Charles E. Tuttle - Japan

Japan

In 1943, Tuttle's father died and, with World War II in progress, he enlisted in the United States Army. He completed officer training and, when the war ended, was selected as part of the Allied forces occupying Japan. He arrived in Tokyo in October 1945, expecting to take charge of the library of the Diet of Japan (as he had been ordered), only to find that General Douglas MacArthur's staff had changed his assignment. He spent the next two years helping the Japanese newspaper industry. In 1947, Tuttle met Reiko Chiba, who belonged to a wealthy Japanese family from Hokkaidō; the two were married in 1951.

Tuttle founded his publishing company in Tokyo in 1948, with the mission to publish "books to span the East and West." His company was the 31st corporation approved by the occupying administration. In its first year of operation, it imported and distributed US paperback publications to the occupying forces, and the next year, it released its first publication. In 1951, the company began an intensive publishing program, producing English translations of contemporary Japanese literature, dictionaries of Japanese and other Asian languages, books on Japanese art and culture, and books on Japanese martial arts. Notably, many of its books on Asian martial arts were the first widely-read publications on these subjects in the English language.