Writing Japan's War in New Guinea: The Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu (Asian History) 9789462988651, 946298865X

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Prologue
Background
The Role of ATIS in Intelligence Gathering
Methodology
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
1 Setting the Scene
A Synopsis of Japanese Military History
The Emergence of the Kokutai: The Re-creation of the Ancient Myth
Japan at War
Becoming the Emperor’s Soldiers
The Ultimate Weapon: The Spirit of Yamato Damashii
Creating Tragic Heroes
2 An Extraordinary Diary of an Ordinary Soldier
Diary Writing in Japan
The Diarist: Tamura Yoshikazu
A Soldier Diarist’s Journey
The Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu
The Diary as a Tool of Investigation: Uncovering Kokutai
For Whom Does Tamura Write?
Why Does Tamura Write?
How Does Tamura Write?
What Does Tamura Write?
3 Priming the Country for War: Imperial Rescripts as Fortifiers of the Kokutai
Disseminating Kokutai Ideology: Imperial Rescript
From Ritualism to Unconditional Conformism: Enforcing the Kokutai
The Ultimate Kokutai Text: The Kokutai no Hongi
Educating in the Kokutai
War and the Kokutai
Ensuring Soldiers’ Compliance: The Senjinkun
The Kokutai as Dysfunctional Military Family
Wholesale Acceptance?
4 Out of Landscape
Japan as the Sublime: The Acculturation of Japanese Nature
A Hellhole of a Place
The Jungle as Physically Perverse
The Jungle as Disorder
The Ennui of Endless Rain
5 The Landscape of Deprivation
No Tropical Paradise
The Spectre of Starvation
Disease, Illness, and Utter Fatigue
Submitting to Power
Communication Breakdown
6 Creating an Idealized World
Diasporic Dilemma
Enforced Exile
Media
Travel in the Homeland
Journey across the Asian Continent
Letters
7 Re-creating an Emotionally Accommodating Landscape
Setting It Right
Nature: Controller or Controlled
Autumn as a Seasonal Anchor
Mountains as Redemption
The Moon as Traveller
The Battlefield as Surreal Landscape
8 Death as Man’s True Calling
The Grand Desire to Die for the Emperor
Ego Involvement: Reward for Loyalty
Committing to Taigi
The Ocean as Facilitator of a Noble Death
Motifs of Death
The Already Dead
9 Challenges to a Resolve to Die
The Useless Rhetoric of the Emancipation of Asia
The Tedium, the Terror, and the Lowly Role
Death as Ignoble Reality
A Life Flawed
10 Reconciling Death
Relinquishing a Sense of Self – Jibun ga Nai
The Torment of Becoming a Man without a Me
Accepting Death: The Final Act of Loyalty
Epilogue
List of Images and Maps
Glossary of Terms
Abbreviations for sources held at the Australian War Memorial (Canberra, ACT)
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

ASIAN HISTORY

Victoria Eaves-Young

Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea The Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu

Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea

Asian History The aim of the series is to offer a forum for writers of monographs and occasionally anthologies on Asian history. The Asian History series focuses on cultural and historical studies of politics and intellectual ideas and crosscuts the disciplines of history, political science, sociology and cultural studies. Series Editor Hans Hägerdal, Linnaeus University, Sweden Editorial Board Members Roger Greatrex, Lund University David Henley, Leiden University Angela Schottenhammer, University of Salzburg Deborah Sutton, Lancaster University

Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea The Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu

Victoria Eaves-Young

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Artwork by Tom Williams from an original photograph of Tamura Yoshikazu provided by his family Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 865 1 e-isbn 978 90 4854 096 9 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462988651 nur 686 © Victoria Eaves-Young / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Prologue 9 Background 9 The Role of ATIS in Intelligence Gathering 15 Methodology 16 Author’s Note

21

Acknowledgements 23 1 Setting the Scene 25 A Synopsis of Japanese Military History 25 The Emergence of the Kokutai: The Re-creation of the Ancient Myth 26 Japan at War 29 Becoming the Emperor’s Soldiers 34 The Ultimate Weapon: The Spirit of Yamato Damashii 36 Creating Tragic Heroes 40 2 An Extraordinary Diary of an Ordinary Soldier 43 Diary Writing in Japan 43 The Diarist: Tamura Yoshikazu 44 A Soldier Diarist’s Journey 45 The Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu 51 The Diary as a Tool of Investigation: Uncovering Kokutai 52 For Whom Does Tamura Write? 53 Why Does Tamura Write? 56 How Does Tamura Write? 61 What Does Tamura Write? 63 3 Priming the Country for War: Imperial Rescripts as Fortifiers of the Kokutai 69 Disseminating Kokutai Ideology: Imperial Rescripts 69 From Ritualism to Unconditional Conformism: Enforcing the Kokutai 73 The Ultimate Kokutai Text: The Kokutai no Hongi 76 Educating in the Kokutai 81

War and the Kokutai 84 Ensuring Soldiers’ Compliance: The Senjinkun 86 The Kokutai as Dysfunctional Military Family 87 Wholesale Acceptance? 88 4 Out of Landscape Japan as the Sublime: The Acculturation of Japanese Nature A Hellhole of a Place The Jungle as Physically Perverse The Jungle as Disorder The Ennui of Endless Rain

93 93 100 102 104 105

5 The Landscape of Deprivation No Tropical Paradise The Spectre of Starvation Disease, Illness, and Utter Fatigue Submitting to Power Communication Breakdown

113 113 118 127 131 135

6 Creating an Idealized World 141 Diasporic Dilemma 141 Enforced Exile 142 Media 144 Travel in the Homeland 153 Journey across the Asian Continent 159 Letters 166 7 Re-creating an Emotionally Accommodating Landscape Setting It Right Nature: Controller or Controlled Autumn as a Seasonal Anchor Mountains as Redemption The Moon as Traveller The Battlefield as Surreal Landscape

173 173 174 176 179 187 193

8 Death as Man’s True Calling 201 The Grand Desire to Die for the Emperor 201 Ego Involvement: Reward for Loyalty 203 Committing to Taigi 205 The Ocean as Facilitator of a Noble Death 213

Motifs of Death The Already Dead

220 227

9 Challenges to a Resolve to Die The Useless Rhetoric of the Emancipation of Asia The Tedium, the Terror, and the Lowly Role Death as Ignoble Reality A Life Flawed

235 235 241 255 263

10 Reconciling Death Relinquishing a Sense of Self – Jibun ga Nai The Torment of Becoming a Man without a Me Accepting Death: The Final Act of Loyalty

271 271 274 291

Epilogue 299 List of Images and Maps

307

Glossary of Terms

311

Abbreviations for sources held at the Australian War Memorial (Canberra, ACT)

315

Bibliography 317 Index 329

Prologue Background My interest in Japanese soldiers was sparked over forty years ago as an undergraduate student of Japanese language and history. My father had been in the Australian Airforce (RAAF) during the Pacific War, and many of my childhood neighbours and schoolfriends had fathers who had fought in New Guinea. Like most returned servicemen, they rarely talked about their experiences, yet there was an all-pervasive undercurrent of disdain for the behaviour of the Imperial Japanese soldiers, ‘those dirty yellow bastards’ during the Pacific War.1 The commonly held view of Japanese soldiers was bleak and brutish indeed. Such descriptions as those provided by Samuel Hynes in his book about war abound. Hynes quotes George MacDonald Fraser, who wrote Quartered Safe Out Here, a recollection of his time spent in Burma: No one underestimated Jap [sic]: he might be a subhuman creature who tortured and starved prisoners of war to death, raped women captives, and used civilians for bayonet practice, but there was no braver soldier in the whole history of war, and if he fought to a finish […] there is no question that he was viewed in an entirely different light from our European enemies. Would the atomic bomb have been dropped on Berlin, Rome, or Vienna? No doubt newspaper reports and broadcasts have encouraged us, civilians and military, to regard him as an evil, misshapen, buck-toothed barbarian who looked and behaved like something sub-Stone-Age; the experience of Allied prisoners of war demonstrated that the reports had not lied and reinforced the view that the only good Jap was a dead one. And we were right, then.2

The disdain, and indeed hatred, held for the soldiers of Japan was, though perhaps warranted, in direct juxtaposition to the way we remember the contribution of our servicemen in military conflicts. The fascination with and memorialization of war in Australia (as with many other ‘victor’ countries) has seen the elevation to hero status of the service personnel who 1 Hubert Henry (Harry) Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, 2 vols. (Bowral, NSW: self published, 2010), vol. 2, p. 227. Stories abound of anything manufactured in Japan being discarded or shunned. 2 As quoted in Samuel Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 164-165.

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fought in campaigns such as Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele in the First World War, followed by those who fought on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea and the ‘Rats of Tobruk’ of the Second World War, the prisoners of war who struggled to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway or suffered terribly in the death camps of Changi and Sandakan Death March (to name but a few), and more recently, though a bit more fraught, those who fought in the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam. Their sacrifices for their country were enormous and have been duly granted the prestigious position of legends, the stuff that promotes reverence, sincere gratitude, and above all patriotism. There is no denying that their intrepidness and bravery – not to mention suffering – on behalf of ‘King and Country’ were indeed laudable, deserve commemoration, and should never be forgotten. One of the ways we show our indebtedness in Australia is through the exhibits at the Australian War Memorial (AWM). The AWM stands in a lofty position in the nation’s capital, Canberra, in direct line of sight across the iconic Lake Burley Griffin to both the original Parliament House and the current Parliament House. Conceived after the First World War and opened on Armistice Day (11 November) 1941 (during the Second World War), this museum to honour the war dead and those who fought during all the conflicts in which Australian forces participated is due for a government-sponsored upgrade of 500 million Australian dollars to enable the memorial to also honour the ‘Invictus Generation’, those service persons who have served in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Solomon Islands, and East Timor. The memorialization of war such as this in Australia is seen to be the basis of our ‘national character’, so much so that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred to the war memorial and its impending upgrade as ‘a place of commemoration and understanding as the soul of the nation’. The AWM’s Director, Dr Brendan Nelson, went on to assert that ‘There is one national institution in this country that reveals more than anything else our character as a people, our soul’.3 The Australian War Memorial, then, appears to signify part of our ‘collective-autobiographical remembering’, where through this memorialization and the commemoration that are inherent to them, we create our identity, culturally shape our history, and set the standards of value.4 Our recognition of our own soldiers and those who were allied to us 3 Jordan Hayne and Jon Healy, ‘Australian War Memorial’s $500 million expansion to honour “Invictus Generation”’, www.abc.net.au, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-01/ australian-war-memorial-to-expand-to-remember-recent-conflicts/10456896. 4 Astrid Erll, ‘Why “Memory”?’, in Memory in Culture, eds. Andrew Hoskins and John Sutton, trans. Sara B. Young, Memory Studies (Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), p. 106.

Prologue

11

echoes the fact that ‘Martyrdom allows the living to say that soldiers did not die in vain’.5 Martyrdom, though, is only the trophy of the victor. In reality, ‘our war literature is obsessed with the experience of a very small portion of the large populations implicated in modern warfare. Over and over again, we hear the story of the white English or American soldier, as though it was the only presence on the field of war.’6 The story is also almost always that of the victor and not of the vanquished. But what of those who fought on the other side? Were they the ‘soul’ of their nation, willing participants in the bloodbath of war, or a sinister manifestation of what their nation required of them? After I graduated from university, I went to Japan to live and work as an English teacher in the mountain region of Nagano Prefecture. A group of my students were older men, returnees from the 50th Infantry Matsumoto Unit who had been members of the Central China Expeditionary Army. These men had been part of the infamous Battle of Nanjing, and yet to me they were full of the cheerfulness and kindness of country gentlemen moving into their elderly years. They had fought in one of the most shameful and inhumane battles in the war on the China Mainland, yet they exhibited none of the merciless behaviours that would have precipitated these abominable deeds. At the time, I was too young and possibly too naïve to pursue these questions, yet questions they remained. Why did these people seem to have gone to war so willingly, and how could they have become so embroiled in such detestable behaviour? Was every Japanese soldier the monster that history had steered me to believe? Were they willing participants, or had they been coerced into aggression? Many years later, I was engaged in a study of sengoha [post-war authors] who had been soldiers of Imperial Japan. One author sparked my interest again. Umezaki Haruo, one of the first sengoha authors, had been a very reluctant soldier who had tried various methods to evade conscription into the army. This was a departure from the vision of the dedicated, even fanatical Japanese soldier who fights willingly and to the death. In the dying stages of the war, when conscription regulations were relaxed due to a dire shortage of military personnel, it became impossible for Umezaki to continue to elude service, and he was drafted as a sentry on the island of Sakurajima in the south of Japan. He wrote a short but insightful novel Sakurajima based on his experiences there. His work certainly painted Japan and Japanese soldiers in a rather dim light. Was this due to his own 5 Akiko Hashimoto, The Long Defeat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 9. 6 Lynne Hanley, Writing War: Fiction, Gender, and Memory (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts, 1991), p. 6.

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Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea

personal remorse, survivor guilt, or outside factors such as the ‘Japan as victim’ mentality? Or was it part of the censorship prevailing under the American Occupation of Japan, and more specifically through General MacArthur’s Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP) which wielded colossal power over the media of Japan through censorship and specific input requirements after the war. This power related to all mass media, such as newspapers, radio broadcasts, magazine articles, novels, and memoirs, even down to the types of films that could be shown at movie theatres, be they foreign or domestic.7 The words of an Australian soldier are instructive here. It’s a terrible thing, war. It’s all right for people that are victorious, to march in, but think of the defeated people going back, the horror of it all. It makes you think, you know, the kindliness of people in war, the horror of war, the sorrow for the afflicted, the vanquished, the people that were. How great they fought, and yet how much they lost.8

Certainly, the end of the war for Japan signalled a degree of kyodatsu: the word used to describe the ‘distracted’ and ‘dejected’ condition of the people upon their defeat in the Second World War.9 This disillusionment and dejection was apparent in the retrospective works of sengoha authors like Ōoka Shōhei (1909-1988) and Hino Ashihei (1907-1960), both of whom saw active service. Their works display ‘survivor syndrome’ characteristics including sensō sekinin [war guilt] and the kyodatsu [disillusionment and physical despair] that they as haizanhei [defeated soldiers] suffered and can clearly be attributed to their wartime as well as their immediate postwar experience. The underlying anguish over the war itself is prevalent in these accounts, and this supports the assertion that ‘few Japanese remember supporting the war with any great fervour […] most remember the coercion they experienced as well as the deprivation’.10 7 John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton & Co, 1999), p. 206. 8 W.E. Harney, Bill Harney’s War (South Yarra, Victoria, Australia: Currey O’Neil Ross, 1983), p. 52. 9 Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 89. 10 Simon Partner, Toshie: A Story of Village Life in Twentieth Century Japan (Berkely, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004), p. 61. See also, for example, Samuel Hideo Yamashita, Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore Cook, Japan at War: An Oral History (London: Phoenix Press, 2000).

Prologue

13

There have also been memoirs of the war experience written by returned soldiers, but again, these accounts are fraught with problems. Because they were written from a memory standpoint, this means that the information they purport to be ‘truths’ are not always historically and factually sound; they are indeed ‘at best blurred’.11 In fact, these memory narratives were potentially ‘stained’ and ‘distorted’ by the environment to which the soldiers returned, which potentially meant that these memories were not set in concrete but rather a fluid reconstruction which had much of its basis in the present rather than in the past.12 Aside from the disdain from outside Japan, there was for returned Japanese soldiers the stigma within their home country of having fought a losing war and of having survived that war when others ‘gloriously’ died on behalf of the imperial cause. There was also the ‘Japan as victim’ scenario and the ‘Japan as shame’ label with which returnee writers had to grapple. This often meant that, in the representation of their war experience, their accounts, like those of diarists as returned soldiers, have often been the products of ‘refurbishment’ after the war, allowing for correction and rethinking. Not all changes were stylistic alone; some alterations also ‘affected’ the content of the diary or memoir.13 Aaron Moore notes that ‘visitors to Chiran (arguably the spiritual home of the kamikaze pilots) may encounter obstreperous tour guides who criticize wartime diaries, as well as farewell letters and poems as “inauthentic” products of coercion. To discover the “true” thoughts of a soldier, they proclaim, one must seek out “private” diaries.’14 It became increasingly evident that in order to garner a more accurate sense of what was occurring with soldiers during the Pacific War, I needed a diary that had not been tampered with in any way. A diary written in situ by a soldier who did not return from the war would present a fair chance that there would be an ‘immediacy and vividness’ that was not filtered through the ‘selective haze of retrospection or shaped by ex-posto factorationalization’.15 A chance meeting with Dr Keiko Tamura (no relation to the diarist studied here) in 2005 provided me with the ‘private’ diary that is the focus of this study, affording me a glimpse of the ‘true’ thoughts of a soldier who did not return from the war. This short but insightful journal 11 Hashimoto, The Long Defeat, p. 21. 12 Ibid., p. 4. 13 Aaron William Moore, ‘The Chimera of Privacy: Reading Self-Discipline in Japanese Diaries from the Second World War (1937-1945)’, The Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 1 (2009): 173. 14 Ibid., p. 166. 15 Yamashita, Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies, p. 8.

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Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea

offered the opportunity to read and analyze the rarely heard real-time voice of a soldier in the combat zone. Tamura Yoshikazu’s diary had been in the possession of an Australian soldier, Alan Connell, who had somehow acquired it during the conflict in New Guinea. Considering that Connell was involved in intelligence gathering in New Guinea, it is likely that Tamura’s diary was merely kept by Connell as a souvenir of the war, although it may also be that he knew that it would otherwise be destroyed and desired to save it from that fate.16 However, since the diary was discovered by Connell’s family only after the Australian soldier’s death, it is impossible to ascertain precisely when or how he came across it or whether or not Tamura was already deceased at the time Connell came into possession of it.17 The original diary was given by the Connell family to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.18 Eventually, the diary came to the attention of Japanese author and documentary filmmaker Shigematsu Kiyoshi, who tracked down Tamura’s family in Japan. In due course, the diary was repatriated to them. The diary remains the most important possession in the family’s Buddhist altar in the original farmhouse where Tamura lived as a child.19 The contents of this diary assured that it was not considered to convey anything of a strategic nature and so was of no value to either the Allies or the Japanese military .The fact that it slipped through the net into the hands of an Australian soldier has insured its legacy is available for scrutiny.

16 Donald Keene recalls being torn about having to destroy some very eloquent diaries and having tried to hide them, and of being found in possession of them and having to destroy the diaries. Keene, Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 37. 17 See Keiko Tamura’s description of Tamura’s diary at the Australia Japan Research Project website, http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/ajrp/ajrp2.nsf/088031725e4569e4ca256f4f00126373/6fdc30e880 6ec7d9ca256b73000e4618?OpenDocument. While AJRP is no longer in existence, the web page that was created to reflect Dr Tamura’s research is still available. 18 A copy of the diary remains housed at the Australian War Memorial AWM ATIS PR 02305 Tamura Yoshikazu, ‘Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, circa 1943). 19 Shigematsu K iyoshi, ‘Saigo no Kotoba’, http://archives.nhk.or.jp/chronicle/ B10002200090308160030137/ The documentary ‘Saigo no Kotoba’ (Final Words), presented by documentary f ilmmaker and author Shigematsu Kiyoshi, examines the diary of Tamura Yoshikazu, among other South West Pacif ic diarists. It was aired on 7 December 2003. See also Shigematsu Kiyoshi and Watanabe Kō, Saigo no kotoba: senjō ni nokosareta 24-man ji no todokanakatta tegami (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2004), pp. 152-206.

Prologue

15

The Role of ATIS in Intelligence Gathering Many of the documents referred to in this work were scrutinized during the war by the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service. As part of the Allied intelligence gathering process, captured documents (among them, diaries) that were considered of a strategic nature were first translated by the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service (hereafter, ATIS).20 Earlier in July 1942, the Australian version of the British CSDIC (Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre) was established in Melbourne with sixteen linguists with a ‘passable’ knowledge of the Japanese language. This unit was commanded by a non-linguist whose knowledge of Japan – its people, its culture, its language, and its military structure – was negligible.21 Based in the northern part of Australia in Brisbane, ATIS was formed in September 1942, drawing on Australian officer linguists, and eventually second-generation [nisei] Japanese linguists.22 From January 1943, however, ATIS also established several advanced echelons closer to the battlefields to the north of Australia to provide preliminary examination and translation of captured material as well as to interrogate prisoners. When it was formed, ATIS was comprised of 25 officers and 10 enlisted men. The magnitude of the work they undertook saw the ranks swell to 250 officers and 1,700 enlisted men and women by 1945.23 Many of the captured documents had suffered some kind of damage – ‘rain-drenched, soil-crushed, with stains and solid matter attaching to used toilet and kitchen wastes, the blood of dead soldiers and the rot of decomposing bodies’.24 The amount of captured documents secured by ATIS was astonishing, including not only operational material such as orders, diagrams, field sketches, maintenance records, maps, and pay books but also ‘personal and military diaries, identity discs, intelligence reports, private letters, military correspondence, postcards, magazines […]’.25 The complete carelessness of the Japanese in leaving behind such vast quantities of items of strategic interest was mind-boggling to the ATIS staff.26 In fact, it 20 The translated versions of these diaries largely remain housed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia. 21 Arthur Page, Between Victor and Vanquished: An Australian Interrogator in the War against Japan (Loftus, Australia: Australian Military History Publications, 2008), pp. 72-73. 22 Ibid., p. 73. 23 Arthur Page was one of the interpreters employed by ATIS, having grown up in Japan with a reasonable grasp of the Japanese language. Ibid., p. 80. 24 Ibid., pp. 80-81. 25 Ibid., p. 79. 26 Ibid., p. 1.

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appeared that the Japanese forces did not believe that anyone would be able to decipher and decode their system, let alone be capable of translating from Japanese, and were therefore quite cavalier in disposing of these materials.27 The diaries translated by ATIS (and now housed at the Australian War Memorial Research Centre in Canberra) were of a strategic ilk, and as such, the intelligence they contained ensured their value to the Allies. The translated portions of these diaries are either ‘translated in full’ or are ‘excerpts’ containing only those sections that were considered to be of strategic value, and so it is not possible to ascertain whether these diaries also contained musings of a more personal nature.28 Once the diaries were processed by Australian personnel, the originals were forwarded to the United States of America. Unfortunately, by the end of the war, the majority of these materials had been either lost or summarily destroyed, and thus this material (in its original form) rarely remained publicly accessible once the war ended. As a result, Japanese war diaries in their original format from the Pacific campaign, and particularly New Guinea, are quite rare. Although the AWM in Canberra holds a substantial archive of translated copies of Japanese strategic military diaries, Tamura’s text has particular significance as one of the few extant original diaries written in New Guinea by a non-commissioned member of the Imperial Japanese Army.29

Methodology The Japanese proverb ‘to die like a carp on the cutting board’ [sojō no koi] conjures up a resigned and passive determination to die unquestioningly.30 Apparently, a carp on a cutting board is resigned to its fate and doesn’t flap 27 Ibid., p. 79. 28 A translator’s note attached to the translation of a diary from Kokoda reads ‘personal philosophy has been largely omitted from the remainder of the diary’; see AWM ATIS 54 577-7-26, ‘Diary of a Japanese Officer Kokoda’, (Canberra: AWM). 29 Working with translated diaries is fraught, as the original meaning may have been distorted. Donald Keene, who acted as a translator in the United States, notes that ‘translating such materials was so tedious that we tried making it more interesting by rendering the Japanese documents into old fashioned English or the language of popular fiction’. Keene, Chronicles of My Life, p. 36. 30 Sojō no koi. There is also a saying sojō no sakana mo dōzen de aru which means ‘be doomed’ (literally left to one’s fate like a fish on a chopping board). The carp is the most quoted fish for dying unquestioningly. There is a belief that a carp will lie quietly on the cutting board waiting for its fate of death. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 60.

Prologue

17

about like other doomed fish tend to do; rather it lies in dignity awaiting the blade. Japanese soldiers were believed to have that same ability to die with poise and without hesitation and with a degree of resignation to their fate. But did all soldiers die so willingly and impassively? Were Japanese soldiers committed to their goals due to coercion rather than volition?31 Or was it possible and indeed plausible that soldiers did have a personal and individual view that was not part of the ‘homogenous’ subordination of Imperial Japan?.32 This book’s close reading of Tamura’s diary is undertaken in the hope that some of the myths will be exposed, confirmed, and/or expunged. It goes without saying that one man’s experience is by no means the experience of all those who fought in the jungles of New Guinea. One man’s experience is the sum of his influences, life events, and predilections in life. While this study is based on the diary of only one soldier, a key objective is to interrogate whether there is, indeed, a variance from the quintessential vision of the coerced Japanese soldier. In her discussion of student tokkōtai (special attack forces, more popularly known as kamikaze) pilots, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney notes that the ‘letters, diaries and memoirs’ of these doomed young men ‘remain as testimony to their humanity’ and that ‘their voices [are] too powerful to be buried for good’.33 This position aptly reflects one of the purposes of this study. Early on in my research for this book, I was counseled to ‘let the diary speak for itself’ and to resist the temptation to overanalyze Tamura’s words or to load them with meaning that may not have been his intention. It was wise counsel. But somehow, I had to peel back the layers of this diary and find out just who Tamura was and what his words mean for his audience now. Tamura’s diary is a narrative that examines both the events and underlying moralities of his life as they pertain to his role as a soldier of Imperial Japan.34 Just how was I to uncover the motivations, intentions, and meanings of Tamura’s narrative? Aaron Moore, writing on the diaries of Japanese, Chinese, and American soldiers in the Second World War, concedes that ‘all the most useful solutions to these problems [difficult questions such as what “truth” means in a soldier’s account of battle] cannot be found in a single discipline or 31 Kazuko Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual: Japan Before and After Defeat in World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 97. 32 John W Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), p. 31. 33 Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries, p. 37. 34 Colette Daiute and Cynthia Lightfoot, eds. Narrative Analysis: Studying the Development of Individuals in Society (Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004), p. xii.

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methodology.[…] The issues involved in studying war diary writing are complex and confusing […]’.35 The complexity of studying Tamura’s diary necessitated a very interdisciplinary approach designed to ‘examine phenomena, issues and people’s lives holistically’ [italics in the original], and while I have aimed to allow Tamura’s diary to speak for itself, subsequently, by examining the diary ‘holistically’ I have taken a pathway that ‘permits the incursion of value and evaluation into [my] research process’ [italics in the original].36 Taking an interdisciplinary style necessitates accepting that there is a ’certain ambiguity’ but also a considered ‘[exchange] between fields that remain distinct [together with] a rather more intimate blending of domains with already blurred edge’.37 As a starting point, this diary is in fact a piece of literature, and so for part of my analysis I looked through the lens of literary criticism, what has been said and left unsaid, tropes that are more frequent within the text, endeavouring to establish some patterns; those things that the work ‘like an unconscious wish […] both conceals and reveals’.38 The work is also historical data in that it was written in the past, during a very important time in the history of the twentieth century. History is, of course, communication with the past, and working with a very personal historical document such as a diary creates a ‘basic intellectual bond between the historian and the material from the past’. And it is precisely this bond, including an emotional sensitivity and sensibility to the subject matter by the objective observer, that allows for an uncovering and interpretation of the ‘unconscious connections in a communication’.39 The challenge has been to remain as detached as is possible in forming my opinions of Tamura’s motivations, thought processes, strengths, and weaknesses. Yet there is, of course, analytical judgement based on a considered ‘listening’ of Tamura’s written voice, and it is through this considered ‘listening’, couched within a socio-historical framework, that I can confidently say, in the words of anthropologist George Devereux, ‘and

35 Aaron W Moore, Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 7. 36 Daiute and Lightfoot, eds. Narrative Analysis, p. xiii [italics in the original]. 37 Quote by Ludmilla Jordanova as cited in Cristian Tileagă and Jovan Byford, eds. Psychology and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 5. 38 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, second ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 158. 39 Peter Loewenberg, Decoding the Past: The Psychohistorical Approach (New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers, 1996), pp. 3-5.

Prologue

19

this I perceive’.40 Drawing on my own perceptions and indeed experiences in life, I am emboldened by Sigmund Freud’s assertions that ‘everyone possesses in his own unconscious an instrument with which we can interpret the utterances of the unconscious in other people.’41 Loaded with the desire to perceive and expose the effects of Tamura’s life experience, cultural inclinations, and social conditioning, including that of the ideological discourse of the kokutai [national polity], I set about to analyze Tamura’s diary, a personal experience of war, imbued and infused with the ideological background of the times, told through ‘the mediating forces of the stories, metaphors, myths and images’ embedded in Tamura’s diary. 42 The following is a synopsis of my approach. Firstly, given that a major aim is to decipher the extent of the socio-political influence of Imperial Japan, I have devoted considerable space to analyzing the development of the kokutai discourse and Japan’s militarization following the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The diary is, of course, a narrative piece and as such occurs as ‘embodiments of cultural values and personal subjectivities’, so considerable effort has been focused on understanding the culturally loaded messages and musings on personal emotions and thought patterns within the diary. 43 Tamura’s diary is also laden with remembering past events, and I have devoted some discussion to the processes involved with memory. An understanding of the way the Imperial Japanese Army performed during the New Guinea campaign is better facilitated by a recognition of the pathways Japan had taken over history. The warrior class of the feudal period of Japan would form a strong backbone of the military created after the Meiji Restoration, as would the recreation of the Emperor-centred myth of Japan’s creation as a divine and unique land. In order to also understand the context of Tamura’s war situation in New Guinea, I have also outlined the history of the conflict in New Guinea. Tamura’s work is, of course, a diary, and diary literature has a significant place in Japan’s literary tradition, so discussion of this genre is also undertaken. Part of the diary tradition of Japan is the propensity for poetic language to be utilized, and Tamura’s diary is a very solid example of this. Given the importance of nature and landscape not only in the Japanese poetic tradition but more importantly within the kokutai discourse (and 40 As quoted in ibid., p. 5. 41 Ibid., p. 4. 42 Rita Felski, Uses of Literature (Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2008), p. 16. 43 Daiute and Lightfoot, eds. Narrative Analysis, p. x.

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Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea

indeed, nationalist discourses more generally), it was vital to further explore Tamura’s referencing of seasonal markers and the familiar natural imagery of Japan as a contrast to the very alien surroundings of New Guinea. An analysis of the way in which Tamura interacts with, subverts, and re-configures his natural environment leans towards the concept of psycho-topography, which suggests ‘an all-encompassing connection between landscape and emotion and attempts to outline the intricacies of this, subsequently providing new ways of mapping the landscape, in particular, a re-mapping of emotional and psychic responses [to it]’. 44 By taking an interdisciplinary approach, it is hoped that there has been ‘the importation of useful concepts’ that will shed further light and raise other questions about the plight of Japanese soldiers in New Guinea under the kokutai regime. 45 This complex and interdisciplinary style of analysis ensures that the narrative messages deciphered will consider ‘how complex cultural, interpersonal, and aesthetic factors’ have shaped this diary and will, therefore, allow the work to be of interest to a broader body of researchers such as historians, anthropologists, literature scholars, and peace educators. 46

44 R.L. Litchf ield, ‘(Re)Imagining Los Angeles: Five psychotopographies in the f iction of Steve Erickson’, (PhD, University College of London, 2010), p. 3. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/ eprint/19721. 45 Joan W. Scott, ‘The Incommesurability of Psychoanalysis and History’, in Psychology and History, eds. Cristian Tileagă and Jovan Byford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 42. 46 Daiute and Lightfoot, eds. Narrative Analysis, p. xvii.



Author’s Note

The transcription of Tamura Yoshikazu’s diary provided by his brother, Sadanobu, used in consultation with the original diary, is the basis of this book.1 The transcribed diary consists of 143 pages. The page numbers referred to in this book relate to the transcribed diary. Where a divergent opinion of the text is apparent, acknowledgement of this is made in the footnotes. Those translations originally provided by Dr Keiko Tamura for the Australia Japan Research Project (AJRP) website are acknowledged and commented on in the footnotes; otherwise all translations of Tamura Yoshikazu’s diary are my own.2 Diary entries that are dated are noted as such in the body of the text; all other diary entries have estimated dates listed in the footnotes. For Japanese people cited or mentioned in the text and for all Japanese authors who are cited for Japanese language works (including those in English translation), I follow the Japanese convention for names, with the family name followed by the first name. For all other Japanese authors writing in the English language, names are cited as per English language convention, that is, the first name followed by the family name. A large part of the research for this book contains material including what are termed enemy publications, interrogation reports, bulletins, private diaries, current translations, extracts from court martials and punishments, military messages, speeches and lectures, and research reports all housed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. This archived material has been listed within the primary sources section of the bibliography. The role of the Allied Interpreter Translator Service (ATIS) is acknowledged and detailed in the prologue to this book.

1 A copy of the original diary is available through AWM ATIS PR 02305 Tamura Yoshikazu, ‘Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu’. The transcription of the diary is available in Tamura Yoshikazu, Jūgun techō ni kakinokoshita saigo no nikki: nankai no kotō ni chitta Tamura Yoshikazu no shuki (Tochigi, Japan: Tamura Sadanobu, 2004). 2 See AJRP website Keiko Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’, Australia Japan Research Project, http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/ajrp/ajrp2.nsf/088031725e4569e4ca256f4f00126373/6fdc30e88 06ec7d9ca256b73000e4618?OpenDocument

Acknowledgements My reading and analysis of Tamura’s diary in no way reject the deplorable atrocities that were committed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific campaign, nor does it devalue the experience of the Allied soldiers in New Guinea. Furthermore, my work in no way downplays the fact that other soldiers of Imperial Japan may have in fact been acting merely out of coercion. No judgement is made on the outcomes of the war, nor is there any attempt to elevate the experience of one soldier over the many others who perished. Rather, my study presents a site from which the voice of one soldier can be heard to provide an alternate viewpoint. Many long days and nights were spent translating this particularly difficult diary. The difficulty lay not only in the fact that it was written in classical Japanese but also that it was a heart-wrenching journey with a very sensitive and eloquent man who I knew would not survive his ordeal. Like a diary translated by Donald Keene, this diary was ‘at times almost unbearably moving, recording the suffering of a soldier in his last days’.1 This work has been over ten years in the making and could not have been achieved without the guidance of Dr Barbara Hartley, Dr Maria Flutsch, Shun Ikeda, Dr Carol Hayes, Dr Keiko Tamura, and the assistance of Machiko Ishikawa. The Research Centre at the Australian War Memorial was a vital resource for my work, as was the assistance of librarian Mayumi Shinozaki at the Japanese Collections Unit of the National Library of Australia. I am also indebted to my very skilled cartographer, Dawn Hendriks, and to Tom Williams, the talented young artist who so skilfully depicted Tamura from an original photograph for the cover of this book. Immense gratitude also goes out to my very patient and helpful editor, Saskia Gieling and her colleagues at Amsterdam University Press. My thanks also to my family who supported me through this project: my late father Arthur Cooper and my mother Shirley Cooper; my husband Geoff Young and my children Issabel Eaves, Georgia Webster, and Zachary Eaves; my stepson Kyle Young; my children’s father Greg Eaves; and my grandchildren Amelie Eaves, Luke, Maxwell and William (Billy) Webster, all of whom have often been in the back seat on this mammoth ride. My deepest gratitude goes to the family of Tamura Yoshikazu and particularly his younger brother Sadanobu, whom I met in the autumn of 2009, and whose remembrances and observations

1 Keene, Chronicles of My Life, p. 36.

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were vital to my research and facilitated a deeper personal understanding of the man that had been Tamura Yoshikazu. I dedicate this book to the memory of my late father Arthur Cooper who served in the RAAF in the Pacific War, to my late father-in-law Fred Young who fought with the Australian Army in the same Wewak area as the diarist, to my cousin Laurence who died as a conscripted soldier at the age of 22 in Vietnam, and, most importantly, to two rural soldiers who took up the call for their countries in two different conflicts, both of whom were dispatched to brutally alien and distant shores. The first was my grandfather Bert Cooper who fought as an original ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) at Gallipoli, Ypres, and the Somme, where his ‘[…] battle[s were] desperate, confused movements through pounding rain and the smoke of guns, in deep, liquid mud, under relentless bombardment – movements that never advanced the line or secured any important position or accomplished anything at all except death and wounds [..]’, and the second, whose role and remembrances were deeply reminiscent of these words, is the diarist himself, Imperial Japanese Army conscript Tamura Yoshikazu.2

2 Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale, p. 60. Hynes writes here of the experiences of one soldier, Edwin Campion Vaughan, at Passchendaele.

1

Setting the Scene

A Synopsis of Japanese Military History Under the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868), travel to and trade with other countries was severely restricted by the policies of sakoku [closed country]. While a very limited amount of trade was allowed, namely with China and Holland through the port of Nagasaki, outside influences of religion and politics were kept away by the strict policies of the shogunate. The Portuguese and the Spanish had been very active in East Asia, and the shogunate was resolutely determined to thwart any impact they could have on the Japanese population. This xenophobic control over the country’s social structure was also part of the shogun’s struggle to maintain supremacy over the other powerful lords [daimyō] within the country. The strength of each feudal domain was contingent on the samurai, who were the warriors protecting the daimyō and his domain. The samurai ranked high on the echelon of the social structure of feudal Japan, and during the Edo Period (1600-1878), the Way of the Samurai [bushidō] became the backbone of this class. The re-created mores of the samurai were to become a strong influence on the national polity of Imperial Japan. One legacy of feudalism was, of course, the threat of unrest between different feudal domains. Reducing the daimyō’s ability to trade with the outside world also ensured that they were limited in their capacity to increase their military strength. For 220 years, the shogunate was successful in repelling attempts to end this policy of seclusion, until the arrival of American Naval Commodore Matthew Perry in July 1853. Perry sailed into Edo Bay (now Tokyo) with four warships – the Mississippi, the Plymouth, the Saratoga, and the Susquehanna, which were thereafter known as the Kurofune [Black Ships]. Backed by the threat of his ships’ guns, Perry demanded that Japan open its doors to the West. Perry’s gunboat diplomacy resulted in various treaties being signed with other Western countries in the ensuing five years. Opening up the country did not happen without resistance from within. Some sought to reinstate the Emperor (direct imperial rule had effectively ended in 1185), and this faction also wished to tighten control of foreign interaction even further.1 By 1866, the daimyō of the Satsuma domain together with the daimyō of 1 The Tokugawa Shogunate had effectively ruled in the Emperor’s name. The Emperor had no power and was merely a figurehead under their rule.

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Chōshū domain in the southern part of the country formed an alliance to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate and reinstate the Emperor Kōmei (Osahito, 1831-1867, reign 1846-1867) as the legitimate ruler. They did so in the hope of restricting the threat they saw from the West, especially in light of the creeping imperialism encroaching China. Emperor Kōmei died, however, at the age of 35, and in his place his teenage son Mutsuhito (aged 15) took the throne as the Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito 1852-1912, reign 1867-1912) on February 3, 1867, effectively ending feudal rule. During the Meiji era, Japan abolished the four-tiered class structure (samurai, peasant, artisan, merchant), instituted universal education for both boys and girls, encouraged a strong manufacturing industry, and – important to this discussion – created a modern military with Western-style uniforms, weaponry, and training.2 This newfound modernism eventually set Japan on a militaristic pathway.

