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For a few years after Japan's defeat, it was an occupied country. Without military power, the economy is sluggish, and countless unemployed armies are waiting to be fed. However, the Korean War saved Japan, and a large number of orders from the war quickly revived Japan. To this end, the then Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida left a famous saying: "The Korean War is a gift from the gods."
In 1951, the Japanese performance troupe paid tribute to the American army
First, "Special Needs of Korea" saved Japan
Japan's advantages are: 1. Abundant labor force. Japan's demobilized soldiers alone reached 7 million, and the Japanese were hardworking and self-disciplined, willing to work for a long time to get lower wages. 2. Close to the Korean Peninsula. Japan took advantage of the light of geography, and a large amount of materials arrived on the peninsula from the Korean Strait.
The Japanese undertook large military orders from the Korean War
In the war, almost all the military supplies of the US military came from Japan, and the massive orders for "Korean special needs" saved Japan's military industry and daily enterprises. Take cars, for example. After the defeat, Japan's automobile production plants were once in ruins, but after the outbreak of the Korean War, in order to meet the transportation needs of AMERICAN troops landing on the Korean Peninsula, Japan's automobile factories soon began to turn again, and this demand snowballed like a snowball in the three years of the war. All the military trucks in the U.S. military are made by the Toyota company we are familiar with. The "Twenty Years of Toyota Motor's History" records: "Our company was able to get out of the crisis precisely because of the orders of the US military, and the strikes and riots of the workers were also quelled by the resumption of production." ”
Toyota has made a radical comeback by building military trucks
In terms of daily necessities, Japanese manufacturing is also a large package, such as a large number of tableware and plastic products of the United Nations Army, which are made by Japanese companies. Japanese companies were later able to become world-class ceramics producers, thanks to the foundation laid during this period. In addition, in addition to rice, quilts and a small amount of meat from South Korea, almost all of the munitions and food and clothing necessities of the UN army came from Japan.
Japanese workers in an aircraft assembly workshop
It is no exaggeration to say that the Korean War saved Japan's economy: from 1950 to 1952, the total amount of "Special Needs of North Korea" reached $1 billion, and in 1955 it reached $3.6 billion. Beginning in 1955, Japan's average annual growth rate remained at 9 percent for nearly two decades, and in 1968 it became the world's second largest economy after the United States.
2. Shadow Samurai
Immediately after the outbreak of the Korean War, some public figures in the United States made a proposal: to recruit Japanese to fight in Korea. In August 1950, Democratic Senator Warren Magnussen introduced a Senate bill that would allow the U.S. military to recruit "Japanese volunteers" for half the cost paid to U.S. soldiers. But the bill was not passed due to fears of military escalation and opposition from South Korea.
In the Korean War, a large number of Japanese soldiers were hidden
Although officials rejected plans to recruit Japanese, the larger Japanese "shadow samurai" were secretly involved in the war with the covert support of U.S. military commanders.
An estimated 47 minesweepers and 1,200 Japanese sailors participated in the Korean War minesweeping operations, most of them former Japanese naval soldiers who had never been purged, helping the U.S. military clear mines in several North Korean ports. At the same time, a large number of Japanese transport ships, along with their Japanese crews, were recruited by the U.S. military to bring troops and supplies to South Korea. Thousands of Japanese crew members and workers were active during the U.S. landings at Incheon and Wonsan. According to estimates by Japan's Special Procurement Agency, 56 Japanese sailors and workers were killed in the Korean War area in the first six months of the war alone.
Minesweeper moored in Sasebo Port during the Korean War
In addition, there were some Japanese who were directly involved in the war, mostly as translators, drivers, cooks, and laborers, and also distributed guns to participate in the war. British media reported that Japanese bodies had been found on the front lines, and when 72 Japanese returned to Japan, 15 said they had fought with the weapons they had been issued and many were injured.
A young Japanese man named Takatsu in Hokkaido, a cook at a U.S. military base in Japan, followed U.S. troops to South Korea in September 1950 and advanced toward the Chinese border. After being severely attacked by the Chinese volunteers, Gao Jin was wounded in the neck and the carbine was thrown away, he recalled: "Chinese came to fight every night, many people were killed, I helped the wounded people get on the truck ... Staying behind the truck and getting dizzy. In the end, Gao Jin suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to the rear hospital for treatment.
Shunichi Nakatani, 90, shows a photo of his dead brother who died in minesweeping operations during the Korean War
It is worth mentioning that during the Korean War, the United States and Japan signed a bilateral security treaty, which promoted the establishment of a military force called the National Police Reserve to supplement the military functions of allied forces in Japan, which was also the predecessor of the Japanese Self-Defense Force.
National Police Reserve (predecessor of the Ground Self-Defense Force) established in 1950
It can be said that the reason why Japan was able to rise rapidly after defeat and return to the international stage was mainly to rely on the Korean War as a transport brigade of the United Nations Army and achieve rapid development of the local economy. One war fell into ruins, and another war crept up from the rubble.
References: "Postwar Fighters: Japanese Fighters in the Korean War", "The Forgotten Japanese in Korea"