Keiko Tamura

Being an enemy alien in Kobe: Civilian experiences of war and the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Swiss Government in Japan

This article explores the experiences of enemy civilians in Japan through a case study of Kobe during the Pacific War. It highlights the widely varying experiences of individuals, and the fact that relations between the internees had an important impact on life in internment. Although there was no convention covering the treatment of civilian detainees, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss, as protecting power, played a significant role in improving the conditions of detention for civilians in wartime Japan, but gaps in cultural norms between Japan and the West created grievances among both the detainees and Swiss humanitarian officials. This article has been peer-reviewed.

Shooting an Invisible Enemy

War cameraman Damien Parer (1912–44) is best known for his newsreel films of the war in New Guinea. In his most famous work, Kokoda Front Line, in 1942, Parer comments that the Japanese were ‘complete masters of camouflage and deception’. The invisibility of the Japanese soldiers posed a challenge to the cameraman and the production team, as film essentially has to rely on visual images. As the war progressed, Parer managed to capture images of the enemy, and these were shown in his newsreels. This paper examines visual images of the Japanese captured by Parer during the battles against them, and their representation in the three newsreels, Kokoda Front Line, Bismarck Convoy Smashed and Assault on Salamaua. An exploration of Parers footage for these newsreels reveals several shifts in tone as the war increased in intensity and as his attitude towards the enemy hardened in the process.