As the Second World War began to reach its conclusion, the victorious allies turned their thoughts towards the peace that would follow. The Potsdam Declaration, in calling for Japan’s surrender, had declared that “stern justice [would] be meted out to all war criminals.” Gary J Bass’s Judgement At Tokyo is an engrossing study of the main trial which resulted: the International Military Tribunal in the Far East. Across some 800 plus pages, he charts the establishment, conduct, and aftermath of the Tokyo Trial, looking at the judges’ internal deliberations, the court proceedings, and their reception in Japan and beyond. In doing so, he seeks to understand the trial’s implications for post-war East Asia, even into the 21st century.
WW2
It was a striking sight. A blond-haired man waved a large red and white Danish flag among thousands of Chinese refugees ninety minutes from Nanjing. It was late 1937 and the Japanese army had just marched into Nanjing, without much resistance, and went on a spree of pillage, rape, and murder, the likes and scale of which had not been seen in the modern era.
Wars produce confusion and panic that often result from fears—rational and otherwise—among government officials and populations subject to war’s vicissitudes. During World War II, British officials in India and their colonial subjects feared a Japanese invasion of the sub-continent that never occurred. Krea University philosophy professor and former editor of The Hindu Mukund Padmanabhan tells this fascinating story in his debut book The Great Flap of 1942.
In her letter to readers at the beginning of her debut novel, The Storm We Made, Vanessa Chan writes that Malaysian “grandparents love us by not speaking” and goes on to explain that this only pertains to the four years of Japanese occupation during World War II. In every other subject, she writes, Malaysian grandparents do speak and at great lengths. But when it comes to the war, they cannot bring themselves to talk about the horrors from that time.
It is a battle that has been called “the Stalingrad of the East”, but a more accurate description might be“India’s forgotten battle of World War II”. The Battle of Kohima, which was fought between British/Imperial and Japanese troops during 4 April through 6 June of 1944, according to author Mmhonlümo Kikon, “shaped world history”. It marked the end of Japan’s effort to invade India and join forces with the Indian independence forces against the British Raj. Kohima, Kikon writes, “saved the British empire and the Allied forces from defeat and brought them out from the jaws of death into an uncertain glory carved into their history books.”
On a trip many years ago to New Delhi, I was struck by an official memorial to Subhas Chandra Bose, the wartime leader of the Indian National Army, the Japan-affiliated force of Indians who fought against the British during the Second World War. India, of course, has a more complex view of the fight against Japan than other countries involved in the War—with these soldiers being contentious, debated and, at times, celebrated.
We are often told that the trend toward globalization is unstoppable, but then some event occurs—whether it is the war in Ukraine or Brexit—that reminds us of the power of nationalism; the emotional attachment that citizens have to their land and people. That power, that emotional attachment, jumps off every page of The War Diary of Asha-san, written by a young Indian nationalist in the midst of the Second World War.
In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike.
When Vijay Balan was a young boy, his father would regale him with stories inspired by family history. One of these centered around Balan’s grand-uncle, a police officer in 1920s and early 1930s India who later went on to Singapore and became a spy for the Japanese military during World War II. Balan has turned this tale into his first novel, The Swaraj Spy. The title refers to the Hindustani word for self-rule, and it’s this wish that drives the main character, Kumaran “Kumar” Nair. The book is less a mass market spy thriller and more of a character-driven story of a man who hopes to do right by his family and country.
In a museum in Mumbai, a chance viewing of a photograph of a Punjabi princess inspires Italian author and journalist, Livia Manera Sambuy, to investigate the rani’s life which, unexpectedly, becomes a journey of self-discovery too.
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