The Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) (1945–1952) was a department created within the Civil Intelligence Section of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). The CCD monitored and censored Japanese entertainment, press, mass media, and various forms of public and private opinion during the Occupation of Japan.

It was founded on September 10, 1945, to promote pro-Western values of democracy, with the aim of ushering Japan into the reconstruction period. By its dissolution, the CCD had worked on a wide range of subjects; from Japanese actions during the war, to abuses and severe crimes committed by the Occupation soldiers. In 1946, the department was subsumed as part of G-2. On August 9, 1951, following many organizational upheavals, the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) was formally dissolved.

Much of its records are housed in the Gordon W. Prange Collection in the Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland.

Structure

The CCD had two branches; the Communications Division and the Pictorial and Broadcasting Division. The Communication Division censored mail, telephone, telegraph, and other communications media. The Broadcasting Division was tasked with censoring information and entertainment media, such as news broadcasts, theater, and film.

The first chief of the CCD was Lieutenant Colonel Donald D. Hoover, with a background in journalism and public relations. Hoover was succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel C. W. Wordsworth, and then Colonel Walter B. Putnam, the last chief of the CCD before its dissolution in 1951.

The CCD was primarily composed of highly-educated Japanese nationals, often academics or western-educated graduates, they conducted the direct work of reading and translating. This included public opinion in the press, film, television program, and radio, as well as surveillance and monitoring of postal mail, telephone, telegraphs. These translations would then be reviewed by Nisei checkers, and as needed, subject to a reexamination committee. Decision on censorship were made by supervisors and leadership from the United States. It is estimated that by 1947, more than 8,000 Japanese workers were employed by the CCD.

Background Headed by General Douglas MacArthur, the United States imposed political restrictions and weakened the policy structures in Japan to implement a reformation consolidating democracy and the rule of law. Seeking American control, the consequent reformation of Japan's social system and ideology, held promise of long-term stable influence in Japan. The CCD worked to facilitate the success of these reconstruction aims by prohibiting negative sentiment in relation to the war, reconstruction, and the new alliance between the two countries. The consequences of this censorship were lasting, and the stories of Japanese victims such as the hibakusha, individuals who experienced physical change due to radiation exposure, and Japanese victims of rape by occupied soldiers remained long silenced.

Censorship efforts in post-war Japan

The U.S-led General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers(GHQ-SCAP), following Japanese Occupation in 1945, aimed to prevent the revival of imperialism, militarism, and overcome dynamic tensions in Japanese society.

Through the SCAP, the United States carried out widespread censorship and monitoring of Japan with the creation of special agencies. Among these projects, the Civil Intelligence Section(CIS) in the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) undertook the main work. The CIS was divided into two parts, the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD), and the Public Security Detachment (PSD). The CCD specifically undertook the censorship of public opinion in the press, publication, film, television, and radio, as well as monitoring the postal letters, phone calls, and telegram. In this period, more than 200 million letters, 136 million telegrams and 800,000 telephone calls from Japanese citizens were monitored. To assess telephone calls, 63 Japanese and 12 foreigners monitored calls throughout Japan by using 70 eavesdropping devices; for postal surveillance, 4,000 Japanese and 60 Americans sampled 2% of domestic correspondence; and finally for telegraphs, 100 Japanese and 12 American workers sampled 15% of total telegrams.

List of censored topics

General prohibitions: protecting SCAP's reputation In September 1945, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) released a Press Code illustrating a list of censored topics for the Japanese Press. The Code's requirements included:

“...[N]o destructive criticism of the Allied Forces of Occupation and nothing which might invite mistrust or resentment of those troops.” No “false or destructive criticism of the Allied Powers,” which included criticisms of General MacArthur and SCAP. No “mention of the “fraternization” between Occupation troops and Japanese, and of involvement of soldiers with the black market.” No “dissemination of extremely pessimistic views of the food shortage.”

Censorship included not only new publications, but publications from the pre-war and wartime period that were reissued during the Occupation. Notable examples of censorship to protect SCAP reputation included the replacement of the term “hairy foreigner” (ketōjin) with “Westerner” (seiōjin). In addition to banning criticism of Occupation forces, criticism of China, Korea, and other Western allies were also prohibited by the CCD.

