Evacuations of civilians in Japan during World War II

About 8.5 million Japanese civilians were displaced from their homes between 1943 and 1945 as a result of Air raids on Japan

Air raids on Japan

During World War II the Allied forces conducted many air raids on Japan which caused extensive destruction to the country's cities and killed over 300,000 people. These attacks began with the Doolittle Raid in mid-April 1942, but did not resume until June 1944 when United States Army Air Forces ...

by the U.S. Air Force (USAAF). These evacuations started in December 1943 as a voluntary government program to prepare the country's main cities for bombing raids by evacuating children, women and the elderly to rural towns. After American bombers started to devastate entire cities in 1945 millions more civilians fled to the countryside.

Background

Prior to the Pacific War

Pacific War

The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

and during the first years of this conflict the Japanese Government placed little emphasis on preparing civil defense

Civil defense

Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...

measures in the event of air raids on the country. The guidance which was prepared for civilians called on them to remain in cities which were attacked to fight fires from incendiary

Incendiary device

Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus....

raids as part of neighborhood associations.

The series of defeats suffered by the Japanese military during the second half of 1942 and 1943 led to the introduction of policies to protect civilians from air attack. These measures anticipated the commencement of attacks on the Japanese home islands if the Mariana Islands

Mariana Islands

The Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the north-western Pacific Ocean between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east...

were captured by the United States. In late 1943 the Government of Japan

Government of Japan

The government of Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, he is defined by the 1947 constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Japan and other elected...

developed plans to evacuate non-essential personnel from Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Nagoya, Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

and the cities in northern Kyushu

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

. Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō

Hideki Tōjō

Hideki Tōjō was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army , the leader of the Taisei Yokusankai, and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan during most of World War II, from 17 October 1941 to 22 July 1944...

initially opposed implementing these plans due to the damage they were likely to cause to morale and family cohesion, but eventually agreed to them in order to minimize civilian casualties so that Japan's population could be regenerated for future wars. The Japanese Cabinet formally decided to begin evacuations on 15 October 1943.

Evacuations

The Government launched a voluntary evacuation program in December 1943 which encouraged old people, children and their mothers to move from the main cities and stay in the homes of friends and relatives in rural areas. The government provided civilians with little assistance to evacuate, however. Few people evacuated until the first raid by American heavy bomber

Heavy bomber

A heavy bomber is a bomber aircraft of the largest size and load carrying capacity, and usually the longest range.In New START, the term "heavy bomber" is used for two types of bombers:*one with a range greater than 8,000 kilometers...

s on Japan, an attack on Yawata

Bombing of Yawata (June 1944)

The Bombing of Yawata on the night of 15/16 June 1944 was the first air raid on the Japanese home islands conducted by United States Army Air Forces strategic bombers during World War II. The raid was undertaken by 75 B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers staging from bases in China...

, in June 1944 after which the Government urged families to evacuate their children. As a result, 459,000 children and their parents moved to stay with friends and relatives. For families without contacts in the countryside entire school classes also evacuated as groups accompanied by their teachers, and by August 1944 333,000 children had been relocated to rural areas where they continued their education in inns, temples and other public buildings. A further 343,000 urban residents were also forced to leave their homes when they were destroyed to create firebreak

Firebreak

A firebreak is a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a bushfire or wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally where there is a lack of vegetation or "fuel", such as a river, lake or canyon...

s; these people either moved to the country or lived in temporary accommodation near their workplace.

The number of evacuees increased greatly in 1945; historian Thomas R.H. Havens has written that the movement of Japanese civilians from cities in the last months of the war was "one of history's great migrations". Following the firebombing of Tokyo on 9 March 1945 all schoolchildren in the third to sixth grades were required to leave the main cities, and 87 percent of them had been moved to the countryside by early April. As the American firebombing campaign continued millions more Japanese civilians fled from their homes into rural areas, overwhelming the Government's evacuation plans. By June 1945 millions of Japanese civilians had been rendered homeless by air raids and the evacuation of survivors meant that many of the remaining factories were unable to find sufficient workers. Between June and August 1945 American bombers dropped propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

leaflets over several Japanese cities warning that they would be bombed and urging civilians to evacuate; these persuaded many residents of the cities to leave and reduced public confidence in the Japanese Army while also convincing civilians that the Americans were attempting to minimize casualties. Overall, 8.5 million Japanese civilians were displaced as a result of the American raids, including 120,000 of Hiroshima's

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

population of 365,000 who evacuated the city prior to the atomic bomb attack on it in August 1945.

