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Defending Civilians against Aerial Bombardment: A Comparative/Transnational History of Japanese, German, and British Home Fronts, 1918-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Sheldon Garon
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Abstract

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This essay reveals the vital role of transnational learning in structuring air defense in Japan, Germany, and Britain in World War II, while comparing how each regime shaped the contours of home-front mobilization. In the decades between the two world wars, states increasingly recognized the new threat of aerial bombardment of cities, and they actively investigated other nations' efforts at “civilian defense” and “total war.” Learning continued during World War II. In countries experiencing bombing, civil defense programs did more to mobilize daily life than any other wartime imperative. Remarkably, civil defense operations in Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and democratic Britain resembled each other—recruiting or conscripting millions of men, women, and youths to serve as neighborhood-based air raid wardens, “fire watchers,” first-aid workers, and members of civil defense associations. At the same time, differences in regimes and circumstances affected the degree of compulsion in each case.

Keywords

Transnational LearningHome FrontsFirebombingCivil DefenseNeighborhood AssociationsEvacuationsWartime Mobilization of Women and YouthForced Labor
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 23 , December 2016 , e5
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2016

References

Notes

1 Sheldon Garon, “Ursprünge und Entwicklung der Strategischen Bombardierung,” in Gorch Pieken, Mathias Rogg, and Ansgar Snethlage, eds., Schlachthof 5: Dresdens Zerstörung in literarischen Zeugnissen (Dresden: Militär Historisches Museum, 2015), 29-41.

2 In Japanese history, in particular, studies of “fascism” have proliferated recently. E.g., Reto Hofmann, The Fascist Effect: Japan and Italy, 1915-1952 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).

3 See Sheldon Garon, “The Home Front and Food Insecurity in Wartime Japan: A Transnational Perspective,” in Hartmut Berghoff, Jan Logemann, and Felix Römer, eds., The Consumer on the Home Front: Second World War Civilian Consumption in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 29-53.

4 Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013), 20-23; Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (1942; reprint Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 5-10, 20-23, 150, 182, 188, 195-96.

5 Air Raid Precautions Committee, 10th meeting, 1 December 1924, 17th meeting, 30 March 1925, and “Air Staff Notes on Enemy Air Attack on Defended Zones in Great Britain,” A.R.P./5, 28 May 1924, Memoranda, Records of the Cabinet Office, Committee of Imperial Defense, CAB 46/1 and 46/3, The National Archives of the UK [herafter TNA].

6 Gennifer Weisenfeld, “Gas Mask Parade: Japan's Anxious Modernism,” Modernism/modernity 21, no. 1 (January 2014): 179-99.

7 Reichsminister der Innern, “Abschnitt VII: Brandschutz,” 19 October 1932, Luftschutz für die Zivilbevölkerung, vol. 5, March 1932- June 1933, R32816, IIF Luft, Politische Archiv, Foreign Office, Germany, Berlin [hereafter PA].

8 Tsuchida Hiroshige, Kindai Nihon no “Kokumin bōkū” taisei (Tokyo: Kanda Gaigo Daigaku shuppankai, 2010), 181-82.

9 Ministry of Home Security, Air Raids: What You Must Know, What You Must Do, rev. ed. (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1941), 9.

10 Reich Defense Ministry, “Referentenaufzeichnung des Reichswehrministeriums. Unterlagen über Reichsluftschutz für Reichskabinnettsitzung am 12.9.27”; handbill by Deutsche Luftschutz Verband, sent to the German Foreign Office, 29 October 1932, Luftschutz für die Zivilbevölkerung, vol. 1, April 1927-October 1928, R32812, and vol. 5, March 1932- June 1933, R32816, IIF Luft, PA.

11 Juergen Paul Melzer, “Assisted Takeoff: Germany and the Ascent of Japan's Aviation, 1910-1937” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2014), 48. Following East Asian practice, Japanese surnames precede given names in this essay.

12 6 September 1923, Ugaki Kazushige, Ugaki Kazushige nikki, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1971), 445-46; J. Charles Schencking, The Great Kantō Earthquake and the Chimera of National Reconstruction in Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 76-77; Senda Tetsuo, Bōkū enshūshi (Tokyo: Bōkū enshūshi hensanjo, 1935), 5, 31.

