History of the Pacific

Asia-Pacific War and its Aftermath

This is a brief guide to scholarly research and primary source collections associated with the history of the Pacific Ocean as well as the islands therein and coastlines adjacent.

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This page is currently under construction and far from complete. If you notice broken links or have suggestions, please write the subject liaison e-mail.

Primary Source Collections on Page by Subject

Japan at War

East Asia Image Collection (EAIC)
The EAIC documents the history of imperial Japan (1868-1945), its Asian empire (1895-1945) and occupied Japan (1947-52). Images of Taiwan 台湾, Japan 日本, China 中国, Korea 朝鮮, Manchuria 満洲国, and Indonesia are included. Documents include digitized photographs, negatives, postcards, rare books and slides.
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Institution: Lafayette University
Imperial Congress (NDL)
Digital images of the main conferences and committees during the entire period of the Imperial Congress (November 1923 to March 1947).
Japan Center for Asian Historical Records
Digital collection of Japanese government records pertaining to foreign relations, some records are available in English. Documents--mostly in Japanese--include documents from the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on pre- and post-war diplomatic relations as well as the post-war treaty.
Pacific War (JACAR)
Site and sources in Japanese. This collection of documents includes material on the "Daito War," the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Atomic Bomb and Potsdam Declaration and more.
Tianjin Post Cards Collection
321 images of post cards - and of photographs taken during the Japanese occupation - mostly relating to Tianjin.
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This already-digitised collection was provided to the project by Professor Linda Grove, Sophia University, Tokyo. HPC refs: Gr01 and Gr02.

The Japanese in war and peace, 1942-48 : selected documents from a translator's in-tray by Ian Nish (ed.)
Call Number: Brill eBooks
Publication Date: 2011
The author was a member of the British Occupation Force in Japan as part of the Allied Occupation following the Asia-Pacific War. During the years he was there, 1946–48, he collected a number of documents which throw light on the attitudes of the Japanese people in the last two critical years of the war and the equally critical first two years of the peace.

US and the War after 1941

Avalon Project's World War II : Documents
Access to English translations of major documents associated with international relations and the Second World War
Calisphere on World War II, 1939-1945
American mobilization for World War II spurred significant changes in the nation's social and economic landscape. Americans who remained on the home front contributed to the war effort in various ways. These collections look at California in particular, interested in women at work, the Bracero Program, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Japanese Internment and more.
The Digital Collections of the National World War II Museum
The National World War II Museum is home to thousands of oral histories and hundreds of thousands of photographs. This website offers the visitor a way to browse a sample of these collections and purchase images if interested.
Rutgers' Oral History: World War II: Pacific Theater Index
Access to oral interviews with multiple people--men and women--associated with the Pacific Theater of the Second World war.
Truman Library & Museum Online Collections
Includes documents from multiple points in Truman's life, including the First, Second, and Cold Wars as well as information on Civil Rights, Desegregation, the Truman Doctrine, and more.
US Navy Digital Collections
Includes select facsimiles of material representing key moments in US history from the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include the War of 1812, various USNA publications, the World Wars, and more. Includes representations of American propaganda in Japan, Japanese propaganda in the Philippines, photographs from the Pacific theater, as well as battles reports and analyses.
World War II Poster Collection at Northwestern University Library
More than 400 US government posters from the Second World War. Includes the 1945 Instrument of surrender.

1945: The Atomic Bomb

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 525 edited by William Burr. Includes more than 90 documents.
Atomic Heritage Foundation: Key Documents
Important primary and secondary source documents on the Manhattan Project, the Cold War, nuclear tests, and more. These documents trace key decisions, moments, and characters of the making of the atomic bomb in World War II.
The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Truman Presidential Library)
The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
This collection focuses on the decision to drop the atomic bomb. It includes 76 documents totaling 632 pages covering the years 1945 through 1964. Supporting materials include an online version of “Truman and the Bomb: A Documentary History,” edited by Robert H. Ferrell.
Voices of the Manhattan Project
Nline collection features 580 audio/visual interviews with Manhattan Project workers and their families, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, General Leslie R. Groves, Glenn Seaborg, Hans and Rose Bethe, George and Vera Kistiakowsky, and many more.