The Emergence of the Kokutai: The Re-creation of the Ancient Myth The kokutai discourse was an amorphous and all-encompassing presence in the socio-political environment of Imperial Japan, and scholarly debate still continues over the precise meaning of the term. Providing a definition of this very slippery concept of kokutai [national polity] is therefore difficult. Following the tabling of the Peace Preservation Law [Chian Iji Hō] in 1925, which referred specifically to kokutai, a complaint was made that even scholars could not define the concept. The Home Minister, Wakatsuki Reijirō (1866-1949), replied that it simply meant ‘nation combined with the Emperor’.3 Gradually, the kokutai formed the backbone of the life processes of the citizens of Imperial Japan as an ideology that was an enforcer of citizen behaviour and beliefs which were in the best interests of Imperial Japan. 4 Under an increasingly militarized Japan, the kokutai also took on the role of the spiritual force that was to mould the thinking and acting processes of members of the Imperial military.5 2 Japan modelled its military and its constitutional monarchy on that of Prussia. 3 Richard H. Mitchell, Censorship in Imperial Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 198. 4 Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991). 5 Mark R. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji and Japan’s Confrontation with the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 37.

Se t ting the Scene

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The kokutai discourse was a form of national landscape – a set of ideas that provided an ever-present background and foreground for the actions of the subjects of wartime Imperial Japan. The overarching set of beliefs embedded in the kokutai ideology of Imperial Japan used as its basis the mythological origins of Japan and drew upon a sense of national uniqueness embodied in the concept of yamato damashii [Japanese spirit] to foster a belief in soldiers that the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in the name of the Emperor was a noble and worthy cause.6 This discourse drew heavily on the ‘collective memory’ of the Japanese and inevitably drew upon those aspects of a ‘shared past’ that would foster a sense of unity and uniqueness.7 As the enduring social and spiritual ‘landscape’ in which Japanese soldiers were located, the kokutai discourse proclaimed Japan’s uniqueness, racial homogeneity, divine origins, and sublime environment.8 These elements combined to create for the Japanese a sense of country that included nationalistic concepts such as ‘national consciousness’ (especially national pride), ‘national ethnocentrism’ (including xenophobia), and ‘national aspirations’ (national self-interest), all of which were factors in the development of the kokutai.9 In developing this cohesive model of Imperial Japan, some of these unifying features were reinvented or even created to ensure that the course forward for Japan had a distinct and particular basis.10 As a consequence, there was a sense of participation in common actions on behalf of the nation or ‘goal involvement’, and this was shrewdly linked to a sense of reward, or ‘ego involvement’, for these actions.11 What was most vital here was the drive towards involvement, and thus the execution of Japan’s imperialistic aims was focused on shared beliefs in the familiar and the distinct, even though these shared beliefs may have evolved or may have been implanted, created, or even imagined.12 The three significant aspects of the re-creation of shared imagery in Japan were a restoration of the imperial myth, an implantation of the idea of the sublime nature of Japan’s environment, and the recasting of the yamato 6 The concept of yamato damashii is discussed later in this chapter. 7 Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 98. 8 Sublime environment and its impact are discussed in Chapter 4. 9 These terms are borrowed from Kenneth W. Terhune, ‘Nationalism among Foreign and American Students: An Exploratory Study’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 8, no. 3 (1964): 256. 10 Lowell Barrington, ‘“Nation” and “Nationalism”: The Misuse of Key Concepts in Political Science’, Political Science and Politics 30, no. 4 (1997): 714 [italics in the original]. 11 Daniel Druckman, ‘Nationalism, Patriotism, and Group Loyalty: A Social Psychological Perspective’, Mershon International Studies Review 38, no. 1 (April 1994): 63. This will form the basis of my argument in Chapter 7. 12 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991).

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spirit in a form that meant a commitment to death for soldiers of Imperial Japan.13 The significant trope of the kokutai discourse was the Emperor himself. Not only was the Emperor the descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu-ōmikami, he was, in fact, a living god, [arabitogami], and devotion to the kokutai inevitably meant an unswerving loyalty to the Emperor of Japan. The patriotism of everyday people became besotted with the kind of adulation akin to fanatical religious conviction. At the core of this devotion was the premise of chūkun [sincerity of heart towards the Emperor].14 The concept of giving one’s life as a faithful retainer of this living god was made even more palatable by Imperial Japan’s notion of the family state [kazoku kokka]. This meant that the Emperor was not only the manifestation of the mythological Amaterasu but also the benevolent and nurturing father figure. Steadfast loyalty to this father figure fundamentally required a subject to give his life in the name of the Emperor. Considerable effort was expended by the authorities to persuade the subjects of Imperial Japan to this end, with soldiers in particular being exhorted to accept that ‘duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather’.15 Although over 140,000 Japanese soldiers were posted with the 18th Army in Papua New Guinea during the Pacific War, a mere 13,000 survived. Major General Yamagata Tsuyuo, Commander of the Buna Detachment, clearly outlined the expectations placed upon these soldiers in a speech to his troops in December 1942. Men should be made to realize the great honour of being in the front line in the Empire’s hour of crisis and of having the opportunity to lay down their lives for their country.16

Of course, death as an outcome of war is a strong probability for all soldiers, but for Japanese soldiers, it was their ultimate expression of loyalty to the 13 The aspects of nature will be discussed in Chapters 4 and 6. The concept of death is further discussed in Chapters 7, 8, and 9. 14 Carol Gluck states that by the end of the Meiji period, ‘emperor and empire, kokutai and chūkun aikoku, were the patriotic concentrate […] devoted to developing a “sense of nation”’. Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology of the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 250. 15 Monbushō, The Imperial Precepts to Soldiers and Sailors (Tokyo: The Department of Education, 1913); ibid., p. 7. 16 AWM ATIS CT No 47, ‘Messages and Directions to Troops from Japanese Commander in New Guinea, Maj-General Yamagata Tsuyuo, Commander of the Buna Detachment 17 December 1942’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 1942), p. 1.

Se t ting the Scene

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Emperor [taigi]. Death, then, was not just a likely outcome of war under Imperial Japan; it was, in fact, each soldier’s great obligation to die.17

Japan at War Three decades of Meiji rule had seen advances in Japan. Delegations had been sent to learn from other advanced countries. Neighbouring Korea, traditionally a tribute state of China’s Qing Empire, had continued a closed-door policy, and the Japanese were determined to ensure that no other power was successful in annexing Korea before they had the chance. China had been exhausted by two decades of fighting the Opium Wars against the British, and so Japan’s attempts to expel them from the Korean Peninsula were successful. The Chinese abandoned northern Korea and were pursued into China proper by the Japanese. The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 to 17 April 1895) resulted in Japan taking Port Arthur and also defeating the Chinese garrisons on the Pescadores Islands, off the west coast of Taiwan (then Formosa). Japan’s victory, sealed in the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895, led to the Qing Empire recognizing the independence of Korea and ceding the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan, and the Penghu Islands to Japan. Japan further annexed the uninhabited Senkaku Islands off Okinawa in 1895. Tensions between Russia and Japan were an aftermath of the First SinoJapanese War. During the Boxer Rebellion that broke out in China (1899-1901), the Russians had encroached on Manchuria and had shown some intent on occupying Korea. Japan was willing to acquiesce to Russian dominance in Manchuria in a trade-off for Korea being under Japanese influence. Russia had a fleet at Port Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula which they were leasing from China, and after negotiations between Russia and Japan stalled in 1904, the Japanese made a surprise attack. The Russians were no match for Japan in the hostilities that followed, and the war concluded with the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth, which recognized Japan’s claims to Korea and compelled Russian troops to leave Manchuria. Russia’s leases on southern Manchuria including Port Arthur were returned to China, and the South Manchuria Railway and mining concessions were given to Japan. The 1904-1905 RussoJapanese War provided Japan with substantial concessions in Manchuria,

17 Soldiers’ commitment to death and the expectation of death are discussed in Chapters 8, 9, and 10.

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most importantly Manchuria’s railways. Additionally, Korea became a Japanese protectorate and was consequently officially annexed in 1910. In aligning with the Allies against Germany in the First World War, Japan had become an important protector of sea lanes in the West Pacific and Indian Oceans. But it also afforded Japan the opportunity to seize some territories in the Pacific and East Asia that had been under German control. This action was followed by the Twenty-One Demands placed upon China by an overly confident Japan in 1915. These demands were for control over previously German-held territories but also had the aim of taking control of the government of China.18 While Japan’s actions were not welcomed by either Britain or the United States of America, Japan was eventually given token sovereignty over Shandong Province in China under the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919 following Germany’s defeat in the First World War. The following period from 1922 onwards under Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito 1879-1926, reign 1912-1926) was a relatively calm period for Japan in terms of conflict outside the country but was one that was characterized by a xenophobic response to the threat of communism. This, together with both local and global economic and political pressures and the persistent illness of the Emperor Taishō, saw the gradual rise of the military as a political power. By the time of the enthronement of the Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito 1901-1989, reign 1926-1989) in 1926, individual freedom had been curbed by the enactment of the Peace Preservation Law in 1925, and the concept of the kokutai became the roots of the Japanese state.19 Universal conscription ensured that all men of required age and physical fitness would serve on behalf of the Empire. Children were educated under an increasingly militarized system that relied heavily on the glorification of the tragic heroes of past military campaigns.20 In order to protect their interests in Manchuria against a growing Nationalist movement in China, the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, setting up a puppet state known as Manchukuo. This state was not officially recognized as legitimate, and border issues and clashes with China ensued. In 1937, a crucial event known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident led to a major clash between Japanese and Chinese troops positioned on either side of the bridge. Both sides sent in troops to try to settle the issue (which had erupted over the disappearance of one single Japanese soldier), but 18 The Qing dynasty had been overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, establishing the Republic of China. 19 The Peace Preservation Law and the concept of kokutai are discussed in detail in Chapter 3. 20 See the section on ‘Creating Tragic Heroes’ in this chapter.

Se t ting the Scene

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more importantly, the incident provided Japan with the excuse to mount a full-scale invasion. Subsequently Beijing, Shanghai, and the Kuomintang [Nationalist] capital of Nanjing were taken by the Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) had begun. In 1940, Japan attempted to cut off supplies to China by invading French Indochina. These supplies included US-purchased war resources. Japan’s actions infuriated the United States, and the US subsequently placed an embargo on oil exports to Japan. Without oil, Japan could not continue its mission to secure dominance over East Asia under its proposed Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan therefore decided to push forward its imperialist aims by launching a pre-emptory attack on Pearl Harbour on 8 December 1941. Japan subsequently proceeded to invade the US-held islands of the Philippines as well as Thailand and British-held Malaya. In late December, British-held Hong Kong fell to the Japanese, as did the American-held island of Wake. By January 1942, Japan’s conquest of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) was complete, and this was followed by the invasion of Burma. Finally, after a brief resistance, the British-held colony of Singapore fell to the Japanese. By April, the Americans had surrendered to the Japanese Army in Bataan in the Philippines, and by May, Corregidor had also collapsed to the Japanese. Central to Japan’s expansionist aims was the need to cut the lines of communication and supply between Australia and the United States. In early March 1942, the Japanese decided to consolidate the occupied areas of their Southern resource belt by establishing bases in the Pacific that would then blockade supplies between Australia and the US. The strategy was to continue coastal raids on Australia to weaken the strength of the Allied counteroffensive. Although the Japanese Naval General Staff argued for an invasion of Australia, it was decided that, given the already compromised resources of the Japanese military, this was not feasible. To defend the Japanese homeland from American advances, the Japanese military realized that they needed to secure Midway Island and the Gilbert Islands. Strategic to this defensive aim was the capture of Port Moresby in New Guinea, which was held by Australia. In May, the tide began to turn against Japan with a decisive defeat in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Fought almost exclusively in the air, this battle was responsible for a massive depletion of Japanese aircraft in the area. The Battle of the Coral Sea was a major turning point in Japan’s fortunes during the war. Tactically, the Japanese had been victorious, but the Americans had severely damaged the Japanese Navy’s carriers, and so the Port Moresby invasion from the sea by Japan was a lost cause. This did not, however, quash their designs on New Guinea as a base for expansion and by April of 1942, they had secured

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Writing Japan’s War in New Guinea

positions from the northwest and down to the southeast of New Guinea. The importance of Midway as part of the defence of the Japanese homeland ensured that the remaining Japanese fleet was employed to undertake a battle there. Here the Japanese were decimated, losing four of their largest aircraft carriers. Following their defeat at the Battle of Midway in June, Japan withdrew from Guadalcanal in December 1942 at the end of a prolonged and exhausting battle. Notwithstanding these losses, the Imperial Japanese Army still had Port Moresby in its sights, with the building of airfields in New Guinea a strategic element in Japan’s plans to dominate the Torres Strait and the Coral Sea. After the Americans’ success in the Battle of Midway, their sights were set firmly on routing the Japanese from New Guinea. Australian reinforcements joined in the battle for New Guinea in May 1942. In mid-May, the Imperial General Headquarters established the Seventeenth Army. The express mission of this Army squadron was to capture Port Moresby, New Caledonia, Samoa, and Fiji. One of the infantry battalions comprised in this regiment was the South Seas Detachment [Nankai Shitai].This battalion, led by Major General Horii Tomitarō (1890-1942), attempted to capture Port Moresby by going overland on the Kokoda Track in late August 1942.21 The Japanese amphibious forces headed for Milne Bay five days later. Unbeknownst to the Japanese, the Australians were also setting out for Milne Bay and had 9,500 men ready and waiting. When the Japanese landed their barges on Goodenough Island, the Australian aircraft from Milne Bay executed a highly successful surprise attack, destroying all the Japanese barges and the majority of their equipment and supplies. The Kokoda Track had been a disaster, and the Japanese soldiers retreated to their starting point near Buna. Most of these men were emaciated and riddled with disease. Ensuing battles and the isolation of the Japanese troops raised alarm bells within the Japanese high command. In November 1942, the command in the southwest Pacific was reorganized and Lieutenant General Adachi Hatazō (1890-1947) assumed command in New Guinea, where he was faced with the dire need to reinforce the starving remaining soldiers in Buna from his base in Rabaul.22 January 1943 saw the fall of 21 Horii Tomitarō drowned when his canoe capsized while trying to reach Japanese forces around the Buna-Gona area in November 1942. 22 Australian soldier Harry Bell writes of Adachi (on seeing him when the war had ended): ‘Adachi himself is a disgusting little scrub, in a dirty old brown uniform (apparently made when his belly was in pre-New Guinea form) all hung with medals. And to cap it, he’s wearing RIDING BOOTS & SPURS. How would he be? His naval attaché was in shorts with a gold dressing gown cord twisted about his shoulder. A couple of A.D.C.’s carry bulging suitcases (“coming for the

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Buna to the Allies. Attempts to secure Port Moresby were thwarted by ‘poor maintenance of food supply, lack of air support, stubborn resistance from the Australian forces, the failure of the Milne Bay campaign, and pressures from the Allied counter-attack at Guadalcanal’.23 Eventually, the defeats suffered by the Japanese in New Guinea resulted in a petition being submitted to the Emperor, which led to reinforcements being requisitioned for the region. On 4 January 1943, orders to strengthen bases of operation at Lae, Salamaua, Madang, and Wewak were issued by the Imperial General Headquarters.24 By the time Tamura arrived in New Guinea, the situation was desperate. A letter from the Commander of the South Seas Detachment to the Chief of Staff of the 18th Army written on 12 January 1943 attributed the loss of life to both enemy attacks and illness: All day long, enemy planes have been bombing and strafing everything in sight. The enemy artillery is concentrating its fire on our positions and deaths and casualties are mounting daily […] The coastal area is being constantly bombarded by enemy gunfire […] our supply line from the coast is already on the verge of collapse […] Most of the men have been strickened [sic] with dysentery. Those who are not too ill are without food and are too weak for hand-to-hand fighting. As the days go by, starvation is taking many lives and weakening the already extended lines […] the only way to redeem the situation is to send reinforcements […] at once […]. For the past two months, the men standing in the flooded and filthy trenches day and night, unable to sleep because of the never-ceasing artillery bombardment and constant air raids, have been awaiting the rescue party.25

By this stage of Japan’s war in the Pacific, the greatest need had become reinforcements of healthy, fit soldiers. The diarist Tamura Yoshikazu was destined to become one of these soldiers.

weekend?”) and there are some big, arrogant looking brutes amongst them.’ Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 226. 23 Steven Bullard, Japanese Army Operations in the South Pacific Area: New Britain and Papua Campaigns, 1942-43, trans. Steven Bullard (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 2007). Bullard, Steven, ‘Translator’s Introduction’, p. v. 24 Donald S. Detwiler and Charles B. Burdick, eds. War in Asia and the Pacific (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc, 1980), p. 48. 25 Ibid., pp. 4-45.

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Becoming the Emperor’s Soldiers The opening up of Japan during the Meiji period also saw the rise of the military, whose conscription system was heavily based on the Prussian model. Since this was the first time the right to bear arms had been afforded to those outside of the warrior class, conscription also assisted in dismantling the feudal system of social organization that had characterized the previous era.26 While the slogan ‘enrich the country, strengthen the military’ [ fukoku kyōhei] made it clear that Japan’s desire for military strength was associated with the accumulation of capital, a ‘sense of godliness’ was evident too, with the men who fought in the Emperor’s army [kōgun] being referred to as ‘divine soldiers’ [shinpei]. And like their warrior facsimile before them, part of this ‘divinity’ required soldiers to lay down their lives on behalf of their lord, in this case the Emperor. Unlike the feudal-era samurai, though, universal conscription meant that all males could potentially become soldiers, with ‘an equal right to death’ [italics in the original].27 Prior to the Second World War, all Japanese males between the ages of 17 and 40 were required to undertake service in the military. Only criminals, students or those who were substantially disabled were exempt. Every 20-year-old was examined medically and classified as follows: Class A Candidates had to be in good physical condition, not less than 1.52m in height and were thus classified as ‘available for active service’. Class B-1 Taller than 1.5m but under the standard of Class A. Also classified as ‘available for active service’. Class B-2 As for B1, but with poorer hearing and eyesight; classified as ‘available for Conscript Reserve’. Class B-3 As for B2, but with even poorer eyesight and physical condition; classified as ‘available for 2nd Conscript Reserve’. Class C Same height as B3, but in worse physical condition […] Classified as ‘assigned to the 2nd National Army’.

26 Edward J. Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2009), p. 29. 27 Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 81.

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Class D Less than 1.44m in height; suffering from certain specific ailments that were not quickly improved by treatment. Classified as ‘Rejected – unfit for service’. Class F Found to be suffering from some temporary ailment and classified as ‘For re-examination next year’.28

During the interwar period (between the Russo-Japanese War and Japan’s entry into the Fifteen Years War which commenced with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931), Classes A and B-1 would be the pool from which recruits were inducted to undertake two years’ military training.29 Conscription occurred on 10 January, as a reference to the date the conscription law was passed during the Meiji era. Training was undertaken in both military and spiritual matters. The actual physical training was tough. From January to May, recruits undertook squad training and marksmanship. In February, recruits would undergo a gruelling five-day march in the snow-blanketed environs of northern Japan. In June and July, the recruits would be trained in marksmanship, platoon and company training, and bayonet practice and would undertake 20-mile marches per day. In August, those marches would increase by a further five miles per day, and in addition to the earlier physical activity, swimming training was undertaken. Training continued through October and November, culminating in a spectator-oriented grand show of ability which was often attended by the Emperor himself. After their two years of training, the conscripts were assigned to the Reserve Army where they remained available for re-call for the next fifteen years. During this interwar period, the average number of officers and men serving in the military numbered around 300,000. As Japan’s involvement in the war in China increased, training was often undertaken in the actual theatre of war. It is unclear what sort of training Tamura undertook on his first call-up for involvement in the China campaign, but we shall see that his second call-up saw him undertake training in the freezing conditions of the China front. By the time Tamura was recalled to serve in New Guinea, the restrictions on who would be eligible for conscription had been loosened and the two-year training that had been the benchmark prior to all-out war was no longer able to be provided.

28 George Forty, Japanese Army Handbook (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2002), p. 13. 29 Edward J. Drea, In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), p. 79.

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Frequently, the best candidates for recruitment were those like Tamura who were from an agriculturally active rural background where they had been engaged in intensive manual labour in the form of rice cultivation. Rural recruits were prized soldiers, having been raised in a regime of discipline associated with farming and frugality. In September 1938, Navy Captain Konishi Tatehiko noted, after a tour of farming villages, that: Leaving Tokyo and setting foot in these farming villages for the first time, one is struck by the solemn atmosphere. Without the firmest of hearts, one cannot find the courage to speak of spiritual mobilization. In fact, when I enter a village, every now and then I have the feeling that it is rather my own national spirit that needs replenishing.30

This pride and discipline were, however, tempered by the state’s insistence on conscripting and sending to the China front the farm households’ primary labourers, of which Tamura was one. Not all soldiers were happy to be called up, as it meant leaving the farm and the family to fend for themselves. However, generally speaking, rural recruits, particularly those from very poor backgrounds, knew that they would receive better remuneration in the military, and this was also welcomed by their families.31 For poorer families, the prospect of a considerable death benefit to the families of soldiers who were killed in battle was also often an attractive enticement. The elite status associated with expectations of supreme physical fitness was also appealing. In reality, though, the very poor countryside and the cities provided the lowest number of draftees due to the requirement for top-level physical f itness. However, by the time Tamura was dispatched to New Guinea, the status of draftees had declined because even quite unfit men were drafted. In his diary, Tamura himself frequently lamented his lowly status in the South compared to his time on the continent.

The Ultimate Weapon: The Spirit of Yamato Damashii As part of their indoctrination into the military, soldiers were assailed with myths from the past by way of spiritual training [seishin kyōiku], which 30 Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People, trans. Ethan Mark (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), p. 47. 31 Ibid., p. 48.

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drew heavily on motifs associated with the code of the samurai, the warrior class of the feudal era. The bushidō [spirit of the samurai] essence of the samurai era, reconstructed by the military authorities to inspire the new spirit of the soldier, was characterized by an emphasis on death over life and, importantly, death on behalf of one’s lord, in this case the Emperor himself.32 Spiritual training was a very important aspect for Japanese recruits. In fact, spiritual training, as we shall see, was the cornerstone of the Imperial Japanese Army’s belief in its superiority as a fighting force. Spiritual ‘invincibility’, or ‘faith’, equalled strength for the Japanese military. This spiritual training in the military emphasized the importance of the Emperor as the divine head of Japan and focussed heavily on the reading and memorizing of Imperial Rescripts.33 At the heart of this spiritual training was the concept of yamato damashii, the essence of Japan’s uniqueness (yamato damashii literally means the Spirit of Japan, Yamato being the original name of the country). In its purest manifestation, yamato damashii offered a sense of an inimitable spiritual superiority. Originally fostered as a contrast to Chinese learning,34 the phrase yamato damashii referred to the delicate and more feminine sensitivities of the Heian court (794-1185).35 The Tale of Genji [Genji Monogatari c. 1007-1021], arguably one of the most important works in Japanese literature, contrasted yamato damashii [Japanese spirit] with Chinese zae [learning].36These two opposing elements developed eventually into the literary expression wakon-kansai [Japanese spirit,

32 The term junjiru is frequently used by Tamura and means to die as a martyr, to sacrif ice oneself. It is closely related to the term junshi – self-immolation of an attendant on the death of his lord, which means to follow one’s lord into death. It is of interest here that death for one’s lord was only in the case of the lord having been defeated in battle and not as a common requirement of the samurai. Kanno Kakumyō writes that, in fact, bushi is an occupation, not an ideology, and that bushidō as reinvented during the Meiji era was instilled with an almost religious aspect. See Kanno Kakumyō, Bushidō no gyakushū (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 2004), pp. 18, 33. 33 Imperial Rescripts are discussed in Chapter 3. 34 Michael Carr, ‘Yamato Damashii: Japanese Spirit Def initions’, International Journal of Lexicography 7, no. 4 (1994): 279. 35 Saitō Shōji, Yamato damashii no bunkashi (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1972), p. 4. 36 The Tale of Genji was written by Murasaki Shikibu, a noblewoman of the powerful Fujiwara clan who eventually entered the service of the Empress Akiko as a lady-in-waiting. Written in very difficult and archaic language, her work focuses on the court life of the Heian Period, and particularly the flawed hero “Shining Genji” [Hikaru Genji]. Regarded as a masterpiece of Japanese literature, it is sometimes referred to as one of the first modern novels written earlier than most European texts.

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Chinese learning].37 While the origins of yamato damashii lie in the essence of Japanese culture and tradition as an alternative to Chinese learning, Imperial Japan introduced into the notion of yamato damashii the reinvented tradition of bushidō as the ‘Soul of Old Japan’ in order to ensure that it would be linked to the ultimate devotion of death.38 There was an obvious progression from the idea that Japan was endowed with a unique and superior natural landscape to the belief that the Japanese people themselves were the bearers of a unique and superior spirit. This spirit was the embodiment of yamato damashii.39 Yamato damashii was exactly what the new order required to set Japan apart. This national spirit was a blend of both Confucian and Buddhist ideals overlaid with the indigenous Shintō religion, which gave the Emperor his role as the descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. The revitalization of the concept of yamato damashii during the Meiji period saw the term take on a strongly chauvinistic, nationalistic flavour.40 Ancillary to this process was the establishment of State Shintō, which permitted indigenous beliefs to be manipulated and reconstructed in a manner that had little to do with the local rituals practiced in provincial areas. 41 In order to buttress the requirement of soldiers to give up their lives for the Emperor, Shintō was skewed away from its origins as a life-affirming belief system with inherent ritualistic cleansing and purifying traditions to an ideology that supported the notion that the most purifying experience was death in war. The very ideal of yamato damashii was centred on ethnic and physical superiority. This resonated closely with the idea of a distinctive natural environment. Not only was Japanese nature supreme and the people unique as children of the Emperor, the overall spirit of Japan was also unmatched anywhere in the world. This unique spirit was believed to empower the subjects of Imperial Japan with impregnable determination and willpower, which would enable them to face any obstacles and

37 Carr, ‘Yamato Damashii: Japanese Spirit Definitions’, p. 279. 38 Lafcadio Hearn, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (New York: MacMillan Company, 1904), p. 177. 39 The concept of unique landscape will be discussed further in Chapter 3. 40 Takie Sugiyama Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976), p. 163. 41 Wilbur Fridell, ‘A Fresh Look at State Shinto’, Journal of American Academy of Religion 44, no. 3 (1976): 547-561.

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challenges. 42 This is reflected in a poem that Emperor Meiji composed espousing the fearlessness and gallantry that was bestowed on members of the unique Yamato clan. The valor of the Yamato heart When faced with a crisis Its mettle proves43

The intrinsic link between yamato damashii and the myth of the Imperial family was made very clear in a military speech captured by the Allies. The Imperial family is the light, the life, the pride of Japan. In truth, Japan is Japan and the Japanese are the Japanese because of the Imperial family. From this consciousness, the Japanese spirit is born. A loyalty which utterly disregards the safety of the home and family, even one’s own life, for the welfare of the country is born. This special Japanese spirit is something peculiarly Japanese. […] We who possess this special Japanese spirit can accomplish our duty; but those who do not have it, perform only a superficial duty. 44

As inheritors of this ‘special Japanese spirit’, the Japanese believed they were empowered to accomplish their duty in a way that was impossible for those who did not possess this unique power. The military took that power one step further by instilling a belief that the Japanese soldier had an inherent superior fighting spirit. 45 Significantly, this meant that dying became the ultimate goal and that dying well was the pinnacle. Ultimately, the lofty aims of a pure and noble death meant that all soldiers were consigned to the purifying ‘bath of blood’. 46 The spirit of yamato damashii, a ‘superior’ spirit intended to ‘match poor training against their numbers and our flesh

42 Allison B. Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets: Psychological Warfare against the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), p. 53. 43 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, trans. John Owen Gauntlett (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1949), p. 13. 44 AWM ATIS SWPA RR no 76 pt 2 Box 119, ‘Research Report : The Emperor Cult as a Present Factor in Japanese Military Psychology’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 21 June 1944), p. 11. 45 Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 111. 46 Dower, War without Mercy, p. 231.

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against their steel’ was now bonded to warriors and their fighting spirit and became the mantra for all soldiers during the Second World War. 47

Creating Tragic Heroes The recreated ethos of demonstrating one’s loyalty until death was bolstered by the promotion of military heroes from the golden age of the loyal samurai, the bushi. Through its association with these heroes of the past, bushidō became not merely a crucial element in the kokutai ideology but also an expression of ‘Japaneseness’ itself. 48 From the early twentieth century, this set of ideas played a significant role in the socialization and preparation of Japanese soldiers for death, with stories such as that of the forty-seven rōnin (rōnin are samurai without a lord, usually as the result of the lord’s demise) – who sacrificed their lives for the honour of their lord – becoming powerful psychological devices for military training.49 Like the samurai of old, the soldiers’ mission was to die unconditionally in the name of taigimeibun [devotion to the greater cause]. The only way to become a hero was, in fact, to die. The kokutai, which had originally been constructed to provide a code of living during the Meiji period, was now overtly a code of death and resulted in the refabrication of the samurai era’s model of the tragic hero. The tragic heroes celebrated from the late Meiji period onwards were tragic in the sense of the Greek tragedy. In other words, while the hero dies as a result of divine and societal intervention, his imminent death can provide a sense of achievement for himself and will certainly ensure that he is lauded by those he leaves behind, again relating to ego and goal involvement on the part of the hero.50 The re-appearance of the tragic hero was precipitated by Japan’s victory in both the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). While the First Sino-Japanese War ended in a relatively unproblematic victory, the much bloodier Russo-Japanese War became a compelling ‘landscape of death’ that provided the testing ground for soldiers 47 AWM ATIS SWPA RR no 76 pt 3 ‘Report on Psychological Warfare annex 3 “Answer to Japan” 11: “The Warrior Tradition as a Present Factor in Japanese Military Psychology”’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 6; also quoted in Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets, p. 55. 48 Robert H. Sharf, ‘The Zen of Japanese Nationalism’, History of Religions 33, no. 1 (August 1993): 6. 49 Rōnin are effectively masterless samurai whose lord has either been defeated in battle or has been killed in battle. Without a master, they are unable to survive, and so their decision to die is not only to maintain their honour but also a matter of physical necessity. 50 This is linked to ego and goal involvement as discussed in Chapter 7.

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to display the loyalty demanded by the Imperial code.51 Victory in these conflicts validated the Imperial Army’s bushidō ethos of ‘self-discipline, self-sacrifice, single-mindedness, unhesitating obedience to one’s lord, and utter fearlessness in the face of death’.52 Before long, the bushidō ethos came to be used as spiritual training of not only the military but also, in the years leading up to the War in the Pacific, of the common citizen. Predictably, emphasis was given to heroes who had gloriously and often ceremoniously given up their lives for their lord.53 In the 1928 text Nippon Shindō Ron [The National Ideal of the Japanese People], for example, Hibino Yutaka recalled the spirit of sacrifice in the Russo-Japanese War when he exhorted Japanese soldiers to ‘brave a thousand deaths to defend the national honour’.54 He continued by affirming that ‘Our people from generation to generation […] have served [the Emperor] desiring nothing better than to die for his sake’.55 Ultimately, though, it was the modern era that provided one of the great tragic heroes of the time in the form of General Nogi Maresuke (1849-1912) who, in the company of his wife, on 9 July 1912, the morning of the funeral of the Emperor Meiji, followed the Emperor to the grave by committing junshi, the ritual suicide of a samurai following the death of his lord. While Nogi’s death conferred renewed status on this now forbidden act, the incident was not without controversy.56 However, for the authorities this suicide was a propaganda godsend, with Nogi being rewarded for this ultimate sacrifice with interment in the Emperor Meiji’s mausoleum. Nogi’s sensational demise gave heightened credence for the remainder of the Imperial era to the concept of unswerving loyalty to and a willingness to die on behalf of the Emperor.57 Quoted in Nippon Shindō Ron, author and newspaper editor Kuroiwa Shūroku (1862-1920)58 likened the ritual death of General Nogi to that of Nankō (1294-1336),59 the loyal general of the banished Emperor

51 Denis Aston Warner and Peggy Warner, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 (London, Sydney, Singapore, Manila: Angus and Robertson, 1974), p. 302. 52 Sharf, ‘The Zen of Japanese Nationalism’, p. 6. 53 Hillis Lory, Japan’s Military Masters (New York: The Viking Press, 1943), p. 39. 54 Hibino Yutaka, Nippon Shindō Ron, trans. A.P. McKenzie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 15. 55 Ibid., p. 19. 56 Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army, p. 115. 57 David C. Earhart, Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2008), p. 423. 58 Also known under the pen name Kuroiwa Ruiko, he founded the newspaper Yorozu Chōhō in 1892. 59 His actual name was Kusanoki Masashige, also known as the Great Nankō.

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Godaigo (1288-1339) who committed suicide in July 1336 when his cause was lost. According to Kuroiwa, [Nankō] believed that his death at this juncture would provide a nobler pattern to succeeding generations than his continued existence possibly could […] He left behind a model of how a knight should die. In a physical and material sense he failed and yet in a spiritual sense he succeeded. He well knew that he could not be victorious, and he considered that a spiritual victory was in any case of greater importance to the cause.60

Nogi’s revival of this ethos so inspired Kuroiwa that he was moved to laud the dead general in verse: Who can refrain from praising him? He has now joined his Emperor in death. By such a death he has maintained the exalted nobility of his former conduct. In his death he has exhibited the purest of loyalty.61

These lines exalted Nogi’s sacrifice of his own life in the name of his lord and also tied this act to samurai practices of previous times, providing a potent model of military behavior.62 Whilst falling short of lauding General Nogi’s ritual suicide, the seminal text of the Imperial era, the Kokutai no Hongi, nevertheless applauded the earlier sacrifice of his sons to the Russo-Japanese War as his ultimate act of loyalty and filial piety.63 Death is proclaimed here as the highest expression of loyalty, and the use of tracts such as these ultimately fostered a belief in ‘death for honour’.64

60 Hibino, Nippon Shindō Ron, p. xxv. 61 Ibid., p. xxviii. 62 Doris G Bargen, Suicidal Honor: General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki (Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 2006), p. 13. 63 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 91 The Kokutai no Hongi is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. 64 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 380.

2

An Extraordinary Diary of an Ordinary Soldier

Diary Writing in Japan Diary writing has a long history in the wider Japanese literary tradition, beginning at least as early as the literary and travel diaries of the Heian era (794-1185). While many diaries of the Heian period are the product of onnade [the woman’s hand], there was also a strong tradition of male diary writing as exemplified by the tekibae or notebooks of the warrior class and the nisshi or diaries of bureaucrats.1 Diary writing in the modern period was enhanced in the Meiji education system, which instituted the keeping of student diaries which were reviewed by both teachers and parents through the nikki kensa, or diary inspection process. By the end of the nineteenth century, diary writing was a cemented and quotidian activity that required ‘no special explanation’.2 Diaries have also been particularly evident in the modern military, with the war diaries [ jinchū nikki/nisshi] kept during the Meiji era campaigns setting a precedent for military diaries of the modern era. The idea of field diaries [gunjin nikki] was suggested to the Japanese military by their Prussian advisers, and these were kept by regimental officers. Their strategic contents covered troop movements, topography, weather, supplies, and logistics.3 This system persisted throughout the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. By the 1930s, texts such as the record of self-reflection [hanseiroku], the record of self-cultivation [shūyōroku], and the training diary [kunren nikki] flourished in the military, reflecting how important diary keeping was as a tool to support the personal and professional development of the soldier. 4 In fact, the importance with which the writing of a diary was viewed was expressed when the sergeant of the corps wrote in a new recruit’s diary in 1936 ‘No matter how difficult it may seem, you must take your diary [hanseiroku] seriously! It is your “mirror of truth” [makoto no kagami]. It will be your last

1 Aaron William Moore, ‘Essential Ingredients of Truth: Japanese Soldiers’ Diaries in the Asia Pacific War’, Japan Focus (2009): 1. 2 Donald Keene, Modern Japanese Diaries (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1995), p. 2. 3 Moore, ‘Essential Ingredients of Truth’, p. 1. 4 Ibid., p. 4.

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will and testament [igonsho]’.5 The Second World War saw a continuation of what had by now become a fixed practice of logistical and strategic diary writing within the Japanese military. The notebooks in which these diaries were kept were commonly distributed within the packs supplied to soldiers on their departure for the front. These packs were issued by the Army Relief Department from monies raised by the patriotic women’s associations.6

The Diarist: Tamura Yoshikazu Born on April 27, presumably in 1918, Tamura Yoshikazu was one of four children raised on a small farm near Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture in eastern Japan. While passionate about the mountainous landscape surrounding his home, Tamura was not so enamoured with life as a farmer. He had burning aspirations for a better education and a more rewarding life. Tamura was also a prolific diarist and had written diaries both as a civilian and as a soldier in his first call-up to China. Unfortunately, all but one of the diaries that were left behind on Tamura’s second call-up were destroyed by his grieving sister, distraught that Tamura did not return home. The Tamura family home was a rustic wooden farmhouse with the customary tiled roof. Only two tatami [straw mat] rooms with a Buddhist family altar and a lean-to kitchen with a dirt floor comprised the lower floor of the house, while Tamura’s bedroom, where he enjoyed reading and writing his diary, was a compact loft in the pitched roof of the house.7 Tamura was a talented student who excelled at school, where he joyfully remained until he was 14 years of age. His school principal had tried in vain to convince the Tamura patriarch to allow his son to continue with his schooling, no doubt indicating that the young man had shown potential as a student. Unfortunately, though, his duties were required for the family farm, and any possibility of continuing his education was crushed by the father’s point-blank refusal. Tamura was, of course, also the eldest son, and tradition meant that he would eventually have to take over the farm and care for his parents. There was a risk that, if Tamura continued his education, he would never become the farmer that his father desired. Yet Tamura was not daunted by his father’s wishes, nor did he actually comply with them. In fact, 5 Morita Tatsuo, ‘Hanseiroku’,(Sendai: Sendai Japanese History Museum,1936.). As quoted in Moore, ‘Essential Ingredients of Truth’, p. 4. 6 Hugh Clarke, ‘Walls, Physical and Ideological, and a Soldier’s Diary’, The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia. vol. 39-40 (Part 1) (2007-8): 115. 7 The house is still standing and was used by Tamura’s brother as a retreat for his own diary writing.

An Ex tr aordinary Diary of an Ordinary Soldier

45

rather than yield to his father’s desire, Tamura ran away to work for about six months in a factory in Oyama. He also persisted with his education, as during this time he continued his schooling by means of a correspondence course. Like other young Japanese men of the time, however, Tamura was destined to become a soldier as Japan intensified its expansionary aims. As the likelihood for increased conflict on the Chinese mainland intensified, and perhaps due to his father’s protestations or perhaps due to his own final submission, Tamura eventually returned to farm life reluctantly to assist his family, and for the ensuing years before his first enlistment in the China campaign, he enjoyed a relatively uncomplicated life of youthful freedom, friendship, and family, coupled with fairly taxing farm labour. He didn’t resist his call-up to serve in China; the best thing about his initial enlistment was the opportunity it afforded to leave the farm.8

A Soldier Diarist’s Journey Tamura joined the New Guinea campaign weighing 57 kilograms and with a chest size of 84 centimetres. At 158.5 centimetres, he was slightly above the required height and well above the accepted weight for a Japanese A-level inductee at that time.9 When he wrote his New Guinea diary, Tamura was already a seasoned soldier, a two-year veteran of the China campaign, for which he had been drafted in 1939 at the age of twenty-one.10 Tamura’s unit was based in the northern part of China and was not engaged in combat.11 Photographs remaining at the family home depict his time in China as relatively happy and uncomplicated. His uniform was neat and tidy with shiny buttons and well-polished shoes, he was thoroughly equipped, and his 8 Tamura was the eldest of one sister and a brother. Details of his life were provided to the author by his younger brother Sadanobu. 9 See AJRP website Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. Tamura qualif ied as an A-level inductee, as ‘A level inductees (that is those who were in prime physical condition and who were taller than 155cm), with a chest size at least half of height, weighing at least a mere 47 kilograms, and nor be totally bald […]’. Drea, In the Service of the Emperor, p. 78. 10 The 239th Infantry regiment of the 41 st Division, of which Tamura was a member in New Guinea, was first raised in Utsunomiya in September 1939. Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 11 It is highly likely that Tamura re-joined his China-based regiment along with other newly recruited soldiers from the Tochigi area. A report in the Order of Battle stated that ‘In October 1939, the 41st Division left Japan for Shanxi where it is believed to have remained until the end of 1942. It then sailed from Tsingtao and came via Palau to Wewak, New Guinea where it is now located.’ AWM Library, ‘Order of Battle of the Japanese Armed Forces’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM), July 1943, pp. 85-86.

