Japanese repatriation from Huludao

The Japanese repatriation from Huludao (Japanese: 葫蘆島在留日本人大送還 Koro-tō Zairyū Nihonjin Dai-sōkan or Chinese: 葫芦岛日侨大遣返) refers to sending back to Japan the Japanese people who were left in Northeast China after the end of World War II in 1945. In this operation, done by the American forces' ships under the auspices of the Republic of China government, over one million Japanese were carried back to their homeland, from 1946 to 1948.

Immediately after the end of World War II in August 1945, about 1.5 million Japanese people were left in China. The majority were in Northeast China, mostly farmers and merchants. Some of the able-bodied men among them were being sent by the Soviet forces to Siberia for forced labor. Engineers and medical doctors were beginning to be asked for cooperation by the Chinese Communist forces.

The Japanese government did almost nothing for this population in the confusion after their defeat in the war. Three young men from Anshan (Kunio Maruyama, Hachiro Shimpo and Masamichi Musashi) volunteered to report the situation to Japan, escaped from Manchuria and met with the Japanese government in Tokyo. They later met with General Douglas MacArthur, then the head of the Allied Occupation Forces, who immediately decided on the Japanese repatriation from Huludao.

The American forces who were assisting the Chinese Nationalist government were aware of this dangerous situation and sent ships on a tripartite operation to:

Huludao in Liaoning Province was the only strategic seaport and corridor to Northeast China that was held by the Nationalist forces, who were battling against the Chinese Communist forces for control of Northeast China.

...
Wikipedia