The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 14 | Issue 23 | Number 2 | Article ID 4986 | Dec 01, 2016

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Defending Civilians against Aerial Bombardment: AComparative/Transnational History of Japanese, German, andBritish Home Fronts, 1918-1945

Sheldon Garon

French translation available

Abstract

This essay reveals the vital role of transnationallearning in structuring air defense in Japan,Germany, and Britain in World War II, whilecomparing how each regime shaped thecontours of home-front mobilization. In thedecades between the two world wars, statesincreasingly recognized the new threat of aerialbombardment of cities, and they activelyinvestigated other nations’ efforts at “civiliandefense” and “total war.” Learning continuedduring World War II. In countries experiencingbombing, civil defense programs did more tomobilize daily life than any other wartimeimperative. Remarkably, civil defenseoperations in Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany,and democratic Britain resembled eachother—recruiting or conscripting millions ofmen, women, and youths to serve asneighborhood-based air raid wardens, “firewatchers,” first-aid workers, and members ofcivil defense associations. At the same time,differences in regimes and circumstancesaffected the degree of compulsion in each case.

Keywords: Transnational Learning, HomeFronts, Firebombing, Civi l Defense,Neighborhood Associations, Evacuations,Wartime Mobilization of Women and Youth,Forced Labor.

By the final years of World War II, it hadbecome “normal” to destroy whole cities. Howthis came about is a transnational story,involving the global circulation of ideas of

“strategic bombing.”1 Equally transnational wasthe process by which many nations recognizedthe imperative to protect cities, factories, andhomes from aerial bombardment. “Civiliandefense” (or civil defense) emerged as a vitalpart of the evolving concept of the “homefront.” Reflecting on the lessons of World WarI, strategists around the world insisted that thenext war would be won or lost not only on thebattlefield, but also at home. Civilians mustcontinue to produce; they must be fed in theface of blockades; they must pay taxes and savefor the war effort; and their morale must notcollapse. By 1942, one might have traveledfrom home front to home front—from NaziGermany and bureaucratic-authoritarian Japan,to Soviet Russia and liberal Britain—andobserved common features of wartime life: theubiquitous air raid wardens, blackouts,evacuations, ration coupons, and unappetizingfood substitutes. Despite enormous differencesin political structures, everyday life in theworld at war became regimented as neverbefore. These commonalities, I argue, were nocoincidence. Planners in each belligerentnation had been vigorously investigatingothers’ home-front mobilization policies in therun-up to World War II, as well as during thewar itself.

Much of the comparative historiography on thewarring states spotlights the phenomenon of“fascism”—notably in Italy, Germany, andJapan.2 However, it may be more productive toexamine World War II from the transnational-historical perspective of “total war.” Thisimperative transformed state-society relations

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in all the belligerents, not simply among theAxis powers. Indeed, the development of civildefense was very much a connected and globalhistory. At the same time, we must be wary of“flattening” the differences in the nationalcases. This essay will reveal the vital role oftransnational learning in structuring civildefense in Japan, Germany and Britain, whilealso comparing how each political regimeshaped the contours of civil defense and home-front mobilization. All three cases may beconsidered home fronts under stress, whereenemy bombers brought the battlefront to thehome front. They stood in marked contrast tothe American home front, which experiencedno aerial bombardment after the openingattack on Pearl Harbor.

The Globalization of “Civilian Defense”

The story begins in the waning years of WorldWar I and the interwar era. From Europe toJapan, civil and military officials widelyrecognized the importance of civilian “morale”in making or breaking a nation’s ability to wagethe protracted war of 1914-1918. ImperialGermany lost the war, most experts concluded,when food shortages—exacerbated by theAllied blockade—weakened and demoralizedthe populace. Mothers, workers, sailors, andsoldiers mounted protests that pressed theregime to end the war.3 The dramatic rise of airpower in World War I offered an even morepotent means of striking at morale on the homefront. The airplane made it possible to fly overthe trenches and bomb the enemy’s cities in thehinterland. In 1917 and 1918, German bombersconsciously aimed to destroy British civilianmorale in raids against London and other cities.The new RAF likewise instructed British crewsto bomb “densely populated industrial centres”in Germany to “destroy the morale of theoperatives.” Air power did not prove decisive inWorld War I. However, visionary postwarstrategists around the world soon formulatedmore expansive doctrines of strategic bombing,postulating that air power by itself might win

future wars by attacking the enemy’s cities andfactories. The most influential proponent,Italian officer Giulio Douhet, in 1921 proposedthe merciless bombing of cities, especiallyworking-class neighborhoods, to terrifyworkers into fleeing the factories and forcingtheir leaders to sue for peace. Referring toLondon and Paris, Douhet prophesied that with“a proportionate number of explosive,incendiary, and poison-gas bombs it would befeasible to destroy completely great centers ofpopulation.”4

While the prospect of bombing cities fascinatedair strategists, it simultaneously spurrednations to devise new ways of defending theirhomelands during the 1920s and 1930s.Leading the way was the British government,whose influential Sub-Committee on Air RaidPrecautions began secretly meeting in 1924.Officials took a dim view of the capacity ofcivilians to protect themselves from air attacks.They were particularly concerned withpreventing “panic,” “chaos,” and “moralcollapse,” notably among the working-classpopulation. The Home Office reported on the“loss in morale” that had occurred amongLondon civilians when the Germans bombedthe capital in World War I. The Sub-Committeeexpressed little interest in building air raidshelters or recruiting neighborhood volunteersto be civil defense workers. Discussionsfocused instead on preventing economicallyessential people from fleeing bombed cities,while preemptively evacuating women,children, and others who would otherwisebecome “useless mouths” straining the urbanfood supply after raids. What British officialsfeared most was a “considerable unorganisedexodus to the open country,” which would likelyresult in “starvation.”5

Accordingly, interwar planners in many nationsinitially called their countermeasures “passive”air raid defense to distinguish them from“active” air defense, the latter of whichincluded anti-aircraft guns, fighter planes, and

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early warning systems. Passive air defensereferred to organized evacuations, assistingcivilians to seek shelter during raids, andproviding housing and food following airattacks. However, by the mid-1930s, severalstates had embraced the less passive conceptof “civilian defense.” They envisioned notsimply the protection of civilians, but also theactive participation by civilians in their owndefense. Millions of ordinary men and womenwould be recruited to serve as neighborhood-based air raid wardens, auxiliary firefighters,“fire watchers,” first-aid workers, and membersof workplace civil defense groups. In thecountries facing the imminent threat of aerialbombardment in World War II, civil defenseprograms did more to mobilize daily life on thehome front than any other imperative includingfood distribution and savings campaigns.

This unprecedented mobilization of civilianswas provoked, to a significant degree, by newtechnologies of destruction across the globe.The specter of gas warfare prompted severalEuropean countries and Japan to train civiliansin decontamination from the early 1930s.6 Asthe major powers ratified the 1925 GenevaProtocol that prohibited chemical andbiological weapons, the threat of gas bombsreceded. More menacing were new types ofincendiary bombs—thermite, phosphorous, andmagnesium. These typically small “stick”bombs, weighing from 1 to 2.7 kg (2.2 to 6 lb),could be dropped by the tens of thousands. Bythe end of World War II, the U.S. Army AirForce’s B-29 Superfortress bombers could eachdrop 1,520 M-69 napalm bombs.

