European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 14, 1945, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Al nine yank staff writer the Japan which we Are occupying is com posed of four islands and some 70 million the islands form a string which cuts off the sea of Japan from the Pacific in order of their they Are Kyushu and the japanese under one refine ment of the Imperial system or has been a going concern since the earliest historical dating Back to the seventh Century of there was a Japan before this and in Japan the most popular belief is that it was founded by one a grandson of the Sun Amaterasu this according to the mythological was the first emperor of he came to Earth from his heavenly bringing with him the three sacred Mirror a the jewels some jewels and the sword a he landed in the southernmost of the from with an army and a grand maternal assist or two from the Sun Jimmu conquered most of that Island and of Shikoku and Honshu As this May seem a Little but it is substantially the Story which has been taught As straight history in japanese if you told the japs it was mythology you were looked upon As a dangerous they took their Sun Jimmu and just As seriously As the late mayor Thompson of Chicago took George Washington Cherry what follows is an attempt to As simply and in As Short a space As some thing about these 70 million people who believe in Jimmu and the three sacred treasures something about their their Type of gov themselves and the country where they live and where some of us will be living As an army of about the first definite thing we know about the japs is that they were occupying their four islands around 600 in a society composed of various loosely connected the most important which was later to produce the had a sort of informal control it might be called upon to arbitrate in fights be tween lesser but there was still nothing like a Central government in the mod Ern that didst come about until 645 it came about As the result of a rivalry be tween the Imperial clan and another powerful the Soga Ted by one Soga the Imperial clan won out shortly a set of clan rules known As the Tankwa Reform was the Tankwa Reform insured the supreme position of the Imperial clan As an Overall the position of the top Man of the Imperial As top Man of All was made unless you Are going to make the study a life it is just As Well to skip lightly Over some background on the history of the islands we Are now from the first who descended from his grandmothers to the who bit off More than he could Chew at Pearl japanese history for the next few Hundred it was mostly a Catan dog business of local with various big families trying their damnedest to get and keep control of the pm one of the simplest methods was that of the Fujiwara who saw to it that the emperors always slept with Fujiwara either As wives or it held onto Imperial Power by this pleasant Means for Over a Hun dred years in the tenth and eleventh the Fujiwara family became a Little soft with such continuous High or maybe the qual Ity of their womenfolk fell anyway they slipped from and when they the military took the military had been building Power for a Long and their position had become roughly similar to that of the knights in medieval in Japan in was which meant that the strongest or the men who could whip up the strongest bands of armed re counted for most the like the peasants in didst count for a wooden it was shortly after the decline of the Fuji Wara group that Japan faced a major military threat Kublai a mongol Brand thirteenth a Century had conquered most of Asia and didst see Why he  add Japan to the collection of nations in his he sent envoys suggesting this to the but the japs we rent having Kublai followed up the Jao refusal with an invading Force of about chinese and koreans the japs still we rent having and they pushed the in vaders Back into the sea of the whole Deal gave the japs a very Good opinion of them selves which they have never seen fit to japanese history went Back to the uneven Tenor of its ways there was the usual bucking for control of the but Power remained firmly in the hands of one or another military which was just another Asiatic religion to the japs in a period when Many Asiatic religions were struggling for had been introduced in the sixteenth Century and managed to get quite a few the Chris became embroiled on the wrong Side of one of the Many civil they opposed the powerful Tokugawa the final in the Battle which decided the struggle in some japanese christians were it was this Christian opposition which helped form the Tokugawa policy of excluding foreign Laws were passed which forbade any for Eigners to touch the shores of Japan for Trade or communication of any the Tokugawa knew they had a Good thing in the governmental setup of that time and didst want any Radical foreign influences to disturb the Only exceptions to their exclusion Laws were the the koreans and the dutch they were allowed to Trade Only under certain strict conditions at certain ports exclusively set aside for such the japs lived in a comfortable fools Paradise of isolation for the next two and a half things were happening All Over the rest of the but they didst bother there were still civil wars Between tribes and rival but that was it was during this period that the famous revenge of the 47 Ronin is a master less this one of the most famous and popular bits of Jap is probably important to an understanding of the the 47 room devoted their entire lives to avenging the death of their who had been forced to commit har Akiri by a rival in their they pulled about every pos sible dirty according to Jap that was All right anything was All right that served to prove their from this was derived that National belief that a knee in the Groin is unfair Only if its the other Fellows the country at this time was under the Rule of the Shogun was the military and administrative official who acted Ashe emperors since the emperor was actually at this time a the Shogun ran the government and used the emperors reputation both As screen and a Blackjack against any the Tokugawa family held the shogunate fron the massacre of the christians in 1683 until the opening up of Japan by Commodore Perry in perrys arrival internationally speak the next big event in japanese Perry steamed into Yedo Bay with a modern Fleet representative of the military Power of the foreign civilizations Japan had tried hopelessly to the shogunate was forced to con clude a treaty opening the japanese islands to foreign and that was the beginning of the end for the the old distrust of for Eigners was too Strong for the treaty to pass without Prince who signed the temporary treaty with the United Russia and was assassinated by the Mito the ruling Toku Gawa was forced to the treaty lived but the old shogunate the joker was that the Nobles who helped throw Over the old shogunate were of the same class As the previous Japan had what appeared to be an internal but Power was still in the hands of the Daimyo or great the Samurai or lesser the Ronin or freelance the new order which came into being after perrys intrusion was the Era of the Meiji Resto the Label restoration meant that a new emphasis was put on the Power of the he been slipping into the