Proposal

Proposal: Japanese Brutality during the Second World War

            The proposed paper will argue that the actions of Japanese Unit 731 was an extension of the race superiority, militaristic society of Japan during the 20^th century, and the indoctrination of ultranationalism present in the Japanese people. The relevance of this topic is so important as many historians, as well as American public schooling, tend to focus mainly on the American side of the Second World War, rather than other perspectives like those in the Invasion of Manchuria or the Mukden Incident. It also teaches a different side of Japan that most people don’t think of, especially the once extremely racist and militarist imperial Japan that desired the Japanese master race to be above all other races globally, much like the Aryan race in Germany. This topic starts at the conception of Japanese ultranationalism and indoctrination of a people by the Japanese government through the lens of war crimes and atrocities of Unit 731.

            The availability of firsthand accounts of the Invasion of Manchuria of 1931 and the Rape of Nanking is plentiful and is provided in full context of the historical times. Like a newspaper article on the reaction of the Chinese north of the initial invasion of Manchuria. Other primary sources include a book titled “American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnia Vautrin,” an American missionary who protected thousands of Chinese woman and children from the horrors of Japanese brutality. These accounts can be used to identify strategies and would provide examples of other incidents necessary for a stronger argument for the proposed paper.

            Secondary sources, as one would expect, are even more plentiful and provide amazing overviews of many events during the Invasion of Manchuria, the Rape of Nanking, and Japanese ultranationalism. One of the best secondary sources is a book titled The Rape of Nanking by an author named Iris Chang, a Chinese woman. Her conglomeration of not only first-person accounts, but Japanese and American military documents are a well written explanation of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, most notably Unit 731. Secondary sources also include the analysis of the occupation of Manchuria by the Allied nations after World War Two. The war crimes committed can be seen as the United States and its allies put many Japanese soldiers and military commanders on trial for war crimes and other war related issues.

            Further research can be garnered by just reading the sources already related to the topic. As more research is done, other incidents and events will eventually come to light giving more explanation and possibly even narrowing down the final topic of the paper.

            One problem that seems to occur is the lack of recognition of Japanese aggression by the current state of Japan. Japan, even today, is reluctant to release many of their document pertaining to the Second World War. Military orders, doctrine, and missions are still unavailable to any citizen of Japan and especially those outside of the Japanese Island. There are many sources though from the Allies and even Nazi Germany, both accounts of the brutality and the punishments Japan faced after the war. Of the documents released by Japan, and other fist-hand accounts form Japanese soldiers, the only way to get the true events are to cross-reference each document with each other. As each side represents each other, and each side does not share the same values, determining who is telling the truth and the real accounts of what happened can prove difficult without reading all sources from all angles, and drawing a conclusion that can be supported by all subsequent conflicting sources.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Alexander, Charles. “Reaction of the Chinese of North Manchuria to the Japanese Invasion.” China Weekly Review, October 24, 1931, 58 edition.

Hu, Hualing. American goddess at the rape of nanking: The courage of minnie vautrin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001.

Meng, C. Y. W. “Chinese Reactions on the Japanese Invasion of Manchuria.” China Weekly Review, October 3, 1931, 58 edition.

O’Brien, Robert W. “Reaction of the College Nisei to Japan and Japanese Foreign Policy from the Invasion of Manchuria to Pearl Harbor.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 36 (January 1945): 19–28.

Secondary Sources

Chang, Iris. The rape of nanking: The forgotten holocaust of World War 11. New York, New York: Basicbooks, 1997.

Drea, Edward J. “Missing Intentions: Japanese Intelligence and the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria, 1945.” Military Affairs 48, no. 2 (April 1984): 66.

Qingqing, Sha. “Reinterpreting the Soviet Policy toward Japan before and after the Mukden Incident.” Social Sciences in China 36, no. 4 (October 2, 2015): 193–218.

Schrock, John Richard. “Unit 731: Where Entomology Became Evil.” American Entomologist 69, no. 4 (December 1, 2023): 54–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmad075.

Tzu-chin, Huang. “Embracing Mainstream International Society: Chiang Kai-Shek’s Diplomatic Strategy against Japan.” Chinese Studies in History 49, no. 4 (September 16, 2016): 199–217.

Weland, James. “Misguided Intelligence: Japanese Military Intelligence Officers in the Manchurian Incident, September 1931.” The Journal of Military History 58, no. 3 (July