Questions about The occupation of Japan
It has been said that the allied occupation of Japan was done in a very smart and very forward thinking way by the Americans with the idea of letting Japanese run Japan which many decades later is still seen as done correctly albeit with some hiccups.
Some questions I have in regards to the occupation of Japan and the pacific in general.
Although there were hundreds of thousands of allied troops in Japan it was not enough to maintain security so many Japanese Soldiers were employed by the allies to help manage the population and help the occupation forces. What I am wondering is how well did these soldiers work with the occupation forces as they spent so many years being subjected to basically being told they are superior and that the allies were evil, one would think that this played heavily on Japanese soldiers minds?
On that same theme because there were not enough allied forces to go around many Japanese soldiers were rearmed and were patrolling many areas of the pacific especially in the Dutch East Indies and Indo China region. How did the civilian populace react to this as the Japanese often were brutal in their treatment of not only POWs but civilians as well?
Many Japanese civilians as was stated in Indie’s Latest episode (The occupation of Japan) that they blamed mostly the military government as the cause of the war and subsequent loss but why are so many war criminals like Tojo to this day still treated as war heroes?
My last question is why when Japanese students learn about japans role in WW2 why is it so whitewashed and a lot of things like Unit 731 or Japanese atrocities of POWs are so muted even in todays Japanese education system?
Thank you for any answers or corrections in my questions