Japan Under American Occupation

• Additional Details
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Rating: Not Rated
• Number of Discs: 1
• Run Time: 50 Minutes
• Region: Region 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Language: English
• Studio: History Channel
• DVD Release Date: April 28, 2002

Never-before-seen government footage shows the first steps in Japan's transformation at the end of World War II.

The footage includes harrowing images that linger in the mind: unforgettable shots of the devastation wreaked in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bomb; the efforts of thousands of people to rebuild homes among the rubble; overloaded hospitals trying to cope with a scourge that had never been encountered before. But they also show the roots of one of the most incredible political and material transformations in history: the rebuilding of Japan after World War II and its evolution from an implacable foe to one of the United States' most important allies.

JAPAN UNDER AMERICAN OCCUPATION features never-before-seen footage shot by a camera crew in the first days after World War II. The US government feared the images captured were too disturbing to be seen, and for a long time they were classified as top secret. Now, the project' director and others who were there tell of the events that marked the beginning of a new era in Japan, from the nuclear cleanup to the nation's first free elections.