1935 Kagaku no Nihon Pre-War Japanese Anti-US Propaganda Map

An astonishing 1935 Kagaku no Nihon Japanese propaganda map of the Pacific demonizing the United States and predicting an American attack on Japan. The map was part of internal Japanese pre-war propaganda efforts intended to establish a clear line of threat and thus promote Imperial Japanese expansionist goals as essential to national security - particularly Hawaii, which is central to this piece and, as the map suggests, key to controlling the Pacific. The cartographer assiduously documents the relative strength of the various powers in the region and their overlapping spheres of influence, presaging the Pacific War that would come seven years later.

A Closer Look

The map covers the greater Pacific region, from China, the Soviet Union, Canada, and the United States in the north to Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina in the south. National boundaries are traced, and countries' flags appear within or next to their location. Railways, wireless transmitting stations, and some waterways are marked on land. But most of the information recorded relates to comparative military strength, including symbols in a legend towards the bottom-right noting airfields, military ports, undersea telegraph cables, the locations of a planned volunteer patrol force (義勇哨海隊) around Japan, and the expected routes of an American surprise attack and a Japanese surprise counter-attack. Above the legend, the expected tonnage of Japan's navy and naval air force in 1936 is broken down according to various classes of ships and planes.

A wealth of similar information is provided on other countries' naval forces, often next to their flag, with particular attention paid to the various fleets and bases of the United States. Notes throughout provide additional information on commercial shipping lanes, fortifications, complications from weather conditions, the range of Japanese land-based airplanes and aircraft carriers, and the expected actions and countermeasures to be taken by the various belligerents (Japan and the U.S., with the latter sometimes referred to simply 'the enemy' 敵 or obliquely as 'a certain country' 某國, though in some cases this phrase could refer to Japan itself or other powers, such as next to Hawaii: 'The ideal place for a country [某國] to advance [in the Pacific]'). Text in outlined boxes north of Hawaii and south of Baja California delineate the broader strategic logic of this confrontation, discussing the necessity of naval power for Japan's security and the long arc of American Pacific strategy, including the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door Policy in China.

Most vividly, bold red lines and arrows trace the expected routes (northern, central, and southern) of imagined American 'surprise attack' (奇襲) fleets hitting Japanese ships, the inverse of the Pearl Harbor attack nearly seven years later, and the subsequent Japanese 'surprise' counter-attack. The southern route is the most speculative, ending with a question mark near Palau (パラオ島), Mindanao, and Layte (indeed, the largest naval battle of World War II did occur in Leyte Gulf in 1944). The northern American line of attack, departing from San Francisco, is labeled as the 'Mitchell Northern Attack Line' (ミッチェル北方攻略線), perhaps a reference to celebrated American aviator Billy Mitchell (1879 - 1936), who was a vocal advocate of air power (though a skeptic of aircraft carriers), to the point that he was court-martialed for insubordination because he publicly harangued Army and Navy leadership for underinvesting in air forces.

The verso presents a representative list and schematics of battleships and cruisers of the world's five largest navies (Italy, France, the U.S., Britain, and Japan). For example, American Maryland and California class battleships are discussed, while the Japanese Nagato Mutsu class battleship is presented.

Wider Historical Context

It seems stunning that this map, casually considering a war with the United States, would appear in peacetime in a publication devoted to science and possibly intended for young adults and children. The conflict is presented as not only possible but inevitable. The dire tone of the map is striking, considering that Japan and the United States were not obviously destined for war at the time. Though there were certainly tensions in the relationship over Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and subsequent withdrawal from the League of Nations, for instance, there would be far worse tests to come in the years before Pearl Harbor, such as Japan's full-scale invasion of China in 1937, in which an American ship (the U.S.S. Panay) was sunk by Japanese bombers and three American sailors killed. (Japan formally apologized and paid an indemnity.) In the mid-1930s, the United States was still largely preoccupied with its own domestic economic problems and, to the extent that people thought about foreign affairs, isolationism overwhelmingly predominated.

But in Japan the ultranationalism and grievance against Western powers that drove expansionism during World War II was already well-established by 1935. A series of perceived snubs in the international sphere, including the Washington (1922) and London (1930) Naval Treaties that had capped the tonnage of Japan's navy vis-à-vis the Americans, British, and French, caused the Japanese to denounce the unwillingness of the West to accept Japan as a major world power and the natural hegemon in Asia. (By the mid-1930s, Japan was clearly ignoring these treaties.) Domestically, the country's democratic institutions were spiraling, progressively losing control to the military, with ultranationalists routinely committing assassinations and other acts of violence against politicians and military figures seen as too soft towards China and the West.

Publication History and Census

This map was prepared in December 1934 and appeared as a supplement to the 1935 (Showa 10) New Year's edition of Kagaku no Nihon (科學の日本). Little is known about this publication, which appears to have been short-lived and limited in circulation. It seems to be absent in Japanese catalogs, while the Library of Congress holds some portion of the full run of the periodical (OCLC 40556119), the extent of which is unclear from the catalog listing. As for the map, it is only noted among the holdings of Harvard University.