What did the Japanese eat when they were defeated? You've never heard of these disgusting food lists.

Hunger is an unforgettable memory of Japan in World War II.

Photo: A classic photo of American Life magazine shows the defeated Japanese bowing to the palace.

Desperate long-term war, congenital defects of insufficient raw materials, wartime food ration, and serious crop failure in famine years, most Japanese people could not taste the taste of rice before the defeat, but mainly potatoes and wild vegetables, and were generally malnourished.

Photo: "Marubeni rice" popular among the people when Japan launched the war.

Photo: People's "10 Grain Rice and Wild Vegetable Rice" during Japan's defeat.

1944, a new type of theft broke out in Japan: stealing crops in the field, which the police called "potherb Dorobou" (vegetable thief). In that year, almost half of the economic crimes were related to food.

In the news media, it is still advocating to fight for the emperor, hoping that the people will tighten their belts to support the war. Newspapers encourage people to eat acorns, chaff, peanut shells and sawdust to fill their stomachs. It is explained that sawdust can be decomposed into powder by a fermenting bacteria, and then mixed with flour at the ratio of 1:4 to make pancakes.

Photo: Japanese wartime poster of "saving rice to serve the country"

As for protein's intake, people are encouraged to eat all insects and small animals, such as grasshoppers, earthworms, silkworm chrysalis, snails, house mice, voles, frogs and snakes ... Scholars solemnly say that if properly disinfected, mice taste like birds. The life section of the news media exaggerates and recommends all kinds of ways to find food, and even an article "As long as you play your intelligence, there will be inexhaustible food sources" appears.

Photo: Japanese wartime food in comics

Due to malnutrition, data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan show that the average height of male children aged 14 in this semester is 1.46 meters, which is 6 centimeters shorter than that before the war.

Photo: Japanese wartime children

When she heard the emperor's surrender, a little girl's first reaction was that she didn't have to stare at frogs anymore-but she thought too well.

Photo: Japanese children gather food in the wild during wartime in cartoons.

Picture: Frogs become food.

After Japan surrendered, the war economy completely collapsed. In the first few years, society was extremely chaotic and food was seriously inadequate. City people flock to the countryside in search of food and exchange watches and clothes with farmers for all edible things. In the diet of ordinary Japanese people, the staple foods are wild vegetables (vegetables) and 10 rice porridge, as well as oak seeds, orange peels, taro roots, rice bran dumplings, and wheat bran cakes fed to animals in normal years.

At that time, the Japanese attended the wedding, and the congratulators brought their own rice balls to avoid the newlyweds from worrying about the wedding reception. Even a hotel owner who suffered from rats had to give up the method of killing rats with poison bait, because someone would eat the poison bait before the rats.

Photo: Hungry children on the streets of Japan after surrender.

Life magazines such as Women's Club are still talking about how to grow a family garden. Magazines for teenagers have articles such as "How to eat acorns" and "Let's catch grasshoppers". Until 1948, housewives still complained that in the long queue, they were "unkempt, wearing worn-out snow quilts and dirty and worn-out tops ... like dirty animals".

1945165438+1October 7th, the osaka edition of Asahi shimbun published a letter with the shocking title "I am planning to commit suicide". The general content of this letter is as follows:

Photo: Japanese people line up to receive rations.

"I am an ordinary worker. I was in do or die when I wrote this letter. I have five children. I work hard and even try to save some money in such difficult times. But the incompetence of * * * in food supply makes the situation worse and worse. I can only buy food from the black market to support my children. But it won't last long. We are at the end of our rope. Finally, I even borrowed usury to buy food. But I can't do it anymore, so we haven't eaten for four whole days. My wife completely collapsed yesterday, and the two children began to lose their minds.

Photo: Japanese people are looking for food in the US military dump.

Finally, I decided to commit suicide ... Now for the first time, I feel that Japan really should be a fourth-rate country. Without a really good policy, it will become a fifth-rate or even sixth-rate country. By the time you receive this letter, I may have died. I wrote this letter with all my remaining strength. "This letter caused a lot of Japanese * * *, in fact, if you don't commit suicide, waiting for him will be starved to death.

Photo: * * * Willing Japanese people, with the slogan "United Nations Command, we need food".

Photo: * * People on the streets of Japan, the slogan is: I don't want to starve to death.

In the first year after the war, as many as six homeless people starved to death every day at Ueno Station in Tokyo. It is roughly estimated that within three months after the defeat, the number of people who died of malnutrition in Tokyo alone exceeded 1 000. In the next three years, hundreds of homeless people will freeze to death at Ueno Station in winter.

Photo: Homeless people in the station passage.

Even if the relief bread from the United States finally arrives, the Japanese who struggled for survival in those years will always reflect with regret: what caused all this? Why does the Japanese nation always move from one extreme to the other like a pendulum?

Photo: Children are munching on American relief bread.