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The Japanese occupation of Nauru was the period of three years (26 August 1942 – 13 September 1945) during which Nauru, a Pacific island under Australian administration, was occupied by the Japanese military as part of its operations in the Pacific War during World War II. With the onset of the war, the islands that flanked Japan's South Seas possessions became of vital concern to Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and in particular to the Imperial Navy, which was tasked with protecting Japan's outlying Pacific territories.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Battle for Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll )〕 The Japanese hoped to exploit the island's phosphate resources, and to build up their military defenses in the area. They were unable to relaunch phosphate mining operations, but succeeded in transforming Nauru into a powerful stronghold, which United States forces chose to bypass during their reconquest of the Pacific. The most important infrastructure built by the Japanese was an airfield, which was the target of repeated Allied air strikes. The war deeply affected the local population. The Japanese enforced a harsh regime, particularly on Chinese laborers who they saw as being at the bottom of the racial hierarchy; forced labor and brutal treatment were commonplace. They decided to deport the majority of Nauru's indigenous population to the Truk islands, hundreds of miles away, where mortality was extremely high. Still overpopulated with troops and imported laborers, the island was subject to food shortages, which worsened as the Allies' island-hopping strategy left Nauru completely cut off. Although effectively neutralized by Allied air and sea control, the Japanese garrison did not surrender until eleven days after the official surrender of Japan. ==Pre-war situation== Mining operations on Nauru began in 1906, at which time it was part of the German colonial empire. The island had some of the world's largest and highest quality deposits of phosphate, a key component in fertilizer, making it a strategically important resource on which agriculture in Australia and New Zealand depended. During the First World War, Nauru came under the control of the British Crown as a trusteeship of the League of Nations, effectively administered by the Australian government. The British Phosphate Commission, in charge of mining operations, joined with Australian officials and Christian missionaries to establish paternalistic management of the Nauruan people, who showed only limited interest in mining employment, and generally continued to rely on their traditional subsistence activities of fishing and agriculture. The BPC instead imported large numbers of indentured workers, mainly Chinese and Pacific islanders. Modernity reached Nauru in the form of imported goods, which had the effect of making the locals increasingly dependent on the Australian economy. Beginning in the 1920s, the Nauruans received royalties for the mining of their lands, an income that allowed them to cover their needs, but which was minimal compared with the actual value of the island's phosphate exports. The population was decimated by several diseases against which they had no immune defenses; however, in 1932 they reached the population threshold of 1,500 that was considered necessary for their survival. This achievement is still celebrated in Nauru as Angam Day. In spite of the economic importance of Nauru for Australia and New Zealand, the island was left militarily unprotected, since a stipulation of the League of Nations mandate for Australian administration forbade the construction of coastal defenses. The island, very isolated geographically, was not under constant surveillance by the Australian navy, and was out of reach of aerial patrols; however, before the outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific theatre, Nauru hadn't seemed to be under direct threat. The Empire of Japan became firmly established in the vast area north of Nauru as a result of the South Pacific Mandate of the League of Nations, and aggressive development of plantation agriculture in the islands was often facilitated by the use of Nauruan phosphate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese occupation of Nauru」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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