Insights into Japanese Imperialism (Volume 2) : Original Japanese military documents with English translations

Shortly after Japan's surrender in August 1945, a huge bonfire was built at the headquarters of Kwantung Kempeitai in Changchun, Northeast China.

Hundreds of boxes of files were lost to the flames over the following days, but the unexpected arrival of Soviet soldiers prompted the Japanese to hastily bury some of them.

These were unearthed by construction workers in 1953 and eventually handed over to archivists in the early 1980s. This is the second volume in a series based on the studies of these documents.

It comprises 419 pages of inspection reports on correspondence sent by Japanese troops and others between May and December 1939.

The Kempeitai ruled that many of the letters be censored or confiscated due to the sensitive nature of their content.

Extracts from these letters are contained within the inspection reports, and they give us an insight into what was happening on the ground in occupied China during that period.