Figure 1. In the Reich Air DefenseLeague’s magazine, wartime Germanwomen drill in extinguishing British

“stick” firebombs by shoveling sand orspraying water.

Source: “Selbstschutz gegen Terror: Wirbekämpfen britische Brandbomben,” DieSirene, 1943, no. 8 (April): 89.

Already in 1932, Weimar Germany’s Ministry ofInterior recognized that, in the event of airraids, professional firefighters could not aloneextinguish the myriad firebombs that would fallthrough the roofs of houses. Officials thereforecommitted themselves to establishingneighborhood units for “self-protection”(Selbschutz), with each street constituting aLuftschutzgemeinschaft (air defensecommunity). Each apartment house in turnwould organize a “house fire brigade”( H a u s f e u e r w e h r ) f r o m a m o n g t h eres iden t s—inc lud ing some “bravewomen”—who would be supervised by thestreet warden (Figure 1).7 In 1934, JapaneseArmy researchers similarly concluded that theonly effective means of preventing individualfirebombs from causing a conflagration was totrain every household in methods of spottingfalling firebombs and then extinguishing them.In subsequent mass air-raid drills, residentswere instructed that they had just five minutesto douse flammable materials around the bombwith water before the flames engulfed thehouse and the neighborhood (Figure 2).8 Inwartime Britain, too, the governmentencouraged every home to buy a “stirruppump,” a simple bucket of water and handpump with a 30-foot (9-m) hose whose sprayreputedly sped up a firebomb’s combustionfrom ten minutes to one (Figure 3). As oneBritish manual declared, “fighting firebombs—and so preventing fires—is essentiallya job for the ordinary citizen.”9

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Figure 2. A prewar Japanese pamphlet on“household air defense” similarly instructs

women in how to extinguish firebombswith buckets of water, sand, and hand

pumps.

Source: Kokubō shisō fukyūkai, Katei bōkū(Osaka: Ōsaka kokubō kyōkai, 1937).

Particular developments in each nation also laybehind the rush to civil defense and “self-protection.” In Weimar Germany, civil defensepolicy developed as a direct response to theperceived injustices of the Versail lessettlement. Conservative nationalists in 1927persuaded the Ministry of Interior to takeresponsibility for “passive air defense.” AsMinistry of Defense officials explained to thecabinet, France at the time possessed morethan 500 bombers. Just two squadrons, theynoted, could drop more bombs on Germanythan in all 800 enemy raids of World War I.Acknowledging that the best defense would bean “active” one, they conceded that the Treatyof Versailles (1919) banned Germany frommaintaining any fighter planes and bombers,and it permitted a mere 135 anti-aircraft gunsfor coastal defense. Without “violating theinternational treaties, only passive air defensemeasures are possible.” By 1932, proponents ofcivil defense repeatedly reminded the public ofthe German Volk’s extreme vulnerability,asserting that the country’s many neighborspossessed 10,000 airplanes ready to strike

cities in the heart of Germany.10

Figure 3. Commissioned by Britain’s HomeOffice, these prewar cigarette cards—foundin cigarette packs—illustrate methods bywhich women could neutralize incendiary

bombs that crash through the roofs oftheir homes. The use of stirrup pumps andsand closely resemble German techniques

in Figure 1.

Source: Source: W.D. & H.O. Wills, Air RaidPrecautions: An Album to Contain a Series ofCigarette Cards of National Importance ([GreatBritain]: W.D. & H.O. Wills, 1938), nos. 13-15.

The Japanese state moved even faster toestablish a civil defense apparatus. In July1928, Army and civil authorities held the firstmass air drill in the world in Osaka. Two millionpeople—including members of state-organizedy o u t h , w o m e n ’ s , a n d v e t e r a n s ’associations—took part in a simulated gasattack and city-wide blackout. This exerciseresulted from transnational knowledge, as wellas the influence of a recent natural disaster.Japanese Army officers had extensivelysurveyed European home fronts in World War I,returning with nascent ideas of total war. Theywere determined to mobilize all civilians in thenext war. The Army’s leading aviation expertKusakari Shirō had personally witnessed anearly air raid on Paris in 1916.11 In 1923, the

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Great Kantō Earthquake destroyed much ofTokyo and Yokohama. Some one hundredthousand people died in the quake andconflagration that followed. Army and civilofficials were shocked by the ensuing masspanic. Vigilante groups murdered severalthousand Korean migrants and hundreds ofChinese. Wrote General Ugaki Kazushige, thefuture Army Minister and an influentialproponent of total-war thinking, in his diary:“Chills run down my spine when I think that thenext time Tokyo suffers a catastrophic fire andtragedy on this scale, it could come at thehands of an enemy air attack.” The earthquakeenabled Ugaki and other officials to convincethe government to begin preparing civilians forair raids on Japan’s major cities. Hostilities inManchuria and North China after 1931 andthen all-out war with the Republic of China in1937 accelerated Japanese efforts. On theeleventh anniversary of the Kantō Earthquakeon 1 September 1934, the authoritiescommenced air-raid drills in the three cities ofTokyo, Yokohama, and Kawasaki involving fivemillion residents.12

Transnational Channels

The German and Japanese experienceshighlight the important role of transnationallearning in the rapid spread of ideas andpractices of civil defense. Beginning in the late1920s, the German government energeticallysurveyed air raid defense in Britain, France,I ta ly , the Soviet Union, Po land, theScandinavian countries, the United States, andeven far-off Japan. As in transnationalinvestigation in general, German advocatessought not only to learn from others, but also topersuade their own policymakers that Germanylagged behind its potential enemies and neededto catch up quickly. The German Foreign Officemediated this process by requesting reportsfrom its embassies, relying in particular onmilitary attachés. The Nazi takeover in 1933accelerated German efforts to gatherinformation about civil defense practices

around the world. Assuming control over civildefense, the new Air Ministry worked with theFore ign Of f i ce to survey the la tes tdevelopments in an array of countries,including Britain, France, Italy, the SovietUnion, Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia,Denmark, Japan, and China (under heavy airattack by Japan from 1937). German reportswere compiled every few months. During thelatter half of the 1930s, Berlin became a Meccafor foreign delegations interested in Germany’smuch-vaunted air defense system. Theytypically visited shelters in governmentbuildings, a gas-attack-defense school, and thenationwide Reich Air Defense League(Reichsluftschutzbund or RLB). 1 3

Nothing illustrates the circular nature of thesetransnational exchanges better than the high-level tour of Germany’s air defense facilities byBritain’s Undersecretary of State for HomeAffairs, Geoffrey Lloyd, and his ForeignIntelligence chief in January 1938 (Figure 4).The visit occurred just weeks before Germany’sannexation of Austria and a half-year before theMunich Crisis. Although the British governmenthad been the f irst to explore air raidprecautions in 1924, it had been reluctant totake concrete steps out of fears of panickingthe people. However, in 1930-1931, the Sub-Committee on Air Raid Precautions surveyedprograms in several European nations. Officialsconcluded that the Germans, Soviets, Czechs,and French were far ahead of the British intraining civilians for defense against gasattacks, high-explosive bombs, and fires.14 TheBritish government established its own Air RaidPrecautions Department within the HomeOffice in 1935. The 1938 visit to Germany byUndersecretary Lloyd culminated a flurry ofintelligence-gathering about German civildefense efforts since the previous year. Britishofficials were impressed by the success of theRLB in t ra in ing mi l l i ons o f Germancivilians—including 800,000 house wardens—toextinguish house fires, clear attics of flammablematerials, and repaint homes with fireproofing

