And then Japan

Lulling the audience with footage of Japanese temples and the sounds of traditional music, the opening of this film lurches into sudden horror with a silhouetted image of a Japanese soldier placing a gun against the head of a US prisoner of war: the camera cuts away and we hear the gunshot. Yet, despite the shock tactics, the March of Time impulse to explain the reasons behind Japanese aggression makes this film a curious mixture of wartime propaganda and patient explanation.

When this film was released in August 1943 Japan’s power in the Pacific had already reached its height. The two crucial battles of the struggle - Midway in June 1942 and Guadalcanal, from August 1942 to February 1943 - had turned the war to the allies advantage and, as this film demonstrates, there were a variety of strategic options available, from a slow advance through the Pacific islands to the use of Chinese airfields to launch bombing attacks on the Japanese mainland. Nonetheless, the toll taken by the US armed forces and the sense that Japan would never surrender - voiced here in a piece to camera by former US ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew - meant that fears of Japanese power were still very real.