War and Society

1. War and Society • Caught in the Crossfire—Civilian victims of war --Massacres, Strategic Bombing 2. Women at War -- ‘Comfort Women’ --Women soldiers 3. Everyday Life during Wartime --rationing, material deprivation --Life under occupation 4. Soldier’s Experiences of War

2. Japanese Invasion of China • Starts in the early 1930s, formal war of invasion launched in 1937 • By 1945—20 million Chinese civilians dead, along with 2-3 million military deaths • Major atrocities committed by Japanese military against Chinese civilians: --The Nanjing massacre 1937

3. The Japanese Empire

4. The Nanjing Massacre, 1937 • Six weeks of terror in the city of Nanjing, the capitol of China, beginning in December 1937 • 200,000-300,000 civilians murdered • An estimated 20,000-30,000 rapes • Major source of tension today between China and Japan—right wing Japanese politicians deny/downplay this event

5. Unit 731 • Secret Japanese biological and chemical warfare unit • Conducts testing on POW’s and Chinese civilians • Bacterial bombs dropped on Chinese civilian targets • Amnesty granted to Unit leaders after War in exchange for data

6. U.S. Strategic Bombing of Japan • Architect of the bombing campaign: General Curtis Lemay • Incendiary bombing of Tokyo: March 9-10, kills 80,000 • With Hiroshima and Nagasaki as part of the campaign—87 percent of the urban targets are residential areas • Over 600,000 Japanese civilians killed

13. The “Comfort Women” • Systematic program of sexual slavery, enforced by the Japanese military in the late 1930s-early 1940s • Empire-wide military brothel system • Unknown numbers of Korean, Chinese, Pilipino, Indonesian women forced into sexual slavery • “Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women” (clips from this documentary on Youtube)