178 Japan, U.S occupation of bring the survivors of Malaya and Bataan home Nearly all of them were brought out by the end of 1945 Meanwhile, some 250,000 occupying forces, including an Australian-led British Commonwealth occupation force of 36,000 Britons, Australians, New Zealanders, and Indians, fanned out across Japan While the British force was assigned to southern Honshu and Shikoku Island (including Hiroshima), MacArthur banned Soviet troops from his occupation force With his headquarters at the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo, MacArthur did not need to create a political structure to administer Japan The nation’s government was intact when it surrendered, so his directives were simply passed through his staff to the Japanese-established Central Liaison Office, which acted as intermediary between the occupation staff and the government ministries until the two groups developed working relationships After freeing the POWs, MacArthur moved to demobilize the battered Japanese war machine, whose 5.5 million soldiers, 1.5 million sailors, and 3.5 million civilian colonial overlords were still defending bypassed islands across the Pacific The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy were converted into the First and Second Demobilization Bureaus, respectively, and administered the repatriation, disarming, and demobilization of these men Most of this work was done by the Japanese under close Allied supervision Japanese warships, even the aircraft carrier Hosho, carried defeated troops home, making their final voyages before going to the scrap yard, where these ships were joined in destruction by tanks, kamikaze planes, midget submarines, and artillery shells of the once-mighty Japanese armed forces The United States also moved to break down the Japanese police state, decentralizing the police, releasing political prisoners, and abolishing the Home Ministry, which had controlled Japan’s secret police agency, the Kempei Tai With these changes in place, the United States was able by December 1945 to issue a Bill of Rights directive, which gave the Japanese U.S.-style civil liberties, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press The role of the emperor was also changed Shortly after the surrender he met MacArthur, which enabled many Japanese to accept the new regime In January 1946 Emperor Hirohito formally renounced his divinity, ending over a thousand years of Japanese tradition He also began making public appearances in the style of Britain’s royal family In April 1946 MacArthur ordered general elections as a referendum on the changes he planned Three out of four Japanese went to the polls, including 14 million newly enfranchised women, to elect a free diet The results supported a mildly liberal, prodemocracy government, an endorsement for his plans Next MacArthur directed the Japanese government to draft a constitution to replace the 1867 Meiji Constitution While issued by the government in accordance with existing rules to change the constitution, this new document was drafted by MacArthur and his staff It went into effect in May 1947 The “MacArthur Constitution” created a parliamentary government, the Diet, with popularly elected upper and lower houses, a cabinet that held executive power, and a decentralized regional government of elected assemblies The constitution also guaranteed basic freedoms Its most famous section was article nine, in which Japan forever repudiated war as a means of settling disputes and banned the maintenance of military forces As a result, the modern Japanese armed services are called the Self-Defense Forces The United States also had to cope with a shattered economy One-fourth of Japan’s national wealth was lost to the war, prices had risen 20 times, and workers could barely afford to purchase what little food was for sale Many people had to barter their possessions for fish MacArthur imposed numerous reforms on the Japanese economy Believing that those who till the soil should own it, he had the Diet break up vast farms held by a few landlords These farms were expropriated and sold cheaply to the former tenants MacArthur also worked to break up the commercial empires of the zaibatsu, or “money cliques,” but this proved less successful The large Japanese businesses were vital to the nation’s economic rebuilding, and names like Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Honda, and Kawasaki, powerful before the war, remained so into the 21st century Nevertheless, Japan’s economy was rebuilt with speed and power MacArthur also rebuilt the Japanese education system by replacing nationalist curriculums and textbooks with more liberal materials, raising the school-leaving age, decentralizing the system, and replacing political indoctrination with U.S and British ideals that supported independent thought MacArthur also liberated women by ending contract marriage, concubinage, and divorce laws that favored husbands He also made high schools coeducational and opened 25 women’s universities The Japanese responded: 14,000 women became social workers, and 2,000 became police officers Women filled up the colleges and new assemblies