Japanese repatriation from Huludao

The Japanese being repatriated from Huludao, China

The Japanese Repatriation from Huludao (Japanese: 葫蘆島在留日本人大送還 Koro-tō Zairyū Nihonjin Dai-sōkan or Chinese: 葫芦岛日侨大遣返) refers to sending back to Japan the Japanese people who were left in Northeast China after the end of World War II in 1945. In this operation, done by the American forces' ships under the auspices of the Republic of China government, over one million Japanese were carried back to their homeland, from 1946 to 1948.

General description

Immediately after the end of World War II in August, 1945, about 1.5 million Japanese people were left in China, the majority of whom were in Northeast China, mostly farmers and merchants. Some of the able-bodied men among them were being sent by the Soviet forces to Siberia for forced labor and still other engineers and medical doctors were beginning to be asked for cooperation by the Chinese Communist forces.

In this situation, the Japanese government did almost nothing in the confusion right after the defeat of the war. Three young men from Anshan (Kunio Maruyama, Hachiro Shimpo and Masamichi Musashi) volunteered to report this situation to Japan, escaped from Manchuria and met with the Japanese government in Tokyo. They later met with General Douglas MacArthur, then the head of the Allied Occupation Forces, who immediately decided on the Japanese repatriation from Huludao.^[1] The American forces which were assisting the Chinese Nationalist government sensed this dangerous situation and sent ships on a tripartite operation to:^[2]

• carry Chinese soldiers from Southern China to north in Huludao, for reinforcement
• repatriate Japanese to Hakata Port, Fukuoka City, Japan
• transport to China the Chinese people who had worked in Japan mostly under forced labor

Huludao in Liaoning Province at that time was the only strategic seaport and corridor to Northeast China that was held by the Nationalist forces, which were battling against the Chinese Communist forces for the control of Northeast China.

From May 7, 1946, when this operation began, till August, 1948, when it ended as Huludao was under pressure from the Communist forces, about 1,050,000 Japanese people were repatriated. Many had died in Haerbin, Changchun, Shenyang during the 1945-46 winter before this operation began. Those who reached Huludao in the worst conditions, but died there, were buried in the nearby Cishan mountain (Chinese: 茨山), in their simplest tombs facing east, towards the direction of their homeland.

A stele commemorating this event in the Sino-Japanese history stands on the seaport in Huludao. It cannot be easily visited because its location is in a restricted area, due to Huludao being a strategic submarine base in China.

See also

• Manchukuo
• Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union

References