(1880-1964) The Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), who administered Japan during the Allied Occupation after World War II. As commander of the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific Theater during the war, he led the successful counter-offensive which regained territories controlled by Japan. He clashed with his superiors, who gave priority to the war in Europe, and until 1944 his victories had been won with little naval support and despite serious shortages of personnel and supplies.
Setting up his headquarters in Tokyo across from the Imperial Palace in the Dai Ichi Insurance Building, MacArthur implemented the policies of the Occupation through the Japanese government. Under his direction the Japanese armed forces were demobilized, the militarists were purged, Shinto was abolished as the state religion, and the emperor renounced any claim to divinity. A new liberal constitution was drafted, and important reforms were enacted in land distribution, education, health, labor, and women's rights.
*POST-WAR REBUILDING
*OCCUPATION
*POST-WAR
The Allied Occupation of Japan after World War II lasted from 1945 to 1952. Lead by the American General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), the three major objectives of the Occupation were demilitarization, democratization, and reconstruction. Once he took command, MacArthur worked through the Japanese governmental structure to eradicate Japan's imperialist past.
After attending to the pressing needs for the distribution of food and shelter, MacArthur turned to demobilizing the armed forces, punishing war criminals, and purging those responsible for the war effort. Japan was forced to relinquish control of its colonial holdings, and over six million Japanese returned to their homeland.
Through a series of decrees, General MacArthur freed political prisoners, re-established civil liberties, disbanded the secret police, extended the franchise to all adults, abolished feudal land policies, liberalized education, backed American-style labor organizing, and abolished Shinto as the state religion.
In a New Year's message on January 1, 1946, Emperor Hirohito disclaimed "the false idea that the emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world..."
MacArthur furthered the democratization process through the drafting of a new constitution. Strongly evocative of the American Declaration of Independence and the US constitution, it established an elected upper house, individual rights, local self-government, and recognized sovereignty as residing not in the emperor but in the people. The constitution became effective on May 3, 1947.
The Japanese economy was recovering very slowly and depended greatly on American aid. "In June 1948, under the new Economic Recovery in Occupied Areas program, Congress appropriated $108 million that, for the first time, could be used specifically for economic recovery in occupied Japan." (page 174, Japan in War and Peace, by John Dower). With the communists' rise to power in China, Japan was increasing viewed as an ally against communism whose economy needed strengthening. In 1948 efforts to break up the huge industrial combines were stopped, and MacArthur imposed a ban on strikes.
With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the US further boosted the Japanese economy by using Japan as a staging point. Through procurements of supplies and provisions for US troops, an enormous amount of funds were pumped into the recovering economy. Even after the war had ended, US troops stationed in Japan or on leave there continued to spend $500,000,000 a year. In this economic climate the US discontinued direct aid in 1952, which by that year, the same year the Occupation ended, had totaled $2,016,000,000.
*MIYAGAWAS
Shigejiro (1894-1956) and his wife Tsuma (1897-1988).
*ICHIRO
*ICHIRO MIYAGAWA
Shigeru's father, Ichiro Miyagawa (born 1922), son of Shigejiro and Tsuma Miyagawa.
*LAND REFORM
"The land reform carried out between 1946 and 1948 dispossessed the landlords and virtually eliminated tenancy. This was a critical step in achieving an expanded domestic market and mature bourgeois capitalism in Japan, and that it was accomplished so swiftly and smoothly is due almost entirely to the exceptional circumstances of war and defeat. The land reform was a central part of the "demilitarization and democratization" agenda introduced by the victorious Americans, and it is indisputable that the authority wielded by the victors was essential to ensuring that the reform was implemented thoroughly.
"As the Americans themselves acknowledged, however, success ultimately depended on circumstances beyond their control. That the vast majority of the rural population welcomed such a drastic transformation of relations was of course essential, but the reform also was facilitated by two additional circumstances.
"First, there existed a cadre of Japanese academics and former wartime bureaucrats who were themselves committed to land reform and possessed the technical and administrative expertise to carry it out. And second, it quickly became apparent that wartime developments, especially after 1940, had severely eroded the traditional power of the landlords." (page 20-21, Dower, John, Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays, The New Press, New York, NY, 1993)
*EDUCATIONAL REFORM
*SCHOOL SYSTEM
Corky White writes:
"The Occupation instituted a range of reforms in education, creating an American-style system in Japan. First, schools were made coeducational, and the compulsory education system, which previously ended with grammar school, now included junior high school, making attendance nearly universal for nine years of schooling: this is called a 6-3-3-4 structure, meaning six years of grammar school, three each of junior and senior high school and four of university.
"With postwar reconstruction and growing affluence also came a demand for more higher education. Getting a good job was closely associated with a high status educational credential, but any higher education was valued. There simply weren't enough places in existing colleges and universities for all that wanted to pass through "the narrow gate" to a degree, and in response, some former high schools were converted to colleges and there were many small colleges opened. The quality of some of these was low, leading to the expression, "ekiben daigaku", or station lunchbox university, referring to the ready-made cheap lunches sold at railroad stations."
