Book contents
- Shaping a Peaceful World
- Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations
- Shaping a Peaceful World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I
- Part II
- Chapter 5Forging the Alliance between the United States and Italian Democrats Post-World War II
- Chapter 6Occupation Policy
- Chapter 7Humanitarian Diplomacy
- Chapter 8“A Justifiable Action”
- Part III
- Index
Chapter 8 - “A Justifiable Action”
The Girard Incident, Diplomatic Negotiation, and Official Violence in Postwar Japan
from Part II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2026
Book contents
- Shaping a Peaceful World
- Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations
- Shaping a Peaceful World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I
- Part II
- Chapter 5Forging the Alliance between the United States and Italian Democrats Post-World War II
- Chapter 6Occupation Policy
- Chapter 7Humanitarian Diplomacy
- Chapter 8“A Justifiable Action”
- Part III
- Index
Summary
One of the defining episodes of postwar US–Japanese relations was the so-called Girard incident, in which specialist third-class William Girard shot and killed Sakai Naka, a Japanese woman who was picking up shell casings on a US firing range in January 1957. The shooting sparked a diplomatic crisis that shook the US–Japan alliance, leading many historians to situate the incident in the history of the two nations’ diplomatic relations after World War II. This chapter attempts to resituate the incident, in part, by showing that it was only one of at least 200 instances in which US sentries and soldiers fired on Japanese civilians from the start of the Allied Occupation through the beginning of the 1960s.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shaping a Peaceful WorldThe United States and Post-conflict Diplomacy since 1789, pp. 192 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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