The Japanese Red Cross, Military Nurses, and their Postwar Repatriation

Abstract:More than three hundred Japanese Red Cross nurses, deployed in field hospitals in the Japanese Army during the Second World War, remained overseas for several years after the Japanese defeat. They were part of a large group of Japanese citizens whose repatriation was delayed by the Chinese and Korean wars, and by the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War. The span of their professional lives sheds light on the breaks and continuities of one of the world's largest national Red Cross organisations, the Japanese Red Cross. The Japanese Red Cross sent these nurses to the front as part of its support for Japan's war effort, but after defeat, was able to use their repatriation as a way to highlight its humanitarian character and its apolitical stance, and to distance itself from its participation in the war.