Like my two other books about security and territorial issues in the U.S.-Japan relationship, The Origins of the Bilateral Okinawa Problem: Okinawa in U.S.-Japan Relations, 1945-19523 and The Return of the Amami Islands: The Reversion Movement and U.S.-Japan Relations, 4 this is first and foremost a study on the "intra-alliance" dynamics in which one country, the United States, continued to occupy and administer islands that were recognized as Japanese territory but, for a number of reasons, the United States and its wartime allies felt necessary to continue to administer. The longer this control continued, the more unnecessary it was seen by increasingly larger segments of the public and government of both countries due to the political erosion of the relationship caused by this friction. The question for policy makers and political leaders was finding the balance between security concerns, reversion demands, and national sentiment (in both countries), particularly as it related to the memory and sacrifices at Iwo Jima, in an effort to maintain friendly and cooperative relations. Eventually, the U.S. government agreed to Japanese requests to return the islands and this was done on 26 June 1968, a full four years prior to the even more problematic, but strategically important, Okinawa.

Ownership of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea is disputed between China and Japan, though historically the islands have been part of Okinawa, the southernmost islands of the Japanese archipelago. The dispute, which also involves Taiwan, has the potential to be a flashpoint between the two countries if relations become more strained, especially as the exploitation of gas reserves in the adjoining seabed is becoming an increasingly important issue. A key aspect of the dispute is the attitude of the United States, which, surprisingly, has so far refrained from committing itself to supporting the claims of one side or the other, despite its long-standing, strong alliance with Japan. This book charts the development of the Senkaku Islands dispute, and focuses in particular on the negotiations between the United States and Japan prior to the handing back to Japan in 1972 of Okinawa. The book shows how the detailed progress of these negotiations was critical in defining the United States' neutral attitude to the dispute and the problems this position presents.

This book is a collection of interwoven historical narratives that present an intriguing and little known account of the Ogasawara (Bonin) archipelago and its inhabitants. The narratives begin in the seventeenth century and weave their way through various events connected to the ambitions, hopes, and machinations of individuals, communities, and nations. At the center of these narratives are the Bonin Islanders, originally an eclectic mix of Pacific Islanders, Americans, British, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and African settlers that first landed on the islands in 1830. The islands were British sovereign territory from 1827 to 1876, when the Japanese asserted possession of the islands based on a seventeenth century expedition and a myth of a samurai discoverer. As part of gaining sovereign control, the Japanese government made all island inhabitants register as Japanese subjects of the national family register. The islanders were not literate in Japanese and had little experience of Japanese culture and limited knowledge of Japanese society, but by 1881 all were forced or coerced into becoming Japanese subjects. By the 1930s the islands were embroiled in the Pacific War. All inhabitants were evacuated to the Japanese mainland until 1946 when only the descendants of the original settlers were allowed to return. In the postwar period the islands fell under U.S. Navy administration until they were reverted to full Japanese sovereignty in 1968. Many descendants of these original settlers still live on the islands with family names such as Washington, Gonzales, Gilley, Savory, and Webb. This book explores the social and cultural history of these islands and its inhabitants and provides a critical approach to understanding the many complex narratives that make up the Bonin story.

When American occupiers broke up the Japanese empire in the wake of World War II, approximately 1.7 million people departed Japan for various parts of Northeast Asia. The mass exodus was spearheaded by Koreans, many of whom chartered small fishing vessels to ship them back quickly to their liberated homeland, while wartime devastation hampered the return of Okinawans to their archipelago. By the time the officially endorsed repatriation program was inaugurated, however, increasing numbers of people began escaping US military rule in southern Korea and the Ryukyu Islands by smuggling themselves into occupied Japan. How and why did these migrants move across borderlines newly drawn by American occupiers in the region? Their personal stories reveal what liberation and defeat meant to displaced peoples, and how the compounding challenges of their resettlement led to the expansion of smuggling networks. The consequent surge of unauthorized border-crossings spurred occupation authorities into forging exclusionary migration regulations. Through a comparative study of Korean and Okinawan experiences during the postwar occupation era, Matthew Augustine explores how their migrations shaped, and were in turn shaped by, American policies throughout the region. This is the first comprehensive study of the dynamic and often contentious relationship between migrations and border controls in US-occupied Japan, Korea, and the Ryukyus, examining the American interlude in Northeast Asia as a closely integrated, regional history. The extent of cooperation and coordination among American occupiers, as well as their competing jurisdictions and interests, determined the mixed outcome of using repatriation and deportation as expedient tools for dismantling the Japanese empire. The heightening Cold War and deepening collaboration between the occupiers and local authorities coproduced stringent migration laws, generating new problems of how to distinguish South Koreans from North Koreans and “Ryukyuans” from Japanese. In occupied Japan, fears of communist infiltration and subversion merged with deep-seated discrimination, transforming erstwhile colonial subjects into “aliens” and “illegal aliens.” This transregional history explains the process by which Northeast Asia and its respective populations were remade between the fall of the Japanese empire and the rise of American hegemony.

Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. Flyboys, a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor, tells the story of those men. Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. One of those nine was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine. The others were captured by Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jima and held prisoner. Then they disappeared. When the war was over, the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. The records of a top-secret military tribunal were sealed, the lives of the eight Flyboys were erased, and the parents, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts they left behind were left to wonder. Flyboys reveals for the first time ever the extraordinary story of those men. Bradley's quest for the truth took him from dusty attics in American small towns, to untapped government archives containing classified documents, to the heart of Japan, and finally to Chichi Jima itself. What he discovered was a mystery that dated back far before World War II-back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's first confrontation with the western world. Bradley brings into vivid focus these brave young men who went to war for their country, and through their lives he also tells the larger story of two nations in a hellish war. With no easy moralizing, Bradley presents history in all its savage complexity, including the Japanese warrior mentality that fostered inhuman brutality and the U.S. military strategy that justified attacks on millions of civilians. And, after almost sixty years of mystery, Bradley finally reveals the fate of the eight American Flyboys, all of whom would ultimately face a moment and a decision that few of us can even imagine. Flyboys is a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor. It is about how we die, and how we live-including the tale of the Flyboy who escaped capture, a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush who would one day become president of the United States. A masterpiece of historical narrative, Flyboys will change forever our understanding of the Pacific war and the very things we fight for.