13 Reichswirtschaftsministerium Kanzlei [Ronde] to Ministerialrat Wagner [Ministry of Interior], “Der Luftschutzgedanke in Deutschland und im Ausland,” 29 April 1929, Luftschutz für die Zivilbevölkerung, vol. 2, October 1928-June 1929, R32813, IIF Luft; for a periodic Air Ministry “press report” on air raid defense developments in some 20 countries, see Reichsluftfahrtministerium, Luftschutz-Pressebericht, no. 17/37 (10 October 1937), in Gasund Luftschutzfragen in Ausland, 1936-1938, R101487; foreigners' visits to German facilities are reported in Gas- und Luftschutzfragen in Deutschland, vol. 1, 1937-1938, and vol. 2, 1938-1939, R 101483-84, Pol. I-Luft, PA.

14 “Interim Report of Air Raids Precautions (Organisation) Sub-Committee,” November 1930, CAB 46/6, TNA.

15 “Report on the Visits to Berlin and Paris of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Major Fraser, M.C., January 18-27, 1938,” 10 March 1938, HO 45/17627; “Training of Civil Population in Passive Air Raid Precautions in Germany,” 8 April 1937, WO 190/535, TNA.

16 Bōei Kenshūjo, Senshishitsu, Hondo bōkū sakusen, Senshi sōsho, vol. 19 (Tokyo: Asagumo shinbunsha, 1968), 42, 46, 260-61; Tsuchida, Kindai Nihon no “Kokumin bōkū,” 228-29; Tanabe Heigaku, Doitsu bōkū, kagaku, kokumin seikatsu (Tokyo: Sagami shobō, 1942); Cary Lee Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire: War, Occupation, and the Remaking of a Metropolis” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2006), 53-54, 71-72.

17 Gaimushō Ō-A-kyoku, Senjika no Eikoku jijō (Tokyo: Gaimushō Ō-A-kyoku, daisanka, 1941); Kokumin bōkū, 5, no. 6 (June 1943): 20-25; 6, no. 7 (July 1944): 18-21, 37.

18 Deutlev J.K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life, trans. Richard Deveson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 73; also, Dietmar Süss, Death from the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II, trans. Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 38-39.

19 “Bericht der Deutschen Luftshutz Liga,” attachment to letter, Deutsche Luftschutz Liga, Direktorium [Geisler], to Geheimrat Frohwein, Auswärtiges Amt, 21 October 1931, in Deutsche Luftschutz Liga, August 1931-October 1932, R32823, IIF Luft, PA.

20 Fujii Tadatoshi, Kokubō fujinkai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1985), 198-203.

21 Gregory Kasza, The Conscription Society: Administered Mass Organizations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 18.

22 “Air Raid Precautions in Germany and France,” Committee of Imperial Defence for its 316th meeting of 31 March 1938, HO 45/17627, TNA.

23 Women's Voluntary Services, Report of Ten Year's Work for the Nation, 1938-1948 (London: Women's Voluntary Services, 1949), introduction, 10.

24 Süss, Death from the Skies, 147-49.

25 Mizushima Asaho and Ōmae Osamu, Kenshū bōkūho: Kūshūka de kinjirareta hinan (Kyoto: Hōritsu bunkasha, 2014), 9-15, 38.

26 Süss, Death from the Skies, 149-54.

27 “Organisation, Training and Administration of the Fire Guard Service,” provisional draft, November 1941, in A.R.P., Fire Guards and Fire Prevention: The Organisation, Training and Administration of the Fire Guard Service, October 1941, HO 186/837; 1st meeting, 1 January 1941,War Cabinet, Civil Defence Committee, Minutes, 1941, CAB 73/4; Ministry of Home Security, Women: Compulsory Recruitment as Fire Guards, 1941-1942, HO 186/913, TNA; The Times (London), 31 January 1941, p. 2; 5 April 1941, p. 2; 8 August 1941, p. 2; 8 August 1942, p. 2.

28 New York Times, 8 August 1942, p. 4.

29 Ministry of Home Security, CD. Duties (Compulsory Enrolment) Order Enforcement—Prosecution for Failing to Perform Duties. Transitional Cases between 30 June 1943 and 20 September 1943, HO 186/1142, TNA.

