December 1st, 2025
Today we had my women’s history class and history seminar. My seminar will not be detailed as it was research presentations. My entire role was just taking notes on how the students presenting that day formatted their presentations. I made sure to also talk to my professor afterwards to get more tips and which presentations he thought were the most effective. My presentation in the next week and I will write a little post about it although I did not write any notes for good reason: I was up there yapping about what my research paper was about. Anyway, let’s get into women’s history which is about what happened to Japan after surrender.
In 1945, Japan surrendered after the bombs evicerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The country was not doing well, cities were ruined, food shortages were rampant, people were displaced, industries were damaged, and thus the Japanese empire came to an end. As we all know, the US occupied Japan from 1945 to 1952. During this time the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers ran the country. Apparently there were debates over whether the emperor was responsible for the war crimes committed. At the War Crime Trial, military figures and politicians were tried. The Imperial Army and Navy were abolished. In 1951, the occupation was officially ended by the San Francisco Peace Treaty, this restored Japan’s sovereignty, but the US still maintains military bases and troops in Japan. This is because of the security treaty.
Next we went over social reforms that occurred under US occupation. Tenant farmers would become owner-farmers through land reform; military and emperor-centric education was abolished; attempts were made to get rid of family owned conglomerates (Mitsui, Mitsubishi); labour unions were legalized which led to mass protests in workplaces; and the SCAP censored any criticism about the US occupation, so thats cool.
Women gained the right to vote in 1945, and in 1947 the Constitution guaranteed equality and expanded civil liberties. Reforms to the family law weakened the old system that deemed women only fit for the domestic sphere. Japanese women did suffer from economic hardship right after the war. US troop presence created an atmosphere for sex work to emerge. These troops would become a huge problem for Japanese women, to the point that the Japanese government created a “female flood wall,” using lower class women to distract US troops from sexually assaulting middle to upper class Japanese women.
In 1945, Japan surrendered after the bombs evicerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Just days prior, the Soviet Union had entered the war against Japan and wiped out the entire Japanese Kwantung Army (the last major fighting force of Japan on the Asian mainland) in a lightning fast offensive in Manchuria.
Until then, Japan had been holding out hope for a negotiated peace with the help of the Soviets, who had so far not officially (they were unofficially involved with helping the Chinese resistance of course) declared war on Japan, to help them avoid unconditional surrender.
Some historians argue that the final nail in the coffin of this hope is what actually prompted the Japanese to surrender, not so much the atomic bombs, seeing as similar levels of destruction were already being caused by conventional and fire bombing in most Japanese cities, including Tokyo.
Every time the bombings are mentioned, seldom is the Soviet threat to Japan ever uttered. It is quite frustrating but I honestly believe that many of my professors are just unaware of this factor to the surrender. I also did not know that other Japanese cities suffered similar outcomes as Hiroshima and Nagasaki regarding destruction levels.
Just some numbers comparison:
Firebombing of Tokyo:
Sixteen square miles (41 km2) of central Tokyo was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead, 267,171 buildings destroyed and over one million homeless.
And this was in one operation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo
Atomic bomb on Hiroshima:
12 km2 (4.7 sq mi) of the city were destroyed, 69 percent of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed, death toll estimates range from 66,000 dead and 69,000 injured (according to US) up to 140,000 dead (according to Japan)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
What’s important to remember is that the firebombing of Tokyo may have been the largest in terms of scale simply because the city was so big and populated, but almost every other major Japanese city within range of US bombers experienced similar levels of destruction before the Atomic bombings, with the exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were picked as targets precisely because they were among the very few still left intact. There was not much to destroy anywhere else.
The point is that sheer destruction does not cause a nation to capitulate. The DPRK experienced even worse levels of destruction and death during the Korean War and didn’t capitulate. The Nazis didn’t capitulate until after the Red Army entered Berlin, despite very extensive destruction of German cities by US and UK bombing.
Also, USSR action against Japan did not stop with the liberation of Manchuria. They then proceeded to amphibiously land on and liberate in quick succession the Kuril islands, and would probably have landed on the Japanese home islands from the north (Hokkaido) within weeks if Japan had not surrendered. The Japanese correctly calculated that they had a much better chance of keeping their emperor and getting away with very little punishment for all of their war crimes if they were occupied by the US instead.