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paint. They reported on frequent blackoutexercises held in towns and cities throughoutGermany. Some British officials also observedthat German authorities prudently focusedthe ir c iv i l de fense preparat ions onextinguishing incendiary bombs rather thanneutralizing gas bombs. The Germansreportedly appreciated that their enemies wereunlikely to use poison gas extensively, whereasthe British government fixated on distributinggas masks to every inhabitant—unnecessarilyas it turned out because neither side woulddrop gas bombs. By the outbreak of war inSeptember 1939, the British government hadbuilt a comparable national system of air raidwardens, local fire brigades, and blackoutregulations. From 1940, the reorganizedMin is t ry o f Home Secur i ty devotedconsiderable resources to gatheringintelligence about German civil defense toimprove British defenses, but also to enable theRAF to bomb German and other Axis targetsmore effectively.15

Figure 4. “The German Air DefenseFacilities Model.” On the eve of war

between Britain and Germany, GeoffreyLloyd (center), the British Undersecretaryof State for Home Affairs, and Major F. L.Fraser (right) inspect German air defensefacilities, hosted by Dr. Kurt Knipfer, head

of Germany’s Department of CivilianDefense.

Source: Wochenschau WestdeutscheIllustrierte Zeitung, 30 Jan. 1938, in “Visit toBerlin & Paris with Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd,” 10March 1938, HO 45/17627, TNA.

Japanese officials and civilian experts likewise

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continued to survey other nations’ air raidpreparations during the 1930s and war years.They paid particular attention to the emergingsystem in Nazi Germany and the RLB’snationwide organization of civil defense.Several influential delegations of JapaneseArmy officers and civil officials visited Germanair defense facilities in the mid-1930s andagain in 1940-1941 (after the 1940 signing ofthe Axis pact). Japanese officials closelymodeled their Air Defense Law (1937) afterNazi Germany’s Air Defense Law (1935), bothof which compelled citizens to participate incivil defense activities. Military and navalattachés in Japanese embassies in Berlin andnearby Switzerland sent detailed reports of theincreasingly deadly Allied bombing of Germanyfrom 1943. The firsthand accounts of thefirebombing of Hamburg (July-August) andlarge-scale air raids on Berlin convinced Armyauthorities, the Home Ministry, and PrimeMinister Tōjō Hideki to upgrade Japan’s civildefense system in anticipation of Americanraids on Japanese cities. Japanese urbanplanners, some of whom had recently visitedGermany in the early stages of British bombing,recommended that the reg ime takeextraordinary steps to fireproof Japanese cities,made up largely of wooden structures.Beginning in January 1944, the governmentordered the destruction of large numbers ofwooden homes and buildings in an effort tocreate firebreaks against incendiary attacks.Some 55,000 dwellings and buildings weredemolished in Tokyo alone from February toJuly 1944. Officials also emulated the Germandispersion of government offices and industriesfrom concentrated urban areas.16

At the same time, Japanese air defenseauthorities kept investigating British civildefense methods even after the two nationswere at war with each other. Japan had beenofficially neutral vis-à-vis the Western Alliesuntil December 1941, enabling Japaneseofficials in the London embassy to reportextensively on British home-front mobilization

and civil defense against German air raidsduring “the Blitz” (September 1940 to May1941). Throughout the war, Japanese plannersremained keenly interested in Britishfirefighting techniques against incendiarybombs, the use of women in neighborhood civildefense, and the mass evacuat ion ofschoolchildren from London and othervulnerable cities.17 Japan—like Germany andBritain—continued to adapt its own home-frontprograms based on the study of allies andenemies alike.

Compulsion and Organizing Neighborhoods

To a degree seldom appreciated, transnationalideas and pract ices o f c iv i l defensestandardized methods of mobilizing civilians ina variety of polities. In 1933, the newlytriumphant Nazi Party established the ReichAir Defense League (RLB) under the directionof Hermann Göring and his Air Ministry. TheRLB was a nationwide organization thatreached down to the neighborhood level,boasting a mass membership of 13 million in1939 and 22 million in 1943. This vasthierarchical structure, notes Deutlev Peukert,served to increase popular support for theregime, even among those who were notimpassioned Nazis, for it offered millions oflocal people a “virtually inexhaustible supply ofinsignia, functions and sub-functions.”18 Likemany Nazi organizations, the RLB is usuallyunderstood as the exceptional creation of aradical regime. Indeed, it exhibited extremeNational Socialist features, notably theexclusion of Jews from an otherwise inclusiveorganization charged with defending everyhome from firebombs.

Nonetheless, the RLB may also be understoodas one of the era’s many national mobilizationstructures that reflected global currents. Itabsorbed two Weimar-era air defenseorganizations, which had modeled themselvesafter state-directed air defense leagues in theSoviet Union (Osoaviakhim, established 1927)

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and Poland (League for Air and Gas Defense,established 1929). The Polish league, noted theadmiring German proponents in 1931, hadgarnered one mi l l ion members , andOsoaviakhim claimed several million.19 Germanofficials also reported on efforts to organizemass c iv i l defense organizat ions inCzechoslovakia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland,and Italy.

During the 1930s, mass civi l defenseorganizations would rapidly spread as countriesmobilized civilian populations for the coming“total war” that seemed sure to target thecities. Those global models encouragedJapanese officials in the late 1930s toconsolidate the existing system of state-sponsored organizations. There were severalnationwide organizations, each governed by anindividual ministry and reaching downrespectively to neighborhood-level youthassociations, women’s associations, veterans’associations, and savings associations. Amidthe war with China and growing tensions withthe United States and Britain, the HomeMinistry unified the state’s various localassociations into a single village association(burakukai) or, in the cities, block associations(chōnaikai). Below the village or blockassociat ion stood the newly createdneighborhood associations (tonarigumi),comprised of approximately every tenhouseholds. The block associations were clearlyinspired by Germany’s street associations ledby either the RLB’s street warden or the NaziParty’s block warden (Blockwart), while theneighborhood associations corresponded toGerman “house” units. Japan’s block andneighborhood associations became thecomprehensive units for home-frontmobilization after 1940—charged with civildefense, food rationing, collection of nationalsavings, and mutual surveillance. Membershipwas mandatory. The neighborhood associationheads, who doubled as air raid wardens, wereusually men initially. Women, however,increasingly headed the neighborhood

associations in fact, and most active memberswere women.20 The Americans did not heavilybomb Japanese cities until the last five monthsof the war in 1945, so the neighborhoodassociations found themselves drilling for yearsin the use of buckets and hand pumps againstthe anticipated incendiary bombs.