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diet was sufficient. He enjoyed the camaraderie of other soldiers from his district in Japan and indeed the company of locally based Japanese women. There are also photographs that show Japanese soldiers and Chinese farmers together, and even in these, everyone is smiling happily for the camera (this is remarkable, given the actions of the Imperial Japanese Army on the Asian mainland). There is, of course, also the likelihood that some of Tamura’s experiences in China were ‘sanitized’ as per the direction of the State. In fact, there was a memorandum to soldiers returning from the Chinese mainland issued on February 1, 1939 – ‘Matters Pertaining to the Guidance and Control of Speech of Units and Soldiers Returning from the Area of the China Incident’ – which was designed to mitigate the destruction of ‘home front “solidarity”’ and the undermining of ‘trust in the “imperial army”’ due to soldiers relating graphic stories of their war experiences.12 The only apparent downside to Tamura’s tour of duty in China was that, like many others, he was hospitalized with malaria, which continued to plague him in New Guinea. However, unlike the hellhole that confronted him in New Guinea, China offered a hospital experience for Tamura where he was well cared for in a professional environment.13 These favourable China circumstances contrast markedly with the horrors Tamura faced in New Guinea. Early in the diary, Tamura assesses his current situation as follows: ‘How much more miserable the conditions here are than at my time on the warfront in China.’14 After the mandatory two years of active service, Tamura was demobbed and worked for a year and a half in factories in Tokyo.15 Still desperate to break away from being a farm boy, Tamura decided to become a ‘salaryman’, a term used for white collar workers, and pressed his younger brother to take over the family farm. Tamura enjoyed his life in the city, even though by 1941 the gravity of the war situation resulted in considerable hardships for civilians. However, his dreams of being a salaryman came to an abrupt end when the intensification of Japan’s war effort led to Tamura’s second conscription in late 1942 when he joined the 239th Regiment (Tōto 36 Unit) of the 41st Division, with departure for the battlefield scheduled for January 1943.16 The troops numbered 19,000 in total and were deployed from 12 Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism, p. 64. 13 This photo album was viewed at Tamura’s brother’s house in Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, March 2009. 14 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 23. Written between 2 and 5 April 1943. 15 It is unclear whether this was his personal choice. 16 Soldiers who had been demobbed remained on the list to be recalled to active duty. Ulrich Straus, The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003), p. 38.

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Shimonoseki to China (where they would team up with the Shanxi-based 239th Regiment) via Korea. From China, they set out as three separate regiments of approximately 4,000 infantrymen, each aboard eleven transport ships escorted by ten cruisers. On arrival in Wewak, an important air base, Tamura’s division came under the control of the 18th Army.17 Tamura had little time to say farewell to friends and loved ones, and although his unit did receive some training en route in Korea and China (albeit in conditions that had little bearing on those that would confront him in New Guinea), the time between recall and departure meant there was absolutely no training in the homeland for the unforgiving battlefield that lay ahead of him.18 By the time of his involvement in the Pacific War, it was common for soldiers who had been recalled to be sent directly to their assignment without a chance of even a hasty farewell.19 There is no reference as to Tamura being reluctant to leave. Tamura and his fellow conscripts had no idea where they were to be sent, but it was a fairly good guess for Tamura that they were ‘heading south’.20 The troops had been provided with only a summer weight uniform for departure at the height of the Northern Hemisphere winter. Although he returned relatively unscathed from his tour of China, Tamura was intuitively pessimistic about his chances of survival from this second round of conscription. He quipped to his brother that even though he was very fit and a fast runner, he wouldn’t be able to outrun the bullets this time. He knew instinctively that this would indeed be his ‘last farewell to this life’21 and that he wouldn’t be coming home. Tamura departed his hometown on 12 January 1943 and was dispatched from Utsunomiya, the capital of Tochigi Prefecture situated slightly north of Tamura’s hometown, late at night the same day. In the early stages of the war, 17 See Australia Japan Research Project website, Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 18 Entry 18 Dec 1942 ‘It seems as if some of us will be shipped to the southern front sometime during the end of the month. Beginning from the 19th, we are prohibited from communicating with the outside’. AWM ATIS Bulletin No 447 Item 6, ‘Diary dated 17 October 1942 to 21 September 1943’ (owner unknown), (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 6. 19 Straus, The Anguish of Surrender, p. 38. 20 ‘The 41st Division came under the tactical command of the 18th Army (upon its landing at Wewak between 20 and 24 February 1943) and, on 13 April 1943, was placed under the Army’s direct command. On 23 December 1942, this division, which had been stationed in the Tienching-Pukou railway area in north China, had been placed under the direct command of the Eighth Area Army’. Detwiler and Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific, pp. 149-50. James P. Duffy states that ‘The entire 41 st Division, previously stationed at Tsingta, China, would join them in the coming weeks, bringing the number of troops at Wewak close to 25,000’. James P. Duffy, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea (New York: New American Library, 2016), p. 195. 21 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 28. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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mass crowds, pomp, and ceremony witnessed the departure of the soldiers for the front. Whole villages turned out, and each soldier was presented with a senninbari [thousand-stitch cloth] as protection from harm.22 This show of enthusiastic approval for the war and appreciation for the soldiers had completely disappeared by the time Tamura left for New Guinea. His departure was in the dead of night, without a single person to send either him or any of the troops off on their fateful journey. After arriving in Shimonoseki, Tamura travelled by troop ship to Pusan in Korea, and then on to China. From Qingdao in the north of China, Tamura sailed to Palau, where he arrived on 10 February 1943. It is likely that Tamura undertook some tropics training in Palau, but his time there was very short, and the training would have only been minimal to prepare him for what was to be his base in New Guinea. The regiment then transferred to eleven transport ships under a ten-cruiser escort to their final destination of Wewak.23 5 January: Enlistment into 36th Regiment 12 January: Departure from Utsunomiya 14 January: Disembarkation Pusan Korea En route to Manchuria, North China 18 January: Arrival in Botou, North China 20 January: Arrival in Qingdao, North China Taking up camp at Sakuraoka Barracks 3 February: Embarkation 4 February: Departure from Qingdao 10 February: Arrival in Palau, Micronesia, Pay homage at Shintō Shrine 19 February: Departure from Palau24 22 February: Disembarkation Wewak, New Guinea Set up tent camp25 22 The senninbari were prepared by the local Women’s Associations, whose representatives would randomly ask citizens to sew one stitch. The senninbari was considered a kind of talisman for protection and was worn around the very vulnerable abdominal area. 23 See AJRP website, Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 24 An interrogation report of a prisoner of war captured on 10 September 1943 records that, while training in Palau, ‘they lived in tents for about three weeks and then constructed jungle huts […]. Troops were trained to build roads and bridges over small rivers and to dig slit trenches and various forms of dugouts.’ AWM ATIS Serial 360 IR 238 (Canberra, Australia: AWM), ‘IR 238 captured 10 September 1943’. 25 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 1. Written between 22 February and 6 March 1943. Convoy movements from Palau to New Guinea continued from 19 January to 29 May; see Detwiler and Burdick, eds. War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 154. Regarding shipping shortages, see ibid., p. 155.

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Even the early part of his journey from Palau to Wewak was fraught with enemy activity. Enemy submarines. February 19 About two hours’ distance from the base we were looking back at our beloved islands fondly, enjoying the cool of the evening. Suddenly a voice shouted ‘Submarine’. The trumpet called us To Arms. The marines ran about left and right. Everybody was laughing so we wondered what was happening when the ship shuddered fiercely and veered. Glancing at the water we saw two or three speeding torpedoes leaving behind narrow white trails. They were incredibly fast. They whooshed whitely through the water, now hidden by the waves, now darting to the surface and speeding forward. They missed ships 1 and 2 by a hairbreadth. Luckily the ships were able to evade them.26

The grim reality of war at sea is evidenced in Tamura’s words when he continues: The patrol plane must have spotted the submarines. It zoomed down and dropped a bomb. There was a huge explosion with a plume of white spray. The escorting destroyer advanced to our right at high speed. The siren sounded for us to put on our life-saving gear. Below decks suddenly became crowded as everyone rushed into the cabins. We had been really easygoing up till now, but suddenly we became tense. It occurred to us that we could at any moment all become ‘shark bait’. Luckily, we were saved by the early detection of the submarine. To see a submarine here, within sight of our own base, acutely brought home to us the difficulties of war at sea. One submarine was sunk. Then we soldiers returned to our usual cheerfulness.27

On arrival in Wewak, Tamura’s division was responsible for guarding the area around Wewak, a strategic air and sea base. Tamura notes in his diary ‘Engineer Tsuboi Tai’, which presumably is in reference to himself.28 To his great regret, though, he discovered that the primary task to which he was allotted in Wewak was limited to the construction of air strips and roads.

26 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 59. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943. 27 Ibid., p. 60. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943. 28 Ibid., p. 24. Tsuboi Tai was the name of a military unit in New Guinea. Written 5 April 1943.

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Although his unit was subject to Allied air attacks, Tamura was to have no combat contact with the enemy, at least during the course of his diary.29 In January 1943, the dire status of the war for the Japanese in New Guinea saw the need for air support for the ground forces and for protecting the transport of supplies. This deployment of what eventually amounted to about one-quarter of the Imperial Japanese Army’s air power was delayed due to the insufficiency of air bases in New Guinea. The construction of airfields for these bases was the task to which Tamura was assigned upon his arrival in the South. His base in Wewak was one of the most strategic in the Imperial Japanese Army’s campaign for New Guinea.30 Between March and April 1943, Tamura’s unit was involved in airfield construction in the towns of Wewak and But.31 From April to June, the men were engaged both in airfield construction in Dagua and road construction from Dagua inland to Maprik. This road construction was a priority operationally, but it was poorly executed and only progressed a mere four kilometres by mid-August and was therefore abandoned in favour of improving the airfields.32 Subsequently, between July and September the unit moved back to Wewak where they continued with airfield construction.33 Most of this construction work was achieved with only the hard labour of the men using bare hands, shovels, mattocks, and picks. There was also the constant threat of air raids. In fact, the bombing of Wewak was a very significant series of raids undertaken by Allied planes between 17 and 21 August in 1943, aimed at

29 ‘At first, the 41st Division was assigned guard duty in the vicinity of Wewak and But.[…] during early March, one battalion of the 239th Regiment was transferred to But and, by the end of May, the main strength of the 239th Regiment, one artillery battalion and one company each from the engineer and transport regiments had reinforced the area […] by late July, three infantry battalions were engaged in repairing the airfields in the vicinity of But and constructing a road between But and Maprik […].’ see Detwiler and Burdick, eds. War in Asia and the Pacific, pp. 144-46. 30 An excerpt dated 19 February 1943 from the diary of a soldier who had arrived slightly earlier than Tamura states that ‘It is said that a new 41st Division has landed in Wewak on the 16th Feb. […]’ Subsequently the soldier notes that ‘One month has passed since we came to New Guinea. The first stage of the But airfield has been completed. Even now bombers can land and take off […] the jungle will be opened up so that planes can be put there. It is expected this project will be completed approx. 2 March […].’ AWM ATIS Bulletin 542 Item 7 ‘Diary of Sup Pte Takata Kiyomitsu Korea 24th Force Nakata Unit (Canberra, Australia: AWM), 1 Feb 1943-17 May 1943’. 31 Sup Pte Takata also notes on 2 March that ‘2 or 3 days ago the work of constructing the WEWAK airport so that the bombers could take off and land was begun’. Ibid. 32 Detwiler and Burdick, eds. War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 178. This road was over very mountainous terrain with dense jungle. 33 For more information on Japanese troop movements in New Guinea, see Australia Japan Research Project, Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’.

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destroying the major air base of the IJA (Imperial Japanese Army) at Wewak.34 It was a decisive victory for the Allies, as it saw the destruction of more than 100 Japanese aircraft, which reduced their strength to only about 30 planes.35 From October 1943, the regiment was ordered to move to Madang to take part in the Finnistere and Saidor campaigns under Commander Nakai. This was perhaps the only opportunity for Tamura to be engaged in combat, although his diary reveals nothing of his life or whereabouts after about 8 December 1943. Of the 350,000 Japanese soldiers deployed to the South West Pacific from 1942, only 130,000 – a little more than one-third – survived to return to Japan. Tamura was not destined to be one of them. All that remains of his New Guinea experience is his diary.

The Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu As we have seen, Tamura was not the only Japanese soldier to keep a diary, and there was a degree of expectation that diaries would be kept. Rather than the more tactical diaries which were probably more akin to a journal, the diary of Tamura Yoshikazu follows a pattern of including his own personal impressions and emotions, coupled with poems and more literary passages. While tactical and strategic diaries were subject to inspection by senior officers, there was little in Tamura’s diary – apart from later scathing comments about the upper echelon – that would have been of interest to them.36 Unsurprisingly, the document does not contain the full name of the writer; however, the contents of the entries point to its being the property of Tamura Yoshikazu. This was verified from the handwriting and specifics related to the writer’s family by Tamura’s younger brother, Tamura Sadanobu.37 The ink-based writing has faded, and the diary’s pages are yellowed and 34 Wewak ‘was seriously assaulted for the first time on August 17, 1943, with a force of nearly 200 aircraft […] the first wave – B24s – attacked at night. […] That was merely the first raid on Wewak. In the following weeks Wewak and many other targets were struck hard’. Eric Bergerud, Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000), p. 630. 35 The 6th Air Division of the Japanese Army had around 324 aircraft situated at Wewak prior to this attack; the 7 th Air Division had a total 156 Aircraft at But. The Allied attacks of 17-18 August reduced this total number to only about 100 aircraft. See Keiko Tamura, ‘Japanese soldier’s experience of war’, in From a Hostile Shore: Australia and Japan at War in New Guinea, ed. Steven Bullard (Canberra, Australia: Australian War Memorial, 2004), p. 100. 36 Clarke, ‘Walls, Physical and Ideological, and a Soldier’s Diary’, p. 116. 37 Tamura’s diary does use the name Yoshikazu, although it is with two different sets of characters. On page 66 of the diary he writes it as 義一, while on page 99 he writes it as 芳一 (both instances are in letters to his friend, Eiji).

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very fragile. Tamura’s younger brother Sadanobu carefully donned white cotton gloves each time he handled it.38 Tamura’s diary is written in a small bound notebook [techō], standard army issue. The notebook measures approximately 8 x 10 centimetres and consists of entries of about 160 pages, spanning the eight months between April and December 1943.39 On page 16 we find that Tamura’s first dated entry in the diary is 1 April, two months after his arrival in Wewak in February 1943. By this time, his regiment had established itself – as far as was possible with only the most meagre of amenities – in the jungles of New Guinea. Just before the final entry, which was made some time after 8 December 1943, Tamura recorded heavy shelling of the area by the Allied Forces. The diary ends at this juncture. 40 At the time of the re-emergence of Tamura’s diary, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra was working on research under the auspices of the Australia Japan Research Project (AJRP). At that time, Dr Keiko Tamura was engaged in this research and was the key person to deal with the diary of Tamura (no relation to her). Keiko Tamura was instrumental in ensuring that the diary was repatriated to the soldier Tamura’s family in Japan. She translated a small section of the diary and also researched the background of the soldier Tamura’s battalion in New Guinea. 41

The Diary as a Tool of Investigation: Uncovering Kokutai As we have seen, the introduction of nikki kensa [the review by parents and teachers of diaries written by students] further formalized the practice 38 The author met with Tamura Sadanobu in 2009. The original diary contains the registration numbers of his firearm, sword, and watch. It also contains his bank account number. See Keiko Tamura ‘ A Japanese soldier’s experience of war’, p. 96. 39 The transcribed diary consists of 143 pages. The page numbers referred to in this book relate to the transcribed diary. 40 A brief history of Tamura’s unit is provided by Keiko Tamura in her study of Tamura’s diary, Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 41 Ibid. Dr Tamura also notes that there were two entries in English in the pages at the end of Tamura’s diary. These appear to be JX1759 with the name Kerry or Harry, and JW1107 with a name that resembles Gareth. The research centre at the Australian War Memorial cannot confirm any military codes that relate to the letters and numbers, however, they are listed as phone numbers available through Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au) . Until the 1960s, metropolitan areas in Australia had alphabetical prefixes corresponding to a number. The numbers were J=4, W=8 and X=9. Trove has articles listing JW1107 as a racing dogs kennel: ‘Advertising’ Sporting Globe (Melbourne, Vic:1922-1954) 27 April 1938:10 (Edition 1). JX1759 was listed as a phone number relating to a real estate listing in Northcote (Victoria, Australia) in the later 1940s: ‘Advertising’ The Age (Melbourne, Vic: 1854-1954 ) 22 March 1949: 7 Trove NLA, ‘The Age Article’, The Age, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205356838.

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of diary writing while also placing a regulatory tone of censorship on the diary’s contents. The practice of nikki kensa within the army arguably constrained the contents of diaries and would certainly have imposed some state-sanctioned thought processes of the kokutai on the everyday private lives of individual servicemen. For Japanese soldiers, the state-sanctioned discourse was that of the kokutai. Imperial rescripts, education practices, neighbourhood associations, patriotic women’s associations, and the aggressive training of the military ensured that soldiers would, in fact, be well-versed in the ubiquitous teachings of the kokutai.42 While diaries allow us a pathway to the past and can certainly help us to ‘understand what war does to the individual’, there is, of course, the question of just how truthful the war diary of an Imperial Japanese soldier can be.43 Certainly the panopticon-like society of military Japan presupposes an influence within the diary of the kokutai discourse. 44 Were Japanese soldiers ‘self-swindlers’, in that the subjectivity they expressed through their diaries was composed through state-sanctioned discourses?45 Did this lessen the degree of autonomy available to the soldier diarist?46 The strategic diaries kept by Japanese officers during the Second World War were subject to inspection on demand. It would seem, though, that the diaries were not regularly collected (if at all). 47 There is no mention by Tamura of any inspection of his diary, and as we shall see, certain parts are very private in nature. Yet the contents of his entries nonetheless divulge the types and degree of state-sanctioned discourse that had become a pervasive – and indeed motivating – part of his quotidian life on the battlefield.

For Whom Does Tamura Write? Tamura Yoshikazu and other soldiers like him undoubtedly wrote their diaries with a fear that they may not survive. The liminal space created by 42 These rescripts and practices are further discussed in Chapter 3. 43 Richard J. Aldrich, The Faraway War: Personal Diaries of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (London: Corgi Books, 2006), pp. 18-19. 44 For an excellent analysis of this concept of truth in diaries, see Moore, ‘Essential Ingredients of Truth’. 45 This is in reference to the Charles Dickens quote from Great Expectations: ‘All swindlers on the earth are nothing to the self-swindlers [and] with such pretences did I cheat myself’ as quoted in Moore, The Peril of Self-Discipline: Chinese Nationalist, Japanese and American Servicemen Record the Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire , 1937-1945 (Princeton University, 2006), p. 329. 46 Ibid. 47 Clarke, ‘Walls, Physical and Ideological, and a Soldier’s Diary’, p. 114.

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this uncertainty may have provided the paramount conditions for Tamura to express himself without constraint. We have already established that diary inspections were probably not undertaken on a regular basis, and there was certainly less likelihood of regular examination of diaries in the heat of the battlefront. The size of the pocket notebooks used for diaries meant that being able to carry and conceal a diary was more of a possibility.48 Writing a diary afforded Tamura the opportunity to convey thoughts and feelings that may not have been possible to articulate by means of either the spoken word or the medium of letters home. Importantly for this study, we note that the diary in Japan provided a narrative outlet in a country where expressing one’s personal or individual emotions and opinions was highly frowned upon. 49 The companionship available to Tamura in the war environment was limited to fellow soldiers, and the opportunity to create intimate relationships was controlled by both army regulations and the environment of the battlefield. The degree to which Tamura could share his innermost thoughts and feelings with his comrades without fear of reprisal was also severely compromised by the fact that fellow soldiers were drawn from the same geographical region of Tochigi Prefecture. Local communities played an integral role in disseminating messages of the kokutai, and this was undertaken right down to the village level. In other words, since the majority of troops with whom Tamura found himself in New Guinea had been subjected to a stringent regime of thought control, each was reluctant to publicly question the official line, and the panopticon-like effect of the power of society’s gaze ensured that they were even more unlikely to do so. Tamura himself points to his inability to discuss his situation with fellow soldiers when he writes, ‘I talk with my friend, but I wonder what he is thinking’.50 In this instance, Tamura, who is self-censoring in his interactions with his military comrades, understands that his comrades are likely to be 48 ‘PW [prisoner of war] stated that there were no restrictions in Japan regarding diaries and letters. On the eve of their departure from Rabaul, however, their PL commander read on parade an order to the effect that diaries were neither to be taken nor kept while in New Guinea zone. Furthermore, writing materials would not be issued to troops in an endeavour to enforce the order that letters and notes would not be written whilst there. Writing materials and existing diaries were confiscated and they were told that contravention of any part of the order called for severe penalties. In spite of the order, many ORs secretly kept diaries and took writing materials abroad […] NCOs were permitted to keep diaries provided they first obtain permission.’ AWM ATIS IR No 23 JA 145042 ‘Interrogation Report Chiya Hiroshi Captured 26 November 1942’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 49 Clarke, ‘Walls, Physical and Ideological, and a Soldier’s Diary’, p. 114. 50 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 34. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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doing the same. Sy Kahn, an American soldier diarist from the same New Guinea conflict, also notes that, even in the American context: feelings were taken as a sign of weakness; ideas, more often than not, were ridiculed or dismissed […] the youngest in his company, and not very worldly, sometimes turned to his journal to seek answers, solace, and insights he might puzzle out.51

But does this mean that Tamura wrote the diary entirely for himself, without an audience in mind? That is, does the diary display the traits of ‘desert island discourse’, or does the audience ‘field of force’ exert a strong pull on the content of the text?52 Scrutiny of Tamura’s diary indicates that he wrote, at least in the first instance, if not for a specific audience, certainly with others in mind. In the opening stages of the diary, Tamura refers to writing previous diaries and wonders what his father’s reaction would be to reading them now.53 Tamura reveals in his diary that he regarded the papers he left behind as an important legacy for his father, and he writes I thought about burning my diaries and notebooks before I departed for the battlefront but, not expecting to return, I left them all behind so that my father might understand a little of what’s in my heart. I wonder what he thinks as he reads them now? What I regret is to have left without a word of farewell. That is why I really want him to understand me as his child, when my body is returned to him in a wooden box wrapped in white.54 Those diaries are my proof of faith in him. Crushed in the competition of society, without resources, without a voice, who am I going to bother hating or complaining against now.55

This passage makes it clear that Tamura had hoped for some sort of reconciliation with a father with whom it would appear relationships were strained. 51 Sy M. Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror: A Soldier’s War Diary (Urbana and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. xix. 52 Taken from the title of the chapter Peter Elbow and Jennifer Clarke, ‘Desert Island Discourse: The Benefits of Ignoring Audience’, in The Journal Book, ed. Toby Fulwiler (Portsmouth: Boynton/ Cook Publishers, 1987), p. 19. 53 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 12. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 54 In earlier conflicts, the authorities returned the battlef ield remains of soldiers to their families. However, by the time of the New Guinea campaign, strains on resources made this impractical. David C Earhart, ‘All Ready to Die: Kamikazefication and Japan’s Wartime Ideology’, Critical Asian Studies 37, no. 4 (2005): 95. 55 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 12. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943.

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Now with little prospect of returning to make any amends, Tamura’s desire was for his father to see him as a child who had indeed respected and loved him. And, more importantly, the aspiration for his own worth as a son to be recognized is unambiguous. Midway through his diary, he again reflects upon whether or not it would have been better to have burnt his home diaries and notes prior to departing for New Guinea.56 These were treasured writings that he had ‘so thoughtfully left behind’, which indicates that perhaps he had intended them for public scrutiny, and yet desiring to destroy them also indicates a desire for privacy.57 However, the prospect of the diary remaining for the scrutiny of others creates the tension of producing a text that would reveal Tamura’s ‘real’ sentiments as opposed to espousing viewpoints that he may have felt were expected of him. Certainly, when Tamura recorded letters in the diary that he had written to friends and family, these letters reveal a self-censorship not evidenced in the poetry interspersed between the prose of the document. No doubt there was a tendency among soldiers to self-censor their own letters in order to protect the recipient from the more disagreeable aspects of their life in the war zone. Even if Tamura did from the outset in fact write with the hope that his words would reach his family, it is also evident that the diarist also often wrote for an audience of only himself. Indeed, the very genre of diary is often a form of letter to oneself.58 Tamura was hypothetically both the writer and the reader of his own words. In fact, there is clear evidence that Tamura used the diary to conduct a self-driven conversation in a manner reminiscent of the diarist and proletarian poet Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912), who wrote ‘because he needed someone to talk to, and the diary served as a kind of audience for his perceptions’.59

Why Does Tamura Write? The keeping of a diary in ordinary circumstances is often underscored by ‘a strong consciousness of time and a desire to memorialize what [has been] 56 Whilst Tamura doesn’t elaborate on this, it appears that this is due to the belief that documents such as personal diaries keep the soldier attached to his current life. 57 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 81. Written between 18 and 19 April 1943. 58 Earl Miner, ‘The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary’, Pacific Coast Philology 3 (1968): 38. 59 Keene, Modern Japanese Diaries, p. 3.

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experienced’.60 Donald Keene, commenting on the diarists he presented in his book, writes that ‘few diarists intended from the start to publish their diaries. They hoped that people of the future would read them […] but they clung to the idea of the diary as a personal and private document’.61 Most likely for soldiers such as Tamura, writing was a coping mechanism. ‘For some, writing about what they had seen provided catharsis […] For others, writing provided a discipline, a way of thinking that kept the demons at bay in the absence of the kind of support enlightened employers would provide today.’62 Writing on autobiography, M.M. Bakhtin suggests that writing about oneself (which is surely the case with the diary) provides for ‘a new relationship to one’s own self, to one’s particular “I” – with no witnesses, without any concessions to the voice of the “third person,” whoever it might be.’63 What, then, compels a young Japanese man dispatched to an alien and sensorially confronting foreign shore, where he will almost certainly meet his death, to record a selection of his thoughts, emotions, and experiences in diary form? Evidence for the propensity for diary writing among soldiers is a collection of the copies of translated captured diaries of Japanese military personnel housed at the Australian War Memorial Research Centre.64 Tamura suggests that others among his battalion also wrote diaries when he records that When I opened a diary left behind by my mate, I was saddened to find a letter from his wife tucked inside.65

Those who undertake to write diaries in exceptional circumstances reveal a kind of ‘obsession for inscription’ which ‘ seems to consist of a variety of motives – to prove that one is still alive, to satisfy artistic aspirations, to leave a record for future generations, or to defend the very means of writing itself’.66 It is also worth considering that perhaps, in being sent to an ill-fated 60 Miner, ‘The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary,’ p. 38. 61 Donald Keene, ed., So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), p. 8. 62 Kerry Green, ‘The wounded “warco”’, in Legacies of War, ed. Nigel Starck (North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012), p. 134. 63 M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 145. 64 These diaries are of a more strategic nature and as such were translated by the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service. The originals were sent to the United States but disappeared at the end of the war. For a more extensive discussion, see the section on ATIS in Chapter 1. 65 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 71. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 66 Tomoko Aoyama, Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008), p. 45.

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warzone, he also regarded this material as something by which others might remember him should the worst occur, indeed his last will and testament [igonsho].This sentiment was reflected in the following extract of another diary from the same New Guinea warzone: For almost ten years I have not kept a diary […] However, I do wish to convey to the children my thoughts and impressions […] should I be killed in action, or return home victoriously, I shall keep a record until that day comes […].67

Sy Kahn, the American soldier diarist, was driven to write by his own part in ‘one of the important events of our century’ but more importantly felt that ‘I would not survive the war and I wanted to leave a record that perhaps might reach my family and friends after my death’.68 Like Kahn, Natalie Crouter, a woman interned by the Japanese as a prisoner of war in the Philippines, wrote to leave a record for her children and ultimately for future generations.69 Peter ‘Johnno’ Pinney, an Australian elite commando soldier in New Guinea ‘rationalized his diary-keeping as one man’s attempt to capture “a slender of truth” in a world in which the raw facts of war were so often shaded or hidden’.70 Perhaps Tamura’s initial purpose for keeping a diary was merely due to the importance of this genre in Japanese literary history and quotidian life.71 There was also an element of company for Tamura, confined as he was to the isolating milieu of the battlefield.72 Undoubtedly, confined persons – be they prisoners, exiled persons, or those quarantined due to illness – are more likely to have a propensity to write diaries. Indeed, a threatened life, unfamiliar and challenging locations, and the attendant hardships mean a forced alienation from the quotidian aspects of a previous life. Diary writing may then provide the only link to that which has passed before. The diary also has the possibility of being the only link to still being alive. Kurahashi Kazumi wrote in the last pages of his diary ‘Even though I suppose I’m writing the same thing, I still write’. At this point in Kurahashi’s diary, he 67 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 197, ‘Diary of Major Yamamoto 19 December 1942’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 1942). 68 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. xvi. 69 Lynn Z. Bloom, ed., Natalie Crouter: Forbidden Diary, Women’s Diary Series (New York: Burt Franklin and Company, 1980), p. xi. 70 Aldrich, The Faraway War, p. 19. 71 Clarke, ‘Walls, Physical and Ideological, and a Soldier’s Diary’, p. 114. 72 Keene, Modern Japanese Diaries, p. 3.

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had no food, he could hardly see, and his legs no longer held his weight to stand. Yet he continued to write.73 Writing under the shadow of war was neither a chore nor merely a routine for Tamura. There are a number of factors that might explain the motivation to continue to make diary entries in the difficult circumstances of the New Guinea battlefield. Firstly, writing was cathartic and permitted the diarist to create a ‘sane [centre] in an often lonely, dangerous, insecure and violent world’.74 In many respects, the diary becomes a highly idealized world. This resonates with the words of Linda Anderson, who, when discussing the invalid diarist Alice James, understood that ‘What she is doing here is finding a place inside herself which is outside the roles offered to her by society’.75 As with Alice James, there is the possibility that diarists in a life-threatening situation find in the diary ‘a point of balance between inner and outer, a momentary fullness, as memory “crowds” [the] mind, pushing [the writer] at the same time into and out of being’.76 Potentially, then, the diary provided Tamura an opportunity to escape the harsh reality of life and to recreate also the familiarity of his previous existence. Writing out his thoughts and feelings gave Tamura the chance to regulate his world with a sense of stability in a highly unstable world. The diary also provided the opportunity for Tamura to practice ‘self’maintenance. An integral part of a sense of self-maintenance is an ability to self-motivate.77 In an environment where the opportunity to create a dialogue with another was limited, the vehicle of the diary allowed Tamura to engage in the self-dialogue necessary for the writer to motivate himself in response to the challenges he faced, including his own self-identity in the face of conflict and certain death.78 Part of the process of self-mobilization for Tamura was an act of re-visioning, that is, he used the diary to look back to see where he had come from and to re-vision (and perhaps even re-invent) that experience into something powerful and meaningful as part of his grappling with his near-zero chance of survival.79 Once in the very inglorious 73 Hanai Mutsumi, ed., Chichi ga nokoshita senjō nikki : Nyū Ginia kara kokyō Tosa e (Kobe, Japan: Kōchi Shinbun Sōgō Insatsu, 2014), p. 166. 74 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. xv. 75 Linda Anderson, ‘At the Threshold of the Self: Women and Autobiography’, in Women’s Writing: A Challenge to Theory, ed. Moira Monteith (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1986), p. 61. 76 Ibid. 77 See Moore, ‘Essential Ingredients of Truth’, p. 8. 78 Moore, ‘Talk About Heroes: Expressions of Self-Mobilization and Despair in Chinese War Diaries , 1911-1938’, Twentieth Century China 34, no. 2 (2009): 30. 79 Adrienne Rich, ‘When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision’, College English 34, no. 1 (1972): 18.

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battleground that was New Guinea, an ability to recollect memories of a time that portended a more splendid outcome was a vital tool for Tamura to remain motivated, and to survive, as a soldier of the Empire. As Freud would attest, ‘it is a desire to scramble back to a place where we cannot be harmed […] which keeps us struggling forward: our restless attachments (Eros) are in the thrall to the death drive (Thanatos)’.80 Another role that Tamura’s diary serves is the ability it affords him to self-reflect. Other diarists who have been placed in similar circumstances have also utilized the diary as a tool of self-reflection for self-revelation. Two Jewish diarists from the Second World War, contemporaries of Anne Frank, were forced by the impending Holocaust ‘to examine and revise the premises on which they based their sense of self’.81 Frequently, the self Tamura attempted to uncover conflicted with all that he had internalized from the external gaze of society. Nevertheless, like the women above, Tamura used the diary to ‘[tap] into inner resources […] to resist self-fragmentation’ and to give a ‘chaotic existence some measure of order’.82 The diary was the catalyst for Tamura to discover his own emotions, although his observation to the effect that ‘I seem to be very sensitive, but I don’t actually understand my emotions at all’ indicates that this process is not necessarily without complication.83 The ability to self-reflect allowed Tamura to recognize that ‘[after] more than half a year at the battlefront [and] a life unimaginable to cultured people, we have willingly achieved a mental state transcending privation’.84 This, for Tamura, was ‘surely man’s highest achievement’.85 It is perhaps one of the most telling statements in his diary because it is the culmination of Tamura’s search to reconcile his own corporeal desires as an independent human being with the burdens of being a devoted and loyal subject of the Empire. The tension generated by this conflict and Tamura’s attempt to resolve the contradiction between the ‘main-line’ of his public self and the ‘sub-line’ of his private self inform the close reading of the diary that follows.86

80 Eagleton, Literary Theory, p. 161. 81 Rose Kamel, ‘Interrupted Lives, Inner Resources: The Diaries of Hannah Senesh and Etty Hillesum’, Women’s Studies Quarterly 17, no. 3/4 (1989): 45. 82 Ibid., p. 46. 83 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 76. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 84 Ibid., p. 135. Written 29 August 1943. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid., p. 126 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943.

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How Does Tamura Write? Tamura’s diary is written with a fine fountain pen. In some pages, the letters are quite large, while in other pages, the letters are small and fine. The notebook is now starting to fall apart, and some of the pages are torn. The work has been described as almost novel-like in parts and is interspersed with essays and poems.87 Tamura used a prose style to narrate events that occurred at the time as well as recollections of events from his past. This prose is interspersed with 31-syllable tanka as well as short free-style poems, both of which express the writer’s feelings and reactions to episodes in his life in a manner reminiscent of classical Japanese diaries.88 Tamura’s use of poetry within his diary is not unusual, as interspersing poems has been a part of diary literature in Japan from the classical diaries of the past through to modern times.89 The diary uses a kanji and hiragana format, including in poems, which distinguishes the text from the more common kana diaries of men before and during the war. Unsurprisingly, given his limited education, Tamura tended not to use classical techniques such as makurakotoba and kakekotoba.90 Nevertheless, the vocabulary and grammar of the poetry he wrote have an overtly classical quality. The linkages in his poems between his feelings, his attitude to his fate as a soldier of the Empire, and the alien environment to which he had been deployed are variously ironic, nostalgic, confrontational, and sympathetic, but always complex and revealing. He also made frequent use of onomatopoeic words, which lend a sensitivity to his descriptions.91 87 Shigematsu and Watanabe, Saigo no kotoba, pp. 165-166. 88 The tanka is a 31-syllable poem which translates as ‘short song’ and is distinctive in its 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form. Tamura records over 100 poems in his diary. Donald Keene notes that during the war the tanka ‘was exalted as the purest expression of the Japanese soul’. Keene, ‘Japanese Writers and the Greater East Asia War’, Association for Asian Studies 23, no. 2 (1964): 214. 89 Miner, ‘The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary’, p. 42. 90 For a description of these devices, see Hiroaki Satō, Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007), p. xxviii. Makurakotoba literally means “pillow word” used to describe the noun or verb with which it is associated, much like the use of epithets. Kakekotoba is a rhetorical device based on the use of multiple meanings from the phonetic reading of a single word. 91 Tamura, Jūgun techō. For example, p. 39. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943 (see section on The Jungle as Physically Perverse in Chapter 4 of this book). Here, Tamura uses potchiri potchiri [little by little, or one by one], p. 40 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943 (see section on the Ennui of Endless Rain in Chapter 4). Here, Tamura uses shito shito to denote the continuous nature of the rain. Tamura p. 45 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943 (see section on The Tedium, the Terror and the Lowly Role in Chapter 9). Here Tamura uses daku daku [profusely, copiously, flowingly] to indicate the extent of the sweating of the soldiers,

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One of the most intriguing although rather frustrating aspects of Tamura’s diary is that it is not written in chronological sequence. The first entry, which provides some clue to the fact that it is written in March, is recorded on page 5, some three months after the writer departed Japan and was in the difficult New Guinea environs for more than a month.92 This delay was possibly due to the fact that Tamura’s unit was initially mobile, which gave him little opportunity for reflection. Given the chaotic environment into which Tamura was plunged, it is not surprising that Tamura’s diary writing was episodic and fragmented. Furthermore, entries were highly filleted, written retrospectively about events from the past. Both these factors create difficulties in following the sequence of events related. While pages 2 through 7 relate to the diarist’s experience in New Guinea, page 8 recounts Tamura’s time in Qingdao and is dated 28 January. These retrospective entries, a form of ‘retrospective teleology’ which details Tamura’s travel to New Guinea through Korea and China, and then the ocean voyage to the South, are interspersed throughout the first section of the diary, often with the dates of events recorded rather than the date of the day the entry was made.93 Tamura was aware of the less-than-ideal organization of his entries and occasionally castigated himself. All I ever write is rubbish, Hopelessly bad. What a sad waste of paper.94

Yet it is precisely this ‘rubbish’ that gives us an insight into Tamura’s life in the warzone and some of his past that preceded this experience. His recollections are not merely a recalling of the past and its events. His predilection for writing retrospectively was an effective means to enable him

and moku moku [silently, without saying anything], p. 52. Written 11 April 1943 (see section on The Ennui of Endless Rain in Chapter 4). Here Tamura uses shida shida [continuously] and susurinaku [silently weeping], p. 98. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943 (see section on The Ennui of Endless Rain in Chapter 4). Here Tamura uses dara dara [dripping, in drops]. 92 In this entry, Tamura writes ‘Back at home, in March, it is getting a little warmer.’ Ibid., p. 5. Written around 6 March 1943. 93 See Jens Brockmeier and Donald Carbaugh, eds., Narrative and Identity: Studies in Autobiography, Self and Culture (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001), pp. 247-80, as quoted in Endel Tulving, Elements of Episodic Memory, Oxford Psychology Series 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 90. 94 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 70. Written 14 April 1943.

