HOME MOVIES: OCCUPIED JAPAN

Genre: home movie

Year Published: 1901

Format: 16mm

Description: One of a series of extraordinary home movies shot in Occupied Japan immediately after WWII, this film shows a visit to a Japanese steel mill. It may be the Yahata Steel Works, which during WWII produced almost 25% of all rolled steel. If so, it is located in Kitakyushu, the northernmost city on Japan’s Kyushu Island. (The Yahata Steel Works has an interesting historical feature, the Higashida Daiichi Blast Furnace, which was originally built in 1901 and operated for about 70 years.) On the other hand, this film may instead show the Nippon Kokan's Ōgishima branch of the Keihin Works (Kawasaki, Kanagawa). The man who filmed these was a Harvard graduate ('43) and U.S. Army Intelligence Officer named Robert Ryan. Ryan may have very well worked for the OSS, although it's not clear. He definitely worked as an instructor at the U.S. Army's AFFE Intelligence School, and toured Vietnam in the early 1960s to conduct strategic vulnerability surveys. These films dates to the period July 1947-May 1951, when Ryan served in the Department of Defense in the Geographic Branch, Theater Intelligence Division, Far East Command. During this time he served in Occupied Japan and in the Korean theater. The film begins with images of what appears to be coal being unloaded by a massive shovel. At :48 a sign reads "Coke Ovens". At 2:04, a smokestack belches white smoke into the sky. At 2:21 blast furnaces are shown. At 3:39, rivers of molten steel are visible inside the plant. At 5:49 the tube mill is shown and at 6:07 the medium sized bar mill. At 7:20 the large bar mill is shown. At 9:43, tower cranes loom above the steel works, and mobile gantries move through the yards.

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