We generally associate “administered massorganizations” like the RLB or the Japaneseneighborhood associations with authoritarianregimes.21 In actuality, the prospect of aerialbombardment—plus investigation of foreignmodels—also prodded European democraciesto establish national mobilization systems. InMarch 1938, the British government’sCommittee on Imperial Defence evenconsidered emulating Nazi Germany’s RLB tocreate its own air defense organization. Britaindid not in the end set up a mass organization,nor did the state ever require all residents tojoin neighborhood civil defense associations asin Germany and Japan. But the Home Office didcompel every local authority to establishcentrally supervised Air Raid Precautionsservices, including wardens, decontaminationparties, first-aid services, rescue parties, andauxiliary firefighters.22 As air raids intensifiedin 1940-1941, greater numbers of men andwomen in neighborhoods were called upon toserve as civi l defense workers in theneighborhoods and workplaces. Preparationsfor air raids also led in 1938 to the organizationof the Women’s Voluntary Service, whicheventually enrolled more than one millionmembers. Despite the term “voluntary,” thegovernment ordered the creation of theorganization explicitly to work in ARP services,instructing that a branch to be set up in eachlocale to work under the orders of the localauthorities. Similar to German and Japaneseassociations, the Women’s Voluntary Servicefocused on recruit ing neighborhood“housewives,” rather than younger “mobilewomen” who would be “called away to theforces or to industry.”23

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Whether authoritarian or democratic, eachstate instituted unprecedented levels ofcompulsion vis-à-vis civilians, although themethods varied. Germany’s Air Defense Law of1935 obligated all German citizens toparticipate in civil defense activities. AsGermany suffered heavier raids, the AirDe fense Law underwent “cons tan tradicalization” and the range of penalties grew,notes Dietmar Süss. Residents faced stiff finesor custodial sentences for violating blackoutregulations, failing to dispose of flammablewaste in houses, or shirking other air raidprotection duties. Repeat offenders of theblackout order were sometimes turned over tothe Gestapo, and local Nazi Party branchest o o k i t u p o n t h e m s e l v e s t o p a t r o lneighborhoods for violations and to reprimandand fine offenders.24

Inspired by the German law, Japan’s AirDefense Law (1937; revised 1941) similarlystipulated an array of fines or imprisonment forthose who evaded their responsibilities for civildefense. Few Japanese offenders faced theradical penalties or terror of the Nazi state,however. Rather, it was the job of theneighborhood association head and hisdeputies to reprimand neighbors for blackoutviolations or evading civil defense duties.Nonetheless, wartime regulations gave thestate powerful legal weapons against thoseresidents who fled their neighborhoods withoutpermission in the face of air raids. The revisedAir Defense Law of 1941 obligated civilians tofulfil l the “duty to engage in stop-gapfirefighting during air attacks.” Moreover, ifthe home minister or his prefectural governorsdeemed it necessary to air defense, they couldprohibit or restrict anyone from leaving theneighborhood. Violators faced up to one year inprison with heavy labor or a maximum fine of1,000 yen.

But more often, Japanese authorities preferredextralegal sanctions, advising the local blockassociations to deny food rations to residents

who failed to perform civil defense duties orwho ran away. This was a potent threatbecause Japanese suffered critical foodshortages by the time the Americans heavilybombed the home islands in 1945. In one tragicepisode in the last days of the war, largenumbers of terrified residents of Aomori fledthe city after U.S. planes dropped leafletswarning that Aomori might be one of the nextbombing targets. The prefectural governorthereupon issued an injunction that “if[residents] do not return to Aomori by 28 July,they will be removed from their blockassociation registers and will no longer receiverationed goods [primarily food].” An officialnotice in the local newspaper likened fleeingtownspeople to military “deserters” who “haveleft their homes virtually empty” and their cityundefended. Many hungry civilians returned toAomori, just in time to experience the 100-bomber night raid of 28 July that killed 728people.25

Britain, too, employed growing levels ofcompulsion during the early years when thethreat of air raids was greatest. In 1940, courtsheard some 300,000 cases of violations of theblackout regulations, and the state sternlyenforced other civil defense regulations.26

Despite a pronounced preference forvoluntarism, the British government eventuallyturned to conscripting men and women for civildefense work. The most pressing need was FireGuards, the fire watchers whose primary taskwas to sit on roofs and immediately report tothe neighborhood and firefighters whereincendiary bombs had fallen. They were alsoexpected to extinguish the bombs wheneverpossible. The massive firebombing of late 1940convinced the war cabinet that the number ofvolunteer fire watchers was insufficient. Inearly 1941, the government gained the powerto compel male British citizens, aged 18-60, toserve as Fire Guards for up to 48 hours perweek in their workplaces when not enoughvolunteers came forward. Another orderrequired all British males, 18-60, to register for

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fire prevention duties in residential areas invulnerable districts. Large numbers were calledup to serve. In November, the Ministry of HomeSecurity proposed that every 150 yards ofstreet or every 30 houses be covered by a“stirrup pump team” of at least three FireGuards. Citing “serious shortages in thenumber of Fire Guards in the target areas,” thegovernment in August 1942 went well beyondNazi Germany to extend compulsory enrollmentto women aged 20 -45 , who cou ld beconscripted as fire watchers in workplaces orneighborhoods. Married women living at homewere liable for fire prevention duty only in theirneighborhoods, while single women could becompelled to serve in any residential areaunder the local authority.27 Invoking thetransnational language used by the Axis andAllies alike, Home Secretary Herbert Morrisondescribed the call-up of women Fire Guards as“one more sign of our total war effort.”28

Moreover, like their Axis counterparts, thecalled-up British Fire Guards could not declineto serve. As late as October 1943, courts wereprosecuting Fire Guards for refusing toperform their duties, sentencing at least one toa three-month prison term.29 Noting that asmall number of bombers “can shower manythousands of small incendiary bombs over atown in the space of a few minutes,” The FireGuards Handbook in 1941 explained it hadbecome “the duty of all able-bodied men andwomen to give whatever service they can in thepart-time army of millions of citizens trained todeal with fire bombs promptly.”30 Scholarstoday roundly condemn the Japanese state forobligating civilians to fight firebombs.31 Yetironically, wartime German propaganda saidmuch the same about the British authorities.The “conscription” of English civilians to fightfires “regardless of sex,” thundered oneGerman radio broadcast, demonstrated “theterrible ruthlessness of the British Governmentwhich throws defenceless people in the middleof the bombardment.” 3 2 Informed bytransnational learning, compulsory civil

defense programs mobilized millions of British,German, and Japanese men and women in theirworkplaces and neighborhoods, and instrikingly similar ways.

Evacuations: Organized and Spontaneous

All three nations wrestled with the problems ofevacuating civilians in the face of air raids. Theevolving transnational civil defense policies ofthe 1930s were predicated on keeping mostessential personnel in cities under attack.These included not only industrial and public-utility workers, but also hundreds of thousandsof ordinary men and women who were expectedto protect their homes and neighborhoods frombombardment. Nazi Germany, the SovietUnion, and Japan all attempted to prevent able-bodied civilians from fleeing bombed cities. Yetthis policy was hardly the exclusive preserve ofauthoritarian states. The British governmenttook various measures (largely unsuccessful) todiscourage the terrified residents of somesmaller cit ies from “trekking” to thecountryside on a nightly basis to escapeGerman air raids. In summer 1941, severalthousand inhabitants of the heavily bombedport city of Hull regularly slept in surroundingfarms or in government Rest Centres. Officialsworried about the lost productivity of sleepyworkers. If the government encouragedtrekking, declared the Minister of Health, “weshall lose the war.”33

