Of all the countries to emerge from the wreckage of the Second World War, perhaps none overcame post-war adversity quite as successfully as Japan. By the time the country surrendered in 1945, it was in dire straits. It had lost some 2.8 million people during the war, 3.8% of its 1939 population. Thousands more were so severely maimed or ill that they would never resume productive lives. The once-prosperous Japanese economy was in ruins, and virtually everything the country needed to recover traversed long, vulnerable sea lanes.
