Japan Today A Portfolio of Sketches Tokyo-Yokohama Area 1945-1946

A portfolio of artwork stressing America’s contributions to Japan’s reconstruction.

“Japan today is no longer the slant-eyed, many-headed, yellow monster of the sea. No longer the bespectacled, buck-tooth enigma whose many tentacles reached out to crush the free peoples of the world…The monster has been slain and lies prostrate at the feet of her conquerors…to her cadaver has come the American soldier – the modern knight in O.D. who breathes freedom and democracy.” – Preface.

This collection of reproduced artwork purports to show Japan as seen ‘through the eyes of G.I. Joe’, according to its immoderate introduction. The volume includes over twenty different illustrations, most captioned, created by members of the Eighth U.S. Army on occupation duty. A variety of scenes depict everyday life in postwar Japan, including the tremendous devastation endured by Tokyo and its inhabitants. The mix of beauty and destruction, along with the resolve of the surviving inhabitants, is impactful.

Artwork by T/4 Milton Wolsky, T/4 Warren MacKenzie, and T/Sgt. Paul Hoffmaster. Prepared under the direction of the Eight U.S. Army Engineer, 1st Lt. Albert Miller. Printed in Tokyo by the Eight U.S. Army Printing Plant in 1946.