The evacuation of Britain’s children was,however, a different matter. Evacuation ofnonessential civilians formed a major elementin British air raid precautions from the start ofthe government’s secret deliberations in 1924.Expecting enemy bombers to strike decisivelyin the first days of World War II, the statebegan evacuating nearly 1.4 million childrenand mothers from London and other cities on 1September 1939, even before declaring war onGermany two days later (826,959 wereunaccompanied schoolchildren and 523,670were mothers and accompanied children). The

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results were mixed. Parents often resistedparting with their children; poor working-classchildren encountered hostility and prejudicefrom their middle-class hosts in small towns;and in the Phony War of 1939-1940, manyfamilies demanded that their children return,only to be in harm’s way when the Germanslaunched the aerial assault on London andother cities in the Blitz from September 1940.Nonetheless, the state subsequently organizedother large-scale evacuations of children duringperiods of intense bombardment.34

Nazi leaders were well aware of Britishevacuations, but during the early years of thewar they took a dim view of organized, long-term evacuations of urban children. Before1943 British bombing was largely ineffective,and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels wasreluctant to alarm the German public. Hitlerdid not authorize any evacuations until lateSeptember 1940, six months after the start ofBritish bombing. He did so in the guise ofsending children aged 10 to 14 from thevulnerable cities to summer camps and youthhostels for short holidays. Hitler eventuallyagreed to the evacuation of whole schoolclasses from dangerous areas in February1943, yet parents could choose not toparticipate, and the numbers remained small.The devastating British firebombing of Ruhrand Rhineland cities and then Hamburg (July-August 1943) shredded what remained of theorganized Nazi evacuation policy. From 1943 to1945, several million German civilians fled thebombed cities, and not even the Nazi regimecould stop the flood. By 1945, Berlin had lost40 percent of its prewar population, Munich 41percent, and Hamburg 35 percent. In Cologne,which experienced repeated bombardment,only 20,000 remained of the 770,000 at thestart of the war.35

In Japan, plans for evacuation of children hadto overcome considerable resistance at the toplevel, succeeding in large part because oftransnational learning. In May 1940, the Army

General Staff opposed mass evacuations ofmost women and children. If in the face of airraids, the people “abandon the cities and runaway, the cities will collapse and our nationaldefense will fail.”36 One year later, Army airdefense specialist Lt. Col. Nanba Sanjūshirejected the evacuation of women and childrenon the grounds of the manpower required tocarry it out. Vowing that Japanese woulddefend bombarded cities “to the death,” hequoted approvingly the Soviet authorities’injunction to civilians in the face of the currentGerman onslaught: “If you abandon Moscow,you will not be permitted to return.”37 PrimeMinister Tōjō opposed evacuations of childrenfor much of the war, fearing they would weakenthe Japanese “family system.” He and othersalso insisted that children should stay in thecities to help extinguish firebombs and assist inother civil defense tasks. On the other hand,many educational officials pressed thegovernment to emulate Britain’s program ofevacuating children en masse. They werejoined by diplomats and an influential formermilitary attaché who had served in theJapanese embassy in London during the Blitz(Figure 5). Other experts surveyed Germanevacuat ion programs. In June 1944,anticipating the destructiveness of impendingair raids on Japanese cities based on reportsfrom Europe, the government began organizingthe evacuation of primary school children (thirdgrade and above) from thirteen cities to thecountryside. Officials also learned from theproblematic experiences of moving Englishchildren into the homes of strangers in theprovinces. Instead the Japanese statetransferred large numbers of schoolchildrenwith their classmates and teachers to ruralareas where they lived communally. DuringAugust 1944, months before significant U.S.bombing, the authorities evacuated some337,000 schoolchildren with their classes, andanother 459,000 were sent to live withrelatives.38

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Figure 5. “The Lessons of London.” In this1944 article in the Japanese government’s

civil defense magazine, a diplomatpreviously stationed in the Japanese

embassy in London describes what hiscountrymen might learn from the

evacuation of children from British citiesat the start of World War II.

Source: Tobe Toshio, “Rondon no kyōkun,”Kokumin bōkū 6, no. 7 (July 1944): 37.

At the same time, the Japanese governmentattempted to restrict unorganized evacuations,particularly by able-bodied men and womendeemed essential to war work and city services.In this endeavor, the state fought a losingbattle—hindered by often contradictorypolicies. In the six major cities and elsewhere,the demolition of hundreds of thousands ofhomes to create firebreaks in 1944 and 1945forced droves of the newly homeless to leavethe cities. In the horrific firebombing of Tokyoon 9-10 March 1945, B-29s Superfortresseskilled some 100,000 residents. The U.S. ArmyAir Force followed up with repeated raids onthe big cities. From June to mid-August, theAmericans extended the bombing campaign to58 small and medium cities throughout Japan.Panicked civilians flooded out of the cities. Civilauthorities did little to stop them. On thecontrary, officials often abetted the exodus,recognizing that the bombed-out cities no

longer could feed and house their populations.Following the 9-10 March raid, the Tokyometropolitan government dramatically changedpolicy, encouraging all nonessential residentsto leave. Providing free tickets, the authoritiesran many extra trains each day to thecountryside. Train cars overflowed withfamilies desperate to escape.39 Not unlike theGerman case, some 8.5 million Japanese fledthe big cities, mostly in the last five months ofthe war. The population of Tokyo city dropped63 percent, and 29 percent of Nagoya’spopulation evacuated in the short periodfollowing two raids in mid-March. Although theauthorities had pledged to keep war workersfrom leaving the cities, a great many in factfled with their families. The Morale Division ofthe U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey estimatedthat of those gainfully employed Japanese whoevacuated, fully 37 percent had worked in warindustries.40

Who Cleared the Rubble?

All three nations mobilized neighborhood men,women, and youth for basic civil defense dutiesas wardens, fire watchers, messengers, andfirst-aid workers. But when it came toparticularly dangerous and physically arduouswork, these regimes differed markedly in theuse of labor power. In wartime Britain, civildefense efforts relied overwhelmingly on adultmale citizens to fight major fires and repairroads, public services, and structures after airraids. The British never mobilized more than afraction of male workers for military service.Moreover, the cities experienced the worst airattacks in 1940-1941, when mil i tarymobilization was still in its early stages. TheBritish civil defense system thus could draw ona large pool of able-bodied men to serve in full-time and part-time firefighting, workplace firewatching, and reconstruction. The governmentestimated the male workforce (aged 18-64) at14 million in 1939. As of 1942, only 4 millionBritons served in the armed forces and another1.75 million were in the Home Guard. The

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National Fire Service employed some 25,000women as paid employees, but they comprisedless than 10 percent of the NFS’ totalworkforce.41 In London, many non-British aliensworked to clear debris and demolish damagedstructures, yet they earned relatively highwages that also lured young Britons from otherwar work.42

Fighting a multi-front and increasinglydesperate land war, Germany faced muchgreater challenges in maintaining manpowerfor the most dangerous civil defense jobs. Evenas the Allied bombing campaign intensifiedagainst the cities in the final months, the Naziregime rapidly diverted able-bodied men tomilitary service to fight the Allied invadingarmies. Inaugurated in October 1944, theVolkssturm (the national militia) conscriptedseveral million additional males between theages of 16 and 60. To fight conflagrationsresulting from incendiary raids, the party-statedepended on older and older men. The averageage of firefighters and rescue workers of themobile Air Raid Protection Battalions(Luftschutz Abteilungen) rose to 52 by the endof the war.43 In the neighborhoods and smallercommercial establishments, women weredrilled in containing smaller fires. Manybecame house and block wardens. Nonetheless,British intelligence and German officialsreported that women fire guards were easilyterrified and generally ineffective in the face ofheavy Allied firebombing raids.44 Ideologically,National Socialism promoted feminine andmaternal roles for women and girls, seeking toprotect them from backbreaking and dangerouswork. Pragmatically, Hitler refrained fromsaddling women with physically demandingtasks, hoping to avoid a repeat of World War Iwhen hungry and demoralized mothers pressedfor an end to the war.45

