The Japanese put on their warmest tanzen (wool-padded kimonos) last week. Meteorologists had warned them to prepare for the coldest winter in 20 years.
Thanks to a bountiful autumn harvest, they would have from 1,500 to 1,700 calories a day (a little more than the U.S. zone of Germany). But housing would be as great a problem as it had been in the first confused winter of defeat. The work of rebuilding Japan from its rubble had barely begun. Reconstruction, hampered by lack of materials and tools, by strikes, and by requirements of the occupation force, stood at only 13%;...
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