Sendai and the Asia-Pacific War: Soldiers, Civilians, Occupation, and Memory

Co-sponsored with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

The English-language historiography of the Second World War remains shaped by stereotypes of fanatical Japanese soldiers and civilians. Moreover, broad national narratives and macro-level accounts of military operations have often rendered invisible the distinctive experiences of individual units and the societies from which they emerged. Japanese Army divisions were rooted in their recruitment regions, creating enduring and complicated connections between military units, soldiers, their families, and local communities. This talk explores the history of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 2nd Division, based in Sendai. At the tip of the spear in Japan’s war of imperial expansion, the division fought in Manchuria from 1931, China from 1937, and Guadalcanal, where it was nearly destroyed. Reconstituted, it fought against British forces in Burma in 1944. After Japan’s surrender, remnants of the division became involved in the early stages of the conflict in Vietnam. Meanwhile, returning veterans encountered a bombed-out and occupied Sendai, where citizens and former soldiers embarked on a complex process of memory-making and remembrance. What happens when we study the Imperial Japanese Army not simply as an instrument of the state, but as a social institution embedded in regional society? How did frontline experiences strengthen or test the bonds between a division and its hometown? How was war memory constructed locally, during the war and after defeat? By tracing this history, the talk aims to shed fresh light on the social world of the Imperial Japanese Army.