‘A Futile Endeavour?’ The British Commonwealth and its Pursuit of POW Reparations from Japan, 1945–1955

This essay examines the very first set of reparations claims made by Allied POWs immediately after the Second World War. Using a series of conferences held at Potsdam (1945), Canberra (1947) and San Francisco (1951), it charts the tortuous negotiations which eventually led to a settlement of sorts with Japan in 1955. Indeed, it was the Americans who set the tone as they first sought to punish, and then mollify, Japan as the strategic and political landscapes in East Asia changed dramatically between 1945 and 1955. This essay argues that the United States, and counter to the wishes of its allies - especially Australia and the UK – dropped its more aggressive stance over reparations in order to see the Japanese Peace Treaty of 1951 brought to a conclusion, at a time when the Korean War was raging and Japan was now the forward base in the fight against Soviet and Chinese communism. In the end, although compensation was awarded, it was deemed as paltry; the interests of the allied POWs being sacrificed on the high altar of Cold War diplomacy.