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to make sense of his current situation or to evaluate its significance.95 In this way, Tamura called on his ‘autobiographical memory’, that is, a memory accumulated from his ‘mass of disparate lifetime events’, retrospectively selecting those experiences that best illuminated his current situation, turning these memories into ‘coherent, meaningful life stories’, which ameliorated the difficulty of the milieu he found himself in.96 Not only were these memories largely ‘autobiographical’, they were also ‘experiential’ in that they provide the reader with a very detailed description of Tamura’s journey to the New Guinea front.97 A warzone is not a stable site, and, as might be expected, Tamura’s entries were not written on a daily basis. On some of the earlier days, Tamura wrote more than ten pages per entry. There is a gap of around two months between an entry dated in June and one in August, which may have been a result of troop movements during that period. The last dated entry occurs on 1 September on page 138, with the pages that follow recording intense action from enemy air raids and troop movements. While the final entry is not dated, we can assume that the diary’s final record was written not long after 8 December 1943, since the second last entry is made on the second anniversary of the 8 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour.98

What Does Tamura Write? The diary does not contain much in the way of strategic information (which is why it probably survived the scrutiny of ATIS), nor does it provide a dayto-day record of activities and manoeuvres. As we have noted, the majority of diaries from the New Guinea conflict that remain as translated versions at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra are of a strategic nature, and any content that may have been more personal or reflective in nature was left untranslated. A translator’s note on one such diary from the Kokoda campaign states that ‘personal philosophy has been largely omitted from the remainder of the diary’.99 It would certainly not be unusual for more 95 Donald E. Polkinghorne, ‘Narrative Psychology and Historical Consciousness’, in Narration, Identity, and Historical Consciousness, ed. Jurgen Straub (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005), p. 10. 96 Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 147. 97 Ibid., p. 158. 98 Between October 1943 and February 1944, the regiment was mobilized to participate in the Finisterre and Saidor campaigns in Madang and may be the reason there were lapses in Tamura’s diary. See Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 99 AWM ATIS 54 577-7-26, ‘Diary of a Japanese Officer Kokoda’.

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personal diaries to have been written, as Japanese diarists over history have consistently written about quotidian life experiences, again perhaps reflective of the role of the diary in Japanese literature in allowing the expression of that which is more in the personal realm.100 What is extraordinary is that Tamura’s diary is one rare example of such a diary that has survived, allowing us a glimpse into his more personal realm dealing with issues such as his purpose in life, both as a soldier and as a citizen of Japan. Tamura had in fact ‘poured all of his emotions’ into the notebook of his diary.101 In dealing with the emotions of despair in his dire situation in New Guinea, Tamura focussed on memories of the past in what can be seen as curative ‘mental time travel’ and as a re-coding of the environment of New Guinea in order to re-create a familiar landscape.102 Tamura’s random jottings of mundane incidents that are of no real consequence are similar to the ‘phatic’ language of pub conversation in that they focus on ‘the act of communication itself’.103 Since lack of correspondence from home was a major threat to morale for Tamura, he combatted despondency by copying letters and magazine articles into the diary. While the presence of the enemy – be it the perils of the jungle or the superior air power of the Allies – is a feature of the diary, a more important subtext is Tamura’s attempt to reconcile the requirement for a noble death with his own desire to lead a fulfilled life. We have noted that diary writing as a form of literature has been part of the Japanese literary tradition and that diary literature [nikki bungaku] is taken very seriously, with diaries being considered literary classics.104 The addition of poetry is also a very distinctive part of Japanese diary literature, so it is not unusual to see that Tamura’s entries are punctuated with poetry, which he used to express deep and otherwise difficult to articulate feelings and emotions. These poems in the Japanese literary tradition usually follow a narrative piece, as they also do in Tamura’s diary. The poems are very emotive, adding a decorative yet succinct tone to the diary entry. It is through the vehicle of the poem that the writer is able to be more open about deeper feelings and emotions.105 The subtext informing a soldier’s diary is always the presence of death. Tamura’s motivation to leave a record of his time in New Guinea was 100 Miner, ‘The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary’, p. 38. 101 Shigematsu and Watanabe, Saigo no kotoba, p. 166. 102 Tulving, Elements of Episodic Memory, p. 124. 103 Eagleton, Literary Theory, pp. 11-12. 104 Miner, ‘The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary’, p. 38. 105 Ibid., p. 46.

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undoubtedly strengthened by the ongoing presence of death around him. M.M. Bakhtin argues that in the autobiographical genre, […] in events that have a public significance, however, the personal side of these events now begin to be accentuated. As part of this process, such issues as the transitoriness of all that is good, man’s mortality, become very prominent; in general, the theme of personal death (and diverse variants on the theme) begins to play a crucial role in an individual’s autobiographical self-consciousness (in public self-consciousness its role had been, of course, reduced to zero).106

Not surprisingly, death is a prominent theme in Tamura’s text. From the very beginning, he recognized that death was a very likely outcome of his departure from his homeland, but as we will explore, often those musings were linked to a self-sacrificing gesture towards Japan’s Imperial mission. Sy Kahn, the American soldier diarist, also reveals the spectre of death at his heels without my conscious intention, the changes and growth of a young soldier moving towards maturity […] the shedding of civilian clothes and the donning of military garb is an important moment of transition […] suddenly one is transported from home, reoutfitted, has weapons thrust into one’s hands, and is subject to new rules and new figures of authority […] I probably did not know it then […that] adventures and quests are ultimately explorations of new dimensions of self, of unexplored inner space […] ‘time’s winged chariot’ was at my back, spurring the private speculations of a young man who did not know if he had much time to find out who he was before he disappeared.107

Time’s winged chariot also haunted Tamura, and towards the end of the diary when the actuality of dying in the New Guinea jungle was cemented for him, we see a shift to a frankness and openness in the diary, not only on death itself but reflections on the life he had lived thus far, and the just-out-of-reach life that he had been unable to achieve. While American soldiers were forbidden to keep diaries ‘lest they reveal strategic information to whoever found them’, diarists like the American soldier Sy Kahn reveal that, although they were aware of the prohibition 106 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 145. 107 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, pp. xviii-xix.

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on diary writing, ‘it was no secret to many of the men and officers in my company that I kept notebooks’.108 In contrast to their American counterparts, as we have seen, Japanese soldiers and sailors were issued with diaries every New Year with the expectation that they would make daily entries.109 Aware that these diaries might be inspected by higher officers, the pages were often filled with patriotic slogans. Donald Keene argues that this would only occur while the servicemen were still in Japan and under more regular and oppressive surveillance.110 However, Tamura’s diary, written as it was at the front – that is, after departing Japan – continues to reference the official discourse. If we accept that once in the reality of the Southern battlefront ‘there was no element of deceit. He [the soldier] wrote what he really felt’, then it is interesting to note that Tamura’s diary displays a keen interest in and reliance on the language of the kokutai.111 Since Tamura was schooled under the pre-war era’s oppressive kokutai system which became more and more tyrannical as the 1930s progressed, when the focus on nationalistic military-inspired education practices was widespread, it is understandable that there is a strong presence of discourse of this nature in his writing. However, it was not necessary to be a member of the Japanese Imperial Army to reference the discourses of the political-military power to which one is beholden. This point is made clear in the account by former United States marine Anthony Swofford of his involvement in the Gulf War. Noting that ‘[w]hen you are speaking that thing, you speak like it’, Swofford believed his role was to espouse that which was expected of him by the United States authorities.112 In other words, he needed to conform to the ideology expressed in the vernacular of the Marine Corps history and lore. Swofford may have acquiesced to the dictates of the imposed socio-military gaze principally out of a perceived need to conform. Likewise, for Japanese soldiers, the extreme degree of conformity to official ideology and practices led to the post-war belief that most soldiers acted 108 Ibid., p. xv. 109 Keene, Chronicles of My Life, pp. 36-37. Keene writes that ‘because they knew they might be required to show their diaries to a superior, to make sure the writer was guided by the approved sentiments, they filled their pages with patriotic slogans as long as they were still in Japan. But when the vessel next to the diarist’s ship was sunk by an enemy submarine or when the diarist, somewhere in the South Pacific, was alone and suffering from malaria, there was no element of deceit. He wrote what he really felt’. 110 Ibid., p. 37. 111 Ibid. 112 Anthony Swofford, Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War (London: Scribner, 2003), p. 14.

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purely out of coercion rather than volition.113 That degree of influence was much wider, though, than the military alone. In fact, compliance was often the public persona donned purely for the consumption of others. The imagined honour or dishonour in Japanese society that is associated with the community gaze is perhaps best encapsulated in the concept of seken [community honour and observance], that is, the network of social interactions surrounding the individual in society. The seken ‘other’ is a mechanism that fosters a set of eyes and ears and a mouth that ensure the maintenance of and compliance to what is considered correct and acceptable societal behaviour.114 This brings to mind Foucault’s disciplined society, which lives under the shadow of the panopticon gaze.115 This highly salient concept in Japanese society had its roots in fifteenth-century Japan, where the enforced rule over domains saw punishments extended to the peasantry for offences that challenged the rule of the domain. This was augmented during the Edo period with the creation of f ive-household units which were responsible as a collective for the taxes and crimes of the total unit. If anyone in this unit committed a misdemeanour, the whole unit was held accountable. The law governing this was abolished under Emperor Meiji; however, the legacy of the seken was indelibly imprinted on society. This panopticon-like gaze meant that every other member of the community became the watchman, ensuring that individuals would unquestioningly comply with the ‘rules’ and expectations of the society as a whole. There is little doubt that during his education and training, Tamura would have been unable to escape the influence of the ubiquitous kokutai through both community standards and under the omnipresent gaze of the seken. Entrenched in his psyche, this discourse became an instrument of self-observation so that he, too, begins to ‘speak that thing’.116 The copying of state-sanctioned slogans into diaries was likely an effective means of motivating oneself to work toward the state’s goals.117 While it is possible that servicemen were borrowing from state-sanctioned discourse in order 113 Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual, p. 97. 114 Takie Sugiyama Lebra, ‘Self in Japanese Culture’, in Japanese Culture and Behavior: Selected Readings, eds. Takie Sugiyama Lebra and William P. Lebra (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 105, 120. For a detailed account of the concept of seken, see Lebra, ‘Self in Japanese Culture’, in Japanese Sense of Self, ed. Nancy Rosenberger (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 105-121. 115 For more on this concept, see Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (London & New York: Penguin, 1991), particularly pp. 195-228. 116 Swofford, Jarhead, p. 14. 117 Nishikawa Yūko, Hito wa Naze Nikki wo Tsuzuru no ka? (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2009), p. 201.

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to create a compliant persona, it is also possible that these words were not merely borrowed and regurgitated but were a salient, and welcomed, force of motivation.118 This study will examine the ways in which Tamura was ‘speaking that thing’ and, indeed, writing that ‘thing’, and how the populist beliefs of Imperial Japan shaped both his thought processes and, by extension, his diary.

118 Moore, ‘The Chimera of Privacy’, p. 185.

3

Priming the Country for War: Imperial Rescripts as Fortifiers of the Kokutai

Disseminating Kokutai Ideology: Imperial Rescripts How did the kokutai narrative come to have such a strong influence on soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army? As part of the reinstatement of the emperor as ruler under the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji government used the education system and other social institutions to establish a series of socio-political reforms through the promulgation of imperial rescripts and other public statements regarding desired subject behaviour. This effort was undertaken in order to ensure the compliance of subjects with the ideological basis of the new emperor-centred state, and the process was replicated by succeeding administrations. Imperial rescripts, which charted the course of Japan through the formative years of the Meiji era into the expansionist period of the early Shōwa era, played a key role in the eventual spiritual indoctrination of citizens and, particularly, soldiers. The main focus, couched in language that emphasized the ‘uniqueness’ of Japan’s landscape and its people and the ‘matchless’ spiritual fortitude of the subjects of Japan, was always on the requirement for the diminishment and sacrifice of the self. Even more importantly, these rescripts ‘completed’ the establishment of the kokutai discourse with the meta-narrative of the Emperor at its core in that they now defined citizens [kokumin] as the Emperor’s subjects [shinmin]. Significantly, the rescripts meant that the discourse that increasingly defined the ‘spirit of Japan’ now had a statutory form [meibunka].1 One of the first statements addressed to the Emperor’s forces was the 1882 Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors [Gunjin Chokuyū].2 The opening paragraph foregrounded the mythical and thus divine origins of the Emperor when it stated: ‘The forces of our Empire are in all ages under the command of the Emperor […] the Emperor Jimmu […] subjugated the unruly tribes of the land and ascended the Imperial throne to rule over the whole country’.3 1 Kang Sangjung, Nashonarizumu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shōten, 2001), p. 56. 2 The propensity for Japanese to rely on manuals to guide their behaviour is outlined in Ichinose Toshiya, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyuaru: hito wa naze senjō e itta no ka (Tokyo: Kobunsha, 2004), p. 9. 3 Monbushō, The Imperial Precepts to Soldiers and Sailors, p. 3. I have chosen to use the title Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors in this study.

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In addition to identifying imperial divinity, the document lucidly defined the Emperor’s role as the ultimate military chief of staff (the ‘We’ in the following passage refers to the Emperor):4 The supreme command of Our forces is in Our hands, and although We may entrust subordinate commands to Our subjects, yet the ultimate authority We Ourself shall hold and never delegate to any subject.5

Clearly defined, too, were the hefty obligations of the members of the armed forces under the emperor’s command: Whether We are able to guard the Empire, and prove Ourself worthy of heaven’s blessings and repay the benevolence of Our Ancestors, depends upon the faithful discharge of your duties as soldiers and sailor.6

This wording effectively bound those undertaking military service to a direct relationship with the Emperor, a relationship that was expressed elsewhere in the document in a corporeal metaphor: ‘We are your supreme Commander-in-Chief. Our relationship with you will be most intimate when We rely on you as Our limbs and you look up to Us as your head’.7 The 1882 Rescript was the template for the populist ideology of total loyalty to the Emperor that would ensue during the Imperial period and lay the blueprint for subsequent rescripts and promulgations. That the authorities expected subjects to embrace the message delivered in the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors with enthusiasm was evident from the requirement that all members of the Emperor’s armed forces memorize the document. This set a precedent for the committing to memory of all subsequent imperial rescripts, with the effect that the proclamations that followed virtually became mantras for the people. This strategy awakened the general public to the new kokutai discourses that had gained ascendancy while also integrating them into the tennōsei [emperor-centred system] that these discourses supported.8 The succeeding rescripts became 4 The Emperor Meiji moved to the headquarters of the fifth division in Hiroshima during the Sino-Japanese war, creating a precedent for the Emperor as ‘soldier’. See Chūshichi Tsuzuki, The Pursuit of Power in Modern Japan, 1825-1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 129. 5 Monbushō, The Imperial Precepts to Soldiers and Sailors, p. 4. 6 Ibid., p. 5. 7 Ibid. 8 The Meiji constitution actually placed the Emperor in the position of constitutional monarch, which meant he had no real powers of decision-making. It was the spiritual relevance of the

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the central means by which the authorities were able to remind the masses of the critical role now played by the Emperor. The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors remained the foundation of military training until 1945 and the end of the Pacific War. The requirement for recruits to memorize this document was no mean task, given that the document was 2,700 characters in length and contained complex language and exceptionally difficult, abstruse kanji that would have made it difficult even for educated soldiers to read.9 For rural recruits, whose education had often been interrupted or shortened by the duties of farming, reading and memorizing those 2,700 characters was undoubtedly especially arduous. For soldiers from poorer peasant families, the task would have been almost impossible. In addition to this insistence on memorization, the Rescript was read in its entirety to troops on special occasions such as National Foundation Day (11 February) and Army Day (10 March). On these occasions, troops were expected to bow in the direction of the Imperial palace as a sign of deep respect for the Emperor.10 The Imperial Rescript on Education [Kyōiku Chokugo], promulgated in 1890 and considered by the authorities as the perfect expression of the kokutai as the spiritual essence of Japan, had an even wider sphere of influence, as it set about ‘[…]establishing a code of ethics based on the patriarchal Confucian structure of social obligations […]’.11 Relying on Japan’s ancient past as a means of shoring up the position of the Emperor, this rescript extracted the essential ingredients for its discourse from the narratives of the Kojiki [Record of Ancient Matters, 712] and the Nihonshoki [The Chronicles of Japan, 720]. The Kojiki and the Nihonshoki were ideal choices as the bases for the idealistic notion of a revived Imperial Japan. The Kojiki, after all, had been created in the eighth century at a time when the record of events it covered had become ‘simplified and distorted in the collective memory and were heavily encrusted with legend and myth. The Kojiki was also the contemporary court’s attempt at an authoritative historical statement Emperor established through these rescripts that progressively afforded status to the Emperor. See Masao Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 354. 9 There are three types of syllabary to write in Japanese: 1) the original system of hiragana, 2) katakana which is used for foreign words, and 3) the more difficult kanji which was modified from Chinese characters. 10 Tamura noted the continued routine of bowing to the Imperial Palace even in the jungles of New Guinea. Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 78. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. ‘Obeisance to the Imperial Palace is to the north.’ 11 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 34.

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about its own origins’.12 Likewise, the Nihonshoki focussed heavily on the divine origins of Japan, attributing god status to the emperors, and it also directed focus to the indigenous religion of Shintō.13 Drawing heavily on these ancient narratives, the main purpose of this rescript was to further strengthen devotion to the Emperor and, by extension, to emphasize the spiritual uniqueness of Japan. Our Imperial Ancestors have founded our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting, and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the fundamental character of our Empire.14

While the primary aim of the Imperial Rescript on Education was to educate children in schools, the fact that the content of this document focussed heavily on what was required of the Emperor’s armed forces further cemented the depth of importance that the relationship between the Emperor and the armed forces held in Imperial Japan. As we have established, the disturbing requirement of this relationship was loyalty to the point of death. The rescript dictated that ‘should emergency arise [citizens must] offer yourselves courageously to the state [and] render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers’.15 The degree of reverence with which the rescript was regarded was attested to by J. Paul Goode in a 1910 report compiled during a visit to the United States by Baron Kanda, Professor of English in the Peers’ School in Tokyo. According to Goode, the Japanese people regarded the Imperial Rescript on Education as the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Declaration of Independence, all in one.16

12 Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki (Japan: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), p. 4. 13 Shintō is a combination of two Chinese characters shin meaning god, and tō meaning the way: the way of the gods. 14 Monbushō, The Imperial Rescript on Education (Tokyo: The Department of Education, 1909). No page numbers given. 15 Ibid. No page numbers given. 16 J Paul Goode, ‘Some Fundamental Principles Of Japanese Education’, The School Review 18, no. 9 (Nov 1910), p. 365.

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From Ritualism to Unconditional Conformism: Enforcing the Kokutai The compliance of subjects to the Imperial way through documents such as the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors and the Imperial Rescript on Education was the beginning of a process that became ongoing. In order to enforce conformity to the kokutai ideology, much legislation, constant propaganda, and eternal vigilance were required over almost five decades from the late nineteenth century. All of these moves were made in response to undercurrents of social unrest and potential threats to the stability of the kokutai ideology. In 1924, for example, the Home Ministry established the Kyōka Dantai Rengōkai [Federation of Moral Suasion Groups], which was responsible for guiding the desired principles of the people. In 1925, the Peace Preservation Law was enacted which prohibited conspiracy, revolt, or even thought that was opposed to the national essence of the kokutai. This act, which was revised in 1928 to strengthen its powers, was implemented in direct response to a perceived communist threat. Furthermore, in 1928, military officers were installed in all boys’ schools from junior high upwards, and military training became part of the curriculum. The Kyōka Dantai Rengōkai had grown enormously by the time of the Moral Suasion Mobilization Campaign of 1929. One of the posters associated with that campaign read: ‘When the people’s spirit is roused, the national crisis will pass’.17 By this time, technological advancements such as motion pictures were able to reinforce the message of this campaign, in addition to the use of more traditional leaflets and handbills. After the death of Emperor Taishō in late 1926, efforts to marshal the loyalty of the Emperor’s subjects were increased considerably. By the 1930s, nationalistic propaganda was commonplace, and ceremonial activities such as military parades with patriotic speeches were held throughout the year to celebrate Imperial Founding Day, New Year’s Day, Army Day, Navy Day, Reservist Association Day, Youth Association Founding Day, the birthdays of each of the emperors since Emperor Meiji, the anniversary of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, together with victory days for the first Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Manchurian Incident, and the China Incident.

17 As cited in the introduction to Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1993). ‘Moral suasion’ is Totman’s translation of the Japanese term kyōka. For a detailed account of kyōka, see ibid., p. 7.

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The euphoric reaction by the masses to Japan’s initiation of hostilities in Manchuria in the summer of 1931, which marked the commencement of the Fifteen Years War, demonstrated the degree to which the notion of the kokutai had been internalized by the nation. Japan’s subsequent withdrawal from the League of Nations and the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855-1932) led to a collapse of the power of political parties, leaving the country effectively in the hands of the military.18 ‘Liberal, socialist and communist ideas were rejected […] School teachers who were thought to be Communist were rounded up and imprisoned’.19 The patriotic activities of women’s groups, too, became progressively more military in nature. For example, the Aikoku Fujinkai [Patriotic Women’s Association], formed in 1901 primarily by upper-class women with close connections to the Imperial Family, was all but overtaken by the newly formed Dai Nippon Kokubō Fujinkai [National Defense Women’s Association], the members of whom would eventually take on the responsibility of providing comfort bags (or care packages) for the troops.20 By the 1930s, the military was in control and freedom of speech had been severely compromised. In an exchange between Takahashi Korekio (18541936), the Minister for Finance, and Araki Sadao (1877-1966), the Minister for the Army, at a cabinet meeting in January 1933, Takahashi lamented that: Neither public nor national opinion exists today. If I say something against the military, the military police soon come around brandishing their swords, or point their revolvers and make threats. There is absolutely no public or national opinion today. There has been no time in the past when the suppression of speech was as bad as it is today […] When I say 18 Prime Minister Inukai was opposed to the growing strength of the military, and he was assassinated on 15 May 1932, which effectively saw the end of civilian control over government. Inukai was shot by eleven junior navy officers in the prime ministerial residence in Tokyo. 19 Toshio Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1991), p. 78. 20 Comfort bags is the commonly used translation for imonbukuro. Perhaps a more explanatory term would be care packages in modern-day parlance. These packages consisted of goods not issued by the military such as toiletries, magazines, letters (from strangers), canned goods, sweets, and the like. The Dai Nippon Kokubō Fujinkai was formed from the Osaka Women’s Defence Association which was organized in early 1932. The slogan of this association was ‘National Defence starts in the Kitchen’. By 1942, all smaller women’s associations were merged to form the Great Japan Women’s Association. This association then joined with the Imperial Rule Association (Taisei Yokusankai) later that same year. See also Sandra Wilson, ‘Mobilizing Women in Inter-War Japan: The National Defence Women’s Association and the Manchurian Crisis’, Gender and History 7, no. 2 (1995).

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to newspaper journalists that there is almost no freedom of speech today, they agree with me, saying they are no longer able to say what they want.21

On hearing these words, Araki apparently turned red and denied the allegations. However, by September of that same year, ‘the cabinet adopted a “Concrete Proposal on Measures for Controlling Public Thought” in order to control the publication of articles and anything else which might spread disquieting ideas’.22 The increase in the political power of the military, and the tighter censorship and greater control of civilian political activities resulting from the February 26th Incident of 1936, strengthened the militaristic element of the kokutai ideology. The February 26th Incident [Niniroku Jiken] was an uprising by members of the Young Officers’ Movement who assassinated a number of prominent officials including Home Minister Saitō Makoto (1858-1936), aforementioned Finance Minister Takayashi Korekiyo (1854-1936), and Army Inspector General of Military Education Watanabe Jōtarō (1874-1936). The perpetrators were strongly opposed to the factionalism that had crept into both the government and the military and were driven by a desire to ensure the continuation of the role of the kokutai as the ideology to be followed. Their charter was to install a Shōwa Restoration, similar to what had occurred during the Meiji Restoration. They believed there was an erosion of the Emperor’s status by the military, and their slogan was ‘Revere the Emperor, Destroy the Traitors’.23 The February uprising failed, and as a result the role of the military was, in fact, cemented. Following the uprising, rather than turn away from the military the Emperor Shōwa, who had always been attracted to military garb, changed almost exclusively from civilian suit to military uniform and labelled himself Daigunsui [Generalissimo].24

21 Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime, pp. 78-79. Takahashi was assassinated by the military in 1936. Araki was convicted of war crimes after the war and was given a life sentence, which was suspended in 1955 due to ill health. 22 Ibid., p. 79. 23 The February 26th Uprising followed a series of politically motivated actions taken by young officers such as the May 15th Incident of 1932 in which Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (prime minister from 13 December 1931 to 15 May 1932) was assassinated by young naval officers. For an analysis of the February 26th Uprising. see for example Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan: The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973). 24 This signaled the military nature of even the Emperor. See Hosaka Masuyasu, Shōwa: Sensō to tennō to Mishima Yukio (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 2005), p. 26. See also Ohama Tetsuya, Nihonjin to sensō: rekishi toshite no sensō taiken (Tokyo: Tōsui Shobō, 2002), p. 88.

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The Ultimate Kokutai Text: The Kokutai no Hongi On 30 March 1937, just one month after Japan had launched a full-scale war in China, the Ministry of Education published a document entitled Kokutai no Hongi [Fundamental Principles of Our National Polity], which became the most significant kokutai propaganda tool.25 The first draft was written by Dr Hisamatsu Sen-ichi (1894-1976), a professor and Japanese classics expert of Tokyo University. The manuscript was then twice re-written, first by a committee of technical experts that included many professors of various universities, and then, most significantly, by Itō Enkichi, chief of the Bureau of Thought Control under the Ministry of Education.26 While some have made comparisons to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf under the Nazi regime, the Kokutai no Hongi was not the ‘private philosophy of an individual’ but an official and committee-crafted ‘statement of national policy […] having no evident personal authorship’.27 By the time of its publication, the ‘national polity’ had become an incantatory symbol to the nationalists, and ‘failure to appreciate the national polity’ was almost the gravest charge that could be levelled against an opponent.28 Although universally disseminated through schools, where teachers were made to form self-study groups to discuss and learn the concepts presented in the document, this text had a much wider sphere of influence than the school system alone and was quoted in official speeches, school assemblies, and in national holiday celebrations.29 As a text with comprehensive distribution and utilization, this rescript featured significantly in soldiers’ socialization processes. The Kokutai no Hongi contained the ultimate distillation of the ideological discourses of the time and provided the ‘landscape’ in which the citizens of Japan were to exist. In fact, in the foreword to the text, the authors alluded to the quoting of passages from both the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki. The authors also stated that: This book has been compiled in view of the pressing need of the hour to clarify our national entity and to cultivate and awaken national sentiment and consciousness. Our national entity is vast and boundless, so that it is feared the book has fallen short in the penning of its true significance.30 25 Kokutai no Hongi has also been translated as Cardinal Principles of our National Entity. 26 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, editor’s Introduction, pp. 4-5. 27 Ibid. Editor’s introduction, p. 7. 28 Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, p. 376. 29 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, pp. 10-11. 30 Ibid., p. 50.

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Akemi Dobson writes that ‘organic or ethnocultural nationalism bases its claim […] on common blood ties, language, a distinct way of life and unique culture’, which is precisely what the Kokutai no Hongi aimed to promote and instil.31 Even though it fell short of being a def initive statement of what the kokutai actually meant in terms of nationhood, its promotion by the Kokumin Seishin Sōdōin Undō [National Spiritual Mobilization Movement], established by Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro (1891-1945) in 1937 to unite the nation in the total war effort against China, raised its status to the ultimate kokutai text.32 The Kokutai no Hongi further promoted the inviolability of the Emperor and cemented the relationship of absolute loyalty and devotion owed to him by his subjects. Importantly, the document broke with tradition that had been in place since the Meiji period by referring to the Emperor Shōwa as tennō rather than kōtei, a term also used for the rulers of other nations. While the word kōtei translates as “ruler of the empire”, the word tennō is made up of two characters, the first meaning heaven, nature, or God, and the second meaning emperor, thus identifying the Japanese head of state as unique in his deity. The Kokutai no Hongi had, in fact, elevated the kokutai to a ‘non-religious religion’.33 This effectively heightened the ultra-nationalistic xenophobia inherent in the version of the kokutai ideology current by that time. As the Kokutai no Hongi was produced at the outset of Japan’s Fifteen Years War, it focussed on issues of military service, noting that Japan’s military strength resided in the spiritual unity of the people and that the core of that spiritual unity was the divinity of the Emperor, a ‘fact’ that made Japan superior to Western nations. It stated that: in the West, conglomerations of individuals form a nation; rulers, on a basis of intelligence, virtues, and power, accede to a position because of their virtues. […] In our country, however, the Imperial Throne is acceded to by one descended from a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal and is absolutely firm.34

31 Akemi Dobson, ‘Cultural Nationalism in Japanese Language Textbooks’, in Japanese Cultural Nationalism: At Home and in the Asia Pacific, ed. Roy Starrs (Kent, UK: Global Oriental, 2004), p. 118. 32 This group was an offshoot of the National Mobilization Law [Kokka Sōdōin Hō], which was enacted in 1938 in response to a need to promote the war within the community. See Kano Masanao, Heishi de aru koto: dōin to jūgun no seishin shi (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 2005), p. 6. 33 Kang, Nashonarizumu, p. 74. 34 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 75.

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Once again, this was a text that emphasized the fact that Japan was a country where the family of the head of state had endured from the mists of antiquity. The text devoted an entire chapter to ‘The Way of the Subjects’, which underscored the requirement for subjects to view their loyalty to the Emperor as a natural progression of their role as subjects rather than as a duty. The Way of the subject exists where the entire nation serves the Emperor united in mind […] That is, we by nature serve the Emperor and walk the Way of the Empire, and it is perfectly natural that we subjects should possess this essential quality.35

Shōtoku Taishi (573-621), a crown prince regent of the Imperial Court of the Asuka Period (538-710) who paradoxically had sent the first envoy to China to foster foreign learning, was quoted within the text to provide authoritative substantiation of this definition of the Way of the Empire: In our country, Sovereign and subjects have from old been spoken of as being one, and the entire nation, united in mind and acting in full co-operation, have shown forth the beauties of this oneness with the Emperor as their centre. The august virtues of the Emperor and the duties of the subjects converge and unite into a beautiful harmony.36

Ironically, while the ruler and subject were one, it was only the subject who was required to acknowledge this bond through death. In order to ensure that they would be able to dutifully ‘walk in the Way of the Empire’, the Kokutai no Hongi exhorted its readers to renounce all pretension towards individuality, warning that When man makes self the centre of his interests, the spirit of self-effacement and self-sacrifice suffers loss. In the world of individualism there naturally arises a mind that makes self the master and others servants and puts gain first and gives service a secondary place.37

This teaching of the Kokutai no Hongi is crucial to understanding the internal tension between the demands of the self and the desire to erase the self in

35 Ibid., p. 79. 36 Ibid., p. 99. 37 Ibid., p. 133.

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the name of the Emperor Shōwa evident in Tamura’s diary.38 The Kokutai no Hongi’s position on the status of the individual as an intrinsic facet of the whole, unable to operate on a solely individual basis, was defined in the following passage: The spirit of self-effacement is not a mere denial of oneself, but means living to the great, true self by denying one’s small self. Individuals are essentially not beings isolated from the State, but each has his allotted share as forming parts of the State. And because they form parts, they constantly and intrinsically unite themselves with the State; and it is this that gives birth to the spirit of self-effacement [….] These characteristics, in union with the spirit of self-effacement, give rise to a power to assimilate things alien to oneself.39

The Kokutai no Hongi exhorted subjects to believe that loyalty to the Emperor meant ‘nothing short of loving the country’.40 The document went on to state categorically that ‘through loyalty we become Japanese subjects; in loyalty do we obtain life; and herein do we find the source of all morality’.41 The text merged the Emperor with country, so that the imminent wars to be fought were not only for the sake of the country but also for the sake of the Emperor. Also included in the Kokutai no Hongi was the song Umi Yukaba, which cites its origin as the Manyōshū [Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves], the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry compiled in the eighth century, supposedly by Ōtomo no Yakamochi (718-785), a statesman and poet. Out to the deep A watery corpse – Across the hills, A grass-grown corpse – Oh, I would die beside my Lord, Come what may!42

This song (among others), which was used extensively by the military and was played on radios the day that Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, was offered 38 This aspect is discussed in more detail in Chapter 8. 39 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 134. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., p. 83. 42 Ibid., p. 131.

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as evidence of the historical tradition of loyalty to the point of death. 43 This obligation to die was woven into almost every section of the Kokutai no Hongi: It is the nature of the subjects to make this great august Will their own, to receive the spirit of the founding of the Empire as their own by means of ceremonial rites, to pray for the Emperor’s peace by sacrificing themselves, and to enhance the spirit of service to the State. 44

The Kokutai no Hongi located this extreme obligation of self-sacrifice unto death in the context of a divinely instituted social structure, with the Emperor as a benevolent father of the nation ‘who loves and protects [his subjects] as one would sucklings’. 45 It emphasized the eternally familial structure of the nation with the claim that ‘the life of a family in our country is not confined to the present life of a household of parents and children, but beginning with the distant ancestors, is carried on eternally by the descendants’. 46 The Kokutai no Hongi also rendered unique the physical environment of Japan. The opening paragraph of the chapter, ‘The Homeland and the Life of the People’, is unequivocal: Our love for the homeland and her trees and grasses springs from such a sense of brotherly love. In effect, our people’s love for the homeland finds its source in the relationship of the oneness that has come down from the divine ages. 47

Here, the Kokutai no Hongi skilfully underscores the unique nature of Japan as the core of the solidarity expected of its citizens.48 Ultimately, this sense of the uniqueness of the Japanese landscape and the people’s oneness with it are ‘timeless’, originating at Japan’s creation, where the creator gods and the land and people they created formed one family. 43 See Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 139. The poem was set to music by Nobutoki Kiyoshi and became the second anthem in 1943, being used at send off and patriotic parades. The song was linked to honourable deaths and was always played at the start of radio bulletins to report such deaths. See Patricia Sheehan Campbell and Trevor Wiggins, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Musical Cultures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 100-101. 44 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 139. 45 Ibid., p. 76. 46 Ibid., p. 87. 47 Ibid., p. 124. 48 This aspect is discussed more fully in Chapter 4.

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Educating in the Kokutai The establishment of the Kokutai no Hongi as the supreme kokutai text was accompanied by changes within the education system to reflect its tenets. The author and film critic Satō Tadao (b. 1930), who was of school age during this period, has noted that schools indoctrinated children with the dogma that the Emperor was god. He has further observed that the main purpose of education in his childhood seemed to have been inculcating people with loyalty to the Emperor [chūgi]. 49 He relates a rumour that circulated at the time of a school principle who committed suicide after the mandatory photo of the Emperor was incinerated in a fire that destroyed his school.50 Strategies deployed by the education authorities included a curriculum filled with stories of ‘national holidays, flag, anthem, and the greatness of the Imperial family’, all of which served to ‘underscore Japan’s uniqueness’.51 The principles of indoctrination were ‘adoration of the war dead, who were killed in wars dating back to ancient times [and] fanatical patriotism and an emotional attachment to achieving the objects of war’.52 Again, famous heroes were glorified as shining examples of what children should aspire to as future soldiers of their country. One example was the story of the three brave heroes as human canons [Nikudan San Yūshi]: the three privates Eshita Takeji, Kitagawa Jō, and Sakue Inosuke who acted as suicide bombers with a bamboo tube filled with explosives to attack a Chinese army fortress in Shanghai on 22 February 1937.53 The degree of adulation that was afforded these privates led to the production of a kabuki play, the erection of government-funded statues, and a song penned by Saijō Yaso (1892-1970), very evocatively titled Yamato Damashii no Uta [Song of the Japanese Soul]. The song became part of the repertoire of school songs for primary school students. On an everyday level, the Takashimaya Department Store in Osaka served a ‘“Three Human Bombs Meal” and an enterprising shop began producing “Three Human Bombs Rice Crackers”’.54 If the enduring thread running through Japan’s education curriculum from the institution of universal education in the Meiji era to the Pacific 49 See Satō Tadao, Kusa no ne no gunkoku shugi (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2007), p. 13. 50 Ibid., p. 13. 51 Richard J Smethurst, ‘A Social Origin of the Second World War’, in Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History, eds. Harry Wray and Hillary Conroy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), p. 285. 52 Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime, pp. 160-61. 53 Also known as Bakudan san yūshi. 54 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 77.

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War was the role of the Emperor, concomitant to this was militarism. Classes frequently focused on achievements by the military; arithmetic classes involved ‘calculations about military matters’, science classes examined ‘general information about searchlights, wireless communication, land mines and torpedoes, submarines, military dirigibles, Shimose explosives, military carrier pigeons, heavy cannon, mortars, machine guns, the Arisaka cannon and military sanitation’. Physical education included ‘character training and war games’. Music classes were to ‘reverberate [with] war songs’.55 By the 1930s, the ultra-nationalistic curriculum contained exhortations for Japanese children to respect the national anthem and to follow the example of Crown Prince Yoshihisa (1847-1895), who had been killed in Taiwan in the service of his country.56 Children were also urged to exalt the spirits of the Emperor Meiji and those who were enshrined at Yasukuni, and to follow also a pathway of patriotism and loyalty. School readers repeatedly featured images of the brave Japanese soldier with accompanying songs such as ‘The Army Flag’, and the first three readers contained the ubiquitous cherry blossom and military symbols including the Japanese military sword.57 With Japan’s mythological origins now being taught as fact, the education system engaged in the ‘mythologization of history and the historisization of myths.’58 The words ‘god-country’ appeared in readers, while history texts had progressed from three lessons in mythology to a grand total of eight. These were accompanied by stories of the flag, the national anthem, and the importance of the Imperial family. The poems in the opening pages of the elementary school textbooks were Saita saita [Cherry Blossoms Bloom] and Heitai susume [Soldiers Advance], songs that essentially militarized the school system by encouraging the actions of the soldiers and invoking the use of the cherry blossom as a nationalistic symbol.59 Whether or not the editors of school texts intended the image of the cherry blossom to be

55 Saburō Ienaga, Japan’s Last War: World War Two and the Japanese, 1931-1945 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979), pp. 23-24. 56 Prince Yoshihisa was the first member of the Imperial family known to have died in war service outside of Japan. He had trained for military service in Germany and had been given command of the Imperial Japanese Army Division responsible for invading Taiwan. 57 Harry Wray, ‘The Lesson of the Textbooks’, in Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History eds. Harry Wray and Hillary Conroy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), p. 284. 58 Joseph Kitagawa, ‘The Japanese Kokutai (National Community) History and Myth’, History of Religions 13, no. 3 (1974): 226. 59 The motifs associated with nationalism, including the cherry blossom, will be discussed in Chapter 8.

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associated with soldiers, the fact that small children learned these words together firmly linked them in students’ minds. Reciting the edicts of the Imperial Rescript on Education was a part of daily school life. This had been firmly cemented by the time the National Schools Law [Kokumin Gakkō Rei] came into place in April 1941. This law ‘required the elevation of national spirit, cultivation of scientific intelligence, physical improvement and the refinement of moral sentiment’. Students recited the following: 1 We are the pupils of His Majesty the Emperor. Stand up to study how we should follow and increase our loyalty. Swear to co-operate in the vocation we are given. 2 We are the pupils of his Majesty the Emperor. Exhibit a spirit of fortitude and sturdiness. Swear to enhance the Imperial Way. 3 We are the pupils of His Majesty the Emperor. Use friendly competition to make ourselves study the literary and military arts as hard as possible. Swear to make ourselves the pillars of prosperity in Asia.60 Education of both adult and child subjects in the way of the kokutai extended well outside the school system. As noted above, by the summer of 1938, the cabinet of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro (1891-1945) had declared a ‘spiritual mobilization’ [seishin sōdōin’], and slogans incorporating the family nature of the nation, such as ‘one hundred million hearts beating as one’ [ichioku isshin], were all-pervading.61 Youth training centres [seinen kunrenjō], which had been established in 1925-26 to provide vocational training for young men between the ages of 16 and 20, now began to provide over 800 hours of extracurricular education over four years, comprised of 400 hours of drill training by military reservists and 400 hours of classes including instruction on themes such as patriotism, ethics, academic subjects, and physical training taught by elementary school teachers.62 The education system became a training ground for the military ideals of Imperial Japan. The model of public school education was to prepare students for military service. The quintessence of military education is to cultivate the attitude of patriotic martyrdom and patriotism. It exists in bringing up the people 60 Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime, pp. 164-5. 61 Konoe Fumimaro was prime minister from June 1937 to January 1939, July 1940 to July 1941, and July 1941 to October 1941. 62 This was followed closely by the founding of the National Defence Women’s Association [Dai Nippon Kokubō Fujinkai] in 1930. Branches of these organizations were set up in rural villages as well.