background for a few Hundred years under the influence of the but now he was dusted off and served up to the nation in All his ancient glory and with a few trimmings the emphasis of japanese life was placed on an even stronger basis of loyalty to the emperor above the same group of Nobles and lesser Nobles and military men continued to but from behind the once it had to face Western lapped it the nation became known As a land of imitative the japanese to euro Pean and american a Clever Little they copied steam engines and they copied trains and they copied every other scientific Advance and did some productive research of their among things they copied and improved were battleships and the rest of the world Learned about this latter tendency when the japs in 1904 pulled a sneak Pearl on the russian Garrison at port the Russ japanese War was because Japan was so Little and so new and so cute and Russia was so big and so old and so european and american sympathy was generally on the japanese the russian which had to go from the Baltic All the Way around Africa to reach its fighting was soundly trounced by the Jap the War was settled by International Mcd by president Theodore Roosevelt at Japan got the Southern half of the Island of Sakhalin and the Liao Tung Peninsula and an appetite for getting under the Korea had been recognized As a sphere of japanese by 1911 the japs had reinterpreted this phrase and taken Over Korea As part of the japanese in world War Japan sided with the she took advantage of her position to move into first kicking out All German agents in China and then presenting to China a program of 21 the 21 if would have made China virtually a Jap in the sin japanese War of Japan had won Formosa and the Ryukyu from China now protested these new and the Allied Powers forced Japan to Back Down but Japan did not forget How close to taking Over All China she had Japan did win certain rights both in South Manchuria and in inner additional world War i profits for Japan were mandate rights to oversee the of certain Pacific Large Gold profits and increased Industrial she also participated in the ill starred and Short Allied occupation of soviet Japan was now set to carry her capacity for imitation what she was going to imitate now were the imperialist tactics which had been a blot on the record of the Western Powers in the nineteenth but were going out of International Japan did not see what had already been Learned the hard ruthless imperialism Doest pay she saw Only that there was a lot of land that Japan didst there was China and there were islands in the there in the whole Japan had control of the South manchurian this was to be her entering she had the right to police the railway and to defend lives and protect japanese property within the railway on the japanese army charged that the chinese had tried to derail a Jap express the Jap anese As punishment for this alleged moved into and took Over the key cities of before there had been time for much More than polite Manchuria had become the puppet state of Manchukuo and the Japcon trolled Henry descendant of the old chinese had been proclaimed pm the Western nations began to show a Little worry about they continued to but did nothing More positive on july the using an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge As a plunged into War with the japs thought China would be a China and the japs were committed to a full time a Peculiar War though they could beat the enemy at almost every Point of the country was so Large that a Well defined Victory was impossible and a continuous Campaign had to be in the same the japs accidentally strafed and Sank the gunboat Panay in the Yangtze the protested and the japs Japan slogged along in her China Campaign and was viewed with increased distrust from in 1938 and 1939 Overly ambitious Jap commanders tangled with the russians on the siberian the russians brushed the japs Back and inflicted severe losses the japs decided that Russia was not yet the proper direction for their expansion the direction finally chosen was revealed on when Jap planes struck at peat i Harbor and acting after the declared War simultaneously on the great new and the Union of South she for some to sets i h Lif until to declare War on the maybe she was out of the rest of japans history should be pretty much an open Book to anyone in the government of As you might guess from this summary of her has varied More in its trimmings than it has in any major matters of policy or Japan has always been an ruled by and for a Small group at the this top ruling using the emperor As a figurehead Ever since the Tankwa has been predominately even the first great like the based their Power upon military the of Hogus were Pri Marily military the Daimyo and Samurai and Ronin who overthrew the Toku Gawa shogunate were All almost with out the old Warrior families have ruled Japan according to their ideas and for their own until Perry introduced Japan to the outside world this meant simply that Japan had a Feudal Economy under a Feudal political the peasants Farmed and got enough out of then farming to live on if they were and the Rittu and the Samurai and the darn to and the Sti guns lived off the it want a very Happy life for the but it a pretty much the kind of life peasants had under european feudalism and there was nothing tingly new about the japanese islands were not Large and there was a danger of Ove Popula but that could always be solved by getting thu peasants to kill Oft their this policy was known As out the and so it All that was not changed when perrys Fleet forced Japan open to Western Japan remained an oligarchy whats a Feudal the military groups who had kicked out the last of the shoguns had been they gave the appearance of a but the Power was still with the brass and instead of being controllers of a agricultural they were overlords of an up Odate Industrial Economy which they could continue to run according to Feudal the emperor was All Cut him in on real estate and on shares of the various industries they continued to control the this gave birth to an entirely new Type of a state which was fascist before the word was even thought of by in every european the Industrial revolution had taken place the merchants and manufacturers had been in Competition with the no Bles and the old military they had eventually edged the old lords out and taken Over tin the new capitalist Power then used the army and the weapons of policy which had been set by the merchants and the in Japan it was the Feudal system had been in full swing when Japan was opened to the world there was no merchant or manufacturing class of enough strength to compete with the when the Nobles threw out the they simply took Over the beginnings of Industry and Commerce some of the old Warrior families went into Trade or Industry and others remained in the it did t make an awful lot of the same club was running the coun and the people were still working for the Guys on this then was the contradiction of japanese while the Economy of Japan changed from Feudal and the Politi Cal setup remained and the military continued to run the in just after world War there were stirrings of liberalism and but they never had enough pop ular support to stand a the government i