No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Investigating the Ukishima-maru Incident in Occupied Japan: Survivor Testimonies and Related Documents
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
This article reproduces documents related to an aborted SCAP war crime investigation into the Ukishima-maru incident conducted during the Allied occupation of Japan. The incident involved the sinking of a repatriation vessel (the Ukishima-maru) on 24 August 1945 after it apparently struck a mine in Maizuru Bay, causing hundreds if not thousands of deaths among the Korean forced laborers aboard the vessel. The documents include the testimonies of Korean survivors (submitted in Japanese and translated into English by SCAP officers) which supported the claim that the incident was planned by the Japanese authorities. Though the investigation was eventually terminated by SCAP which dismissed the testimonies as “hearsay account[s]”, the documents are a useful window into the tense situation faced by Koreans in Japan during the immediate postwar years and cast light on the nature and quality of SCAP efforts to pursue justice in its investigation.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 2021
References
Works Cited:
Augustine, Matthew R. 2017. “The Limits of Decolonization: American Occupiers and the ”Korean Problem“ in Japan, 1945-1948”. International Journal of Korean History (22/1): 43–73.Google Scholar
Bull, Jonathan. and Ivings, Steven. 2020. “Korean Repatriation and Historical Memory in Postwar Japan: Remembering the Ukishima-maru Incident at Maizuru and Shimokita”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus 18 (21/5): 1–21.Google Scholar
Caprio, Mark, and Yu, Jia, 2009. “Occupation of Korea and Japan and the Origins of the Korean Diaspora in Japan”. In Ryang, Sonia and Lie, John. (eds.) Diaspora without Homeland: Being Korean in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Carruthers, Susan L. 2016. The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, Deokhyo. 2021. “The Empire Strikes Back from Within: Colonial Liberation and the Korean Minority Question at the Birth of Postwar Japan, 1945–47”. The American Historical Review, 199: 1–30.Google Scholar
Chōsenjin Kyōsei Renkō Shinsō Chōsadan. 1974. Chōsenjin Kyōsei Renkō Shinsō Chōsa no Kiroku [Records of the Investigation into Korean Forced Labor] 6 volumes. Tōkyō: Kashiwa Shobō.Google Scholar
Dower, John. 1999. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
GHQ/SCAP Records, LS-39038 [Copy held in Maizuru City East Library].Google Scholar
Kim, Chanjong. 1984. Ukishima-maru Pusankō e mukawazu [Ukishima-maru: without heading to Pusan port]. Tōkyō: Kōdansha.Google Scholar
McNaughton, James C. 2006. Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service During World War II. Washington D. C.: United States Department of Defense.Google Scholar
Minear, Richard. and Seraphim, Franziska. 2015. “Hanaoka Monogatari: The Massacre of Chinese Forced Laborers, Summer 1945”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus 13 (26/1): 1–46.Google Scholar
National Archives Catalog. 2021a. “Investigation Division Reports (No. 130) [Ukishima-maru Incident]”. [Accessed 6 Sept. 2021].Google Scholar
National Archives Catalog. 2021b. “Investigation Reports, 1945 – 1949”. [Accessed 6 Sept. 2021].Google Scholar
Pendas, Devin O. 2020. “Testimony”. In Dobson, Miriam and Ziemann, Benjamin. (eds.) Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History (2nd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Records of General Headquarters Far East Command; Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4564: Repairs and Alterations, Binder No. 3, 16 Oct 1949 - 31 Aug 1950. National Diet Library Online. [Accessed 12 Sept. 2021].Google Scholar
Shimokita no Shōgen wo Hakkan Suru Kai. 1992. Aigo no Umi – Ukishima-maru Jiken Shimokita kara no Shōgen [Crying Sea – Testimonies from Shimokita on the Ukishima-maru Incident]. Mutsu: Shimokita no Shōgen wo Hakkan Suru Kai.Google Scholar
Shinada, Shigeru. 2008. Bakuchin Ukishima-maru Rekishi no Fūka to Tatakau [Ukishima-maru Sank on Explosion: Fighting the Forgetting of History]. Tōkyō: Kōbunken.Google Scholar
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Headquarters. 1952. History of the Nonmilitary Activities of the Occupation of Japan, 1945-1951: Trials of Class “B” and Class “C” War Criminals. Reprinted in: Nihon senryō GHQ seishi: B/C kyū senpan saiban, Dai 5 kan. (Tōkyō: Nihon Tosho Sentaa, 1990).Google Scholar
Takemae, Eiji (trans. Ricketts, R. and Swann, S. 2002. The Allied Occupation of Japan. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Totani, Yuma. 2008. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Ukishima-maru Junansha Tsuitō Jikkō Iinkai. 1989. Ukishima-maru Jiken no Kiroku [A Record of the Ukishima-maru Incident] Kyōto: Kamogawa Shuppan.Google Scholar
Underwood, William. 2006. “Names, Bones and Unpaid Wages (1): Reparations for Korean Forced Labor in Japan”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus 4 (9): 1–25.Google Scholar
United States Department of State. 1946. Occupation of Japan' Policy and Progress. Washington DC: Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office. Watt, Lori. 2009. When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Wilson, Sandra et al. 2017. Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice After the Second World War. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
You have
Access