30 Ministry of Home Security, A.R.P. Handbook No. 14, The Fire Guards Handbook (3rd Draft), 16 November 1941, in A.R.P., Fire Guards and Fire Prevention: The Organisation, Training and Administration of the Fire Guard Service, October 1941, HO 186/837, TNA.

31 Mizushima and Ōmae, Kenshū bōkūho, 5-6.

32 “British Fire-Fighters Shock Germany: ‘Churchill's Cannon-Fodder,‘” The Times, 20 January 1941, p. 2.

33 Evacuation: Special Scheme: Nightly Trekkers' Scheme from Hull City, 1941-1944, HO 186/1861, TNA.

34 Richard M. Titmuss, Problems of Social Policy (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1950), 102-3, 137-39.

35 Overy, Bombing War, 419, 440-41, 473-74.

36 Bōei Kenshūjo, Hondo bōkū, 65.

37 Nanba Sanjūshi, “Toshi shishu wa gimu da!” Kokumin bōkū 3, no. 10 (November 1941): 25.

38 See Gregory Scott Johnson, “Mobilizing the ‘Junior Nation’: The Mass Evacuations of School Children in Wartime Japan” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 2009), 137-43, 146, 158, 161-62, 169-187, 220-24, 243.

39 Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire,” 101-2.

40 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Urban Areas Division, The Effects of Air Attack on Japanese Urban Economy, Summary Report (Washington, DC: USSBS, 1947), 5, 7-8.

41 Christian Science Monitor, 13 June 1942, p. 7; New York Herald Tribune, 25 January 1939, p. 6.

42 “Intelligence Branch Report No. 1: General Report for the Fortnight Ending January 29th, 1941,” in Intelligence Branch Reports Nos 1 to 31 on Effects of Air Raids from 1 Jan 1941 to 25 Mar 1942, London Civil Defence Region, Ministry of Home Security: Intelligence Branch, HO 199/115, TNA.

43 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Civilian Defense Division, Civilian Defense Division Final Report (Washington, DC: USSBS, 1947), 74.

44 Ministry of Home Security, Intelligence Branch, “Civil Defence in Germany,” 15 August 1941, p. 10, SECURITY Intelligence Reports on Civil Defence in Germany, HO 186/2649; “Report by the Police President and Local Air Protection Leader of Hamburg on the Large Scale Raids on Hamburg in July and August 1943: Experiences,” p. 26, Home Office, Civil Defence Department, Intelligence Branch Publication, 1946, AIR 20/7287, TNA.

45 Nicole Kramer, Volksgenossinnen an der Heimatfront: Mobilisierung, Verhalten, Erinnerung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 11-12; Süss, Death from the Skies, 37-38, 324-25.

46 Mark Spoerer and Jochen Fleischhacker, “Forced Laborers in Nazi Germany: Categories, Numbers, and Survivors, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33, no. 2 (Autumn 2002): 196-97.

47 Süss, Death from the Skies, 219-21, 423.

48 Michael Weiner, Race and Migration in Imperial Japan (London: Routledge, 1994), 192-99, 207.

49 Irene B. Taeuber, The Population of Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 129-46.

50 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Civilian Defense Division, Final Report Covering Air-Raid Protection and Allied Subjects in Japan (Washington, DC: USSBS, 1947), 8, 10-11, 26, 29, 31-32, 61, 73, 195, 197.

51 Kawaguchi Tomoko, Tatemono sokai to toshi bōkū (Kyoto: Kyōto daigaku gakujutsu shuppankai, 2014), 111-17; Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire,” 71; Hiroshima Peace Media Center, “Hiroshima: 70 Years After the A-bombing: Mobilized Students 3,” See Here

52 E.g., “Morale,” Interview with Lt. Col. TSUNEYOSHI, Yoshitomo, Kempei-Tai (Military Police), 19 December 1945, pp. 1-2, USSBS Transcripts of Interrogations and Interrogation Reports of Japanese Industrial, Military, and Political Leaders, 1945-46, Entry 43, Records of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, RG 243, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.

53 Nehemiah Jordan, U.S. Civil Defense before 1950: The Roots of Public Law 920 (Washington, DC: Institute for Defense Analyses, Economic and Political Studies Division, 1966), 70-76; Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany's First U-Boat Attacks along the American Coast in World War II (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 185-86, 344-45, 366; cf. Matthew Dallek, Defenseless under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).