This is another in the Crusade in the Pacific series.
The video starts out talking about U.S. production during the war.
Then it talks about the ending of the war.
Truman talks about receiving the Japanese surrender.
The U.S. Third Fleet gets the news of Japan's surrender.
August 30th, U.S. Marines land on Japan.
U.S. officers meet their Japanese counterparts.
MacArthur arrives in Japan.
The Japanese delegation arrives on the U.S.S. Missouri to make the surrender official.
MacArthur begins his speech. (Again, the film actually includes the speech.)
Another surrender ceremony. This is an island in the Marianas.
Wake island is surrendered.
British forces accept the surrender of Japanese troops.
Singapore.
The Philippines.
There was an allied council that was supposed to advise MacArthur, who was put in charge of Japan, but the film says the council was “impotent from the start.”
Hirohito lost his “divinity” by order of the occupation. The film talks about Hirohito not being charged with war crimes.
Then it talks about other men who were considered war criminals.
Tojo was the number 1 war criminal.
You actually hear one of the guys in the tribunal sentencing Tojo to death.
The video then talks about how Japan had a major problem in getting enough food for its people.
The video then has a Japanese guy talking about how the Japanese got along fine with the American occupying forces.
The video says that the Japanese Diet was essentially a rubber-stamp outfit for U.S. occupation policies.
Then it talks about problems with this group.
1946, and Japanese POWs begin to return from Russia.
The Japanese are instructed in “the ways of Democracy.”
This included a more active role for women in Japan.
Women were given the right to vote.
Japanese take to square dancing.
The Japanese also began to like the American soldiers.
U.S. movies again were allowed and became popular.
They still maintained a lot of their traditional culture, however.
The video then talks about Buddhism and Shinto in Japan. It also explains the difference between Shintoism and State Shintoism.
Labor unions were formed.
“It is too early to tell if Democracy will really take root in Japan.”
The film talks about post-WWII eruptions of nationalism in Asian countries.