What most distinguished German civil defensefrom the British and Japanese cases was theNazi state’s massive and racialist exploitationof “non-Aryan” labor in the aftermath of air

raids. If one counts civilian laborers, prisonersof war, concentration camp inmates, and Jews,at least 12 million foreign workers werecompelled to work as forced or slave laborersin Germany during the war.46 Organized byAlbert Speer, Minister of Armaments and WarProduction, special battalions of POWs weresent to bombed cities to clear rubble from1941. The SS also cooperated with Speer tomove large numbers of concentration campinmates and convicts to the cities to clearrubble and repair public services. Theseprisoners were also compelled to removeunexploded bombs, in Heinrich Himmler’swords, so that “courageous firemen” would nothave to risk their lives. Many forced laborersdied in explosions, or were worked toexhaustion. After the deadly firebombing ofHamburg in summer 1943, concentration campinmates were ordered into the “dead zones” toremove thousands of corpses when the airdefense police refused to do so. Compoundingthe dangers to the laborers, German officialscommonly prepared for these post-raid tasks byhousing the inmates in branch camps in thehighly vulnerable city centers before the airattacks.47 Later generations of Germans wouldcommemorate the contributions of German“rubble women” (Trümmerfrauen), wholaboriously brought the devastated cities backto life under the Allied occupations. Yet fewGerman women cleared rubble during the waritself, spared the task by the Nazi regime’senslavement of those considered outside theVolksgemeinschaft (national community).

Wartime Japan also contended with the dearthof younger adult males who could fight firesand restore city services after air raids. By thetime Japanese cities were heavily bombed in1945, more than six million men were servingin the army, and millions more were workinglong hours in war industries or were postedoverseas in civilian positions. Yet unlike NaziGermany, the Japanese state called on womenand adolescent boys and girls to shoulder mucho f t h e b u r d e n f o r d e f e n d i n g t h e i r

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neighborhoods from incendiary attacks. Theregime might have similarly forced foreignlaborers to construct firebreaks or removerubble, but their numbers were far fewer thanin Germany. Most were assigned to mining, warindustries, and other construction projects.Colonial Koreans constituted a sizable pool oflabor in wartime Japan. Companies and thestate recruited or conscripted some 724,000laborers from Korea between 1939 and 1945.Although several thousand Korean laborersworked on the construction of military bunkersand installations in preparation for an Alliedinvasion, few took part in construction anddemolition activities related to the defense ofthe cities. In the chaos that followed thefirebombing of the big cities in March 1945, theauthorities lost control of Korean laborconscripts, who like Japanese civilians fled inlarge numbers.48

Rather than rely on foreign or prison labor,Japanese officials assigned the primaryresponsibility for firefighting, demolition, andrepair to their own nationals in the block andneighborhood associations. The state self-consciously built on early modern Japanesetraditions of volunteer fire units and mutualneighborly assistance. Resources had beensignificantly diverted to the military, and urbanfire departments did not possess the equipmentand mobile units adequate to fight heavyincendiary raids. They also suffered seriousmanpower shortages as the mi l i taryconscripted greater numbers of able-bodiedmen and skilled mechanics. Invariably, the taskof fighting fires fell to neighborhoods—that is,to older men, women, and even children in theresidential associations. Unlike their Nazicounterparts, Japanese leaders had fewinhibitions about mobilizing women fordangerous and heavy labor. A significantproportion of wartime Japan’s urban populationhad grown up in the countryside, where manywomen and girls were accustomed to the rigorsof farm work.49 Armed with buckets and somehand pumps, large numbers of women in the

neighborhood associations reportedlyextinguished smaller fires on the peripheries ofAmerican target zones—even i f theirrudimentary equipment and tactics provedpowerless against infernos in the city centers.50

We should further note the prominent role ofyouths and women in demolishing homes andbuildings to create firebreaks and evacuationlanes. In 1944 and 1945, both before and afterthe big incendiary raids, officials repeatedlyordered the demolition of several hundredthousand houses. Much of this work was doneby teams of “mobilized students” (gakuto dōin).To cope with labor shortages in spring 1944,the state began conscripting boys and girls,aged 14 and older—together with theirclassmates and teachers—to work in factoriesor engage in war-related construction projects.The mobilized students commonly dismantleddwellings and shops in the desperate struggleto reduce the flammability of the cities. Inaddition, armies of women and older men fromthe residential associations took part inremoving debris after raids and the demolitionprojects. For these seriously malnourishedadolescents, demolition work was not onlyexhausting and dangerous, it could also bedeadly. On the morning of 6 August 1945,thousands of mobilized girls and boys weretearing down structures to construct firebreaksin central Hiroshima in anticipation ofan imminent incendiary attack. Instead, some7,000 mobilized students perished in theworld’s first atomic bombing.51

Conclusions

This essay seeks to interweave transnationaland comparative analysis. Nazi Germany’s civildefense programs differed from the other twocases in key respects. The radicalism ofNational Socialism fueled the use of terroragainst uncooperative citizens, and the NaziParty often supplanted state offices byarbitrarily punishing those who violated civildefense rules. Above all, the Nazi regime

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ruthlessly employed foreign laborers, POWs,and concentration camp inmates to reconstructbombed cities. In so doing, Nazi leadersmanaged to cope with the devastating air raidsand maintain popular morale by sparing theracially defined “German people” fromperforming the most dangerous post-raid tasks.Compared to Nazi Germany, British andJapanese civil defense efforts closely resembledeach other despite obvious differences inregimes. They mobilized their own citizens formost aspects of air defense, and theircentralized systems of firefighters, air raidwardens, and local fire watchers operatedwithin existing state structures withoutinterference from a radical party. Nor were thesanctions for violating civil defense regulationsmuch worse in Imperial Japan than in Britain.Once U.S. aircraft began firebombing Japaneseprovincial cities and leafleting other cities thatthey would be next, the undermanned Japanesepolice quickly lost control over the populace. Asofficials of the Kenpeitai (military police) andprefectural police acknowledged after the war,they could do little to stop people from readingthe dropped leaflets. Nor could Japaneseauthorities prevent panicked residents fromflooding out of the cities.52

Yet aside from the extreme reliance on forcedlabor after air raids, German civil defenseoperations shared many features with those ofBritain and Japan. The evolving transnationalconstruction of the “home front” resulted in amuch more connected and common historythan scholars generally assume. Mostbelligerents in World War II embraced theprecepts of “total war,” viewing the protectionand the mobilization of civilians as vital to thewar effort. Moreover, Germany, Japan, andBritain all functioned as home fronts understress, where the threat of deadly air raidslegitimated the unprecedented regimentationof society. The contrast to the American homefront is instructive.