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who work in readiness to die for the Emperor at any time. We desire to convert the people into thinking that they should be ready to die, not scared of dying for the Emperor […] As for school education, it means total obedience only to the Emperor, and the attitude of absolute service […]. Entering the school is the same as entering the Army […].63

War and the Kokutai With the military operations in China proving costlier than anticipated, government-initiated savings programmes were promoted heavily. In the government’s off icial magazine, Shashin Shūhō [Photographic Weekly Report], of 15 June 1938, we read: The brave, loyal officers and men of the Imperial Forces, who have made numerous noble sacrifices, continue the fight. They have already opened the way for our nation to achieve its highest mission, but the future is still full of many possibilities, and therefore we citizens must harden our unwavering determination in preparing for a long-term war. If we now failed to supply our Emperor’s troops fighting at the front with all the provisions – such as weapons, munitions and, medicine – that they need, or if the economy of we citizens on the home front weakened through inflation, then what would happen to Japan? […] In order to prevent this from happening, from this very moment today, we citizens should all join the ‘savings war’ by taking up the rifle of savings and putting on the uniform of thriftiness.64

By 1940, the monthly ‘Day of Service for Developing Asia’ was promulgated, which saw all citizens required to abstain from extravagances such as tobacco, alcohol, and meat and to help out in the war effort by doing volunteer work including the collection of much-needed items such as cloth and metal. This was in conjunction with a focused campaign entitled ‘Luxury is the Enemy’ [Zeitaku wa teki da].65 The 2600th anniversary of the accession of Emperor Jimmu in 1940 further enhanced the popularization of the slogan Hakkō Ichiu [eight cords, one roof] credited to Emperor Jimmu, 63 Suzuki Gensuke, principal of Togane National School in Chiba Prefecture 1942, as quoted in Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime, p. 178. 64 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 121. 65 Ibid.

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which was used early in January of the same year by Prime Minister Konoe to open the white paper Kihon Kokusaku Yōkō [Fundamental National Policy]. This document claimed to aspire to ‘world peace in conformity with the very spirit in which our nation was founded’.66 The legendary first Emperor of Japan, Jimmu, had reportedly spent six years on an ‘Eastward Expedition’ throughout Japan to promulgate imperial rule by military force. This expedition provided the template for Japan’s imperial push and allowed a sense of validation for expansionism. By the time of the 2600th anniversary celebrations, Japan’s expansionist ambitions encompassed the whole world.67 The erection in Miyazaki of a monument inscribed with the words Hakkō Ichiu justified Japan’s stance through its combination of the military with the indigenous religion of Shintō and the unassailable authority of the Emperor.68 From 1939, national policy films also gave enthusiastic support to the principles of the kokutai. Themes of the ‘“little people” swept up in forces far greater than themselves’ and of heroes who displayed the ‘moral purity that Japan demanded of warriors and civilians alike’ abounded and were voraciously devoured by subjects who had been indoctrinated by the propaganda that would make them cooperative accomplices in Japan’s expansionist aims.69 Throughout this period, efforts to oversee the co-operation of the public also intensified. Women were stationed on the streets to act as monitors to ensure that citizens exercised frugality. A national uniform for all males similar to the army uniform was made compulsory. By April 1941, rice rationing was also initiated in the major cities in order to combat the rice deficit of around 50,000,000 bushels, or the equivalent of the amount to be consumed by 10,000,000 citizens. The dire shortages of rice meant that ‘whether or not there will be enough rice to eat’ became the basis for job searching as the rice allocations were based on age and occupation.70 In August 1941, the Ministry of Education issued the manifesto Shinmin no Michi [The Way of the Subject] designed to safeguard against the 66 Walter Edwards, ‘Forging Tradition for a Holy War: The Hakko Ichiū Tower in Miyazaki and Japanese Wartime Ideology’, Journal of Japanese Studies 29, no. 2 (2003): 291. 67 Kenneth J. Ruoff, Imperial Japan at its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire’s 2600th Anniversary (New York: Cornell University Press, 2010), pp. 14-15. 68 ‘[…] more than twelve thousand nationalistic events […and] fifteen thousand public works projects completed for the 2,600th anniversary […]’, ibid., p. 15. 69 Peter B. High, ‘The War Image of Imperial Japan and its Aftermath’, Wide Angle 11, no. 3 (1989): 19-21. High notes that ‘soon the best film talent in Japan were making war films: Kinugasa, Kajirō Yamamoto, Tadashi Imai, Daisuke Itō, Tomu Uchida, and even Akira Kurosawa. Only Mizoguchi and Ozu escaped conscription.’ 70 Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism, p. 93.

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individualistic aims of Western society and to further inculcate the lofty ideals of Imperial Japan. The private lives of individuals were considered to have public ‘significance in that each so-called private action is carried out by the subject as part of his humble efforts to assist the Throne […]. Thus we must never forget that even in our personal lives we are joined to the Emperor and must be moved by the desire to serve our country’.71 By this time, the entire education system in Japan was centred on this manifesto, which emphasized ‘above all […] service to the state’.72 1942 saw the publication of the supplementary manifesto Ie no Michi [The Way of the Family], more formally known as Senji Katei Kyōiku Shidō Yōkō [Wartime Domestic Guidance Essentials], which elaborated on the principles of filial piety. The joint teachings of the Shinmin no Michi and the Ie no Michi advocated the ‘concept of proper place’ as ‘the essence of the family paradigm’.73

Ensuring Soldiers’ Compliance: The Senjinkun If the Kokutai no Hongi was the most important document in the inculcation of the masses in the way of Japan’s national polity, then the Senjinkun [Instructions for the Battlefield], published on 8 January 1941 in the name of War Minister Tōjō Hideki (1884-1948), was the most significant military document since the Meiji era’s Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors. Unlike previous field service regulations which focused basically on logistics, the Senjinkun, which was published as a spiritual guide to soldiers in response to the moral laxity of troops in China, followed the Kokutai no Hongi in focusing entirely on spirituality. Soldiers were encouraged to defend the empire ‘by laying to heart the essential character of the national polity’,74 which meant ‘joyfully braving death in obedience to a command given at a time when they are undergoing great hardships’.75 Soldiers were exhorted to ‘display the spirit of cooperation by forgetting themselves for the sake of victory’.76 One section entitled ‘Aggressiveness’ maintained that soldiers should fight ‘vowing not to cease until the enemy is crushed’ and should ‘never give up a position, but rather die’.77 One term that gained currency 71 As quoted in Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, p. 7. 72 Ibid., p. 7. 73 Dower, War without Mercy, p. 280. 74 Rikugun, Senjinkun (Tokyo: The Department of Army, 1941), Section 1: The Empire. 75 Ibid., Section 3: Discipline. 76 Ibid., Section 5: Cooperation. 77 Ibid., Section 6: Aggressiveness.

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through the Senjinkun was the word jinchū, meaning to work desperately for the Emperor, which was used in conjunction with the highly spiritual term chūgi (used in the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors) denoting a devoted and heartfelt sense of loyalty. A copy of the Senjinkun was carried by every soldier into the theatre of war.78 Although the Senjinkun was promulgated specifically for soldiers, its dictates were applied to the population at large, in anticipation of the appearance six months later of the Ministry of Education’s Way of the Subject. The spirit of the Senjinkun at the time of its issue was ‘so deeply embedded in the national psyche […] it had become an imperative not only for the military [but] ultimately for all civilians including women and children’.79 Soldiers were also provided with a booklet entitled ‘Read This Only and the War is Won’ [Kore dake yomeba ware wa kateru], a 72-page booklet intended as a set of practical instructions for the battlefield which included in its opening passages the famous Manyōshū poem Umi Yukaba. The booklet was supposed to prepare soldiers for the war in the tropical combat zone.

The Kokutai as Dysfunctional Military Family The relationship between the Emperor and his subjects was further strengthened by the notion of kazoku kokka [family nation], which implied that reverence and loyalty to the Emperor as head of the nation [chūkō icchi] was an extension of the filial piety [oyakōkō] and loyalty expected of children towards their parents.80 Loyalty to the Emperor [chū] combined with loyalty to the family [kō] were considered ‘the spiritual flower [seika] of the “national body” [kokutai]’.81 In a rejection of Western values and a re-valorization instead of the Confucian principles that had operated in feudal Japan, the nation was thereby perceived and promoted as one extended family.82 This process was clearly apparent in the Imperial Rescript on Education which had not only emphasized family bonds by reminding subjects of the need to ‘be 78 Eric Bergerud, Touched with Fire: The Land War in the Pacific (New York: Penguin, 1996), p. 125. 79 Straus, The Anguish of Surrender, p. 40. 80 Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 78. 81 Ibid. 82 Isolde Standish states that ‘the Civil Codes of 1898 and 1912 legally established the family as the basic unit of the nation-state and not the individual as in western judicial law’. See Standish, Myth and Masculinity in the Japanese Cinema: Towards a Political Reading of the Tragic Hero (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000), p. 29.

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filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious, as friends true’, but also by requiring subjects to ‘offer themselves courageously to the state should an emergency arise.’83 The family loyalty inherent in Confucian practice had been extended to become total loyalty to the throne. This dual requirement of loyalty at the levels of family and state was, in fact, interspersed with demands for commitment to other levels of social administration including landlords, heads of village organizations (which by this time had been incorporated into the reservist network), school principals, and local mayors. In essence, all of these loyalties led to the apex that was loyalty to the Emperor.84 The concept of family also operated within the military itself, with draftees told that they were entering into a new family relationship in the army. Call-up letters opened with ‘greetings’ to the father and elder brother and promised that: ‘When your son and brother enters the barracks, the officers of the company will take your place in looking after his welfare. We will be to him as a stern father and a loving mother’.85 The expectation that loyalty at the family level would be transferred to the barracks and that the military would take on a caretaker role for soldiers was, however, frequently shattered by the reality of daily life in a warzone.86 Rather than the nurture of a family-like barracks, there was a regime of strict discipline which required the recruit to display total obedience to his superiors, regardless of the absurdity of the command. The aim of this discipline, which often included physical beatings and punishments, was to create a totally compliant and unquestioning soldier who was prepared to do anything at the will of the senior command.87 The categorical acceptance of authority made it possible for soldiers to accept also the requirement for death, at least on the face of it.88

Wholesale Acceptance? According to author and f ilm director Itami Mansaku (1900-1946), the Japanese people themselves were responsible for the success of the kokutai 83 Monbushō, The Imperial Rescript on Education. 84 Richard J. Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1974), p. 163. 85 Lory, Japan’s Military Masters, p. 25. 86 Lack of nurture for soldiers is discussed in Chapter 9. 87 Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army, p. 68. 88 Straus, The Anguish of Surrender, p. 33.

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ideology, because ‘as a result of this crazy war, every Japanese person was forced to deceive his or her peers’.89 Postwar authors [sengoha] were also frequently scathing of the war effort and the misery it had forced upon the Japanese people, both soldiers and citizens.90 The war was promoted as a ‘holy war’, yet there were critics, such as the man who wrote the following: They call it a holy war, [but] under the current situation it sucks the [word self-censored] of those Japanese apart from the prosperous classes, and cajoles people into sacrifice in view of the so-called survival of [words self-censored], with the figure already well nigh into tens of billions; we’re giving up our jobs, and it’s getting to the point that more and more people are going without food – is this still something that can be called a holy war?91

Those Japanese soldiers who returned from China at the end of the war who spoke out against the atrocities that had been committed there under the banner of Imperial Japan were often ostracized by those at home who had a very different experience of the war, such as the fire bombings and the deaths of family and friends. One such returnee who experienced this kind of reception from his neighbours on his return from China wrote ‘I had been “brainwashed” from childhood by Japanese militarism, and because of that, I had committed atrocities […]’.92 In another case, the despair of a haizanhei [defeated soldier] is palpable: I only thought about ‘dying for the Emperor’. When I went into the army, I told people who sent me off ‘I’ll be sure to return home dead’. From that moment, I never thought about my parents or brothers. [… But] his majesty was not God after all. The War was an act of aggression. For me, the Imperial Army was God’s Army, but then it actually turned out to be a miserable story. I promised myself never to sing the Kimigayō [national anthem] again.93 89 Itami Mansaku, Seishin Doshinroku (The Record of an Immobile Body and an Active Mind), 3 vols., Itami Mansaku Zenshu (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1961), p. 337, as quoted in Marlene Mayo, Thomas J. Rimer, and H. Eleanor Kerkham, eds., War, Occupation, and Creativity: Japan and East Asia, 1920-1960 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), vol 2, p. 222. 90 A discussion regarding sengoha authors is in the preface to this work. 91 Satō Kiyoshi of Kyoto had lost his job because of the war and is quoted in Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism (p. 60). Yoshimi suggests that the first self-censored word was ‘blood’ and the second was ‘the strong eat the meat of the weak – [or] survival of the fittest’. 92 As quoted in Moore, ‘Essential Ingredients of Truth’, p. 5. 93 Hashimoto, The Long Defeat, p. 32. Kimigayo translates as His Imperial Majesty’s Reign.

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Postwar, the freedom of expression to be opposed to the war effort was, of course, enhanced by the requirements of the occupying governance of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). The censorship under the occupying forces discouraged any criticism of the Allied Powers including any criticism of Allied policy pre-war, during the war, and postwar, but it certainly allowed and perhaps even encouraged denunciation of Japan’s militarism.94 During the war, though, there was little chance for individual voices of opposition to be heard. Indeed, many actually aided and abetted the success of the kokutai propaganda.95 The following is a letter to the editor written under the pseudonym of ‘a born patriot’: More than one hundred thousand precious lives have been offered up, several hundred thousand officers and men have been wounded, more than ten billion from the national treasury spent, for their part the Japanese people have been forced to endure the suffering of material shortages, and what’s the result of it all? If we don’t seize land, don’t take reparations, don’t monopolize the Chinese economy, don’t violate Chinese sovereignty or the rights and privileges of other countries, and in the end, we withdraw, then the fruits of battle may as well be seen as next to nothing […] I don’t want these huge, precious sacrifices to end in futility.96

The writer does not lament the expansionist programmes of Imperial Japan but rather insists that the money and resources expended must ensure the successful outcomes of imperialism. Even what would appear to be a generally supportive account necessitates the anonymity of the author. One prisoner of war stated that ‘Japan restricts people too much […] She rules her people by fear, taught from childhood […]. Japan expects the Yamato spirit and Type 38 rifles to overwhelm 500 kg of bombs from B24s’.97 As a prisoner of war, the interviewee had the opportunity (and perhaps an expectation) to be frank in his criticism of the regime.

94 For an excellent account of postwar Japanese attitudes, see Dower, Embracing Defeat. 95 Marius B Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese Attitudes towards Modernization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 80-81, as quoted in Kenneth Pyle, ‘Introduction: Some Recent Approaches to Nationalism’, The Journal of Asian Studies 31, no. 1, p. 7. 96 Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism, p. 62. 97 AWM ATIS Brief of Interrogation Report 610 A Serial 746, ‘Propaganda letter voluntarily written by PWJA (USA) 10025’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 1958).

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As discussed earlier, the government had implemented numerous measures to regiment behaviour and ultimately to spy on the people. Neighbourhood associations of groups of ten households had been formed in 1940, and because they were responsible for the rationing of food, they were virtually compulsory to join.98 The traditional community honour concept of seken (which in real terms meant neighbour spying on neighbour), resulted also in a public façade [tatemae], which meant an outward display of compliance with the official doctrine, versus the deeply felt (or ‘true’ feelings) [honne] of mothers and fathers required to send their sons off to the war. Community morés dictated that there would be no protestations, no opposition, and certainly no ears to listen to anything other than adherence to the official discourse.

98 David P Lu, ed., Japan: A Documentary History, 2 vols. (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996-97), vol 2, p. 441.

4

Out of Landscape

Japan as the Sublime: The Acculturation of Japanese Nature1 Religious philosopher Yuasa Yasuo (1925-2005)2 put it succinctly when he wrote that ‘history and nature, like man’s mind and body, are in an inseparable relationship’.3 Without doubt, a distinct engagement with nature was a salient component of the creation of a nation-state following the Meiji era, and nature itself played an integral part in defining the Japanese people and the kokutai discourse, so much so that the symbiotic relationship created meant that one was fundamental to the other. In other words, Japan as the physical and Japan as history were intertwined, so that for soldiers like Tamura, displacement to the harsh and unfamiliar landscape of New Guinea was experienced not only as a physical rupturing but also as a severance from the emotional ties of collective memory and shared past experience. This interweaving of a country’s nature and its history is not unique to Japanese thinking under the kokutai. We see that writers during the Third Reich in Germany such as anthropologist and psychologist Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss (1892-1974) wrote about landscape under the dubious theme of ‘racial psychology’: The manner in which the soul reaches out into its world fashions the geographical area of this world into a ‘landscape’. A landscape is not something that the soul alights upon, as it were, something ready-made. Rather, it is something that it fashions by virtue of its species-determined way of viewing its environment. It cannot, of course, arbitrarily fashion any landscape out of any kind of geographical area. The area is the matter, so to speak, into which the soul projects its style and thus transforms it

1 This title has been borrowed from Chapter 7 of the following book: Julia Adeney Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2001). 2 Yuasa Yasuo was mentored by Watsuji Tetsurō. See David Edward Shaner, Shigenori Nagatomo, and Yasuo Yuasa, Science and Comparative Philosophy: Introducing Yuasa Yasuo (New York: E.J. Brill, 1989), p. 4. Yuasa received a doctorate from Tokyo University in 1975 with a dissertation entitled Kindai Nihon no tetsugaku to jitsuzon no shisō (‘Modern Japanese Philosophy and Existential Thought’), ibid., p. 6. 3 Yasuo Yuasa, ‘The Encounter of Modern Japanese Philosophy with Heidegger’, in Heidegger and Asian Thought, ed. Graham Parkes (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), p. 168.

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into a landscape. […] The area offers the soul possibilities for shaping it in accordance with the soul’s unique manner of perceiving it. 4

The reinstitution of the Emperor as a divine and inviolable sovereign in the Meiji era was accompanied by the elevation of Shintō to the status of state religion. This led to the unification of rites and government [saisei itchi], perceptively labelled as ‘governance-as-worship’.5 The most important aspect of Shintō for the Meiji rulers was the creation myth of the Emperor Jimmu as a descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, which revealed the origin of the Emperor. As a nativist belief system, Shintō also fostered an attachment to the natural physical environment, to the beauty and awe of nature in Japan, which the early chronicles such as the Nihonshoki [The Chronicles of Japan, 720] referred to as ‘Central Land of Reed Plains’.6 Later documents, such as the Jinnō Shōtōki [Chronicle of the Direct Succession of Gods and Sovereigns, 1338-1341], written by Kamakura court scribe Kitabake Chikafusa (1293-1354), contained passages such as the one that follows, which described Japan in a way that would be repeatedly appropriated by modern administrations from Meiji onwards.7 Japan is the divine country. The heavenly ancestor it was who first laid its foundations, and the Sun Goddess left her descendants to reign over it forever and ever. This is truly only of our country, and nothing similar may be found in foreign lands. That is why it is called the divine country.8

Early Meiji political thought, however, struggled to make central the concept of nature. There was no specific mention of nature or landscape in the Meiji Constitution, nor any mention in the Imperial Rescript on Education [Kyōiku Chokugo] of 1890. In fact, Meiji politics was so hell-bent on industrialization that natural resources were more for the progress of Japan rather than part of its ideological base. In the early stages of the Meiji era, there was an urgent thrust towards what was known as ‘Japanese Thought, Western Learning’ 4 George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), p. 65, section titled ‘Racial Soul, Landscape, and World Domination’. 5 Harry D. Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 383-384. 6 Wm Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Japanese Tradition, Introduction to Oriental Civilizations (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1958). ‘All the Central Land of Reed Plains is now fully tranquilized’, p. 19. 7 Wm Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of East Asian Tradition: Vol. 1 Pre-Modern Asia, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), vol. 1, p. 739. 8 Ibid., p. 810.

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[wakon-yōsai]. Looking to the West to find answers had included forays into Social Darwinism, but government supporters realized that under Darwinism, Japan would be seen as inferior to the West.9 So, rather than embrace Social Darwinistic concepts, Meiji leaders worked towards nature being suitably incorporated as a form of unique Japanese culture into the national ideology debate.10 In order to facilitate this process of ‘acculturation’ under Japanese thought [wakon], the ancient texts mentioned above were re-discovered, and contemporary texts were produced.11 Shiga Shigetaka (1863-1927) – geographer, botanist, editor of the influential journal, Nihonjin [The Japanese], and author of the classic text Nihon Fūkeiron [‘Japanese Landscape’, 1894]12 – had been particularly vocal in his assertions that Japan should ‘recover its rightful feeling for its native landscape’ and its ‘rightful feeling of national pride’.13 He had been unsuccessful in the early part of the Meiji period in promoting the idea that Japan’s national anthem should ‘evoke the love of Japan’s mountains, streams and valleys’.14 After embarking on a voyage to the South Pacific to undertake botanical research, Shiga had determined that ‘Japan’s destiny was tied to her fortuitous geography’.15 He wrote passionately that The influence of all environmental factors of Japan, her climate, her weather conditions, her temperature and humidity, the nature of her soil, the configuration of her land and water, her animal and plant life and her landscape, as well as the interaction of all of these factors, the habits and customs, the experiences, the history, and development of thousands of years – the totality of all these factors has gradually, imperceptibly, developed in the Japanese race inhabiting this environment as unique kokusai.16 9 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 159. 10 Ibid. 11 In particular the Tokugawa text Jikokushi (The History of the Land and People), first published in 1701. See Wm Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of East Asian Tradition: Vol 2. The Modern Period, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p 172. 12 An excellent examination of Shiga is provided in Masako Gavin, Shiga Shigetaka, 1863-127, The Forgotten Enlightener (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001). 13 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 172. 14 Ibid., p. 167. 15 Ibid., p. 172. 16 Shiga translated the term kokusai as nationality (Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 27). Masako Gavin writes that ‘critics such as Awai Tadakuma, Maeda Ai, Mita Hirō and Satō Yoshimaru, have claimed that Nihon Fūkeiron was an Imperialistic document that may have influenced the Japanese towards the excess of patriotism that culminated in the war’. Gavin, Shiga Shigetaka, p. 27.

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A love of this natural uniqueness was what needed to be harnessed in order for Japan’s cultural independence to be ensured.17 By the 1890s, the word shizen [nature, spontaneity] came into popular usage to portray the idea of nature in Japan. Shizen evoked a ‘particularly Japanese sensibility’.18 The word also denoted a spontaneous response, that is, referencing ‘inherent, unmanipulated qualities’.19 Through this ‘spontaneity’, Japan’s nature became distinct and distinguishable from the nature of the West, ‘[in revealing] a mode of subjectivity while the West’s nature refers to objects’.20 As nature became more intrinsic through the medium of literature, for one, nature had come closer to the idea of culture. By the time of the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the blending of political thought, national aims, nature, and culture saw nature become the ‘ultimate guarantor of national political culture […].’21 The progression of nature as culture also saw nature become an intrinsic part of the desired national character. The Kokutai no Hongi included a chapter titled kokuminsei [national character], which embellished Japan’s sublime natural environment as part of this national character. The country’s ‘temperate climate’, its ‘beautiful mountains and rivers’, the ‘spring flowers, autumn tints, and the scenic changes accompanying the seasons’ all garner praise. […] The islands of Japan provide […] a veritable paradise [rakudo] in which to live [and] this chapter works to substantiate the particularities of the Japanese people on the basis of Japan’s physical environment.22

A further section on ‘Harmony Between the People and Nature’ [Hito to shizen to no wa] ascribes the love of ‘annual festivals, family crests, architecture, and gardens’ as an ‘exquisite harmony [bimyō no chōwa] with nature.[…] Below the surface of daily life, the coalescent devotion between the Japanese people and nature unites consciousness itself with physical experience to such an extent that one cannot be separated from the other’.23

17 Gavin, Shiga Shigetaka p. 36. 18 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 170. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., p. 171. 21 Ibid., pp. 179, 181. 22 Ibid., pp. 179-180. 23 Ibid., p. 180.

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In an even more succinct appraisal of the sublime nature of Japan, the Kokutai no Hongi devoted a section on ‘Harmony Between Man and Nature’, which included the following: Our country is surrounded by the sea, excels in mountains, [is blessed with] limpid waters, and with [happy] changes in the four seasons, and has natural features not found in other countries. These beautiful natural features were brought to birth by the heavenly deities together with the [many] deities; […] It is here that our national trait to love nature is begotten and the harmony between man and nature is established. […] In literature, too, many are the poems that sing of this harmonious mind towards nature, and deep love towards nature form the principal theme of our poetry. […] nature and human existence harmonize. […] The New Year’s functions, needless to say, and the Doll’s Festival in March are functions that befit the greeting of autumn. In our country, where the transitions between seasons are clearly marked, this harmony between nature and human existence is especially and beautifully vivid. […] This intimate, single relationship between nature and man, also, finds its source in our original, national ideology in which man and nature enjoy coalescent intimacy.24

This unique and inimitable relationship between nature and man became the ‘love of country’ discourse, such that Japan was effectively constructed as a utopia unparalleled in its magnificence. For the Japanese, there was a seamless connection between the geographical and topographical references in the mythical narratives that supported the kokutai and their immediate environment. Again, the Kokutai no Hongi (under a section entitled ‘the Homeland and the Life of the People’) stated that: […] our people’s love for the homeland finds its source in the relationship of oneness that has come down from the divine ages, so that our homeland shares her life with the nation and, reared in the Way of our country, amply maintains all things, and, together with the people, serves the Emperor. Thus the homeland is an essential in nurturing the life of the people; in maintaining and developing their livelihood, and in cultivating their spirit; and the intimate and profound relationship between the homeland, her natural features, and the people amply manifests our national characteristics, and their traces are everywhere to be seen throughout 24 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, pp. 96-7.

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our history. […] In the legends of our nation is related the brotherhood of the homeland and the people. Our people’s affection for the homeland and their inclination to become one with her is exceedingly strong, and this is shown in the manner in which those engaged in farming blend and conform to the changes of the season. These characteristics pervade the annual functions that surround ceremonies and their very mode of life.25

In a later section, we read under the title of ‘The Inherent Character of the People’ a quote from Yamaga Sokō (1622-1685): ‘[…]indeed her natural features are blessed with a temperate climate and beautiful mountains and rivers; and rich in vernal flowers and autumn tints and scenic changes that accompany the seasons […]’.26 Under the kokutai discourse, then, nature became an important construct that encouraged emotional ties to the homeland and subsequently became intrinsic to the sense of self.27 Importantly, it was a love of Japan’s nature, which translated further to a love of one’s native place or homeland, which was pivotal in the psychological structuring of Japan’s sense of country.28 Tessa Morris-Suzuki tells us that Visions of nature are central to modern constructions of national identity. In defining themselves as citizens, individuals are encouraged to envisage a national landscape which extends far beyond the familiar scenery of daily life. So U.S citizens who may never have ventured farther than the boundaries of Texas or Kentucky learn to conceive of their land as ‘America, America […] from sea to shining sea’. And in Australia almost every child knows at least part of Dorothea McKellar’s poem, ‘My Country’: I love a sunburnt country A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains.29

Such impressions of our native landscape, remote though they may be from our actual lived experience, create in us a sense of national pride and uniqueness. Our land is different from any other. For Japan and the 25 Ibid., pp. 124-5. 26 Ibid., p. 129. 27 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 176. 28 Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, p. 144. 29 As quoted in Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (Armonk, New York, London,: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), p. 35.

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Japanese, such potent images of nature had been harnessed successfully by the creators of the kokutai to cement the essence of nationhood that was required to exploit the passions of belligerent patriotism. The progressive inculcation of nature as the cultural epitome of Japan meant that by the time the machine of Imperial nationalism was in full throttle in the 1930s, nature had become the backbone of ultranationalist ideology.30 Embedded in this ideology of nature and homeland was the sylvan-inspired landscape of the homeland. Culture is etymologically linked to the sylvan life. The origin of the word culture is ‘coulter’, meaning the blade of a ploughshare, denoting the very potent sylvan-inspired landscape of Imperial Japan.31 These ultranationalist images of the rural shizen of Japan resonates with the similar völkisch farm communities used by German national socialists as a model for the Fascist state.32 Having raised the consciousness of the citizens of Japan towards the sublimity and peerlessness of their nature, this seamless connection could potentially suffer from rupture for soldiers such as Tamura, deployed to other parts of the Empire – or territories that Japan desired to acquire – where the physical landscape differed dramatically from that of Japan. Here the ideas of philosopher and cultural historian Watsuji Tetsurō (1189-1960) are helpful to my analysis. Watsuji believed that it was climate that provided the ‘entire interconnected network of influences that together create an entire people’s attitudes and values’.33 He argued that: Man is saddled not simply with a general past but with a specific climatic past; a general formal historical structure is substantiated by a specific content. It is only in this way that the historical being of mankind can become the being of man in a given country at a given age.34

Throughout his diary, Tamura distanced himself from the environment of the New Guinea warzone and returned to the familiar landscape and seasons of home which allowed him, in the words of Watsuji, to ‘stand outside […] climate and understand [himself] from it’.35

30 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 179. 31 Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), p. 1. 32 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 181. 33 Robert Carter, ‘Watsuji Tetsurō’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2009 (2009): 6. 34 Watsuiji Tetsurō, Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), p. 10. 35 Ibid., p. 13.

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Displacement to the far shores of New Guinea would inevitably prove problematic. The tropical climate and weather patterns were a particular cause of confusion. In a poem entitled ‘The Four Seasons of the South’ written sometime between April 19 and May 25, Tamura attempted to reconcile the lack of the well-defined seasonal change he was accustomed to at home with the weather patterns experienced in New Guinea. Morning, spring; midday, the height of summer; and night, autumn? In this Southern land, there are four seasons every day!36

For those who had grown up in and been taught to honour the unique nature of the clear seasonal distinctions of Japan, the unpredictability of the climate in the tropics was a potential source of bewilderment.

A Hellhole of a Place All battlef ields are wretched places. New Guinea was ghastly. There was a saying during the war: ‘Burma is hell; from New Guinea no one returns alive’.37

The excerpt above is from the memoir of a Japanese soldier, Ogawa Masatsugu. The diary of U.S. private Sy Kahn portrays a similar image of the physical privations encountered by troops fighting in the New Guinea campaign. Among us, it was not enemy action that caused the greatest number of casualties, but rather the harsh conditions under which we lived and worked. […] Rain was frequent, even torrential. Heat, humidity and rain rotted or rusted every sort of material. Our very skins were infected by a variety of ‘jungle rots’ as we called them, fungus that corrupted the skin between fingers and toes, grew on the inside of ears and in severe cases leprously wasted the skin to the bone. Adding to our woes, insects, known and unknown, bit and stung constantly. Malaria and other fevers were endemic.38 36 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 98. Written between 4 and 25 May, 1943. 37 Ogawa Masatsugu, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, in Japan at War: An Oral History, eds. Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore Cook (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 276. 38 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. xx.

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These accounts leave no doubt as to the physical ordeal – the debilitating heat and rain, in addition to the wildlife and disease bearing insects of the area – endured by the troops, both Allied and Japanese. The density of the jungle terrain contributed further to the eeriness of the soldier’s world. The enemy, then, was represented not only by the planes that flew overhead or the opposing side’s snipers and grenade throwers but also by the physical environment itself. In the New Guinea warzone, rain was a constant in both quantity and frequency, and soldiers had difficulty keeping their clothes free from the rot that occurred because of the rain. The impact of these conditions is evident from Tamura’s diary entries. There are references to heat, damp, insects, snakes, crocodiles, feral cats, rain, lack of food, and lack of shelter. He had none of life’s comforts and had to use a petrol drum as a bath. A gasoline drum has turned into a bath tub An unshaven round face is floating in the bath On this evening in the South39

For Tamura, the complete inadequacy of the necessities referred to above was palpable. Here he refers to himself in the third person, merely a disconnected image of himself floating in the water. In disbelief at his circumstances – and, we might speculate, in disbelief at the mismatch between his military experiences and the manner in which these experiences were constructed by the homeland propaganda machine – he asks himself: ‘Is this jungle now our home?’40 This contrary jungle home presented two particular physical aspects of landscape that were confusing and destabilising. The first was the unnatural twenty-four-hour gloom and darkness created by the jungle canopy which formed a foreboding backdrop onto which he was able to project his fear and loneliness. This gloom was a physical manifestation that also contained a psychologically or emotionally challenging element resulting from the sensory confusion that overwhelmed the troops. The second element was the jungle as an enclosed and disorientating space from which there was no escape. The ability to locate themselves accurately in a warzone, basic to any soldier, was completely disabled in this jungle environment. The soldiers wandered around in the jungle, lost, unable to find their bearings.41 39 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 43 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 40 Ibid., p. 50. Written 11 April 1943. 41 Ogawa, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 120.

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The Jungle as Physically Perverse The jungle was dark: constant murky semi-twilight during the day and a forbidding black unknown at night. Troops on Goodenough Island became so depressed due to the ‘day-long twilight’ that they took to cutting down trees to let in some sunlight and to ‘chase away the atmosphere of melancholy’. 42 Japanese soldier Ogawa Masatsugu wrote: The worst was the jungle at night. Even if you attached a white cloth to your pack, it couldn’t be seen […]. Sometimes you’d move swiftly, at other times you slowed to nothing at all. Then you’d shout, ‘Get going!’ and find yourself pushing against a tree. If you tried to rush, you’d stumble, as if your feet were grabbed or clutched at by something. You weren’t supposed to call out. The enemy might hear. Each step, you had no way of knowing if there was going to be ground under your foot when it next came down. 43

Similarly, Australian soldier Bill Crooks wrote that The darkness or dimness of heavy jungle has to be seen to be believed. The thick matted gigantic staghorn treegrowers and the canopy itself blot out natural daylight. The men became very wary and receded into themselves. They did not talk very much unless the enemy was near. Looking back, I think it was a little psychotic too. We never mentioned our feelings about the jungle among ourselves until long after the war. Most were scared of the strangeness and eerie continual darkness […] but worse, we felt hemmed in: the all-pervading closeness of the deep impenetrable green jungle. […] In the jungle we were enveloped by a matted tangled tree canopy, 200 feet or so up. Thorn vines descended. Beneath us on the track was a slimy ooze of stinking death. The smell of dead bodies from both sides decaying just below fungus level. Buried just to the side of the track, they leaked their filth into the mash of mud and the millions-of-years-old root system that covered the ground. It drove some of our less strong soldiers to total nervous breakdown and weeping frustration. 44 42 Ibid., p. 120. Goodenough Island is in the Milne Bay province of Papua New Guinea, lying east of the mainland in the Solomon Sea. Battle between the Japanese forces and the Australian forces took place in October 1942, with the Japanese being defeated. 43 Ibid., p. 269. 44 Bergerud, Touched with Fire, pp. 69-70.

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Tamura was living in a world of shadows during the day, and complete darkness at night. On 1 April, he wrote: In the primitive jungle, we do not even have candlelight. We get up when the sun rises and go to bed when it gets dark. We labour at the same type of work day after day. This is part of military life. 45

The night jungle was alive with sounds that prompted the imagination to run wild. In the warzone, even the fall of a heavy leaf could resemble ‘a light footstep’. 46 Noises that suggested something remotely human resulted in troops ‘shooting at anything from birds to falling leaves’. 47 The ‘unnaturalness’ of nature meant that ‘macaws squealed like children’48 and that ‘in the forest, it sounded as if a kitten called. A strange-looking bird was calling for its mate’. 49 Sentry duty, in particular, was terrifying. Eerily, one by one, the withered twigs fall. A nightbird calls out, just like the snarl of a wild cat. Fruit drops from the trees with a thud. Standing sentry alone in the middle of the night In the middle of the jungle where you don’t know what is one inch ahead, even for us who are used to the front, is spine-chilling.50

Although any warzone is an abnormal, terrifying environment, we see here that it was the specifics of the jungle environment that generated a particularly debilitating fear. Standing sentry alone in the night jungle The horror of the wild cat’s snarl Soldiers who don’t fear the enemy Are powerless against snakes and crocodiles51

45 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 16 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 1 April 1943. 46 As quoted in Peter Schrijvers, The GI War Against Japan (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 120. 47 Ibid., p. 121. 48 Ibid. 49 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 46. Written 11 April 1943. 50 Ibid., p. 39. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 51 Ibid.

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Whether it was ‘the horror of the wild cat’s snarl’ or the threat of ‘snakes and crocodiles’, even ‘soldiers who don’t fear the enemy’ could be psychologically disarmed by the jungle environment. The darkness was a destabilizing factor, and Tamura noted that in New Guinea ‘our daily survival here in the jungle, long nights and short days’.52 The lone sentry – a feature of a series of Tamura’s diary entries – was easily unsettled by the unfamiliar sounds and sights of his surroundings. The enemy was no longer another human face, the fight was not only against the Allied Forces; Tamura’s battle was, in fact, against nature itself.

The Jungle as Disorder The darkness of the jungle and the alien nature of its environment were exacerbated by the bewildering disorientation caused by being enclosed by the canopy. Tamura vividly described his own perplexity at this geographical bafflement: ‘The sun looks as if it rises from the west. The direction is difficult to sense in the jungle’.53 On one occasion, he related how totally discombobulating the jungle could be when he wrote ‘I spent almost half a day looking for my own camp with a compass, after I made a wrong turn on the way back from collecting pumpkins’. The physical disorientation was made worse by the presence of unidentifiable markers of life: ‘I see so many footprints, but I have not seen any beasts of prey. I wonder where they are’.54 Again, in addition to the physical disorientation, the sense of being overwhelmed by the unknown is patently evident in this entry. There is an interesting contrast here to the position of the castaway Robinson Crusoe in Daniel Defoe’s eponymous classic (1719). In the case of the castaway, footprints may indicate other humans, a terrifying – but nonetheless promising – prospect. Yet for Tamura, who also had to fear the presence of other human beings in the shape of the enemy, it was the wildlife, and therefore nature, that provoked his trauma.

52 Ibid., p. 49. Written 11 April 1943. 53 Ibid., p. 46. Written 11 April 1943. 54 Ibid., p. 72 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 14 and 18 April, 1943.

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Another anonymous Japanese soldier’s diary echoes Tamura’s disorientation. For several days we have been marching in a jungle where one doesn’t know east from west. With only one compass, [and] depending on footprints on the narrow trail, we pass each cheerless day.55

Nature in the Southern hemisphere jungle is the exact inversion of the nature of the homeland of Japan. Tamura’s diary has a record of a conversation among fellow soldiers. They remember that as children they had been taught that the sun rises in the east, travels to the south, and sets in the west. However, now that they had crossed the equator, rather than travelling to the south, the sun travels to the north to set in the west. The reverse of the sun’s course that applies in the South meant that Here obeisance to the Imperial Palace is to the north as well, so the change makes me feel very nostalgic about the north. Whether it’s ironic or what, how odd.56

Although the conversation is written up here as a fairly trivial ‘phatic’ chat between five or six army mates, the passage demonstrates that, even in a warzone, the duties of the subject of Imperial Japan were a constant of daily life.

