Kokurengun e: Ikite ita Heitai’, Mainichi Shimbun, 29 January 1952.
52 Gomi, ‘Nihonjin mo Sansen shita Chosen Senso’, pp. 114-117.
53 A memo from M. M. Kernan of HQ Japan Logistical Command to Commander-in-Chief Far East, 25 October 1951, for example, outlines a decision to refuse a request by an American serviceman to enter Japan in order to adopt a Japanese orphan. Reasons for the refusal included the fact that the serviceman's record was considered problematic, and that the orphan was believed to have ‘been back and forth between Japan and Korea on at least two occasions and apparently with the collaboration of American officials’. (Memo contained in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 2). A letter from E. M. Evans, HQ Camp Kokura, to the Office of the Provost Marshall, 17 January 1951, also speaks of a Japanese national in his late teens as having been ‘brought to Japan with a Korean boy’ by troops returning for rest and recreation to Camp Kokura. (Letter contained in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 3).
54 Memo from D. W. Prewitt, X Corps, to Commanding General X Corps, 26 April 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
55 Record of interview of Y. S., 8 May 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1. (For reasons of privacy, names of child interviewees have been replaced with initials).
56 ‘7,500 Child Soldiers from Korean War Still Alive’, Chosun Daily (English edition), 21 June 2012.
57 Record of interview of C. K., 23 May 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
58 Memo from Maj. R. Boule to Headquarters EUSAK, ‘Return of Japanese National Boy to Japan’, 6 March 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 1.
59 Record of interview of Y. H., 17 February 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 3.
60 Quotations here and below are from record of interview of T. S., 25 July 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46, folder 2.
61 Suzuki, ‘Chosen Kaiiki ni Shitsugeki shita Nihon Tokubetsu Sokaitai’; Nishimura, Osaka de Tatakatta Chosen Senso, pp. 99-101.
62 Drifte, ‘Japan's Involvement in the Korean War’, p. 127.
63 Memo to Assistant Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, Washington, 5 December 1951, [63] Quotations here and below are from record of interview of T. S., 25 July 1951, in NARA, College Park, Records of GHQ, FEC, SCAP and UNC, record group 554, stack area 290, row 50, compartment 17, shelf 3, container 46.
64 The fuel and napalm tanks were manufactured by Chu-Nihon Heavy Industries, part of the dissolved Mitsubishi zaibatsu which later rejoined the reconstituted Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; see Ashida Shigeru, ‘Chosen Senso to Nihon: Nihon no Yakuwari to Nihon e no Eikyo’, Senshi Kenkyu Nempo, no. 8, March 2005, pp. 103-126, citation from p. 116.
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