Challenges to evacuated students

Once the students were evacuated to the countryside, or at least to towns outside of the larger and more industrialized cities, many students went to work in various factories where unskilled labor was needed under the official “Labor Mobilization Policy” and “Student Mobilization Policy”. In most cases students were genuine volunteers who petitioned their teachers and school principals as a group to allow them to work in factory complexes that could accept them. Students then entered dorms near the factory complex; strict daily schedules ensured that the children woke, cleaned their quarters, ate meals, went to and from their work shifts, and had time for evening hygiene in cohorts. Parents were reluctant to protest because it was believed that the military-funded factories could provide the children with more nourishing meals and because such protests would draw the attention of the secret police

Kempeitai

The was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but a French-style gendarmerie...

and suspicions of disloyalty or subversion. From the summer of 1944 until February 1945, high school girls worked in or near Kokura

Kokura

is an ancient castle town and the center of Kitakyūshū, Japan, guarding, via its suburb Moji, the Straits of Shimonoseki between Honshū and Kyūshū. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound Sanyo Shinkansen line, which is owned by JR Kyūshū and an important part of the...

constructing balloons to carry bombs

Fire balloon

A , or Fu-Go, was a weapon launched by Japan during World War II. A hydrogen balloon with a load varying from a incendiary to one antipersonnel bomb and four incendiary devices attached, they were designed as a cheap weapon intended to make use of the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean and wreak...

across the Pacific where they would detonate in the U.S. The girls worked in two 12-hour shifts and contrary to their expectations, there was little food available, and some eventually suffered from malnutrition

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....

. Within a short time after graduation in the spring of 1945, one participant estimates that one-tenth of her classmates died, while others suffered from tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, neuralgia

Neuralgia

Neuralgia is pain in one or more nerves that occurs without stimulation of pain receptor cells. Neuralgia pain is produced by a change in neurological structure or function rather than by the excitation of pain receptors that causes nociceptive pain. Neuralgia falls into two categories: central...

, rickets

Rickets

Rickets is a softening of bones in children due to deficiency or impaired metabolism of vitamin D, magnesium , phosphorus or calcium, potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries...

, and symptoms of over-exhaustion as a result of exposure to chemicals used in making the balloons.

Other challenges met those children who were too young to work in factories or were evacuated to areas where there were no factories that could accept student laborers. The demands by the military and a strict rationing system meant that even in the countryside food was scarce. Transitioning from inner cities to quiet, bucolic towns meant that the children were struck with a sense of alienation as they faced an unfamiliar environment, the growing resentment of their host families, and ridicule from local children when it came to the difference in accents or ignorance concerning agricultural tasks. One teacher who was evacuated with his students in 1945 kept a diary and noted the gradual shift in daily activities from education to agriculture to gathering

Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...

activities. By the summer, students were even preparing for the eventual Allied invasion of Japan

Operation Downfall

Operation Downfall was the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan. The operation had two parts: Operation...

by training to fight with bamboo spears and throwing rocks at targets. The students spent part of each day cultivating gardens and some days they were sent out to forage for things such as wisteria

Wisteria

Wisteria is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, that includes ten species of woody climbing vines native to the eastern United States and to China, Korea, and Japan. Aquarists refer to the species Hygrophila difformis, in the family Acanthaceae, as Water Wisteria...

bark and bamboo shoot

Bamboo shoot

Bamboo shoots or bamboo sprouts are the edible shoots of many bamboo species including Bambusa vulgaris and Phyllostachys edulis. They are used in numerous Asian dishes and broths...

s or bark; on other days they made charcoal and carried it from a distant mountain; classroom assignments included writing letters to soldiers at the front.

Post-war

Once the war ended, every effort was made to inform the children how many of their family members had been lost in the air raids. Parents began to make their way to the country towns and retrieving the children. Those families that had lost one parent or the family home took longer, sometimes weeks, before they could locate the waiting child. For children who had lost both parents and all siblings, it could take months before a cousin or an uncle could be found who was willing to take in the child. Orphans, like displaced veterans, became not only an issue of social welfare, but a visible symbol of defeat in the post-war period.

Cultural references

In 1967, a semi-autobiographical

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

by Akiyuki Nosaka

Akiyuki Nosaka

is a Japanese novelist, singer, lyricist, and former member of the House of Councillors. As a broadcasting writer he uses the name Yukio Aki and his alias as a chanson singer is Claude Nosaka.- Biography :...

was published called . The story was based on his experiences during the Kobe air raid

Bombing of Kobe in World War II

On March 17, 1945, 331 American B-29 bombers launched a firebombing attack against the city of Kobe, Japan. Of the city's residents, 8,841 were confirmed to have been killed in the resulting firestorms, which destroyed an area of three square miles and included 21% of Kobe's urban area. At the...

in 1945 and afterward as an evacuee. The award-winning book was made into the critically acclaimed anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies
is a 1988 Japanese animated war tragedy film written and directed by Isao Takahata. This is the first film produced by Shinchosha, who hired Studio Ghibli to do the animation production work...

, directed by Isao Takahata

Isao Takahata

is a Japanese anime filmmaker that have earned critical international acclaim for his work as a director. Takahata is co-founder of Studio Ghibli with long-time collaborative partner Hayao Miyazaki. He has directed films such as the war-themed Grave of the Fireflies, the romantic-drama Only...

and released in Japan in 1988. In the film, a boy and his younger sister must go to live with relatives in the countryside. Their aunt turns increasingly hostile until the children feel compelled to leave. They have a difficult time finding food and begin to suffer from malnutrition