The Ennui of Endless Rain Rain is an ever-present weather phenomenon in New Guinea. The country experiences two monsoon seasons, one from December to March and the other from May to October. Wewak experiences rainfall fairly evenly throughout the entire year. From the very beginning of his time in New Guinea, the relentless, ever-present, and overpowering rain caused Tamura to sink into melancholy and even abject despair.57 He wrote in the first pages of his diary: ‘There is hardship in this unfamiliar place where we have no

55 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 1430, ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier Bougainville’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), item 2. 56 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 78. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 57 There are around 40 results for the word ‘rain’ in Tamura’s diary.

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house and get drenched in squalls’.58 The tents used for shelter would also mould and rot, ensuring a constant stomach-churning smell. One soldier diarist related how ‘in the morning when I get up and put on my trousers and shirt, they have been wet for days’.59 By glaring contrast, Australian soldier Harry Bell wrote: It’s been raining every night recently […] It sounds beautiful, lying in bed, warm & dry, and listening to it belting down on the tent – but ugh! It’s crook having to get up and go and sit in it!60

The tedium and the sense of purposelessness and futility that rain brings have been the subject of Japanese writers for over a thousand years. The ninth-century poet Ono no Komachi (825-900) wrote of rain that destroys both flowers and the vitality of life, leaving a dreary, monotonous emptiness: The flowers withered Their colour faded away, While meaninglessly I spent my days in the world And the long rains were falling.61

For the many Japanese who referenced rain in their verse, however, the depressing quality of rain was accompanied by a sense that this was part of a natural cycle that created growth and rebirth and that also provided nurture for crops. Fellow chronicler of the New Guinea campaign Ogawa Masatsugu was clear in his assertions that this was not the case with the New Guinea rains, which, unlike the rains in Japan, were ‘like a waterfall’. According to Ogawa, soldiers caught in these downpours needed to cover their noses or choke.62 He relates that: It had rained for more than half a year straight. Our guns rusted. Iron just rotted away. Wounds wouldn’t heal. Marching in the rain was horrible. Drops fell from my cap into my mouth mixing with sweat. You slipped and fell, got up, went sprawling, stood up, like an army of marching mud 58 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 5 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written around 6 March 1943. 59 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 1430, ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier Bougainville’. 60 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 171. 61 David Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature (New York: Grove Press Inc, 1955), p. 34. 62 Ogawa, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 169.

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dolls. It went on without end, just trudging through the muddy water, following the legs of somebody in front of you.63

Wada Kiyoshi, another diarist from the New Guinea campaign, wrote that ‘wet through from the rain […] no strength left. To do an hour’s work requires a whole day’.64 The rain not only depleted one’s physical strength, it was also in total contrast to the seasonal cycles that the soldiers had known at home. As Ogawa noted, ‘It was against all our bringing-up to sit in the jungle and swamp and be rained upon’.65 Fighting in the name of the Emperor was almost impossible when one was in a permanent state of being literally drenched to the skin. For Tamura, the persistent rain was a metaphor for the tedium and the misery of daily life: Every night, without fail, the rain falls continuously, like a woman silently weeping. The rainy season has arrived in the jungle. When the ceiling is only around 1.5 metres high, the damp is oppressive, and we feel uncomfortable even if we keep the fire on.66

The poignancy of the lone weeping woman adds to the wretchedness of his current situation. There was no pause to the rain and Tamura, plagued by its pervasiveness, wrote under the title ‘The Rain is falling down’: The rain keeps falling down On the jungle, on coconut trees in the tropics. The rain is so fine it looks like thin threads coming down. It keeps falling without hint of stopping.67

Tamura’s exasperation is unambiguous when he continues: Here we are at the edge of a front line in the South And kept in the May rain. We do not fear the enemy shells, But are fed up with day after day of the rain.68 63 Ibid., pp. 268-9. 64 AWM ATIS CT No 28 (348), ‘Diary of Wada Kiyoshi’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 4. 65 Masatsugu, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 169. 66 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 52 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 67 Ibid., p. 64 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 13 April 1943. 68 Ibid., p. 64 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 13 April 1943. Here Dr Tamura uses Tamura’s brother Sadanobu’s transcription of the characters as satsukiame, May Rain [the 5th month of

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The physical, human enemy was no match for the trepidation caused by nature in the form of the rain. Even the rain cannot halt the shower of bombs from the enemy. Fine continuous rain, characteristic of the tropical rainy season, keeps falling. It seems it is raining hard as we listen to it beating on the jungle leaves. However, the enemy planes dare to fly in this weather to bomb our position.69

This contrasts with a subsequent entry where Tamura assumes that the rain will mean he will be free from bombing attacks: ‘Today is raining, the enemy won’t come’.70 This contrast is, however, fleeting, as we see that the relentless rain provided the gloomy and depressive atmosphere backgrounding persistent illness and pain: My chest hurts, and my illness worsens. I take some medicine. Lonely twilight deepens in the rain-filled jungle. Moving his bed away from the leak in the roof, ‘It’s going to be heavy rain again today, I bet,’ my friend mutters, In the deepening twilight of the rain-soaked jungle, the cicadas cry, ‘Maybe we’ll survive again today,’ I might hang up my mosquito net.71

With the natural gloom of the jungle exacerbated by the growing twilight and the all-pervading rain, Tamura once again foregrounds the sense of isolation by which he was engulfed. Not only was he unwell, he was beleaguered by the constancy of the rain. This despair at the rain was something that others in his unit shared, as is evident in his recording the comment by a friend who muttered despondently about the rain as he searched for a way to avoid the discomfort of the leaking roof. But there was no escape, and

the lunar calendar]. The alternative reading of these characters is samidare (Early Summer Rain) and may be more appropriate here as the entry was written in early April. See ibid., p. 64. 69 Ibid., p. 40 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 70 Ibid., p. 68. Written 13 April 1943. 71 Ibid., p. 69. Written 13 April 1943.

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he recognized that today again there would be a deluge. Tamura concludes the entry with a particularly desolate observation of a baby cicada being washed away in a tropical deluge. A baby cicada carried away by the flood Turning its head from side to side Looking for a tree branch to climb up on72

Like the ephemeral cherry blossom, cicada’s lives are short, yet there is a hint of envy in the freedom in this cicada’s chances of survival. We could, in fact, regard the tiny creature as a metonym for Tamura himself, tossed about in the warzone.73 Rather than experiencing the glory that was due a loyal standard bearer of Imperial Japan, Tamura, too, had been reduced by ‘day after day of the rain’ to this sort of debased existence, where his only hope was ‘Sheltering from the rain, together with the insects under a coconut palm’.74 However, even the insects in their freedom and oneness with their natural environment had the upper hand. In one entry entitled ‘Rain’, he writes: The cicada chirps so happy at the break in the early summer rain.75 In the nightly squalls the soldiers huddle In the tents, trying to avoid the leaks.76

While the cicada was able to enjoy the experience of a break in the rain, the soldiers were still trying to cope with its aftermath, pathetically clustering together to avoid getting soaked. The unfamiliar, unsettling rain was not merely discomforting and a demotivating influence; it also initiated a change in the type of shelter in

72 Ibid. 73 Insect metaphors are, in fact, a common form of disparagement in Japan. In the works of burakumin writer Nakagami Kenji (1946-1992), characters live in the impoverished roji (slum) like insects. 74 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 64 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written on 13 April 1943. 75 Samidare, early summer rain, can also be read as satsukiame May rain (5th month of the lunar calendar). The entry was written sometime between 27 May and 1 June, so the meaning is ambiguous. I have chosen to go with the more poetic translation ‘early summer rain’, which is also the transcription by Tamura’s brother, Sadanobu in ibid., p. 108. 76 Ibid.

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which Tamura had to exist. Tamura provided a vision of his current home when he writes The jungle of endless rain. I enter our little tent home with the raised floor.77

Tamura noted earlier that the ceiling height was only 1.5 metres, and this undoubtedly created bodily distress, but even more, it may have evoked a longing for the familiar home with the solid tiled roof built by his ancestors.78 We stay inside a house that we built. Whenever it rains, I miss my house at home. I miss a roof with roof tiles.79

The rain had alienated him from his own personal connections to generations past expressed in the concrete form of the family home in Tochigi. Watsuji argued that destructive aspects of climate can be ‘so vast that man is obliged to abandon all hope of resistance and is forced into mere passive resignation’. 80 So unfavourable was Tamura’s situation that in his own ‘resignation’ he even began to covet the shelter of the indigenous people which, unlike the flimsy tents supplied by the Imperial Japanese Army, was made to withstand the local climatic conditions. Endless Rain The dripping May rain keeps leaking into our tent.81 I am so envious of the natives’ houses.82

77 Ibid., p. 69. Written between 13 and 14 April 1943. 78 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p.52. (translated by Keiko Tamura) Written 11 April 19434. 79 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 64 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 13 and 14 April 1943. 80 Watsuiji, Climate and Culture, p. 19. 81 In contrast to what seems to have been the parlous state of accommodation provided for the Japanese soldiers, Peter Ryan, an Australian reconnaissance soldier in New Guinea between 1942 and 1943, noted that ‘we lit a hurricane lamp and […] filling a last pipe to be smoked in bed […] It was three blanket country here, and the world seemed a pleasant place as we stretched out on our bed-sails’. Peter Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet (Sydney: Duffy & Snellgrove, 2001), p. 70. 82 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 98. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. See footnote 75. Peter Ryan, an Australian reconnaissance soldier in New Guinea, described his impression of the native huts he encountered as ‘[…] the natives had built their houses some four feet off the ground and roofed them with pit-pit grass from eight inches to four feet thick. The walls were made

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Even the bomb shelters were no match for the rain: Whenever rain falls the bomb shelters are filled with water. We are not sure what the shelters are for.83

Tamura’s frustration with the rain is evidenced again in an entry gloomily titled ‘Boredom Report’: Cicadas chirp, today jungle, tomorrow jungle. In the beginning, when the cicadas started chirping at this time of day we felt a kind of nostalgia and curiosity at the way the seasons were out of kilter, but with rain every day into the night, once we got used to it, it became wearisome and frustrating. With half of April already gone, it has become a little cooler here, and at dawn it feels cold. From now on the sun may return north. For a tropical place it is not very hot, but the humidity is so high that everything gets moldy. There is too much moisture in the air. The dried bread in our knapsacks is white with mold and we can’t eat it.84

The monotony of his life was profoundly exacerbated by the rain. Even what meagre amount of food he had was also destroyed by the dreaded rain.

with strongly laced strips of bark, in which was a small door-way […] one had to crawl on one’s stomach to get in’. Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet, pp. 243-44. 83 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 71 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 84 Ibid., p. 79. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943.

5

The Landscape of Deprivation

No Tropical Paradise Prior to departing Japan, Tamura and his comrades had little idea of the conditions that awaited them. In fact, the general perception in Japan of the physical conditions that prevailed in the South was completely at odds with the stark reality faced by the soldiers. The New Guinea terrain was completely misunderstood, as were the tactics needed to be employed. An account of the road building fiasco between Madang and Lae recounted: The road building projects were next to impossible for the Japanese to accomplish. Their maps were poor. The routes they selected […] led them through disease-ridden jungles and swamps, over towering mountains, and up and across canyons and gorges. They never had enough machinery and what they had was ineffective. Their trucks, for example, were not sufficiently powerful to climb steep slopes. Their horses fared poorly on jungle grasses. Bridges kept washing away […]. Combat troops were unhappy as labourers […].1

A compatriot of the New Guinea campaign, Ide Ninja revealed the extent of the outrageous impressions provided to the troops en route to New Guinea when he wrote ‘the army, advancing by automobiles and bicycles as we saw it in the news in Korea, is a dream’.2 References to transport were recurrent and reflected the misinformation that had been provided to departing troops.3 The reality was that It took combat divisions some time to assemble their forces while such supporting units as engineer, air defense and lines of communication units, because of lack of shipping space, arrived minus motor trucks, road construction equipment, power generating machines, horses and baggage. In addition, the physical condition of the men when they landed in New Guinea was often very poor. For example, 800 men of a convoy of 3,000 1 John Jr. Miller, Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul US Army in World War II (Washington DC: US Army, 1959), p. 42. 2 AWM ATIS CT No 98 (1071), ‘Diary of Ide Ninja’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 3 AWM ATIS PR No 86-260, ‘Diary Unknown Soldier North New Guinea’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, circa 1943), p. 1. ‘The news which we heard in Korea that we would be riding in automobiles and bicycles here was just a dream’.

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landed at Hansa in September [1943] were immediately hospitalized. The majority of these were soldiers who had voluntarily left the hospital at Palau in order to travel with their units to New Guinea but the result of their commanders agreeing to this was that important space was taken up by men who were useless when they arrived. 4

To some extent, though, the soldiers’ lack of knowledge about the conditions in New Guinea was the result of censorship by the Japanese authorities. One prisoner interrogated by Australian military personnel stated that ‘very few soldiers had returned to Japan from New Guinea, and those who did were instructed not to mention the deplorable conditions’.5 As a result, the general public had a highly romanticized image of the tropical conditions of the South.6 The sanitized image provided by the propaganda machine of the IJA is clearly evident in a letter – possibly transcribed from a magazine – that Tamura recorded in his diary. The writer of the letter had seen photos of the soldiers in the tropics and wrote: ‘All thanks to you soldiers. In a photo I saw of you recently, you were tanned by the sun of the hot South land, completely black like a native […]’.7 The writer then provided a glimpse of how out of touch the people at home could be when she concluded: ‘They say coconut milk is sweet. People at home just think of it as exotic, but I guess it’s because they have never seen it, isn’t it? Please put the sweetness on your next postcard and send it to me.’8 This notion in Japan of the tropics as a fantasy land of tropical fruits is confirmed in a letter that was written by the sister of a Japanese soldier. In the letter, the sister speculates that ‘In the place where you are now, there will be plenty of pineapples, bananas and coconuts, and other fruits, I think’.9 Tamura, perhaps himself influenced by this discourse, also described a tropical paradise in his first entry in his diary. He wrote that he was sitting beneath the branches of a palm tree, remembering his homeland and eating 4 Detwiler and Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 155. 5 AWM ATIS IR 269 (1845), ‘Interrogation Report 269’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 6 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 303. Earhart provides an example of the travelogue-like photographs circulated in the popular press, which he terms an ‘account of a tropical Shangri-la’.The photo is of Balinese women. The photograph of a young Malay national is captioned ‘Southern Regions Growing Brighter and Brighter’. Ibid., p. 283. 7 Magazines often published photographs of apparently healthy, suntanned soldiers. See ibid., p. 271. The photographs included here show tanned and healthy young soldiers mixing with locals in various locations throughout the Pacific region. 8 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 7. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 9 AWM ATIS CT 279 (1987), ‘Current Translation 279 (1987)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM).

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a banana.10 Prophetically, he made the observation that ‘I assume we will get tired of coconuts in a few months’.11 The only time Tamura seemed to find some food from the native population was when he was undertaking a trek over the mountains. He writes I gave twenty sen for two bananas. These are the first bananas I have had in New Guinea. They tasted very sweet. The size of the fruit was as big as my arm or even bigger. They were astonishingly large. I dreamed that we could eat as much fruit as we liked, but so far only two. Yet, I enjoyed my first taste of bananas in this place.12

Tamura’s fascination with the food of the tropics is evident in a copy of a letter to his brother written in late February not long after his arrival, which conveys a degree of excitement about the exotic nature of his new home. He wrote ‘I would like to send you lots of coconuts through my dreams. So many that you could eat as much as you wanted and still not finish’.13 By the next day’s entry, however, Tamura lamented that ‘I have eaten enough coconuts and now crave fresh vegetables and fresh pickles. I miss food from back home’.14 The naïve assumption that New Guinea was a land of bountiful exotic fruits was echoed by other members of the Imperial Japanese Army involved in the Southern campaign. Shinozaki Jirō, a soldier departing for the South Pacific front, wrote in a letter to his wife that he was ‘leaving for the South with full conf idence in my survival’. After aff irming that enthusiastic participation in pre-operations training had resulted in his being in fine physical shape, he observed that ‘[I] am ready to leave for the land where the coconuts grow’.15 However, when faced with the harsh reality of limited supplies almost from the time of their arrival, the charm of coconuts could not assuage the yearning for familiar and sustaining food. This longing was 10 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 1. Written between 22 February and 6 March 1943. 11 Ibid., p. 5 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 22 February and 6 March 1943. 12 Ibid., p. 94 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. It is unclear why Tamura would write that these are the first bananas he has had in New Guinea when he has referenced eating them earlier in the diary, for example p 1, and p 92 ‘We eat bananas and papayas.’ 13 Ibid., p. 15 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943 but dated 12 February. 14 Ibid., p. 16 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 1 April 1943. 15 Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-kai, ed., Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices from the Sea) (Scranton: The University of Scranton Press, 2000), p. 62. Shinozaki Jirō, killed in New Guinea 1944, aged 34.

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exacerbated by the fact that, although some familiar fruits grew wild in the surrounding rainforest, the troops could not access these.16 As Tamura despondently noted in an entry, There are supposed to be bananas in the mountains too. We occasionally see natives and others carrying some, but we have never once yet been able to see any growing. There are paw paws, too, but not enough to make a meal. Further out in the hills there are native villages. They grow sweet potatoes and pumpkins, according to a friend in my platoon. What a dream, to think that when we come south, we will be able to eat our fill of coconuts and bananas. How terribly disappointing. The phrase ‘savage land’ has never been more telling.17

Military engineer Hisayama Shinobu records in his memoir that the indigenous population lived on the tops of the mountains where they grew pawpaw and local taro potatoes but kept no livestock. And there was no such thing as rice or the like.18 The experience of one Australian reconnaissance soldier could not have been more different than those experienced by the Japanese troops. He noted that one of his comrades was often able to manage ‘to bring back two birds […] to complete the diet [he] had somehow, somewhere, found a few goats, which gave a pint or two of milk a day. Food, therefore, presented no problem, so long as one had salt or other trade goods to exchange for it. As I look back on this part of my life in New Guinea, I don’t wonder that the boys […] jokingly accused me of taking the risk […] for my stomach’s sake!’19 Another Australian soldier, Harry Bell, described almost a ‘paradise lost’ when he wrote I’m writing this, lying on the sand in the nude. On one side is the sea, on the other is a sort of lagoon formed by the mouth of a little river, & shading back into sac-sac swamp. We’ve just been out on a 2-day patrol & its about 5 or 6 days since we had a proper wash, so ½ of us came down for the rations this A.M. & are 16 AWM ATIS PR86-260 AWM ATIS PR No 86-260, ‘Diary Unknown Soldier North New Guinea’, p. 1. ‘There were bananas and pineapples, etc, but I just got a taste of them as they were hard to get.’ 17 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 22. Written between 2 and 5 April 1943. 18 Hisayama Shinobu, Tōbu Nyūginia sensen kikoku no senjō (Tokyo: Kōjinsha, 2011), p. 253. 19 Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet, p. 123. Ryan also notes that he carried a large supply of trade goods comprising ‘knives, beads, mirrors, calico, matches, tobacco, newspaper [for rolling cigarettes], salt, and a thousand razor blades’. Apparently razor blades were the prized trade item and ‘a couple of packets represented payment for food for our whole party for days’. Ibid., p. 179.

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spending the day here. The H.Q. blokes gave us some bully [beef] and boiled spuds [potatoes], & we’ve been having a beaut spell and sunbake and swim. […] We’ve been trying to blast fish in the lagoon with hand grenades, but have had no luck at all. There are lots of little coloured ones that you can see swimming around, but we’ve got nothing edible. […]. Certainly a great day, though I’m a little burnt – good sun-tan for leave –?20

Tamura, too, had experienced being under the rays of the sun, but his experience was only one of sunburn and a metaphoric longing for his own day of glory. The sun burning us can make us strong. Impatiently, my friend and I wait For our time in the sun!21

For Tamura, however, the disparity between his vision of this land and its stark reality was a huge frustration. Food was out there, but also totally out of his reach. This ‘savage land’ could not have been more remote from his lived experience. Tamura had been consigned to a land that offered nothing, and he wrote in a letter to a friend: This place here at the very South is really a backwoods. Only a few natives live here, otherwise there’s no-one. Coconuts and bananas are unexpectedly scarce. The only specialty of this South country is just mountains and jungles.22

Not only was food scarce and unobtainable locally, the lack of variety in allocated rations was a concern. Completely fed up with the same daily allowance of food, the veteran soldiers make great efforts to find something new to eat. But there is little chance of that here.23

20 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, pp. 167-168. The use of the word “beaut” to mean a particularly fine example of something is an Australian colloquialism prevalent during the mid 20th Century. 21 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 72. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 22 Ibid., p. 99. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. 23 Ibid., p. 80. Written 18 April 1943.

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The Spectre of Starvation We ate anything. Flying insects, worms in rotten palm trees. We fought over the distribution of those worms. If you managed to knock down a lizard with a stick, you’d pop it in your mouth while its tail was still wriggling.24

On the first anniversary of the Pacific War, a Japanese soldier wrote that he had not eaten anything for five days.25 His experience was typical of that of many others, one of whom observed that ‘anyone would want to eat a bellyful. No one has the strength to work and if you lie on your side you stay that way […] we have no strength to get up when we stumble on a root of a tree or a rock’. Although this writer realized that soldiers were trained to deal with hardships, he wrote ‘are there any battles as difficult as this?’26 Interrogation Reports collected by ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Service) frequently reveal the extent of the emaciation of Japanese troops in New Guinea.27 Condition: Completely emaciated due to lack of food […] Coy was greatly disorganized due to lack of food and most time was spent marching for potatoes and other food. […] Small amount of supplies received by plane, otherwise food shortage was acute […].28

Sy Kahn vividly described the physiques of Japanese troops who were captured in New Guinea as for ‘the most part, a pathetic-looking lot, ill-coloured, ill-fed, emaciated and very weak. They were so thin that the worst ones looked like walking skeletons’.29 This description is hardly surprising. As Iizuka Eiji, a soldier in Wewak, recorded in his memoir, there was no such thing as rice to be eaten.30

24 Ogawa, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 273. 25 AWM ATIS CT No 57 (663), ‘Diary of Kawano Susumu’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 26 AWM ATIS CT No 64 (713), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier CT 64 (713)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 27 See Chapter 1. 28 ATIS AWM PR86-260AWM ATIS PR No 86-260, ‘Diary Unknown Soldier North New Guinea’, p. 3. Interrogation Report. 29 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. 120. 30 Iizuka Eiji, Papua No Bokon (Tokyo: Nihon Shūshōsha, 1962), p. 190.

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The reality for the Imperial soldiers of Japan in New Guinea was that they would likely die of disease and illness or by starving to death.31 This was in no small way due to the lack of supplies afforded to the soldiers.32 By the time of Tamura’s deployment to New Guinea, Japan had suffered defeats in the Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal, in addition to the loss in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea of an entire convoy of transport ships together with four out of eight escorting destroyers. This led to a dramatic decrease in the number of Japanese ships available to transport supplies, which in turn resulted in a huge deficit in the rations available to the troops.33 In Tamura’s case, Wewak was cut off from supplies by sea route due to the Allied control of the sea lanes, and so maintenance of supplies became a grave problem. Attempts by General Adachi, Commander of the 18th Army, to have supplies transported via barges in July 1943 were thwarted by American PT boats and Allied aircraft.34 Initially, the lack of supply was not regarded as a problem for the New Guinea divisions since the Japanese command was confident of local food supplies being as readily available as they had been both on the Malay Peninsula and in Indonesia. Soldiers dispatched to New Guinea were told they ‘could eat off the land in this campaign’.35 The earlier conflict in China had also seen troops access food from the local population, and specifically the soldiers were able to requisition rice easily.36 As early as June 1942, shipping shortages necessitated Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ) to request that the commander of the Southern Army endeavour to support his men locally without the need to focus on supply from Japan.37 31 Military engineer Hisayama Shinobu wrote in his memoir of Wewak that ‘the majority of those who died did so by starving to death or by illness’. See Hisayama, Tōbu Nyūginia sensen kikoku no senjō, p. 254. 32 In stark contrast to the plight of the Japanese soldiers, we read in the account of one Australian reconnaissance soldier travelling in New Guinea between 1942 and 1943 that ‘though [there was no cook…] I prepared dinner myself. The menu comprised fried tinned sausages, cabbage, potato-chips, and fried tomatoes, and fruit salad, followed by several pints of very strong and excellent coffee […] except for the sausages our meal was all of local produce. In this country the only rations we had to carry were typically European foods – tea and sugar, tinned milk and meat, jam, biscuits and flour. Fresh meat could sometimes be bought from the natives – they only had to kill a fowl or a pig. And if you had a shotgun, you could sometimes bag a pigeon […].’ Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet, p. 67. 33 Detwiler and Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 155. 34 Duffy, War at the End of the World, p. 309. 35 AWM ATIS IR No 87 Serial 144, ‘Interrogation Report of Kato Kumio’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 36 Ibid. 37 United States Department of the Army Office of Military History, Japanese monographs [microform] Southeast Area Operations, No. 37.

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One Japanese report had also mistakenly assumed that a degree of selfsufficiency was achievable in the South West Pacific when it stated that , by the end of 1943 there should be ‘ total self-sufficiency in the Solomons and New Britain, at least 50 per cent self-sufficiency for the Madang and Wewak areas in New Guinea, and 25 per cent for the other New Guinea areas’.38 However, the possibility of either creating a vegetable garden or procuring food from the local population around the area was futile. As for starting to grow crops, first it would be necessary to make a clearing in the jungle. And however quick-growing crops might be, they would take three months. What could be used to fill the gap? It was natural to think of native gardens, with the point of view of pacifying the natives, but the difficulty was that the number of natives was only about 5%. In the region 50 miles x 25 miles around Wewak, there were no more than about 15,000 natives. And considering the seeds and shoots, it seemed that things were not going to be easy […].39

There were reports of Japanese soldiers who, having been deserted or left alive after the rest of the troops were annihilated in battle, were able to live off the land. An unknown Japanese soldier in Milne Bay, New Guinea wrote: ‘Ate coconuts, papayas, apples and mountain potatoes […] it is hard to believe I am still alive’. 40 This was in contrast to those still attached to their battalion, where there appeared to be little attempt to source food from the wild. Inevitably, supplies carried by the troops soon ran out and as reprovision in the Wewak area was almost an impossibility, troops’ rations were cut to one-third of the standard issue. 41 The unpreparedness of the Japanese troops meant that the spectre of starvation loomed large. The principal ration initially allotted to each Japanese soldier was 600 g of cleaned rice daily.42 A military engineer of the same 41st Division as Tamura, Hisayama Shinobu, stated in his memoir of his time in Wewak that ‘right 38 Japanese Demobilisation Bureau Records, Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, Reports of General MacArthur, vol. II, Part 1 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 30. 39 Doris Heath, ‘Southern Cross’, AWM, http://awm.gov.au/ajrp/ajrp2.nsf/Web-Pages/ SouthernCross?OpenDocument, Chapter 19, p. 1. 40 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 42, ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier, Milne Bay, September 1942’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 1942). 41 Detwiler and Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 171. 42 AWM ATIS CT 114 (1251), ‘Current Translation 114 (1251)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). This was in addition to 30g of canned meat, 20g of powdered miso, 20g of powdered soy, 10g of meat, 10g of various fruit together with a small supply of sugar and salt.

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from the beginning, the situation with provisions was bad […] because there were no ships coming, the replenishment of supplies was exiguous […] there were days when the rationing of rice stopped completely’. According to Hisayama, even when there was an accumulation of provisions, the troops were only meted out a small amount. The ration amount available to the soldiers, who had to prepare their own rice, was about the equivalent of half a mess kit. In the beginning there was dried miso, but that soon stopped being distributed. In the end, the only side dish was salt. 43 Certainly, the rations of the Japanese troops were far less than what was provided to the Allied soldiers.44 Tellingly, Sy Kahn related in his diary ‘Thanksgiving Day in New Guinea. Gad! Tonight, we shall have turkey.’ He went on to lament that this would be a sad comparison to previous Thanksgivings, but the availability of familiar food was in stark contrast to Tamura’s experience.45 Australian soldier Harry Bell wrote home about a ‘decent picture’ that he saw and reported that on Christmas Day, ‘Everyone, or at least most, were either blind [drunk] or well on the way’. In a later entry, he noted that he had ‘received Plum Pud[ding] and Xmas cake which went well with the tinned pears that night […]. I had a good hunk and passed it along […] the others had some Digests, meanjin, some powder, sweets, & dried fruits […]’. In another entry, he related that he ‘had a good breakfast this A.M. too. We were late in, having been on guard, and helped ourselves. There was stew (mostly baked beans) and some glorious porridge and they gave us a tin of milk between the pair [ …] so we did O.K.’. He also recounted a dinner with ‘a bit of steak, some prunes and bread […]’.In a later entry, his praise for the food continued ‘The tucker has continued quite fair – fritters yesterday […] a steamed pudding last night, with dried apples in it. […] we had loganberries and cream […] whipped up from tinned milk […] I’ve been eating pretty well – and we get fresh bread every few days […].’46 Australian soldiers appeared to have been able to source some food locally, as Bell also recounted his love of the local sweet spuds [potatoes] and guavas.47 Towards the end of his diary, Tamura alluded to being able to catch some of the feral animals when he wrote of departing soldiers for the front: ‘I must catch a pig and make a celebratory meal for my war buddies’. 48 43 Hisayama, Tōbu Nyūginia sensen kikoku no senjo ,̄ p. 238. 44 Raymond Paull, Retreat from Kokoda (Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia, 1958), p. 90. 45 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. 25. 46 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, pp. 85, 86, 128, 163, 170, 177. 47 Ibid., pp. 163, 170. 48 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 101. Written 25 May 1943.

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While Japanese troops were instructed that ‘shortage of rations is a normal condition’, starvation was never envisaged. 49 Wada Kiyoshi, another New Guinea soldier diarist, wrote at length of the struggles associated with prolonged hunger. The privations were such that soldiers like Wada realized that if he ate that night, he may not be able to eat the next day. He lamented that ‘it is indeed a painful experience to be hungry’.50 When rice rations were not available, Wada ate coconut and octopus, and the following day snakes. As his diary progressed and his conditions worsened, Wada complained that ‘starvation is a terrible thing. It seems all the grass and roots have already been eaten in the Giruwa area’.51 This comment clearly demonstrates the devastation of the environment and the lack of available foodstuffs to sustain the troops. Another diarist recorded how there was ‘not a single grain of rice left’, reducing him to ‘chew grass or bark’. Furthermore, he recognized that ‘Never till now did I realise the true meaning of the saying “a full belly counsels well”’.52 The Japanese soldier’s handbook for the South West Pacific, entitled Read This Only and the War is Won,53 included a section headed ‘Sleep Well and Eat Well’ in which troops were warned that ‘lack of sleep and an empty stomach are the chief causes of sunstroke’.54 The handbook portrayed the southern region as ‘the treasure house of the Far East and a land of everlasting summer’.55 In a cruel parody of the conditions experienced by Imperial Japanese Army units in New Guinea, the document ludicrously called upon the men to ‘force ourselves to eat rather than let our stomachs become empty’. The reality for soldiers, though, was that ‘the effect of the ration shortage is to make [men] look for grass and tree roots’.56 Even endeavours to cultivate crops completely unsuited to the environment were a dismal failure. Tamura wrote of the men’s disappointment when an attempt to grow canola resulted in little more than ‘thin stems’ with ‘two little leaves on the top’. We have sown some canola seeds in front of our tents because we are craving fresh greens. Thin stems shot up, and there are two little leaves on top. 49 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 1158, ‘Hints for the Soldier’, p. 61. 50 AWM ATIS CT No 28 (348), ‘Diary of Wada Kiyoshi’. 51 Ibid. 52 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 358, ‘Diary of Sakamoto’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 53 AWM ATIS FELO 94 Box C54 (Undated), ‘Read This Only and the War is Won’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM). See also Dower, War without Mercy, p. 26. 54 AWM ATIS FELO 94 Box C54 (Undated), ‘Read This Only and the War is Won’. 55 Dower, War without Mercy, p25. 56 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 1430, ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier Bougainville’.

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We cannot grow Japanese vegetables in this area. Many soldiers were very disappointed.57

In a later entry, he wrote again of his desire for familiar food. ‘Every day I made my meal, longing for vegetables, praying for the sprouts in the plot at the back to grow’.58 For Tamura, the lack of familiar and adequate sustenance gave rise to the sense of ‘torture’ rather than the ‘soothing’ function of food.59 While Tamura’s disappointment at the canola failure was undoubtedly due to lack of nourishment, there was also a distinct sense of yearning to sustain himself with a familiar food source.60 The German proverb ‘Der Mensch ist was er isst’ (Man is what he eats) comes to mind.61 The food of the homeland was an important part of the lofty image of Japan’s superior uniqueness as preached by kokutai discourses. Apart from the obvious nurture for soldiers, during the military era many foodstuffs, especially rice, were used for nationalistic purposes by the elite who tried to establish Japan’s national identity and promote patriotism among the people. Nationalistic bentō [lunch boxes] were created, with rice shaped as Mount Fuji with the rising sun flag aloft its peak. Popular magazines assured the readers that the soldiers were eating well. One article read: They blow on their steaming miso soup served with boiled rice mixed with wheat. The rookies are growing like young oak trees on three meals a day which they eat with gusto. ‘Wow! This morning there are eggs and fermented soy beans!’ Their tough willpower and bullet-like flesh is conditioned by such ample nourishment.62

In addition to being seen as a key tool to instil a sense of community and nurture, food, then, also played an integral part in elevating the role of the soldier in the community. The community of Japan was led to believe that the best rice would be sent to the soldiers at the front to assist them 57 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 65 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written on 13 April 1943 but dated 12 April. 58 Ibid., p. 77. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 59 Aoyama, Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, p. 2. 60 There are around 20 references to food in Tamura’s diary. 61 Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 3. 62 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 91.

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to win the war. The actuality for the troops in New Guinea could not have been further from the propaganda attempts to have the citizenry of Japan believe that the troops were well-nourished. First Lieutenant Kuroki Toshio wrote in his diary that You won’t find any smiling faces in New Guinea. They are always hungry; every other word has something to do with eating. […] How can they complain about slackness and expect miracles when most of our effort goes into looking for something to eat!63

Another unknown soldier documented the misery that his life without nourishment had become My one wish is to defeat the Americans and obtain their good food […] Potatoes are gone now and so has the rice […] eating potatoes and living in holes is the life of a ground rat […] The men who went to get potatoes got two cows instead […] ate them with relish but if we only had salt! SALT! […] Today just the gristly part of the cow remains, and it is disagreeable to the mouth as well as the stomach […] Today we cooked coconuts and grass.64

Rather than lament the lack of sustenance, Tamura, as the veteran soldier mentioned below, recognized the total pointlessness of worrying about food. Here in the mountains where we rarely even see natives, it’s futile to be concerned about food […] All we ever talk about is food. Isn’t there something with which we can relieve the boredom of this Southern land? A veteran soldier heating up the food scraps and eating them.65

While it may have been futile, worrying about food nevertheless consumed the soldiers’ thoughts. Tamura related that there was no other subject of conversation that could rival that of food, or the lack of it. His attempts as a veteran soldier to prepare anything other than leftover scraps were futile. Tellingly, Tamura referred to himself as a veteran soldier, referring to his previous stint in China. That elevation of his status did nothing to change the lowly and dismal situation in which he now found himself. The grandiose ideology that sent these troops to New Guinea had been reduced to simple, 63 AWM ATIS CT No 111 (1225), ‘Diary of Kuroki Toshio’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 78. 64 AWM ATIS PR No 86-260, ‘Diary Unknown Soldier North New Guinea’, p. 1. 65 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 80. Written 18 April, 1943

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primitive scrabbling for survival and disaffection and even hostility. Food in this environment both ‘nourishes and poisons; it soothes and tortures, divides as it unites [….]’66 Wada Kiyoshi reported that he had become so hungry that ‘it is difficult to control evil thoughts […] I ate Kinoshita and Okazaki’s rice rations’.67 The decrease in morale, caused generally by lack of food, fatigue, and even lack of action, meant a decline in the disciplined response that had been the fundamental requirement of the kokutai. One unknown diarist was saddened and disgusted to recount that when supplies did arrive, including condensed milk for the f ield hospital, these were frequently looted by the troops. He wrote that ‘there are among soldiers those who are unworthy of the name’.68 Such incidents were not isolated, with another captured Imperial Japanese Army diary referring to the murder of friendly troops for rations.69 Those who were caught for crimes of this nature were, according to a captured diary, shot without delay. This latter diary noted that ‘even in the Japanese Army, old friendships dissolve when men are starving. Each man is trying to satisfy his own hunger. It’s much more frightening than meeting the enemy’s assault. There is a vicious war going on within our ranks.’70 One soldier revealed the disaffection and disunity that lack of food caused the troops when he wrote ‘[we] are not even half sufficiently fed. What do I care about the war? From today we’ll all sleep the afternoon through!’71 There was an underside to this sense of resignation caused by the fact that many enlisted men and conscripts soon realized that officers, supposedly Imperial Japanese Army exemplars, were discrediting the kokutai ideology by withholding food from their men. Many recorded in their diaries how thin and haggard they had become while the members of the upper echelons continued to eat well. Wada Kiyoshi wrote: ‘At the present time, all officers, even though there is such a scarcity of food, eat relatively well.

66 Aoyama, Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, p. 2. 67 AWM ATIS CT No 28 (348), ‘Diary of Wada Kiyoshi’. While Wada’s captured diary does not relate any information about cannibalism, in his later memoir he confessed to having sampled human flesh due to excessive hunger. See Carol Hayes, ‘Putting the Record Straight: The Memoirs of Private Kiyoshi Wada’, The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia. Vol.39-40, (2007/8): 243. Other records of cannibalism may be found in AWM ATIS Bull 183, Unknown Soldier Diary (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 11. 68 AWM ATIS CT No 14 (177), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier CT 14 (177)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 69 See AWM ATIS RR No 122, ‘Research Report 122’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). (19 April 1945). 70 AWM ATIS CT No 14 (177), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier CT 14 (177)’. 71 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 731, ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier 731’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 7.

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The condition is one in which the majority are starving. (The higher officials are not starving.)’72 The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, still an important basis in 1943 for the military’s adherence to the kokutai, required that soldiers ‘should make simplicity their aim since a “fondness for luxurious and extravagant ways” is destructive to loyalty, bravery, martial spirit and morale’.73 The belief of many soldiers in the ideology of Imperial Japan and their willingness to comply with this body of teachings were often severely compromised by the bitter realization that food would be such an issue. Although the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors stated that soldiers ‘must observe propriety by knowing their proper place in the hierarchy and fulfilling their obligations inherent to that position’, the document also made it clear that, ‘Officers must treat their subordinates with consideration’.74 Not only did the hierarchical inequities let the troops down, this was also a violation of the principles according to which the ideal machine of the Japanese military was intended to operate. The Kokutai no Hongi had also instructed that Without loyalty there is no patriotism, and without patriotism, there is no loyalty. All patriotism is always impregnated with the highest sentiments of loyalty, and all loyalty is always attended to with the zeal of patriotism […] Indeed, loyalty is our fundamental Way as subjects, and is the basis of our national morality. Through loyalty we become Japanese subjects; in loyalty do we obtain life; and herein do we find the source of all morality. According to our history, the spirit of loyalty always runs through the hearts of the people […].75

The soldiers’ loyalty was not in question; however, in spite of the dire straits they were experiencing, there was a farcical insistence on preserving a sense of tatemae [keeping up appearances]. The diary of a soldier rescued from Goodenough Island reported that, although starving and emaciated, his unit was instructed not to show a haggard appearance when boarding the

72 AWM ATIS CT No 28 (348), ‘Diary of Wada Kiyoshi’. 73 Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets, p. 45. 74 Ibid., p. 80. 75 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 83.