Before entering the war in December 1941,

U.S. officials had investigated British civildefense, and they occasionally warnedAmericans of the threat of German bomberattacks from potential bases in the Atlantic orCaribbean. Yet in the absence of any actual airattack on the mainland of the United States,Americans remained unconvinced of the needto alter their daily lives significantly inwartime. Whereas the Japanese, German, andBritish states had drilled civilians in air defensefor years, the U.S. government only began toestablish a nationwide civilian defense networkin the latter half of 1941. By the beginning of1943, as the possibility of air raids receded, theOffice of Civilian Defense started winding downair defense operations in most cities. WartimeAmerica’s relaxed approach to enforcingblackouts may stand as its most glaringdifference with other nations. In Britain, Japan,and Germany, adherence to blackoutregulations was an important measure ofsolidarity and collective discipline during thewar. In American communities, by contrast,residents and businesses only loosely obeyedrules on blackouts and the more limited“dimouts,” frequently complaining about theirill effects on tourism and entertainment. Evenat the height of the nation’s vulnerability inearly 1942, German U-boats were able to sinkmany Allied ships off the East Coast, guided bythe bright lights of seaside towns and cities,including Manhattan.53

Let us return to the home fronts under stress.In so many aspects, what distinguished British,Japanese, and German civil defense systemswere not their regimes, but rather differencesin the degree and timing of these stresses.Britain suffered heavy bombardment and thethreat of a German invasion for only one year in1940-1941. Toward the end of the war, V-1flying bombs and V-2 rockets killed manyBritons, but did not constitute an existentialthreat. The German home front, on the otherhand, experienced increasingly severe bombingfor five years. Japanese leaders, for their part,spent the war preparing their people for Allied

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air attacks, which eventually occurred in theconcentrated U.S. firebombing of the war’sfinal five months. Even democratic Britaincreated a comprehensive top-down system ofcivil defense, employing levels of compulsionthat its civilians had never before experiencedand which resembled those in Japan andGermany. As the threat of German saturation

bombing diminished after 1941, Britain couldafford to reduce the degree of regimentationover civilians while scaling back demands forcivil defense workers. Nonetheless, had Britainbeen compelled to keep fighting for its survivalas did Japan and Germany, we may wellimagine the British home front fully convergingto the Axis home fronts. Such was thetransnational logic of total war.

SPECIAL FEATURE

Perspectives on the Bombing of Civilians From World War II to the Present

Edited by Claire Andrieu and Mark Selden

Claire Andrieu and Mark Selden, Introduction

Matthew Evangelista, Blockbusters, Nukes, and Drones: trajectories of change over a century

Mark Selden, American Fire Bombing and Atomic Bombing of Japan in History and Memory

Marine Guillaume, Napalm in US Bombing Doctrine and Practice, 1942-1975

Sheldon Garon is the Nissan Professor of History and East Asian Studies at PrincetonUniversity. In addition to Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves,his books include Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life and The State andLabor in Modern Japan.

Notes1 Sheldon Garon, “Ursprünge und Entwicklung der Strategischen Bombardierung,” in GorchPieken, Mathias Rogg, and Ansgar Snethlage, eds., Schlachthof 5: Dresdens Zerstörung inliterarischen Zeugnissen (Dresden: Militär Historisches Museum, 2015), 29-41.2 In Japanese history, in particular, studies of “fascism” have proliferated recently. E.g., RetoHofmann, The Fascist Effect: Japan and Italy, 1915-1952 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,2015).3 See Sheldon Garon, “The Home Front and Food Insecurity in Wartime Japan: ATransnational Perspective,” in Hartmut Berghoff, Jan Logemann, and Felix Römer, eds., TheConsumer on the Home Front: Second World War Civilian Consumption in Comparative

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Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 29-53.4 Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013), 20-23;Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (1942; reprint Washington, DC:Office of Air Force History, 1983), 5-10, 20-23, 150, 182, 188, 195-96.5 Air Raid Precautions Committee, 10th meeting, 1 December 1924, 17th meeting, 30 March1925, and “Air Staff Notes on Enemy Air Attack on Defended Zones in Great Britain,”A.R.P./5, 28 May 1924, Memoranda, Records of the Cabinet Office, Committee of ImperialDefense, CAB 46/1 and 46/3, The National Archives of the UK [herafter TNA].6 Gennifer Weisenfeld, “Gas Mask Parade: Japan’s Anxious Modernism,”Modernism/modernity 21, no. 1 (January 2014): 179-99.7 Reichsminister der Innern, “Abschnitt VII: Brandschutz,” 19 October 1932, Luftschutz fürdie Zivilbevölkerung, vol. 5, March 1932- June 1933, R32816, IIF Luft, Politische Archiv,Foreign Office, Germany, Berlin [hereafter PA].8 Tsuchida Hiroshige, Kindai Nihon no “Kokumin bōkū” taisei (Tokyo: Kanda Gaigo Daigakushuppankai, 2010), 181-82.9 Ministry of Home Security, Air Raids: What You Must Know, What You Must Do, rev. ed.(London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1941), 9.10 Reich Defense Ministry, “Referentenaufzeichnung des Reichswehrministeriums. Unterlagenüber Reichsluftschutz für Reichskabinnettsitzung am 12.9.27”; handbill by DeutscheLuftschutz Verband, sent to the German Foreign Office, 29 October 1932, Luftschutz für dieZivilbevölkerung, vol. 1, April 1927-October 1928, R32812, and vol. 5, March 1932- June1933, R32816, IIF Luft, PA.11 Juergen Paul Melzer, “Assisted Takeoff: Germany and the Ascent of Japan’s Aviation,1910-1937” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2014), 48. Following East Asianpractice, Japanese surnames precede given names in this essay.12 6 September 1923, Ugaki Kazushige, Ugaki Kazushige nikki, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō,1971), 445-46; J. Charles Schencking, The Great Kantō Earthquake and the Chimera ofNational Reconstruction in Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 76-77; SendaTetsuo, Bōkū enshūshi (Tokyo: Bōkū enshūshi hensanjo, 1935), 5, 31.13 Reichswirtschaftsministerium Kanzlei [Ronde] to Ministerialrat Wagner [Ministry ofInterior], “Der Luftschutzgedanke in Deutschland und im Ausland,” 29 April 1929, Luftschutzfür die Zivilbevölkerung, vol. 2, October 1928-June 1929, R32813, IIF Luft; for a periodic AirMinistry “press report” on air raid defense developments in some 20 countries, seeReichsluftfahrtministerium, Luftschutz-Pressebericht, no. 17/37 (10 October 1937), in Gas-und Luftschutzfragen in Ausland, 1936-1938, R101487; foreigners’ visits to German facilitiesare reported in Gas- und Luftschutzfragen in Deutschland, vol. 1, 1937-1938, and vol. 2,1938-1939, R 101483-84, Pol. I-Luft, PA.14 “Interim Report of Air Raids Precautions (Organisation) Sub-Committee,” November 1930,CAB 46/6, TNA.15 “Report on the Visits to Berlin and Paris of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State forHome Affairs and Major Fraser, M.C., January 18-27, 1938,” 10 March 1938, HO 45/17627;“Training of Civil Population in Passive Air Raid Precautions in Germany,” 8 April 1937, WO190/535, TNA.16 Bōei Kenshūjo, Senshishitsu, Hondo bōkū sakusen, Senshi sōsho, vol. 19 (Tokyo: Asagumo

