The Repatriation of Surrendered Japanese Troops, 1945–1947

At the end of the war, Imperial Japan’s vast armies stretched from Manchuria to Korea, from the Aleutian Islands to the South Pacific. Surrender was not an end in itself. It was for 3.5 million soldiers only a beginning. In this chapter Rotem Kowner examines the repatriation of demobilized Japanese soldiers in a transnational key, focusing on how the process of soldiers return became enmeshed in the wars of decolonization, restoration of imperial power, and the early Cold War. From Java to French Indochine, Kowner examines how Japanese soldiers, once the frontlines of an ideology of pan-Asianism, became auxiliaries in the restoration of European imperial control. In the Dutch East Indies he shows how Japanese soldiers both aided the return of the Dutch forces; and on the other armed anticolonial nationalists. How did the men who fought for the creation of a New Order greet the wars end? By connecting the experience of repatriation to the wars of decolonization and hardening Cold War divisions, Kowner sheds light on an important part of the unwinding of Japan’s wartime imperium.