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rescue vessel. In his attempt at bushidō pride, this writer quoted the saying, ‘the samurai displays a toothpick even when he hasn’t eaten’.76 Food for Tamura and other soldiers functioned ‘both as a pleasure that brings people together and as a cause for conflict, struggle, compromise, oppression, manipulation and corruption’.77 In addition to other elements of home, the unifying characteristics of traditional food sources had been stripped from these soldiers, rendering them further displaced and disoriented. The soldiers’ attempts to transplant their familiar landscape proved to be impossible. Tamura wrote: Even though we sow vegetable seeds The plants struggle as there is not enough sun. Our hopes are dashed.78

Not only were the authorities’ commands to grow food obviously based on ignorance, Tamura’s despondency at an inability to produce food as a farmer served to exacerbate his desolation.

Disease, Illness, and Utter Fatigue Illness and disease also compounded the lack of food and near starvation as a threat to the stamina and stability of the troops. From the very early stages of his time in New Guinea, Tamura was unwell. He recorded in the opening pages of the diary how illness constantly dogged him and broke down his fellow soldiers’ morale. ‘Since many of us are sick and do not feel well, our fighting spirit seems to be low.’79 This pattern continued when he again wrote: ‘one illness follows after the other, and I am weary’.80 Tamura alluded to the declining fitness of his fellow soldiers. A month and a half after we landed here, there has been a rise in the number of patients in the hospital, two from our squad, as if an overreaction against the regimental commander’s orders to build up our battle fitness.81 76 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 176, ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier, Goodenough Island’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 77 Aoyama, Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, p. 45. 78 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 71. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 79 Ibid., p. 3 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 22 February and 6 March 1943. 80 Ibid., p. 23. Written between 2 and 5 April 1943. 81 Ibid., p. 24. Written 5 April 1943.

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For Japanese soldiers, the burden of illness was further exacerbated by the Army’s unforgiving requirement for soldiers to fight regardless of their states of health. Reference to the regimental commander’s exhortations remind us that the Imperial Japanese Army regarded sickness as a dereliction of duty. Indeed, allowing oneself to become sick attracted ‘a punishment of a period of incarceration not to exceed three years’.82 The command was that ‘there will be no half-hearted soldiers’.83 Yet illness was an obvious and unavoidable outcome. The humidity of New Guinea resulted in the rotting away of not only fabric and materials but also the soldiers themselves, causing blisters, sores, and rashes that found their way into every conceivable cavity, crevice, and body part. Gastric ailments resulted in pain, weight loss, exhaustion, and often death. With an abundance of dead bodies and rotting flesh, insects multiplied in greater numbers in the theatre of war. Filthy flies fattened by the rotting corpses saw the soldiers persistently trying to swat them away in what became known as the ‘New Guinea salute’.84 The harshness of the war environment also threatened men’s mental stability. A story related by soldier, Ogawa Masatsugu, of two brothers from different units who happened upon each other by chance in the mountains gives a chilling account of the depths of despair experienced. ‘The younger brother had gone insane, although he was the physically stronger of the two […] the younger brother was cackling madly when we came upon him. The elder one slapped him across the face and shook him, calling his name. He just kept laughing. Finally, the elder brother shot him dead. I didn’t even raise my voice. The brother and I dug a grave for him.’85 The most persistent illness was malaria. Malaria was a recurrent disease and meant that You get a fever. You shake like you’re going to rattle the teeth right out of your head. You’re freezing. Then you’re roasting. All of a sudden, bingo, it’s gone. And you’re hungry. But the minute you look at food, you’re not hungry anymore. You feel like you have to defecate. You try, but all you do is dribble some water. It took seven years for that bug to burn out entirely.86 82 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 515, ‘Extracts from Court Martials and Punishments’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 83 AWM ATIS CT 47 (494), ‘Messages and Directions to Troops from Japanese Commander in New Guinea, Maj-General Yamagata Tsuyuo, Commander of the Buna Detachment’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM), (17 December 1942). 84 Meirion Harries and Susie Harries, Soldiers of the Sun (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 404-405. 85 Ogawa, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 271. 86 Bergerud, Touched with Fire, p. 91.

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One Imperial Japanese Army soldier interrogated as a prisoner of war related that approximately fifteen men from his division had died from malaria, which had afflicted the majority of personnel, with at least 50 per cent hospitalized.87 Another captive recorded that about twenty-five per cent of his company were always down with malaria and other sicknesses, including skin diseases.88 The horrendous conditions under which soldiers were forced to exist were recorded by a prisoner of war who told of soldiers standing in swamp water up to their armpits while continuously suffering from malaria which resulted in 40-degree body temperatures. Tamura expressed the severity of these diseases in New Guinea when he wrote on 27 May that ‘compared with the malaria in Central China, I heard that this one is more difficult to treat, but I might be able to recover quickly’.89 While malaria was the deadliest of insect-borne fevers, especially for those already weakened by hunger and exhaustion, mosquitoes also brought dengue fever. In addition, lice and ticks spread typhus, fleas carried the plague, and mites brought scrub typhus. Scrub typhus [tsutsugamushi] caused small haemorrhages throughout the victim’s body, with an outbreak among American troops on Goodenough Island claiming one in every four victims.90 The lack of vitamin B in soldiers’ diets caused night blindness [torime]. With this affliction, the troops were only able to see items in the clear light of daytime, which was almost non-existent in the jungle terrain. Lack of nutrition also caused deafness, which reduced the soldiers to ‘such a state of delirium that their only reaction was to discharge their rifles in the general direction of any sound they might hear’.91 Fatigue associated with the constant pressures of battle and the harshness of the environment meant that, for soldiers like Komatsu Rokuzō, there was ‘no time to rest the body’. He recorded that ‘all my comrades are tired from constant vigilance, and […] countless […] days without food’.92 While Tamura continued to try to fulfil his duties as a soldier of 87 AWM ATIS IR No 207 Serial 307, ‘Interrogation Report 207 (307)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 88 AWM ATIS IR No 230A Serial 354, ‘Interrogation Report 230A (354)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 9. 89 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 105 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 27 May 1943 (note that the translation provided by Dr Tamura states cholera rather than malaria; however, the original Japanese is malaria). 90 Schrijvers notes that ‘at the start of the New Guinea campaign, malaria claimed four times more Allied casualties than did Japanese weapons’. Schrijvers, The GI War Against Japan, p. 131. 91 AWM ATIS IR No 207 Serial 307, ‘Interrogation Report 207 (307)’, p. 12. 92 AWM ATIS CT No 140 (1480), ‘Diary of Komatsu Rokuzo’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM).

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the Empire despite his illnesses and fatigue, even the enemy paled against his despair at illness. Not even meeting the long-awaited enemy, just emptiness. Just feeling pity for this body wracked with illness.

The pressure to remain well under the circumstances in which soldiers operated is clear from Tamura’s conclusion to this entry, ‘I shout my responses with false cheerfulness, while my body is weary’.93 This pattern of illness continued, as he recorded later: ‘Even though I am not afraid, my illnesses multiply. My head aches’. In spite of these trials, the diarist nevertheless committed himself to ‘continue my labour, resolutely wearing my headband’.94 Of course, illness and disease were an occupational hazard for soldiers of all nationalities in New Guinea. The conditions described by the Japanese soldiers were in complete contrast to those experienced by Australian soldier Harry Bell went down to the Dentist to have that small hole seen to […] it was a pretty rough & ready surgery – a tent, protected a bit more by one of the blue & white strips we use for aircraft indication and containing a couple of stretchers, a table made of the side of a box, nailed to 4 uprights stuck in the ground, a little, rough, foot-pedal drill, a wooden chair with a headrest fastened to a post behind, and a small spittoon. […he] gives it an 80% chance of being O.K. […] He also had a look at my front tusk, and said he’d put gold in some time […].95

Perhaps for Japanese soldiers, though, one of the greatest hindrances to a sense of well-being was the attitude of the senior command. Soldiers expressed disillusionment, with one – disheartened by the officers’ uncaring attitude toward the men who were ill – complaining that they ‘just think the worst of us’.96 The neglect evinced by senior officers and their inability to convey to their troops a sense of nurture and unity further lowered morale.

93 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 62. Written 13 April 1943. 94 Ibid., p. 101. Written 25 May 1943. Headbands worn by Japanese soldiers frequently displayed the Rising Sun flag. 95 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 175. 96 AWM ATIS CT No 116 (1279), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier, Roosevelt Ridge CT 116 (1279)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM).

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Submitting to Power As the diary progresses and Tamura’s situation deteriorates, we will see that his thoughts became increasingly negative towards his senior officers. From the early stages of the diary, Tamura was aware of the inequities within the military system, a grim fact of life in the Imperial Japanese Army bemoaned by other soldiers. In one entry regarding his lowly role, Tamura ended with a barb aimed at the seniority system under which he now toiled. A friend of mine lamented that as he’s a soldier he’s resigned to supervision. Apart from the toil of life on the battlefront, there is a kind of unique internal goings on according to rank.97

The strict ranking system, or ‘the transfer of oppression’, had been an inherent principle of the modern Japanese military since its establishment in the Meiji era.98 Training for recruits of the Imperial Japanese Army was harsh and often brutal in the extreme.99 Bullying was commonplace, and physical violence, whilst officially rebuked, was actually the norm, with the concept of senyū [army buddy)]being based on the inequitable senpai kōhai [senior/superior–junior/inferior] relationship.100 Soldiers were expected to obey orders at all costs, and this requirement was reiterated in an address delivered by a superior officer in Lae. On this occasion, troops were urged to: follow the rules of combat, and never do anything your own way. No matter whom the enemy or what the lay of the land, one must strictly follow the regulation manual because it is the source of all information and does not require any alteration.101

97 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 17 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 1 April 1943. 98 Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, p. 18. 99 The practice of physical abuse was termed shiteki seisai and whilst the practice was supposedly abandoned in late 1941, there were many reported cases of its continuation on the battlefield. Often, officers believed that slapping men was the only way to imbue soldiers with a combat spirit. See for example AWM ATIS IR No 128 (Serial 205), ‘Interrogation Report 128’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 6. 100 ‘[…] the attitude of the senior officers was not worthy of respect. They had nothing to do with subordinates and shouldered no responsibilities. In enemy air raids or attacks, the officers would be the first to flee for safety, having no consideration for their men’. AWM ATIS RR No 76, ‘Research Report Self -Immolation as a Factor in Japanese Military Psychology’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 1944), p. 31. 101 AWM ATIS CT No 72 (826) ‘Moto Intelligence Report’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM).

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This demand for blind obedience was often a cover for the petty mediocrity and self-importance of the upper echelons who, as Tamura also alluded to, were young to have these roles: ‘I could not help but ask his age twice, after the group commander shaved in our tent’.102 Towards the end of his diary, the continued pedant behaviour of the officers provided the stimulus for Tamura to feel contemptuous of the system that the kokutai ideology extolled. The duty of a soldier is to carry out his tasks without complaining. Yet, somebody who does not have any worth as a person can throw his weight around just because he has the senior rank. Some things that are totally useless seem to be taken for granted in the military system. This is a peculiar characteristic of the military clique.103

These ‘things that are totally useless’ were not always of a trivial nature. An interrogated soldier expressed his bitterness about the fact that officers would always be the first to be evacuated, leaving the rank and file to either die or surrender.104 Another prisoner claimed that the Japanese army was ‘modelled on Spartan lines and discipline was maintained at the highest pitch. Instant obedience was demanded and in no case could a command or order be questioned. The spirit of yamato damashii was only obtained by this rigid training’.105 While inadequate food and shelter caused severe physical deprivation for the Japanese troops, the ruthless and inappropriate behaviour of the senior officers was a major cause for concern. A soldier in New Guinea lamented that Chief occupation of the seniors is to treat us like slaves, or rather mechanical toys. They torment us and make us submit to all sorts of practical jokes […] At night we are always having boots thrown at our heads. One of my comrades had to have four stitches put in after a fight with scabbards.106 102 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 71 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 103 Ibid., p. 102 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 25 and 27 May 1943. 104 AWM ATIS IR No 71 Serial 122, ‘Interrogation Report Yamakami Y’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 8. 105 AWM ATIS IR No 147 Serial No 229, ‘Interrogation Report of Uyehara T’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). Yamato damashii was the spiritual strength attributed to those Japanese who followed the teaching of the kokutai and is examined in detail in Chapter 1. 106 As quoted in Jean Larteguy, The Sun Goes Down: Last Letters from Japanese Suicide Pilots and Soldiers, (London: New English Library, 1975), pp. 65-6.

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Another soldier complained in his diary that When it was time to move, our company commander insisted that he would remain where he is […] I can’t think highly of a company commander who steals bananas in the middle of the night to satisfy his own hunger.107

Similarly, a captured soldier imprisoned in Australia complained that he was ‘disgusted with his war experience and resentful of the self ish attitude of the Japanese officers on Bougainville’. He reported that they fed themselves first, and only leftovers, if any, were fed to the enlisted men. He also complained that if any of the conscripts performed an act of bravery, the officers would take full credit. His experience had been that ‘discipline was severe [and] food and clothing were scarce’.108 The scathing criticism of officer behaviour in New Guinea extended to accusations that ‘the only people who make sleeping every day in the jungle their work are the officers’. According to the soldier who made this claim, the senior personnel never thought of the hardships of the men. He further accused them of treating their men ‘like natives’.109 Captured soldiers frequently related stories of officers deserting their men and leaving them to fend for themselves. In fact, there seemed to have been a propensity for many senior officers to escape during times of crisis and leave the soldiers to their fate.110 A Japanese prisoner of Australian troops stated that he and another companion, who was suffering from malaria and had to be carried, existed in the jungle for about a month after being abandoned.111 Another, reported to have been ‘more dead than alive when captured’, was incensed at being abandoned 107 AWM ATIS RR No 122, ‘Research Report 122’. One New Guinea resident, Benggo Aikeng, recalled that ‘They finished the food in the gardens. They finished our cattle. Excreted, urinated – they spoiled the church, they killed and ate pigs. They said buta buta [Japanese word for pig] and ate the pigs.’ As quoted in Walingai Patrick B Silata, ‘Oral Accounts of Second World War Experiences of the People of the Huon Peninsula, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea’, O’O A Journal of Solomon Island Studies 4, Special Issue, Taem Bilong Faet: World War II in Melanesia (1988), p. 65. 108 AWM South Pacif ic Headquarters of the Commander, ‘Interrogation Report No 354’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 109 AWM ATIS CT No 116 (1279), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier, Roosevelt Ridge CT 116 (1279)’, p. 62. 110 See for example AWM ATIS IR No 229 Serial 343, ‘Interrogation Report 229’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 5; AWM ATIS IR No 254 Serial 380, ‘Interrogation Report 254’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 7; AWM ATIS IR No 71 serial 122, ‘Interrogation Report 71’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 8. 111 AWM ATIS IR No 211 Serial 317 ‘Interrogation Report 211’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 7.

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while sick.112 One such example of the desertion of the ill and wounded was written by a Navy surgeon. The patients who could walk somehow left yesterday, but patients who could not walk were left behind […] The patients saw us vacantly but never spoke. Some seemed to have realized what was going to happen to them. The adjutant covered each patient with a new blanket. I left a grenade by the pillow of each patient as I was ordered to.113

These occurrences were completely outside the code of behaviour set down in the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors. The role of superior officers was that of proxy to the Emperor himself, and, as instruments of the Emperor’s will, soldiers were expected to obey superior officers without hesitation. However, superior officers ‘should never treat inferiors with contempt or arrogance [but] make kindness their chief aim’.114 The reality was couched in a Chinese proverb quoted by a soldier to describe the situation he and his companions found themselves in: ‘To hell with the boys on the firing line, as long as the [higher ups] are doing fine’.115 Tamura and his fellow soldiers found themselves in a physical, spiritual, mental, and psychological decline rather than being encouraged or nurtured. Another diarist wondered if ‘it is only I who am thinking foolishly’. He recognized that ‘to live in groups and be ordered by all the higher-ups is military service’. However, the fact that ‘an individual’s opinion doesn’t carry very far [makes this soldier] very sad’.116 The Way of the Subject [Shinmin no Michi, 1941] had demanded that ‘Japanese subjects adhere to the traditional virtues that made them a superior people: loyalty, patriotism, obedience to authority, and martial spirit’.117 When their service was undervalued, the soldiers’ willingness to follow the orders of superiors was severely compromised. The Army had promised to take on the role of the family – Father and Mother. In the bleak and debilitating warzone of New Guinea, no such nurture was apparent. Life could not have been more isolating, particularly when contact with home was virtually non-existent. 112 AWM ATIS IR No 286 Serial 422, ‘Interrogation Report 286’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 113 Written by Watanabe Tetsuo in January 1944 as quoted in Aldrich, The Faraway War, p. 503. Leaving a means of suicide for dying soldiers was a common practice for the IJA in New Guinea. 114 From the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors as cited in Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets, p. 83. 115 AWM ATIS CT No 111 (1225), ‘Diary of Kuroki Toshio’. 116 AWM ATIS CT No 1 (38), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier 38’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. 117 Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets, p. 53.

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Communication Breakdown Disconnection from the social networks of home was a further source of discontent for soldiers. Man is, by nature, a social being with a cultural self that is nurtured by social interconnectedness.118 Philosopher Watsuiji Tetsurō used the example of a village whose communication lines were cut off by an earthquake. The fact that the population was unable to receive news from the outside effectively left the village isolated and out of touch. Nevertheless, even in their physical isolation, the presence of all that was heimlich allowed them to continue as a cohesive social unit 119 At the most fundamental level, and when people are in convivial and stress-free environments, this social interconnectedness can also be maintained by communal interaction with other people. For those not in close proximity to others, this social interaction and connectedness can also be facilitated by modes of communication such as letters, newspapers, magazines, and – nowadays – emails and social media. For the soldiers in New Guinea, there was no familiar life, and so the lack of communication from the outside world served to amplify their isolation. The sense of home receded into the distance. Sy Kahn vocalized this sentiment when he wrote: ‘As months became years, as our casualties increased, even letters from our families became a chorus of diminished voices, speaking to us from another world’.120 Home faded further and further away and with it the sense of community that had bound the soldiers together; there was no camaraderie, no support network to reinforce the soldiers’ commitment to the kokutai ideology. Communication between the soldiers, particularly about home, also died. Tamura wrote that even ‘our comrades are sick of telling romantic stories of home’.121 The New Guinea campaign failed to nurture the soldiers’ sense of home and belonging. In the early years of the Fifteen Years War, considerable effort on the part of the homeland went into encouragement of the troops.122 Since 1937, Women’s Associations had been active in sending off soldiers at the docks and accosting passers-by on street corners to add to the thousandstitch cloths [senninbari], which were a kind of talisman of protection for the soldier and were worn around his stomach under the uniform. Care packages 118 Carter, ‘Watsuji Tetsurō’, pp. 2-3. 119 Watsuji Tetsurō, Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku, trans. Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert Carter (New York: State City of New York Press, 1996), pp. 159-167. 120 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. xxi. 121 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 80. Written 18 April 1943. 122 Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism, ed. Irwin Scheiner (Berkely, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998), p. 174.

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were also generally given to the soldiers departing the homeland, and Tamura recorded in his diary that he received ‘keepsakes of the homeland from a women’s group’ at the pier just prior to his ship’s leaving for the New Guinea front.123 At the time of Tamura’s tour of duty in China, Japanese soldiers at the front also often received imonbukuro [care packages/comfort bags] in the mail containing patriotic drawings by schoolchildren in addition to photographs, dolls, charms, magazines, dried foods, candies, notebooks, and anything that might be considered a welcome supplement to the meagre amenities provided by the military.124 By the time of the Southern campaign and the dispatch of Tamura’s unit to the South Pacific, Japan had already been ground down in a ten-year war of attrition with China. Since increasing amounts of man and womanpower were being directly deployed towards the war effort, there was little time for even patriotic citizens to devote to supporting the emotional welfare of troops in the field. Priority was now given to working in equipment and armament factories rather than producing, organizing, and distributing goods for soldiers at the front. In addition, the ships that would have carried these luxuries of home were in such short supply that their deployment for more strategic use was paramount. For Tamura, ‘The hot tea we received on the jetty from the Women’s Association was the last gift of our homeland’.125 Letters from home are a sustaining force in the life of soldiers in any conflict. Sy Kahn expressed his joy at receiving mail when he wrote ‘we heard a blessed sound – “Mail call!” Having received only six letters in the last month, I knew I would have some. I got 27, along with two long-awaited packages.’126 Private Ernest Uno, a nisei [second-generation Japanese] soldier in the United States Armed Forces in the Second World War, wrote to his sister, Mae, who was in an internment camp. Any little thing we do to divert our mind and keep us busy when the fighting comes to a temporary halt, relaxes the nerves and rests our bodies. 123 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 32. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 124 Keith Richmond, The Japanese Forces in New Guinea during World War II: A Primer in Logistics (privately printed by the author, 2003), pp. 29-30. Richmond cites AWM54 320/36 part 1, which suggests the two-month kit contained ‘tooth powder, tooth brush, towel and loin cloth […] soldiers occasionally carried […] mosquito nets and repellant, cotton gloves for protection against mosquitoes, or a pocket knife. The knife had a blade and a can opener’. Australian soldiers also received ‘comfort’ packages, often containing biscuits, cakes, and the like. See Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 170. 125 Tamura, Jūgun techō. P. 32. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. This incident occurred on Tamura’s departure from Japan in January 1943. 126 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. 67.

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That’s why receiving mail from home is so important. I’ve got a bunch of letters in my pocket that are dirty and falling apart […] I know almost each of them word for word, ‘cause I’ve read and reread them so often.127

Australian soldier Harry Bell’s book is made up of the correspondence he managed to send back to family and friends, and he mentions at length throughout all his letters that he received many letters and parcels from home.128 The situation for Japanese soldiers could not have been more different: they were completely devoid of contact from home. Although Japanese soldiers in the China campaign had received fairly frequent news from home, in New Guinea most received nothing. One prisoner of war interrogated after capture revealed that in campaigns prior to the Pacific War, he had received mail regularly from his family, together with care packages (comfort bags), but since then ‘in nearly two years he had received only one letter’.129 A survey of seventy-two prisoners of war revealed that fifty-five had received no mail since arriving in the South West Pacific.130 Tamura, who departed the homeland with little chance for farewells to his family, also lamented the lack of news from Japan. The Empress’ birthday [6th March] has passed and canola flowers should be flowering at home. I have not received any letters since I left home and that makes me feel very sad. Only those who have experienced military life, filled with duties and regulations, could understand how I feel […] I have not had a chance to write to my family […].131

Tamura’s younger brother wrote to him every day of his deployment to New Guinea; these letters, however, never arrived. All the more disappointing for Tamura was the realization that his family had probably received nothing

127 Andrew Carroll, ed., War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore: Scribner, 2001), p. 225. 128 See Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak. 129 AWM ATIS IR 141 Serial 220, ‘Interrogation Report 141’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). Comfort bags were reported to have been received regularly in China; see AWM ATIS IR No 120, ‘Interrogation Report 120’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), pp. 1 and 4. 130 AWM ATIS RR 40 Information Request Report Serial No 79, ‘Research Report: Japanese Army Postal Service’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, 4 October 1943). 131 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 6 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 6 March 1943. This entry is ambiguous as to the reasons that Tamura had not had a chance to write to his family. It may have been lack of writing materials, or lack of time and opportunity.

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from him either.132 He bemoaned the lack of contact as well as the lack of knowledge of his parents’ welfare. “We are well.” Even if it’s the same message every time, I would be so grateful, father, mother, but when I don’t get a letter I feel disheartened.133

The same sentiment is present in another entry lamenting the lack of contact from home. It has been some months since I left home. I wonder if my letters have reached my family, But their letters still have not arrived. I never thought I would return home safely, But the solitude blemishes a soldier’s heart.134

In the latter part of the entry above, Tamura wrote that ‘My mate who died with honour, left us without reading a letter that came from home’, implying perhaps the angst of departing this world without the comfort of family.135 Overshadowing the consolation and support that the soldiers needed from letters from home was the need to be reassured that those they had left behind were well and, above all, still alive. There is only one reference in Tamura’s diary as to the receipt of letters when he wrote ‘Letters from home and from friends only make me melancholy’.136 Eventually Tamura wrote quite evocatively of the desolation. ‘We are even sick of sending news home: there are no postcards to send anyway, there is a shortage of everything.’137 The emotional alienation created not only a sense of both physical and emotional deprivation but was potentially a threat to the stability and

132 Tamura’s younger brother revealed that he sent letters to his older brother every day that he was away. It is apparent that none of those reached Tamura, and certainly his brother received none back from him. 133 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 8. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. Even though Tamura mentions his mother here, we note that she had already passed away before he left for New Guinea. 134 Ibid., p. 43 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid., p. 47 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 137 Ibid., p. 80. Written 18 April 1943.

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cohesiveness of the troops. Watsuji Tetsurō noted the social disruption when communication is denied. when the structure of society is weakened because of damage to the system by means of which the public community is maintained, the transfer of knowledge and information is hampered, and the opinions and speculations of individuals is able to take over.138

This was true in the case of soldiers, who were already physically detached and disconnected from their society, where the added isolation caused by lack of communication with their familiar world triggered a rupture and served to heighten their sense of individual rights. An example of this was one soldier who wrote ‘No mail from home. Why don’t letters come? As a soldier I have a right to receive mail from the homeland […] Maybe it’s moaning, but if the mail doesn’t come, it’s a soldier’s privilege to moan’.139 Lack of mail, then, worked against the tenets of the kokutai on two fronts. Firstly, it disconnected the soldiers from the familiar landscape of family and community, and secondly, it provoked individualistic thought and action. The severance felt by lack of social interaction with the familiar homeland and those that remained there created a sense of mourning, initially an understandable homesickness for that which had been left behind, and eventually a decline into a total pining for the entirety of the life that had been snatched away. The confidence with which soldiers had entered the Fifteen Years War had eroded completely in the New Guinea campaign. The result was that the spiritual strength they had been trained in was in danger of rupture.

138 Watsuiji Tetsurō, Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku, pp. 159-167. 139 AWM ATIS CT No 1 (38). ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier 38’.

6

Creating an Idealized World

Diasporic Dilemma Undoubtedly many Imperial Japanese Army soldiers experienced a sense of dislocation when sent during the 1930s to the battlefields of the Asian continent with, for example, the relentless summer heat, suffocating dust, and bitter winter taking their toll on both the enlisted men and conscripts who fought on the Chinese mainland. However, even more than China, the profound extremes of New Guinea presented an unsettling contrast to the topography of Japan and bombarded the senses of the newcomer troops with such an array of unfamiliar sights, sounds, fragrances, tastes, and textures that the experience was paradoxically tantamount to sensory overload. The rigours of this alien environment caused hardship, hunger, and disease for soldiers. Furthermore, the sensory distress experienced was exacerbated by the isolation and disconnection from the home community represented by family and friends. Tamura’s apathetic response to his environment is apparent when he wrote on April 2 (1943) ‘Here in this Southern land everything we see and hear is new to us but for some reason we’re listless and uninterested’.1 Rather than interest and excitement, the overwhelming ‘newness’ of their surroundings produced an indolent, indifferent response from Tamura and the men in his unit. Tamura could not have found himself in a place more remote from his previous lived experiences. For Tamura: If one likes the unusual, there are many unusual things to see in this area. At the same time, one could also say there is not much to see here.2

New Guinea offered nothing to which he could relate. Dislocation is difficult for all displaced persons. There is loss of the familiar, loss of accustomed landscape, loss of family, loss of friends, loss of usual occupation, and loss of what is the everyday structure of life.3 Dislocation to a warzone is even more challenging for soldiers.4 American soldier diarist Sy Kahn related that 1 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 21. Written 2 April 1943. 2 Ibid., p. 66 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written on 13 April but dated 12 April 1943. 3 Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Yesterday’s Self: Nostalgia and the Immigrant Identity (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), p. 13. 4 See, for example, Bard Maeland and Paul Otto Brunstad, Enduring Military Boredom: From 1750 to the Present (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009). See also Graeme Smith, The Dogs are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan (Canada: Alfred A Knopf, 2013).

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‘during the war years in the South Pacific the primitive living conditions, tropical heat, and hard work sometimes generated among us a general malaise and aching sense of isolation and loneliness’.5 Japanese soldier and author Ogawa Masatsugu, who had been sent directly from the China mainland where he was serving to the warzone of New Guinea from January 1943, wrote: In the world we lived in on New Guinea, you had no use for the language or knowledge you had accumulated before you went there. Literature, which I’d studied at Keijō Imperial University, meant nothing.6

Enforced Exile As a solder of Imperial Japan, Tamura was subjected to a kind of enforced exile in the New Guinea battlefield. Not only was his presence there totally controlled by the Imperial requirements to serve the military, he had been enforcedly transplanted to a place so completely unconnected to his lived experience. The potential for the trauma associated with this is clearly indicative of the fact that exile is, in fact, primarily experienced as an alienation from one’s native place rather than separation to an alien locale. The exiled person is inextricably linked to the place departed, though no longer a tangible part of it. He is reassigned to the new locale, but not yet a tangible part of it either.7 The unfamiliarity of the ‘new’ location is therefore experienced in contrast to that which has been known thus far, yet the distance and time that now exists from that place ensures that the exiled person is no longer a ‘member’ of the old place, nor can he be at home in the new location. And yet, for those in exile, such as Tamura, it is impossible to escape the pervading sense of longing for a ‘vanished Eden or Paradise’ that is represented by a nostalgia for the homeland. 8 While today, the accepted meaning of nostalgia is imbued with a sense of dislocation from and desire to return to the sentimental place known as home or that ‘vanished paradise’, etymologically the word nostalgia has its roots in the Greek words nostos, which means to return home, and algos, 5 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. xx. 6 Ogawa, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 273. 7 Amy Kaminsky, Reading the Body Politic: Feminist Criticism and Latin American Women Writers (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993), p. 30. 8 Roberta Rubenstein, Home Matters: Longing and Belonging, Nostalgia and Mourning in Women’s Fiction (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 118.

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which means pain. Originally the term referred to a medical condition and was coined in the seventeenth century to describe the ‘pathological homesickness’ of Swiss soldiers who longed for the mountain landscapes of their homeland.9 This original meaning fits inexorably with the emotions exhibited by Tamura; pain at the desire for the lost, specif ic, and unattainable landscape of ‘home’. As is a common trait in the nostalgic, these memories elicit the pain of being separated from the natural physical features of the homeland and, significantly, also pain at being cut off from a non-retrievable past.10 In order to ameliorate this nostalgia, Tamura engaged in a process of recollection, and this process provided him with a shift from his immediate locale back to that which was known to him, including that elusive past. The techniques employed by Tamura were perhaps more in tune with a ‘desire for homeland’ than a ‘homing desire’.11 Supplanted as he was in the hellhole of the New Guinea battlefield, it is a straightforward deduction that for Tamura, memories of home and a more consoling past provided a more nurturing, if at times fantasy-like, contrast to his current existence.12 Tamura knew that his ‘homing desire’ was probably (no, most likely) fruitless and unfulf illable, yet his ‘desire for homeland’ was made very clear in his repeated remembrances of and references to the landscape and, more particularly, the seasonal climate to which he was accustomed. Often Tamura’s mental time-travel, particularly of his journey to the very unstable warzone, seem to be slightly imaginative or embellished rather than a fixed recollection.13 These memories were often ‘future oriented and utopian’, which may seem at odds with Tamura’s understanding of his inability to return home, or even to any of the places he recollected, yet these utopian-like recollections allowed existence in a currently less-than-satisfactory and fissured present and were a motivating force in the quest for a more optimistic and agreeable future as a soldier of Imperial Japan.14

9 Ato Quayson and Girish Daswani, eds., A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2013). The term was coined by medical student Johannes Hofner, pp. 16-17. 10 See Ritivoi, Yesterday’s Self, p. 20. 11 See Quayson and Daswani, A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, p. 17. 12 Ritivoi, Yesterday’s Self, p. 20. 13 F.C. Bartlett, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1932), p. 213. Rubenstein, Home Matters, p. 127. 14 Quayson and Daswani, A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, p. 18.

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Media One of the most potent tools of recollection and motivation is the copying of media such as songs, poems, and articles from magazines. On one occasion, Tamura recorded a popular song by Saijō Yaso (1892-1970)15 entitled ‘Who Does Not Long for Their Homeland’ (Dare ka kokyō wo omowarazu).16 The sun sets on the fields of flowers Shoulder to shoulder, We sing songs on the road home. Of those beloved mountains of our childhood These valleys of home. Who does not long for their homeland? A rainy evening in the capital My breast also damp with tears. Whose voice is that calling from afar? It’s those mountains of my childhood, These valleys of home. Who does not long for their homeland?17

The use of military songs that invoke shared experiences and images of a sylvan lifestyle were intended as motivational material for soldiers. This song was recorded in Tamura’s diary directly after a letter addressed to his brother (discussed later in this chapter). The lyrics feature a range of references to the kokutai ideology and the association between this system of thought 15 Saijō Yaso was a poet (including children’s poet) and professor of French Literature at Waseda University. E. Taylor Atkins, Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 66. 16 Saijō Yaso also wrote Tokyo March (Tōkyō Kyōshinkyoku) as well as many patriotic songs. Miriam Silverberg, Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 167. In 1938, Saijō wrote Nirin no hana (Two Cherry Blossoms), which was later modified by a naval cadet, Jōsa Yutaka, to become the famous Dōki no sakura (Cherry Blossoms of the Same Class). Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 140. See also Chapter 8 in this book. 17 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 25. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. Naval surgeon Watanabe Tetsuo also recorded that in the jungle, while escaping the enemy’s bombardment ‘an army unit began to sing Dare ka kokyō o omowarazu [Who does not long for their homeland?] […and that] Every word from those songs stuck in our hearts. At this moment, in this New Guinea in the southern hemisphere, everybody’s mind was just preoccupied with the memory of his home, escaping from a harsh reality where we were hopelessly stuck between enemies’. As quoted in Aldrich, The Faraway War, p. 553.

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and the physical landscape of Japan. The home that soldiers should miss is the unique nature of Japan, resplendent with mountains, valleys, and the ubiquitous fields of flowers. The only human agents in this vision of sublime Japan are the soldiers themselves, standard bearers of the Imperial cause, walking shoulder to shoulder in their shared camaraderie. The lack of human agents in the song, other than the fellowship of soldiers, is overshadowed by the grandeur and uniqueness of nature. Nostalgia is not for people; it is rather for places and the iconic natural physical features of Japan: the homeland. Rather than causing Tamura to despair, two contrasting aspects of this song potentially nurtured Tamura emotionally in New Guinea. The first is the sense of the nostalgic familiar. Tamura’s childhood home was very reminiscent of the landscape conveyed in the lyrics of the song. Secondly, and possibly the reason the song was produced in the first place, the words expressed a sense of belonging and shared experience. Tamura also referenced the propensity for the soldiers to sing gunka (war anthems) when he noted: Fatigue Duty Pouring all our hard toil into army songs We soldiers return

The ability of these songs and the communal singing of them to alleviate the distress and displeasure of the warzone is evident in the last verse of the entry. Fatigue Duty With complete loyalty and devotion, We endure the grueling routine. Poor work May 2718

While the ‘we’ of the Saijō Yaso lyrics are the troops, Tamura also recorded the words of a song Asu wa otachi ka [So tomorrow you leave?] sung by Kouta Katsutarō (1904-1974)19 that expresses the sentiments of the citizenry – in this case probably the ryōsai, or good wife, of Imperial Japan. So tomorrow you leave? It is hard to let you go 18 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 104. Written 27 May 1943. 19 Kouta Katsutarō was originally a geisha who became a recording artist who entertained Japanese troops in China. Osada Gyōji, Nihon gunka zenshū (Tokyo: Ongaku no Tomosha, 1976), p. 338.

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On this noble journey, Brave Yamato man. Bathed in the morning sun, you leave I long to send you off with reverence. Passionately, You take up the reins of your horse The pure morning breeze on your breast. Clouds gathering on the bright mountain Send you off on the mountain road.20

This popular song, released in 1942, expresses the emotions of the housewife – or perhaps even mother – whose husband (or child) is departing for the war.21 Used at farewell parties for those departing for the front, the song was also seen as a ‘song of friendship’.22 By recording this material in his diary, Tamura, too, could share in the gratitude that was being offered to soldiers departing for duty, and thereby experience once more the pride of a warrior leaving for battle. In his straitened circumstances, it was of little consequence that the lyrics of both songs fell into the realm of propaganda, with highly romanticized references to ‘f ields of f lowers’ and the ‘brave yamato man’ with the ‘morning breeze’ at his breast. With the absence of actual letters and correspondence of any kind from his family and friends, it was this sharing of familiar emotions that yet again helped him to remain grounded in a sense of the familiar. He also recorded material received either directly or through publications circulated among troops by the authorities. Tamura recorded several imon [comfort or encouragement] letters. This style of letter was sometimes sent to soldiers by families or women’s groups as part of the imonbukuro [care packages/comfort bags]. The National Defence Women’s Association also encouraged young girls to send these ‘letters of encouragement’ to random soldiers at the front. In addition to being sent to troops, some imon letters were published in magazines. Given

20 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 27. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 21 Osada, Nihon gunka zenshū, p. 338. Osada points out that, at a time when voicing what one felt in one’s heart was impossible, this song became a big hit owing to the fact that it expressed the suppressed emotions of many in Japan. 22 Dower, War without Mercy, p. 214. Dower uses the title ‘Do You Leave Tomorrow’.

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the lack of mail services to New Guinea during his time there, it is likely that at least some of the letters recorded by Tamura were taken from such a source.23 The very first imon-type letter is a letter of gratitude from those at home. The contents reveal the complete ignorance on the part of the sender of the hardships being experienced by soldiers at the Southern front. All thanks to you soldiers. In a photo I saw of you recently, you were tanned by the sun of the hot South land, completely black like a native. Only your eyes were like a doll’s.24

It is difficult to understand how the authorities believed that such a letter could provide ‘comfort’ or could be read as ‘a letter of encouragement’. While the unknown author at least recognized that the soldiers were in an environment that had seen them become totally darkened by the sun, the comparison of their eyes to the innocence of ‘those of a doll’ was far removed from the reality of weariness and lack of vitality that Tamura reported elsewhere in his diary. The magazine was likely aimed more at those on the home front as part of the propaganda process of keeping the worst from the citizens. Copying letters from magazines was one of a number of forms of substitution for Tamura, who saw the intimacy of the family replaced by the army and then by fictitious relationships with complete strangers. Comments on the diary page immediately preceding this copied letter, however, allow some insight into their ability to console Tamura. Here the writer voiced his deep sense of despondency at having never received a letter since departing Japan, lamenting the hardship of military life. He wrote: The Empress’ birthday25 has passed and canola flowers should be flowering at home. I have not received any letters since I left home and that makes me feel very sad. Only those who have experienced military life filled with duties and regulations could understand how I feel.26

23 Tamura made reference to being able to read magazines during air raid attacks. This is discussed in Chapter 8. 24 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 7. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. This entry is also discussed in Chapter 4. 25 The Empress’ birthday was on 6 March. 26 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 6 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 6 March 1943.