Additionally, the mention of fraternization between Japanese locals and Occupation forces constituted a significant portion of censorship, with the mention of even hand-holding enough to result in deletion. Censorship also applied to medical journals, especially targeting venereal diseases, which censors perceived as symbolic of immorality. For example, a 1945 report by the Japan Medical Care Organization was heavily censored for predicting an increase in the threat of venereal disease to public health, linked to the presence of Occupation forces and “fraternization” with locals. Another report on gonorrhea among Yokohama prostitutes (where many Occupation forces lived) was also subject to multiple deletions. Aside from STDs, the CCD also heavily censored any mention of rape, especially in cases with Japanese sex workers.

Nuclear bombs

One of the most controversial and difficult to censor topics impacting Occupation forces' reputation were the after-effects of the two nuclear bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. U.S. officials both within the United States and in Japan immediately worked to suppress information about the effects of nuclear radiation. While the blast of the bomb was celebrated by President Truman's radio broadcast as a powerful weapon of war, information about the resulting radiation deaths and illnesses caused by the atomic bombs were suppressed by officials. Medical reports, case notes, and other records collected by Japanese medical professionals who treated survivors at Hiroshima were confiscated by American officers and remained classified for years. Occupation officials outright denied radiation effects and censored public criticism of the U.S. bombings. They labeled Japanese and European reports of lingering “radioactive poison gas” as “propaganda”, most likely wishing to avoid international stigma surrounding chemical weapons, which had been banned during the First World War.

Democratic project in Japan Guidelines provided to publishers during the Occupation banned content that contained wartime propaganda, especially those that glorified the military, ultranationalism, feudalism, and depictions of Japan as “the sacred land of the gods.” The prohibition of such sentiments was aimed at facilitating Japan's transition to a democratic state and away from its pre-war and wartime politics as an empire. The censorship of such themes impacted the cinema, literature, and theater industries profoundly, along with some consequences even in medical journals.

In Japanese cinema, for example, the Civilian Information and Education Division (CIE), was given complete power to censor all films that were produced, with Japanese film producers required to submit proposals and scripts in English prior to beginning filming. The chief of CIE, David Conde, released a list of banned content in Japanese films in November 1945. This included content that praised nationalism, patriotism, feudalism, cruelty and immoral violence. For example, the depiction of katana (traditional Japanese swords wielded by samurais) were banned as Occupation officials saw them as symbols of feudalism. In contrast, other violent weapons like guns in American Westerns were permitted, since they were allegedly used “only to defend justice and restore safety to their communities.” Even foreign films like the American-produced Mark of Zorro were subject to deletion of swordplay scenes.

Similarly in the theater industry, 322 of 518 classic plays such as kabuki reviewed by censors had been banned by December 1945 “because they contained one or more of such objectionable themes as glorification of feudal ideology or militarism, blind loyalty, a cheap valuation of human life, relegation of women to a subservient status in society, and glorification of revenge.” As a result, the Kabuki theater companies (which centered around themes of loyalty and revenge which Occupation censors considered as tied to militarism and therefore inappropriate) were most impacted, with 2,500 prints destroyed by SCAP.

Children's literature was also subject to censor. For example, the 1932 children's story “The Ants and the Mushroom” by Miyazawa Kenji, was ordered deleted because of a “militaristic expression” where the ants were soldiers, although there were no fighting scenes in the book. The plot (an ant soldier falling asleep and being surprised by the sudden appearance of a mushroom) actually subtly made fun of the military, rather than promoting Japan's wartime imperialist ambitions in the East.

Beyond the suppression of feudal themes, censoring “leftist propaganda” was also a major aim as part of the American policy of containment. Before mid-1947, criticism of the Soviet Union was banned as they had been a U.S. ally at the end of WWII, although this changed during the beginning stages of the Cold War. In 1950, General Douglas MacArthur pushed for the Red Purge in Japan in the wake of the Korean War. The Red Purge is distinct from the White Purge pursued by SCAP officials, which targeted conservative ultranationalists (e.g.war criminals, former governors of occupied territories, militarists), forbidding them from holding public office.

However, the General Headquarters undertook great efforts to conceal the censorship. This, ironically, was to support America's role as a model of democracy. Mentioning the Occupation forces as a commanding authority constituted a censorship violation since it clashed with the American narrative that “democratization was proceeding independent of the Occupation.” For example, a report on the production of typhus fever vaccines ordered by SCAP was deleted.

Affected media

Documenting the nuclear bombs