ABSTRACT
This chapter on the experience of Japanese fisheries during the Allied Occupation is a concise overview of a neglected period in the history of a neglected industry in the historiography of modern Japan. It begins with a brief outline of the political economy of Japan's pelagic empire prior to World War Two, before surveying the state of Japanese fisheries during total war in the early 1940s. The chapter then describes the Occupation's initial efforts to rebuild the fishing industry in the wake of the war, a rapid reconstruction that led quickly to excess capacity, acute competition, and the depletion of marine resources. Ironically, just as Japan's imperial reach grew to its greatest extent in the first months of the Pacific War, its empire of fisheries began to retreat and fade. By the time of Japan's surrender in 1945, the fishing industry was, like the economy as a whole, shattered and reeling.
