1. War and Society Caught in the Crossfire—Civilian victims of war
--Massacres, Strategic Bombing
2. Women at War
-- ‘Comfort Women’
--Women soldiers
3. Everyday Life during Wartime
--rationing, material deprivation
--Life under occupation
4. Soldier’s Experiences of War

2. Japanese Invasion of China
Starts in the early 1930s, formal war of invasion launched in 1937
By 1945—20 million Chinese civilians dead, along with 2-3 million military deaths
Major atrocities committed by Japanese military against Chinese civilians:
--The Nanjing massacre 1937

3. The Japanese Empire

4. The Nanjing Massacre, 1937
Six weeks of terror in the city of Nanjing, the capitol of China, beginning in December 1937
200, ,000 civilians murdered
An estimated 20,000-30,000 rapes
Major source of tension today between China and Japan—right wing Japanese politicians deny/downplay this event

5. Unit 731 Secret Japanese biological and chemical warfare unit
Conducts testing on POW’s and Chinese civilians
Bacterial bombs dropped on Chinese civilian targets
Amnesty granted to Unit leaders after War in exchange for data

6. U.S. Strategic Bombing of Japan
Architect of the bombing campaign: General Curtis Lemay
Incendiary bombing of Tokyo: March 9-10, kills 80,000
With Hiroshima and Nagasaki as part of the campaign—87 percent of the urban targets are residential areas
Over 600,000 Japanese civilians killed

13. The “Comfort Women”
Systematic program of sexual slavery, enforced by the Japanese military in the late 1930s-early 1940s
Empire-wide military brothel system
Unknown numbers of Korean, Chinese, Pilipino, Indonesian women forced into sexual slavery
“Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women” (clips from this documentary on Youtube)