How did the experience of World War II define the Australia-Japan relationship? Discuss the writings of Australian prisoners of war and how the Japanese were also victims. How did Australians overcome their negative feelings towards the Japanese?
World War II was a global military conflict involving the majority of the world’s nations where over 70 million people, including civilians, were killed. This makes it, so far, the deadliest conflict in human history. The war spanned the period of 1939 to 1945[1]. Adolf Hitler, ignoring certain pacts, led German to invade Poland according to a ‘secret agreement’ with the Soviet Union. In response to this action the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France and others declared war on Germany. Japan invaded China in 1937, due to this Australia and the United States of America responded with embargoes on iron exports to Japan[2].
Japan was not originally apart of World War II, and came in only after trade to Japan was restricted by the United States of America and Australia due to its invasion of China in 1937. Many people believe that the trade restrictions placed on Japan are what ‘forced’ Japan’s hand to enter the global conflict of World War II and sign the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy[3]. Because of signing this pact, tensions with the West became strained and the United States and Great Britain reacted with an oil boycott. The shortages were not able to be resolved diplomatically, which led Japan to actively participate in the war by capturing the oil rich Dutch East Indies and declare war against the United States and Great Britain[4].
During World War II the Australian’s believed that their territory was directly threatened by Japanese invasion. In 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese leading thousands of Australian troops into direct combat and consequent capture[5]. The ethnic Japanese population in Australia was interned, and most were deported at the end of the war. By the end of September in 1943, Japan had flown 97 air raids against towns and bases in northern Australia. There were also midget submarine attacks on coastal shipping and they lightly shelled the eastern suburbs in Sydney and then Newcastle[6].
World War II affected the Australia-Japan relations quite dramatically. There was not much trade between Japan and Australia before World War II, but relations were fairly tolerant as they were allies during World War I. To this day, the animosity because of World War II is still present even though it is waning slightly as the younger generation were not the ones to witness the war.
After the fall of Singapore and Borneo to the Japanese, a prisoner of war camp was established just outside of Sandakan, where approximately 750 British and more than 1650 Australian prisoners were sent during 1942-1943[7]. The Sandakan death marches were a series of forced marches which led from Sandakan to Ranau. Only six Australians’ survived the “death march”, which started when allied forces began raiding the Sandakan airfield[8]. “We labored on a starvation diet of a hand full of rice and watery usually meatless stew, clearing the jungle, on embankments, on cuttings, on bridges in the heat of the dry, and the misery and slush of the wet then, we survivors, along with the remnants of Lt Colonel Anderson force, were selected as No 1 Mobile Force, to carry out the arduous and demanding task of laying the sleepers and rails, along our previously worked ground.[9]”
During World War II, Japan was also a victim in many ways; the major of which being the atomic nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of WWII by the United States of America. This was after six months of intense fire-bombing of 67 other Japanese cities. In both cities, the majority of the dead were civilians. Since the bombing of these two cities, thousands of people have died from injuries or sickness that is attributed to the radiation they were exposed to from the bomb[10]. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen explicitly to have the most demoralising effect on Japan as possible, however the dropping of the bombs were unnecessary as the Japanese were fairly close to the point of surrender as it was and Truman and his advisors knew this. On July 26 in 1945 the Potsdam declaration warned the Japanese that they must surrender unconditionally or face “prompt and utter destruction”[11]. “Now is the time to exterminate the Yellow Peril for all time… Let the rats squeal.[12]”
There are still some lingering tensions in the relationship between Australia and Japan relating to the hostility of World War II, as Australians have never quite overcome their negative feelings of Japan. Although, Japan itself has many reasons to keep tensions due to the cruelty of the atomic bombs that were ‘tested’ on them. Relations are currently amicable at best simply due to economic trade, because Japan needs our natural resources and is one of our main buyers of these natural resources. Australia has always pushed the White Australia Policy, and was always less inclined to intermingle with anyone not of Anglo-Saxon decent. This can be clearly demonstrated as the white Australians hadn’t recognised the original inhabitants of Australia, the Aborigines, until the 1970s when they finally became Australian citizens. The lingering animosity from World War II is not necessarily due to the war itself, but due to race.
[1] Wikipedia, ‘World War II’, 1 November 2008. Online at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II>
[2] Nation Master, ‘World War II’, 2003-5. Online at <http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/World-War-II>
[3] Nation Master, ‘World War II’, 2003-5.
[4] Japan Guide, ‘Militarism and World War II’, 9 June 2002. Online at <http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2129.html>
[5] Skwirk Interactive Schooling, ‘World War II to the late 1960s’, 2008. Online at <http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-14_u-117_t-317_c-1073/world-war-ii-to-the-late-1960s/nsw/history/
background-to-australian-foreign-relations/power-people-and-politics-in-the-post-war-period>
[6] Department of Veterans’ Affairs, ‘Australia Under Attack 1940-1945’, viewed on 3 November 2008. Online at <http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/underattack/>
[7] Borneo, ‘Australia in Borneo During World War II’, 15 October 2004. Online at <http://www.borneo.com.au/auswar.htm>
[8] Wikipedia, ‘Sandakan Death Marches’, 2008. Online at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandakan_Death_Marches>
[9] MacPherson, N, ‘Experiences of Neil MacPherson’, viewed on 3 November 2008. Online at <http://homepage3.nifty.com/pow-j/e/memory/memory1.html>
[10] Wikipedia, ‘Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’, 2 November 2008. Online at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki>
[11] David C. Hanson, ‘The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’, November 1998. Online at < http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS122/Hiroshima.html>
[12] Congressman Charles A. Plumley, August 1945. Found online at <http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS122/Hiroshima.html>