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shinbunsha, 1968), 42, 46, 260-61; Tsuchida, Kindai Nihon no “Kokumin bōkū,” 228-29;Tanabe Heigaku, Doitsu bōkū, kagaku, kokumin seikatsu (Tokyo: Sagami shobō, 1942); CaryLee Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire: War, Occupation, and the Remaking of a Metropolis”(Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2006), 53-54, 71-72.17 Gaimushō Ō-A-kyoku, Senjika no Eikoku jijō (Tokyo: Gaimushō Ō-A-kyoku, daisanka, 1941);Kokumin bōkū, 5, no. 6 (June 1943): 20-25; 6, no. 7 (July 1944): 18-21, 37.18 Deutlev J.K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in EverydayLife, trans. Richard Deveson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 73; also, DietmarSüss, Death from the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II,trans. Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 38-39.19 “Bericht der Deutschen Luftshutz Liga,” attachment to letter, Deutsche Luftschutz Liga,Direktorium [Geisler], to Geheimrat Frohwein, Auswärtiges Amt, 21 October 1931, inDeutsche Luftschutz Liga, August 1931-October 1932, R32823, IIF Luft, PA.20 Fujii Tadatoshi, Kokubō fujinkai (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1985), 198-203.21 Gregory Kasza, The Conscription Society: Administered Mass Organizations (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1995), 18.22 “Air Raid Precautions in Germany and France,” Committee of Imperial Defence for its316th meeting of 31 March 1938, HO 45/17627, TNA.23 Women’s Voluntary Services, Report of Ten Year’s Work for the Nation, 1938-1948 (London:Women’s Voluntary Services, 1949), introduction, 10.24 Süss, Death from the Skies, 147-49.25 Mizushima Asaho and Ōmae Osamu, Kenshū bōkūho: Kūshūka de kinjirareta hinan (Kyoto:Hōritsu bunkasha, 2014), 9-15, 38.26 Süss, Death from the Skies, 149-54.27 “Organisation, Training and Administration of the Fire Guard Service,” provisional draft,November 1941, in A.R.P., Fire Guards and Fire Prevention: The Organisation, Training andAdministration of the Fire Guard Service, October 1941, HO 186/837; 1st meeting, 1 January1941,War Cabinet, Civil Defence Committee, Minutes, 1941, CAB 73/4; Ministry of HomeSecurity, Women: Compulsory Recruitment as Fire Guards, 1941-1942, HO 186/913, TNA;The Times (London), 31 January 1941, p. 2; 5 April 1941, p. 2; 8 August 1941, p. 2; 8 August1942, p. 2.28 New York Times, 8 August 1942, p. 4.29 Ministry of Home Security, C.D. Duties (Compulsory Enrolment) OrderEnforcement—Prosecution for Failing to Perform Duties. Transitional Cases between 30 June1943 and 20 September 1943, HO 186/1142, TNA.30 Ministry of Home Security, A.R.P. Handbook No. 14, The Fire Guards Handbook (3rd Draft),16 November 1941, in A.R.P., Fire Guards and Fire Prevention: The Organisation, Trainingand Administration of the Fire Guard Service, October 1941, HO 186/837, TNA.31 Mizushima and Ōmae, Kenshū bōkūho, 5-6.32 “British Fire-Fighters Shock Germany: ‘Churchill’s Cannon-Fodder,’” The Times, 20 January1941, p. 2.33 Evacuation: Special Scheme: Nightly Trekkers’ Scheme from Hull City, 1941-1944, HO186/1861, TNA.34 Richard M. Titmuss, Problems of Social Policy (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office,

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1950), 102-3, 137-39.35 Overy, Bombing War, 419, 440-41, 473-74.36 Bōei Kenshūjo, Hondo bōkū, 65.37 Nanba Sanjūshi, “Toshi shishu wa gimu da!” Kokumin bōkū 3, no. 10 (November 1941): 25.38 See Gregory Scott Johnson, “Mobilizing the ‘Junior Nation’: The Mass Evacuations of SchoolChildren in Wartime Japan” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 2009), 137-43, 146, 158,161-62, 169-187, 220-24, 243.39 Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire,” 101-2.40 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Urban Areas Division, The Effects of Air Attack onJapanese Urban Economy, Summary Report (Washington, DC: USSBS, 1947), 5, 7-8.41 Christian Science Monitor, 13 June 1942, p. 7; New York Herald Tribune, 25 January 1939,p. 6.42 “Intelligence Branch Report No. 1: General Report for the Fortnight Ending January 29th,1941,” in Intelligence Branch Reports Nos 1 to 31 on Effects of Air Raids from 1 Jan 1941 to25 Mar 1942, London Civil Defence Region, Ministry of Home Security: Intelligence Branch,HO 199/115, TNA.43 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Civilian Defense Division, Civilian DefenseDivision Final Report (Washington, DC: USSBS, 1947), 74.44 Ministry of Home Security, Intelligence Branch, “Civil Defence in Germany,” 15 August1941, p. 10, SECURITY Intelligence Reports on Civil Defence in Germany, HO 186/2649;“Report by the Police President and Local Air Protection Leader of Hamburg on the LargeScale Raids on Hamburg in July and August 1943: Experiences,” p. 26, Home Office, CivilDefence Department, Intelligence Branch Publication, 1946, AIR 20/7287, TNA.45 Nicole Kramer, Volksgenossinnen an der Heimatfront: Mobilisierung, Verhalten,Erinnerung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 11-12; Süss, Death from the Skies,37-38, 324-25.46 Mark Spoerer and Jochen Fleischhacker, “Forced Laborers in Nazi Germany: Categories,Numbers, and Survivors, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33, no. 2 (Autumn 2002): 196-97.47 Süss, Death from the Skies, 219-21, 423.48 Michael Weiner, Race and Migration in Imperial Japan (London: Routledge, 1994), 192-99,207.49 Irene B. Taeuber, The Population of Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958),129-46.50 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Civilian Defense Division, Final Report CoveringAir-Raid Protection and Allied Subjects in Japan (Washington, DC: USSBS, 1947), 8, 10-11,26, 29, 31-32, 61, 73, 195, 197.51 Kawaguchi Tomoko, Tatemono sokai to toshi bōkū (Kyoto: Kyōto daigaku gakujutsushuppankai, 2014), 111-17; Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire,” 71; Hiroshima Peace MediaCenter, “Hiroshima: 70 Years After the A-bombing: Mobilized Students 3,” See Here52 E.g., “Morale,” Interview with Lt. Col. TSUNEYOSHI, Yoshitomo, Kempei-Tai (MilitaryPolice), 19 December 1945, pp. 1-2, USSBS Transcripts of Interrogations and InterrogationReports of Japanese Industrial, Military, and Political Leaders, 1945-46, Entry 43, Records ofthe U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, RG 243, National Archives and Records Administration,College Park, MD.

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53 Nehemiah Jordan, U.S. Civil Defense before 1950: The Roots of Public Law 920(Washington, DC: Institute for Defense Analyses, Economic and Political Studies Division,1966), 70-76; Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany’sFirst U-Boat Attacks along the American Coast in World War II (New York: Harper & Row,1990), 185-86, 344-45, 366; cf. Matthew Dallek, Defenseless under the Night: The RooseveltYears and the Origins of Homeland Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).