ABSTRACT

Japan’s advance into Southeast Asia was driven by its desire to gain control over natural resources, oil in particular. In comparison with some other parts of the region, Java was not rich in strategic resources, but the island had another kind of resource in the form of manpower, a population of almost 50 million that comprised more than half of the people in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia.1 The Japanese needed workers for a wide range of projects and mobilized large numbers of Javanese laborers, called r÷omusha in Japanese. Nearly 300,000 Javanese r÷omusha were sent to other parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where they experienced harsh conditions and a brutal work regime. More than half of them never made it back to Java.2