Warcrime Trials

ICC Legal Tools Database
The Legal Tools are the leading information services on international criminal law. They equip users with legal information, digests and an application to work more effectively with core international crimes cases (involving war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or aggression). Includes documents associated with these cases across the 20th century.
Japanese War Crimes
A guide to and selection of documents associated with the Interagency Working Group (IWG) looking at Japanese War Crimes. Includes essays on the subject.
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Institution: National Archives
Joseph Berry Keenan Digital Collection
Comprising manuscript materials and photographs from 1942 to 1947, this collection offers researchers invaluable insight into the Japanese War Crimes Trials.
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Institution: Harvard University
Military Legal Resources at the Library of Congress
The William Winthrop Memorial Library at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Legal Center & School in Charlottesville, VA, holds extensive collections of primary source materials and publications in the field of military law. Selections from these collections are now being made accessible in full text PDF versions via the Library of Congress Federal Research Division (FRD) Web site.
US National Archives on War Crimes
More than 2,400 documents (including images, text, and audio) from between 1942 and 1949 related to "war crimes" from the US National Archives, many with content on Germany or Japan.

Occupied Japan

Occupied Japan (＝日本占領関係資料)
More than 57,000 documents online related to occupation and Japan, the bulk of which center on the 1940s. The bulk of these are in Japanese.
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Institution: National Diet Library

For Additional Help

For additional recommendations, contact your History Liaison, Erin, at erinkate.scheopner@bc.edu or schedule an appointment.

Newspapers and Other Periodicals

Contemporary Japan Online
Call Number: Brill
Publication Date: (1932 - 1954)
Unique in its even-handed treatment of the Japanese view.
The Hongkong News
Call Number: Brill
Publication Date: (1941-1945)
Interface and content in English.
The Japanese Occupation holding of The Hongkong News started publication in 1941, right after the Christmas Day surrender of the British Crown Colony, and lasted up to August 17, 1945, the very last week before Hongkong's liberation.
BC Login required.
Japan News-Week
Call Number: Brill
Publication Date: (1938-1941)
American Japan News-Week was the last independent, foreign-owned English-language newspaper published in Japan. This exclusive holding runs from the first issue in November 1938 to within 6 months of the newspaper’s closure and the arrest of Wills and Argyll by Japanese ‘Special’ ( Tokko) police in early December 1941, the night before Pearl Harbor, on a charge of espionage.
Japan Times Weekly and Nippon Times Weekly Online
Call Number: Brill
Publication Date: 1932, 1934, 1938-1944, 1952, 1957, 1964
The Japan Times Weekly (1938 - 1942) and its immediate successor the Nippon Times Weekly (1943), both magazines superbly illustrated in full-colour, were the flagship organs of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Manchuria Daily News
Call Number: Brill Primary Sources
Publication Date: 1912-1939
The English-language Manchuria Daily News (1908 – 1940), published in Dalian (Darien), presents Japan’s case for its presence in China.
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Seoul Press Online
Call Number: Brill Primary Sources
Publication Date: 1907-1910, 1927-1937
The Seoul Press (publ. 1907-1937) was Japan’s Korean news flagship, its mission to validate the natural justice of Japanese imperialism in Korea, and Japan as the redeeming, organising and modernising force in East Asia.

Korean (Occupied) Sources

Colonial Period Korea Online This link opens in a new window
The present collection brings together three distinct groups of publications dating from this colonial period. It includes Japanese publications on Korea, Western (mostly English) early impressions of Korea, and Korean colonial-period literature. The publications included here cover a broad range of subject matter, from art and archaeology to the sciences, and including education, natural history, religion, rural conditions, and more.

O'Neill Library

Bapst Library

Burns Library

Educational Resource Center

Law Library

Social Work Library

Theology & Ministry Library

O'Connor Library

Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

History of the Pacific

Asia-Pacific War and its Aftermath

Page under Construction

Primary Source Collections on Page by Subject

Japan at War

US and the War after 1941

1945: The Atomic Bomb

Warcrime Trials

Occupied Japan

For Additional Help

Newspapers and Other Periodicals

Korean (Occupied) Sources