Post War Asia

Cold War Asian map

In eastern Asia, the end of the war brought a long period of turmoil. In the European colonies occupied by Japan, liberation movements were established–some strongly Communist in outlook. In Indochina, Indonesia, and Malaya, wars were fought against the colonial powers as well as between rival factions.

The messy aftermath of war precipitated the final crisis of the old European imperialism; by the early 1950s, most of Southeast Asia was independent. In Burma and India, Britain could not maintain its presence. India was divided into two states in 1947, India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim), and Burma was granted independence a year later.

Japan was not restored to full sovereignty until after the San Francisco Treaty was signed on September 8, 1951. The emperor was retained, but the military was emasculated and a parliamentary regime had been installed. Japanese prewar possessions were divided up. Manchuria was restored to China in 1946 (though only after the Soviet Union had removed more than half the industrial equipment left behind by the Japanese). Taiwan was returned to Chinese control. Korea was occupied jointly by the Soviet Union and the United States, and two independent states — one Communist, one democratic — were established there in 1948.

The most unstable area remained China, where the prewar conflict between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong was resumed on a large scale in 1945.

After four years of warfare, the Nationalist forces were defeated and Chiang withdrew to the island of Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China was declared in 1949, and a long program of rural reform and industrialization was set in motion. The victory of Chinese communism encouraged Stalin to allow the Communist regime in North Korea to embark on war against the South in the belief that America lacked the commitment for another military conflict.

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when the troops of Kim Il Sung crossed the 38th parallel, the agreed-upon border between the two states. By this stage, the international order had begun to solidify into two heavily armed camps.

In 1949 the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. That same year, the U.S. helped organize a defensive pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to link the major Western states together for possible armed action against the Communist threat.

By 1951 Chinese forces were engaged in the Korean conflict, exacerbating concerns that another world war — this time with nuclear weapons — might become a reality. The optimism of 1945 had, in only half a decade, given way to renewed fears that international anarchy and violence might be the normal condition of the modern world.

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Military Humor –

“I HOPE YOU’RE NOT ANGRY WITH ME FOR TAKING YOU AWAY FROM YOUR FRIENDS.”

“WELL, NO… BUT I DO HELP RUN IT.”

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Farewell Salutes – 

Andrew H. Anderson – NYC, NY; US Army, Pentagon, Vietnam, 1/5/25th Infantry Division commander, MGeneral (Ret. 40 y.)

David M. Blum – Newark, NJ; US Army, counterintelligence

Vernon J. Cox – Edison, NJ/Port St. Lucie, FL; US Merchant Marines

Christopher R. Eramo – Oneonta, NY; Chief Warrant Officer 3, 1/25/11th Airborne Division Arctic

John C. Grant – Detroit, MI; US Navy, US Naval Academy graduate 1956

Harvey R. Hathaway – Rocky River, OH; US Air Force, captain, Medical Unit M.D.

Joseph P. Kuc – Buffalo, NY; US Air Force

Kyle D. McKenna – Colorado Springs, CO; Chief Warrant Officer 2, 1/25/11th Airborne Arctic

Rafael A. Oliver – W.Palm Beach, FL; US Army, WWII, PTO

Thomas E. Perugini – Philadelphia, PA; US Army

William C. Talen Sr. – Delray Beach, FL; US Army, WWII

Grace Uhart – Oakland, CA; US Army WAC,  WWII, secretary, General Staff Pentagon,

Stuart D. Wayment – North Logan, UT; Warrant Officer 1, 1/25/11th Airborne Division Arctic

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Poem for the end of a war

B-29 air raid damage in Hachioji, Japan, 1 Aug. 1945

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

GI hooks a tow rope to a Type 97 Te-Ke tank during cleanup of the Okinawa battlefields at the end of WWII in 1945.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

U.S. and Japanese soldiers collaborate to rebuild Japan

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

The author was located by Hilary Custance Green –  it is Wislawa Szymborska.

(Translated from Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

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Military Humor – 

“WHO SAYS THE NAVY CLEANS UP BETTER THAN THE ARMY?”

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Farewell Salutes – 

Edward Burst – Cannelton, IN; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co. G/511/11th Airborne Division

Francis Flaherty – Charlotte, MI; US Navy, WWII, Ensign, USS Oklahoma, KIA (Pearl Harbor)

Tom Freeman – Frostproof, FL; US Navy, WWII, PTO, radarman, USS Abercrombie

E.H. ‘Jack’ Hoffman – Canton, OH; US Army, WWII, Corps of Engineers

William Long – NY; US Navy, WWII, PTO & CBI, Corpsman, USS Repose & LCI-1092

Robert A. McKee – WI; US Navy, WWII, PTO, radioman, gunboat LCI-70

Donald Hugh Moore – Carrolton, GA; US Navy, (Ret. 34 y.)

Guy Natusch (99) – Hastings, NZ; RNZ Navy, WWII, ETO, Sub-Lt.,  / Hawkes Bay architect

Thomas Roycraft – Jacksonville, FL; US Navy, Korea (Ret. 20 y.), USS FDR, Lake Champlain + others

Harold Wagner – Cincinnati, OH; USMC, WWII, PTO