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Again, we see Tamura reconciling his current time frame with something that was evocative of both a familiar home and a more pleasant past. His re-coding of time evoked once more for the diary writer the flowering of the ubiquitous canola blossoms during the Japanese spring, a time of joy, hope, and renewal. However, since it was impossible to erase the realities of his present circumstances, his words soon once more lamented the absence of mail from home. Tamura continued the entry by recording his deep dissatisfaction with his current life. He made it clear that the strongest bond he shared with his fellow soldiers was an understanding of just how miserable life was. Without the juice of the coconuts found in this Southern land, there may be nothing worthwhile in his current existence. The one and only pleasure I have is to drink coconut milk. I believe this is truly the high point of living in the tropics. I have not had a chance to write to my family. We are living in tents, and the days pass meaninglessly in hard labour.27

Recording the imon letter discussed above on the page following this bitterly downhearted entry provided Tamura with some release from his anxiety and some betterment of the ‘hard labour’ he had to endure. At the very least, the imon letter expressed Imperial Japan’s gratitude for the efforts made by the soldiers in the Southern campaign. Although the reality was quite different, there was some reassurance in these palm tree and coconut images that permitted him to share with the people at home, and also with the writer of the imon letter, an imagined familiarity with this land in the South to which he had been posted. However, the total juxtaposition of what was revealed to those at home undoubtedly stabbed at the writer’s heart. No one but those who shared in his actual existence ‘could understand how I feel’. A letter recorded and signed as being from the jinchū kurabu [the Club at the Front] allowed Tamura to indulge feminine intimacy. While it is unclear whether this was actually composed by Tamura or copied from another source such as a magazine, the fact that the letter was recorded indicates the significance of the contents for the writer. Who would guess I harbour such a feeling towards you in this faraway land in the South Seas. It’s been over a year since we met. You were just a younger sister of my friend, but I don’t know why I cannot forget about 27 Ibid. I have retained the original translation of Dr Tamura as coconut milk, which is a commonly used term for the water or juice of the coconut.

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you. I did not have a chance to write to you and I never sent you a letter expressing my feelings, as I thought it would not be appropriate. My heart hurts when I am alone, and I think about home.28

Tamura revealed here that thoughts of home evoked much more than just the familiar aspects of family, buildings, and scenery. Agonizingly, home also meant that which had not yet even been attained. Home was the prospect of a relationship and a future. In addition to the limited reference to male friends or family in Tamura’s diary from the New Guinea campaign, there is little evidence of meaningful relationships with women. Tamura’s mother had already passed away by the time of his departure for New Guinea, and there are few references either to her or to other women from the family.29 There is no mention of any sustained personal romantic relationship with a young woman. The diary often indicates how the lack of contact with women – on the one hand with a mother, and on the other the intimacy of a consoling partnership – heightened the sense of loneliness in the isolation associated with New Guinea. We can detect a sense of longing for something that is outside the realms of possibility for the writer. Not only was he unable to make a firm attachment to the woman mentioned in the diary entry above, the copying of this letter perhaps reveals that Tamura yearned for the affection of someone whom he may not even have known. I know that it is impossible to seek your heart, but I still cannot rid myself of this feeling. You could well be a married woman by now. I am envious of your husband. Heaven does not know the feeling of the man who wishes for your happiness.30

Time for everyone at home had raced on, allowing them happiness in marriage and the birth of children – in short, life’s fulfilment. Tamura, however, was both alone and lonely, and his ‘heart hurts’ when he thought about those he had left behind and, more pressingly, about his inability to fulfil his dreams of love and partnership. Here in the wretched hopelessness of the New Guinea landscape, his only emotion was envy for the fortunate one

28 Ibid., p. 26 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 29 Tamura’s mother does not feature in his diary except for one entry in which he recalled her sending him off to China. There is no mention of her when Tamura recorded his final departure from Tochigi. Her death is noted as 6 February. Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 30 Ibid.

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who would take this woman as his wife. The longing for a faraway woman also appears in the diary of Tanimura Kanzō, a soldier in China. Are you sleeping? Are you awake? A moon over a quiet town in fall Listless after saying ‘adieu’ The sigh from the thoughts Which never cease Seek your far-off affections My weak heart is conflicted31

Perhaps for Tanimura, though, there was a woman waiting for him in his homeland, and he was lonely thinking of her. Tamura’s aloneness, by contrast, was perhaps precisely because there was no specific ‘other’. And yet, later on in the diary, Tamura did hint at a possible relationship when he wrote: Unbeknownst to you, today too In my midday nap I dream of you [original unreadable]. A poem to you32

On another occasion, Tamura recorded a letter under the title ‘A Comfort (Encouragement) Letter from a Magazine’ that appears to have been written in reply to a young woman who penned an imon letter published in a magazine.33 You have come all the way to this far land in the South Seas to encourage me. I must write you news about Arawashie.34 I look up at the clearing sky and take up my pen, my eyes brimming with gratitude. I yearn with 31 As quoted in Moore, Writing War, p. 50. 32 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 98. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. 33 Earhart, Certain Victory, pp. 147-181 This material has an insightful section on the images of women as portrayed to soldiers. 34 Arawashi is the Japanese word for fierce eagle but is also used for intrepid flyer or air ace. A propaganda movie produced in 1944 and directed by Hozumi Toshimasa was titled Kimi koso tsugi no arawashi da [You are the Next Brave Eagle]; a gunka also featured the title Arawashi no uta [The Song of the Brave Eagle]. The character ‘e’ in Arawashie is for inlet or bay, and so the meaning here is unclear. Perhaps Tamura (or his company) had coined this name for the waterway surrounding Wewak, as there are plenty of references to the brave young eagles descending to the base in other sections of his diary.

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all my heart for your beloved appearance here. You, who I see only in a magazine, look so elegant and gentle. I am overwhelmed by my feelings for you, but you will never know about them. You pray for me and send me off.35

Here Tamura was perhaps the author of this correspondence which was in reaction to a letter he had read in a magazine. The article was accompanied by a photograph of a beautiful young woman. In this response, Tamura constructed what seems to be a fantasy that this woman had prayed for him particularly and, even if only in spirit, had come to send him off. The entry ends with a short poem likely penned by Tamura and appended to the letter copied into the diary. Even though I don’t know your name, in my heart I have made you my friend. I will never forget the fragrance of the flower.36

The sentiment expressed here is excruciatingly raw. In spite of his lack of sustaining relationships, his inability to make contact with family and friends, and his lack of an intimate and consoling relationship, we see Tamura’s ability to escape into fantasy. The poem uses the familiar form for ‘you’ and is made all the more subtly intimate and erotic by the use of the flower and its aroma as a metaphor for the woman. This, like much of Tamura’s refiguring and refashioning of the alien into the familiar that appears in the diary, was a substitute – in this case a substitute for intimacy. This tactic of providing a form of affection for soldiers was also present in the form of comfort dolls, which were often supplied to soldiers.37 The melancholy evoked in this letter from the magazine again reveals the juxtaposition to what these letters actually meant to the soldiers in faraway lands and the pall of sadness and desire that the letters inevitably created for them. Other similar entries in the diary sustain this discourse of unrequited love. The poem below is written by a woman to a soldier in the faraway South. Autumn Visit The brilliant stars shining in the Southern sky, 35 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 61. Written 12 April 1943. 36 Ibid. 37 For an informative account of this practice, see Ellen Schattschneider, ‘The Bloodstained Doll: Violence and the Gift in Wartime Japan’, Journal of Japanese Studies 31:2 (2005).

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our beloved Southern cross, high above the land where you are, a land blessed with abundant natural beauty, the horizon green as far as the sea shore. Today, with palm trees swaying, early evening moon, with waves crashing, my thoughts do not reach you. I pray for your safety. But who knows the fortunes of war? To the lonely beach, even to the very ends of the island where you live, across the endless ocean, to the South land I would want to fly, if I were a seagull.38

This verse is slightly more nuanced than other imon letters that appear in Tamura’s diary. The writer initially confirms the popular image of the tropics as a place of ‘abundant natural beauty’ and green horizons where palm trees sway and the waves crash to the shore. However, the insecurity of life in a warzone is acknowledged by the reference to the unpredictable ‘fortunes of war’. The final stanza, evoking the image of a single figure on a ‘lonely beach […] across the endless ocean’ resonates with a number of Tamura’s own verses expressing the massive sense of isolation he experienced in the South. Again, the writer of the letter uses the familiar form for ‘you’ and evokes the life-rope of a woman coming especially to meet him in the hellhole of the warzone. Towards the end of his diary, Tamura also recorded a poem, or perhaps a song, about the return of soldiers from New Guinea. Soldiers Return Unthinkingly, mechanically, just advancing with all their might, Fulfilling their duty, they return to the shade of their old home Sent to the distant South Seas for how many years, The smiling faces of the returning soldiers. Their old home which they saw in their hearts, no longer merely a dream, Impatiently, by ship, the soldiers now come home.

38 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 106. Written between 27 May and 1 June 1943.

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As if hearing the triumphant welcome song, They rush back straight across the ocean, Home is close. Perhaps resolutely hiding their memories in their hearts, The army songs echo through the falling rain. The scent of battle seen in the long beards, The manly features burned by the southern sun. The joy and tears of returning soldiers To their homeland39

Replete with the images of a longed-for home and backgrounded by the hint of glory in their ‘triumphant welcome song’, the tone of the poem lends itself to something that has been written as a kind of propaganda pull for soldiers who are described as manly and wearing the long beards associated with dedicated warriors. By the time Tamura recorded this piece in his diary, while he may have undoubtedly been stirred by these images, he could in reality relate more to the battle-weary, bedraggled soldiers. For him, though, the likelihood of sharing in their joy at returning home was, by now, just a fanciful dream.

Travel in the Homeland In the previous section of this chapter, we saw that Tamura recorded the lyrics of the stirring popular song entitled ‘Tomorrow You Leave’. These words reminded Tamura of his own departure for the front, and, on the following page of the diary, he evocatively recalled the excitement he felt at being sent once more to serve the Emperor. The departure for the front seems all like a dream. My heart was filled with emotion, gratitude and hope. I myself was surprised that this heart enclosed in my breast was able to become as deep as the ocean. The departure from Utsunomiya was 10:05 at night, and I passed my home station by 11. On that silent platform there were only the station master and two or three station hands, no one else. It was sunk in tranquil sleep. 39 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 132. Written between 22 June and 18 August 1943.

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On the 12 January we arrived at the brave departure point of our great mission. Even though we felt that this was our very last look at life, how composed we were! Like a great mountain, we kept everything hidden in our hearts. Through the sleeping capital, the train rushed along the Tōkaidō line. 40

With the pathos of a silent platform as the backdrop, Tamura remembered how he took heart and felt a calm composure at embarking on the grand mission of the Imperial warrior, even though he realized at the time that this was likely to be his last view of familiar life and ultimately, life at all. On this final departure, much more subdued than the departure for China several years before, the train left Utsunomiya late at night, presumably to preclude any celebratory send-off. Another soldier notes the same experience. After waiting for the command, we boarded the train in an orderly line, and again in silence. The windows on one side were all tightly shuttered. Not a soul had been sent to send us off, and there was no sound of anyone shouting ‘Banzai!’ [as was usually the case when soldiers were sent off for the front line]. […] the train left the platform to the dull sound of its own wheels […]41

The silence of this send-off is notable and made even more desolate when backgrounded by the dull sound of the train’s own wheels. Although Tamura’s diary also conf irmed the low-key and uninspiring nature of his departure, he nevertheless seemed intent on re-creating an alternative memory of leaving home that would invigorate and motivate him in his current circumstances. He recalled the poise of both himself and his companions, those ‘great mountains’ that ‘kept everything hidden in [their] hearts’, even though there was an inkling that this would in fact be a one-way journey to death. Following the July 1937 outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, opulent farewell ceremonies – known as Red-Paper [Akagami] ceremonies after the colour of the draft notification – became the order of the day. 40 Ibid., p. 28. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 41 Written by Nishimura Hidehachi, who entered the Army in August 1941. The University of Tokyo Student Council, Tōdai Gakusei Jich i-kai Senbotsu Gakusei Shuki Hensan Iinkai (Committee for Compiling the Writings of the University of Tokyo Students Killed in the War), ed., In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers (Harukanaru Sanga Ni) (Scranton, US: The University of Scranton Press, 2005), p. 128.

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However, in July 1941, following special exercises undertaken in North East China by the Kwantung Army, send-off parties were prohibited as a measure against espionage. This policy shift impacted negatively on the morale of the people and their attitude towards the war. It also resulted in a loss of fighting spirit among the troops. Although restrictions were accordingly lifted somewhat after December 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbour, the magnitude of earlier grand send-off parties for troops was never repeated. Tamura had been away from his homeland for two months when he recorded the entry below. The stark reality of life in the jungle battlefield relegated the emotions upon departing Japan to being unreal, ‘like a dream’, almost disconnected to the present. Nevertheless, his recollections also had a practical, everyday quality, perhaps enabling him to cement these memories in his mind by recalling specific details such as the stations through which the convoy passed, and meals taken en route. Except for a few, everyone is a brave warrior of long standing. Some people were talking of previous war experience, but most were just sunk in their thoughts. We passed by Shinagawa, then on past Yokohama, and once we got to Numazu, dawn was beginning to break faintly. We took our first breakfast in the train, recovering our energy. 42

This account of his departure was not only a record of Tamura’s emotions but, most critically, provided an opportunity to fix in his mind the familiar images of the homeland. In the process of creating memories of emotionally sustaining travel, Mt Fuji had an especially valued role. Following breakfast, the train on which Tamura and his comrades were travelling entered Shizuoka, where the writer recalled orchards of yellow mandarins, the special fruit of the region, on the hills to the left and right. The rising majesty of Mt Fuji viewed from the window of the train strengthened Tamura’s resolve to undertake this journey to the unknown. Gazing to the left, as the sun rose in the distant eastern sky, we saw the sacred peak of Mt Fuji. Half the mountain pure white, towering towards heaven, this gallant figure, the symbol of Yamato.43 42 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 29. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. It is of note that throughout the diary, Tamura used the title of ‘brave warrior’, or ‘hero’, rather than the normal ‘soldier’ for those military personnel who were veterans. 43 Ibid., p. 29. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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For Tamura, the awe-inspiring majesty of the mountain viewed close up in Shizuoka from the train empowered him as a gallant soldier of Yamato. A representation of the sacred divinity of Imperial Japan, the epitome of the grandeur and purity of the nation-state, Mt Fuji is also a symbol of the unique physical characteristics and the sublime nature of Japan and has been prized from antiquity as the most sacred mountain of all of India, China, and Japan. Like all Japanese, Tamura was, of course, familiar with the spectacle of Mt Fuji, having also had the experience of climbing it with friends. I remember the time last July when my workmate and I conquered the mountain. Immeasurable feelings. That mountain road, this valley, rocks upon rocks. The memory of this climb fills me with longing. 44

This longing was not only for the familiar geographical, social, and spiritual aspects of home but also for a less fraught time and place, when a leisurely climb with a friend was possible and achievable. The diary continues with further details of the departure journey through Japan. At about the time when the sea came into view, snow began to flicker on the train window. I believed that Kansai is a warm region, so it was a bit of a surprise. The chill of the white snow under the trees and at the foot of the mountains made us shiver inside the train in spite of ourselves. As we enjoyed the sunny view of the Tōkaidō, the train continued, carrying the brave warriors to its destination. We didn’t know how many of us would ever return. 45

The fact that Tamura was surprised that Kansai had snow when he had thought of it as a warm region lead us to realize that perhaps this was the first time Tamura had ventured this far within Japan. The elation associated with these homeland memories was ruptured by the fact that these were also memories of a one-way trajectory, expressed in the poignancy of the f inal line of the excerpt above: ‘We didn’t know how many of us would ever return’, which sees the narrative shift from mere descriptions by the narrator to the effect these memories of places had on the narrator,

44 Ibid., p. 30. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. Discussion of the Mt Fuji climb is undertaken in Chapter 7. 45 Ibid.

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Tamura, during his journey. 46 Within the early Japanese literary tradition of the eighth century, there is the form known as ‘Road Travel Literature’ [michiyuki]. Tamura’s record of his trip is a kind of michiyuki, where he records in detail those aspects of his journey that invigorate or inspire him onwards. 47 More relevant to this discussion, though, is the death side of michiyuki as the kabuki dance interlude that frequently depicts two travellers with a romantic association or even two young lovers on their way to a double suicide. 48 The Noh concept of michiyuki may be even more appropriate here. 49 In the Noh context, the michiyuki is usually the prologue of the play, where often it is an already dead spirit who narrates. Tamura was indeed on a journey towards death as in the Kabuki michiyuki, but, as one of his poems declares, Tamura felt he was already a spirit looking back at his life’s journey that had led him to this location of death in New Guinea. New Guinea, where the war dead dream of enlistment, My army comrades laugh at my strange dream.50

As Tamura recorded the final stages of the journey, he continued to note the familiar fragments of the homeland, including his last fleeting glimpses of life in Japan. In the gorge where remnants of snow were scattered here and there, I saw soldiers training – 1, 2; 1, 2 – and wondered where we were. It was Toyohashi. We saw the golden dolphin of Nagoya on the right and about the time my eyes grew tired of the view outside the train, there was a 46 Casey Blanton, Travel Writing: The Self and the World (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), p. 3. 47 Toshio Kawatake, Japan on Stage: Japanese Concepts of Beauty as Shown in the Traditional Theatre, trans. P.G. O’Neill (Tokyo: 3A Corporation, 1982), p. 45. 48 Kabuki is a traditional Japanese theatre form beginning around 1600 when Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate. This dramatic art form, which portrays historical and domestic stories, is highly stylized with elaborate costumes and makeup. The Chinese characters for kabuki individually mean sing, dance, style. Performers in kabuki are all male and take the parts of both male and female characters. 49 Noh is another form of musical drama that has been performed since the fourteenth century. A key aspect is the frequent use of the supernatural transposed into an heroic human form as the narrator of the story. The performance is dance-based with distinctive masks and costumes and theatre props. Traditionally, performers were male, but there are now about 20% female performers. 50 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 81. Written between 18 and 19 April 1943. This poem and the concept of the already dead will be further discussed in Chapter 7.

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racetrack, with small groups of young people on the way home, waving to us. As we neared Shimonoseki, where the pine trees on the beach made it all the more beautiful, we were thrilled at the banzai [cheers] of the women pearl divers and enjoyed the seascape.51

Recalling that Tamura wrote these entries retrospectively, and from the gloom and uncertainty of his jungle home, we see that these iconic images are reproduced with the accuracy of a picture postcard. Tamura concluded with a revealing sentence which, by referring to a deep disappointment, brought him straight back to his present reality. The Tōkaidō journey was not as noteworthy or memorable as my last departure on the Jōetsu Line. The journey from snowy Niigata was more memorable, maybe just due to the different times. Last time, there was a grand send off at every station, but, after all, this time there is not a soul to send us off.52

Here, again, the lack of celebration for his final send-off was obviously dismaying. The desolate departure from Shimonoseki as he left Japan for the final time was softened by the memories of women pearl divers, and Tamura was invigorated by their patriotic cries of banzai among the pines on the beach.53 While Australian soldier Harry Bell recalled a brass band playing the Maori Farewell as he pulled away from the wharf, Tamura ended his entry on his departure with a telling verse:54 Sent off by the white seagulls With a memory of the homeland harbour55

There were no human agents, and this is a pattern that is persistent throughout his diary.

51 Ibid., p. 31. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 52 Ibid. 53 Banzai translates literally as 10,000 years, and in everyday usage equates to ‘hip hip hooray’ or ‘three cheers’ but in the military usage of the cheer it means ‘Long live the Emperor’, and was often used as a battle cry during the Pacific War. 54 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 75. 55 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 32. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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Journey across the Asian Continent Giving an account of his own experiences as a soldier of Imperial Japan in the New Guinea campaign, Ogawa Masatsugu recalled: I didn’t really have a future while I was trudging along in those mountains. There was no tomorrow, no next day. All I could think about was falling asleep or following pleasant memories back into the past.56

Like Ogawa, Tamura appears to seek consolation by revisiting the past. However, in contrast to the memories of his experiences while travelling through Japan, we find that in his account of the continental leg of the journey, there is a greater focus on memories that ascribe a glorious and noble purpose to this trip. The achievement of a longer-term goal was defined by his past positive experiences rather than his very alienating present actuality.57 Early in his diary, Tamura recollected events in Qingdao in China. The washing hanging out to dry is frozen white where the sunshine doesn’t reach. Even though it’s the middle of the day, it’s very cold and everyone is trembling in summer uniforms. The senior officers who are pressing everyone to cheer up and persevere, can’t seem to do without their heavy winter uniforms. The mountains are completely bald as far as the eye can see. Driven by the wind, the sea air pierces your skin. The young lads, protectors of tomorrow, are now training enthusiastically for their upcoming expedition.58

Here, Tamura openly acknowledged the severe cold and harsh landscape of the training ground. While Tamura was rejoining his previous division still posted in China, the ridiculous setting for such training for junglebased warfare was unfathomable, yet these ‘young lads’ trained with great enthusiasm. Unlike Japanese soldiers, Australian troops were trained in like conditions to prepare for their New Guinea warfare.59 Harry Bell wrote to 56 Ogawa, ‘The Green Desert of New Guinea’, p. 274 57 Helen L. Williams and Martin A. Conway, ‘Networks of Autobiographical Memories’, in Memory in Mind and Culture, eds. Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 44. 58 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 8. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 59 Before the Kokoda Campaign in 1942, Australian soldiers had some training provided in both the Atherton Tableland in Queensland and in Northern NSW but, while that was more than was provided for Japanese troops, the observation of one Australian infantryman was that ‘the

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his family of his jungle training in Canungra in the hinterland of South-East Queensland, Australia. It’s fair dinkum jungle here […] luminous patches all over the ground – phosphorescent bits of decaying vegetation. We did an ambush there too, and it felt nearly as tense as the real thing; crouching in a possie for 2 hours without a move, waiting all the time for the sentry’s warning tug on the vine.[…] That Running Creek valley was the best of all I think, with its forbidding walls (Neglected Mountain was tough, humping a 23Lb Bren, or someone’s rifle plus my S.M.G.) & green floor, with the singing, clear rocky river in the centre.60

For Tamura, there was nothing to prepare him for the tropical warzone of New Guinea in the bleak, barren, and freezing conditions of Northern China. Unlike his account of unfavourable conditions in New Guinea, however, his descriptions of the austere circumstances were tempered by reference to the brave enthusiasm of the ‘protectors of tomorrow’. Here, and throughout his records of the journey, we find that Tamura drew on exhortative military discourse and kokutai-derived expressions to bolster his emotions related to this harsh training. Even the experience of the flimsy summer uniforms of the troops in training against the senior officers who were much more appropriately attired for the bitter conditions failed to deflate Tamura’s devotion to the cause. In a later entry, Tamura gave a detailed account of scenes glimpsed in Korea. Korea The weather of Korea with its many bald mountains is dry and windless. Children clothed in tatters playing with home-made skating boards also made me feel like I had come to a foreign country. They had put blades on about 30cm of board, sat on them and pulled themselves forward as if rowing a boat. We were fascinated by their expertise. The swamps there, hairy goat capers of running up and down […] did nothing for us tactically but we were very, very fit physically […] even the [troops] which spent five months training in jungle and rubber plantations, was, in retrospect, only “slightly jungle minded”’. As quoted in Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey, eds., The Foundations of Victory (Canberra, Australia: Army History Unit, Dept of Defence, 2003), p. 77. However, by the time Tamura arrived in New Guinea, almost all the recruits from Australia had received jungle training at the newly established training camp in Canungra in South East Queensland. ‘The emphasis was on getting recruits used to the jungle and the noises of battle in it’. Ibid., p. 81. 60 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 60.

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the rivers here were completely frozen over which brought home to us in the train how immensely cold it was outside.61

The Korea through which the troop train passed was a colony of Japan, and for Tamura, the second-time conscript and continental returnee, there was a familiarity here not found in his New Guinea environment in the ‘the rows of poplars, the over-hanging willows, the housewives hanging the washing up high’ that acted as a nostalgic reminder of ‘my previous call-up as a new recruit four years ago’.62 The diary account of Korea and the Chinese North East bears little similarity to the depiction of the alien and ‘nothing’ world he now inhabited in the tropics. Rather, in these highly idealized memories of the journey through the continent, there is a form of retreatism, that is, a movement back to a recollected and more favourable place in rejection of the place where he was currently forced to exist.63 Midway through these reminiscences, Tamura happily noted that he had the soothing experience of tasting miso soup ‘for the first time in a while’ somewhere in Korea.64 Tamura experienced the early part of his travel on the continent as follows: ‘If it wasn’t a train journey of military men, it would be a really leisurely trip’.65 However, he also hinted at his own ellipses when he wrote: ‘There is so much more I could tell about my feelings on this journey.’66 Tellingly, Tamura noticed the destruction caused by past Japanese advances: Near the railway bridge over the wide river, the remnants of rusty barbed wire entanglements of the bunkers are the only evidence of past suffering and toil. It’s really a mystery as to how such an immense land as this could remain so uncivilized.67

While stating that he enjoyed the scenery through Korea on the way to North China, Tamura was nonetheless shocked at the barren and inhospitable nature of the landscape viewed from the window of the train. Under the title ‘A Train Journey Recalling Home’, Tamura writes:

61 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 33. Written between 5 and 11 April. 1943. 62 Ibid. 63 Ritivoi, Yesterday’s Self, p. 28. 64 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 33. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 65 Ibid., p. 35. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 66 Ibid., p. 34. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 67 Ibid., p. 36. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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Enjoying the scenery of the continent after my conscription, we reached China. I was surprised that everything had changed so much from the China of three years ago. I had crossed Korea, and had travelled around Manchuria and Mukden, but it was the first time I experienced temperatures of 35 degrees below zero. Within merely five minutes outside, I was shocked at how much my eyes hurt. There’s not a thing on the plains of North China, just the Great Plains as far as the eye can see. Maybe because it’s so dry, no snow piles up, just thick ice on the train window. Presently, we left this place and headed South again.68

Further into his journey, the metropolis of Tianjin provided relief from the oppressive conditions of the journey across the frozen plains of the Chinese North East and permitted Tamura to return to more pleasant and stimulating memories of the China of his first call-up. Tianjin 18 January We arrived at Tianjin at 4.30 in the afternoon. We had dinner here. Tianjin was like a metropolis of North China and the platform was quite big too. The girls selling the Chinese flowers, a specialty of the region, were beautiful. Holding red and yellow flower baskets, they walked among the congestion of passengers. I fondly remembered the beautiful Chinese garments. It was just a pity that I couldn’t hear their voices. There were sick and wounded soldiers in a carriage that had come from Peking. The Japanese Red Cross uniforms were also awe-inspiring. Also, five or six of the nurses,69 fondly remembered angels in white, stuck their heads out of the windows to farewell us off. I really wanted some books to ward off the boredom in the train, but I couldn’t get any because my money couldn’t be used here. All I could do was look out the window at Tianjin Station. The advance of the Japanese was really widespread. No matter what the place, you saw fellow countrymen. Special Rations Sweet bean jelly Cigarettes70 68 Ibid., p. 38. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. 69 The word Tamura uses for nurses is hakuinotenshi, which literally means angels in white (ministering angel). 70 Here Tamura refers to the supplemental rations available to troops, and he particularly singles out sweet bean jelly and cigarettes. The following is a list of canteen items that were available to Japanese troops at Buna Mission in January 1943. The unit was overrun after that date, which is probably why no luxury items are mentioned by Tamura after landing in New Guinea. The list includes two types of sake, Asahi beer, Kirin Cider, three brands of cigarettes, milk, handkerchiefs, candy, white thread, pocket knife, scissors, rubber soles, rubber heels,

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As the train pulled into the busy station, Tamura was inspired by the beauty of the Chinese women and their garments, familiar experiences from his previous time in China. In fact, he lamented not being able to hear the voices of the women, also an experience that would have evoked pleasant memories of a time past.71 Entranced as he was by the colourful baskets and clothing of the young Chinese women selling flowers, Tamura’s account of the city as evening approached began in an upbeat mood. His travelogue-like description belied the fact that this was, in fact, a country at war. Sakaguchi Jirō, another soldier of the China front, wrote: I went shopping for sashimi, boiled tofu, dried bread, and fish. The apples are cheap and delicious. Schoolgirls are waving their handkerchiefs at us […] I bought binoculars in a town called Shiyōtoru […] went to sight-see Dairen’s bright lights and other attractions […] drank tea in a café for the first time. Where the hell is the war?72

For Tamura, though, the travelogue-like detail was marred by the cruel reality of war in the sight of wounded soldiers being transported from Peking.73 While there is reference, too, to the boredom that was an everpresent element in the soldier’s life, the overpowering sentiment was one of the glory of the Great Empire of Japan. Nurses were present, supplemental prophylactics, notebooks, tooth powder, fruit rice jelly, biscuits, canned pears and peaches, canned crab and salmon, meat extract, cotton socks, striped shirts, striped undershorts, knitted trunks, towels, face towel, loin cloths, white scarf, inner soles, garters, rain coat buttons, black and white suit buttons, safety pins. See Richmond, The Japanese Forces in New Guinea during World War II, pp. 35-6. In an entry in his diary, Tamura stated that ‘When somebody was asked about his wish, the answer was to eat as many sweet cakes as possible’, Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 46 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. In a subsequent entry he wrote ‘Just as young children wish for all the toys, we want everything when we are so far away from civilization’. Ibid. p. 47 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 71 Tamura appeared to have some ability with the Chinese language, as he writes about discovering some edible tree nuts in New Guinea: Tree nuts 11 April ‘Try one,’ said my friend, cracking one open for me effortlessly. He was eating one with relish, a smile on his face, so I had a taste. ‘Yes, it’s really tasty isn’t it. The same as our chestnuts at home.’ I said, mixing Chinese and Japanese. Ibid., p. 48. Written 11 April 1943. 72 Moore, Writing War, p. 81. 73 Although the common Japanese term for Beijing at the time was in fact Beiping, Tamura used the characters for Peking. Nancy Guy explains, ‘Following the Nationalist Revolution in 1927, the capital of the Republic of China (ROC) was moved to the Southern city of Nanjing and Beijing’s name was changed to Beiping’. See Nancy A Guy, ‘Peking Opera as “National Opera” in Taiwan: What’s in a Name?’, Asian Theatre Journal 12, no. 1 (1995): 86.

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rations were available, and Tamura’s pride at the potential of the advancing Imperial Japanese Army is palpable in the entry. Although clearly willing to give himself over to these sorts of self-indulgent musings of nostalgia, Tamura was brought back to reality by the evidence of the widespread advance of Japanese troops. This realization almost certainly operated to remind Tamura of the purpose of this journey, permitting him to indulge in the pride of a foot soldier of this expanding Empire. The final sentence of the entry above is an interesting reference to a soldier’s special rations – which might include alcohol – and also to sweets and cigarettes. These were goods that were in short supply in the homeland, but which appear to have been readily available for sale on the Tianjin platform. Such luxuries were only a fond, yet mocking, memory in the New Guinea jungle. As the convoy neared the end of its journey in China and was about to embark for the South, Tamura once more realistically recorded the bleak nature of the north-east China landscape under the title ‘Departure for the Front, 19 January’. The intensely cold North China is now in the dry season. You can’t open your eyes even in the lightest wind. It’s a dust cloud! Where the sun shines it’s fairly warm, but in the shade the biting cold pierces your skin.74

Overshadowing this chronicling of the bleak surroundings and the frigid weather with its biting wind is Tamura’s sense of foreboding concerning the obvious inadequacy of preparation given to the troops on their way to the Southern battlefield, a deficiency that unsettled the more seasoned among the men. We arrived here late last night and concentrated totally on the preparations for departure. The regimental soldiers nagged us ‘this isn’t sufficient’, ‘that is useless’. This upset and agitated the long serving brave warriors who were on their second tour of duty. […] Today, the day of the departure ceremony, is again clear and there’s no rain. Luckily there is only a slight wind. On this warm spring-like day we leave the billeting camp and head for the departure ceremony.75

While there is mention of the relatively calm air, more favourable weather resembling spring, and the formalities of departure, the general impression 74 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 55. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943. 75 Ibid.

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of the entry is one of deep anxiety and unrest and a foreboding of the complete lack of suitable amenities once Tamura, as one of the ‘long-serving brave warriors’ on his second tour of duty, arrived in New Guinea. Tamura continued, however, with a rousing account of aspects of the ceremony held in Asia to bid the men farewell. Everyone made this into today’s departure ceremony. Our squads advanced, crisscrossing the wide plains which had no highways. Thousands upon thousands, our country’s might in fine array, Neighing of horses, rumble of vehicles, The young men gathered under the great flag of Japan, in clouds of dust, the bright beating of the drums and our battle colours. On the north China plain, dazzling in the sunlight, advancing in glittering splendour, truly men, under the battle colours, ready to die, five thousand stalwart youth!76

In spite of the weather and circumstances making for a bleak ceremony to mark the unit’s departure from China, Tamura fills the page with immense praise for the young men who were embarking on an ostensibly glorious mission. There was no pathos in this remote parade-ground; only the vision of ‘f ive thousand stalwart youth’ proudly displaying their battle colours in the dazzling sunlight. Tamura enthusiastically asserts that these young men marching across this desolate and dusty plain in time to the rousing drumbeats were the ‘glittering splendour’ of Japan. Again, the powerful language of the kokutai ideology enabled Tamura to empower himself to deal with the highly abnormal circumstances in which he finds himself.77 Aligning himself as one of ‘the long serving brave warriors’, his reflection on the memory of the thousands of soldiers representing the might and power of the Empire offered momentary reassurance in the tropical setting where there was little evidence of this might and power and every suggestion that death and defeat would be the outcome of the Southern campaign. Tamura’s memories had the potential to ‘control [him], overwhelm [him], even poison [him]. Or […could] save [him] from confusion and

76 Ibid., p. 56. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943. 77 Eagleton, Ideology, p. 223.

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despair.’78 His tactic of re-creating and perhaps re-imagining these events potentially provided the catalyst for Tamura to cope with the challenges of his current landscape, so he could continue to ‘live with it well’.79 Tamura’s idealized michiyuki through Japan begins with curative and comforting memories of his beloved home country. His filleted and selective recording of his journey through Korea and North China served to bolster the ideological reassurance that he was still part of a glorious Imperial mission.

Letters Contact with the homeland represented by family and friends is a source of comfort for those subjected to diaspora. The lack of incoming mail did not deter Tamura from attempting to maintain some form of interaction with the world beyond the confines of the battlefield. In his diary, Tamura diligently recorded letters that he wrote to his brother and also to a friend. As we have seen, Japanese soldiers were highly discouraged from keeping anything secret from the authorities, and that included the diaries and letters that were written. We note that Strict censorship regulations applied, and men were limited in what they could say. Thus they were prevented from saying anything about their location, the weather, the heat, B17s and the need to take air-raid shelters, stealing food from the natives, indications of any possible homecoming, poor rations, and so on. They were allowed to say they were fighting south of the equator, that the enemy was weak, that the men were fighting fiercely, that they were living under the same conditions as the local residents, and that they were safe and well.80

Censorship from the outside was an everyday fact of life, and the contents of Tamura’s letters, which may or may not have been mailed home, reveal a self-censoring desire on Tamura’s part to convey a highly positive image of his tropical surrounds. Unlike other sections of his diary, where Tamura freely expressed his deeper emotions of angst and despair, these letters 78 David W. Blight, ‘The Memory Boom: Why and Why Now?’, in Memory in Mind and Culture, eds. Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 239. 79 Ibid., p. 239. 80 Richmond, The Japanese Forces in New Guinea during World War II, p. 246.

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reveal nothing of the abject wretchedness of the writer’s circumstances to the prospective reader. The first letter, recorded early in the diary, was addressed to Sadanobu, his younger brother. How are you? Are you working hard? I wonder if you are shivering in the cold. If you are, why don’t you come over this way? You would not want to stay long because it’s hot. How have you been back home? I am well. I swam in the sea on the Emperor’s Day. I would like to send you lots of coconuts through my dreams. So many that you could eat as much as you want and still not finish. I wonder if they will arrive home safely. You will be able to keep them in a basket by your bedside. I will write to you about interesting things later. To my dear younger brother From your older brother.81

This letter, revealing in its simplicity and written with the relatively optimistic tone of Tamura’s early days in New Guinea, seems on the surface to be an example of the mere chronicling of events and thoughts. It gives Sadanobu no realistic description of Tamura’s surroundings other than the mention of the paradise-like sea and coconuts. He also offered ‘more interesting things’ in future correspondence, and yet, as we have seen, he was in fact at pains to find anything remotely interesting about this place. Assuming that the letter is a direct copy of material that Tamura at least intended to mail to his family, as we have noted, the censorship regulations that operated at the time, particularly those comments that that were in any way disparaging, account to some extent for the light-hearted voice of the writer. Tamura made only scant reference to New Guinea locales in his diary, which conforms with the notion of censorship, yet he certainly had no hesitation in other diary entries in castigating the behaviour of senior officers or bemoaning the dire circumstances, lack of food, and inferior equipment with which he had to endeavour to exist. In this letter he hints only at the searing heat being somewhere Sadanobu would not want to stay too long, but otherwise the letter depicts a balmy place where it is possible to swim in the sea, something impossible in Tamura’s home locale. The letter also misleads the younger brother with a reference to an oversupply of food, albeit coconuts, which would have been largely exotic and unattainable to 81 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 15 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written sometime between 6 March and 1 April 1943 but dated 12 February.

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Sadanobu. Tamura was, by his brother’s account, a doting elder sibling, and it is conceivable that he embellished this letter to his much younger brother in order to conceal the dire details of his actual circumstances given that soldiers were particularly mindful of ensuring that family members were spared the horrors of the battlefield.82 What is of particular interest here is the fact that Tamura took the time and the space to record the letter in his diary at all. One possible explanation is the desire for those at home to know, on his demise, that they were prominent in his thoughts. Perhaps, though writing this letter in his diary assisted in filling the void created by no news from home. His unyielding desire in this respect was expressed as follows: It’s the 5th of April, three months since I enlisted, but not one piece of news has arrived. I want the fragrance of home. Why can’t they even send a message just saying they are well?83

The reference to home in soldiers’ letters from the front could be seen as a much stronger sense of longing for home, and Japanese Imperial Army troops were not the only military personnel to experience this longing. In the diary extract above, Tamura equated receiving news from home with the familiar aromas of his native soil. American diarist Sy Kahn expressed a similar response. Yesterday I received a package from home, containing four civilian shirts and socks. They made a familiar sight, and they smelled of cedar from lying in my bureau for so long. It was the most beautiful perfume I ever hope to smell, it was the smell of home.84

In the case of Kahn, the smell of home was an actual reality embodied in goods received. Tamura, however, could only re-create that aroma – in this case by drawing on his powers of imagination. Later in the diary he alludes to the aroma of home available to him in a keepsake given by one who would seem to have been a close personal relationship when he writes ‘The only fragrance of home sent me, I take out a memento of you’.85 82 Kano Masanao, ‘The Signif icance of Military Mail for the Soldier’, in Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan kenkyū hōkoku (Chiba-ken Sakura-shi: Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan, 2003), p. 60. 83 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 24. Written 5 April 1943. 84 Kahn, Between Tedium and Terror, p. 183. 85 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 62. Written 13 April 1943.

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The only other letters written by Tamura and intended for recipients in Japan were addressed to a friend named Eiji. Although the first began with news of the tropics, this piece, too, soon turned to musings of home. Dear Eiji How are you? I think we are in the rainy season here and experiencing continuous rain day after day. We have sown some canola seeds in front of our tents because we were craving fresh vegetables. The stems shot up, and there are two little leaves on the top. We cannot grow Japanese vegetables in this area. Many soldiers were very disappointed. It must be spring now in Japan. I can imagine the fresh green grass in the countryside, bright with the flowers of Chinese milk vetch and canola. We had intended to train ourselves by climbing mountains. You must be climbing without me now, as I was called up for military service. I remember you had cause for celebration in February. What is your beautiful wife’s name? I am sorry I could not send my best wishes in time. After we landed here, I have been extremely busy every day. That was why I did not have time to write to you. Please send my best regards to everybody. If one likes the unusual, there are many unusual things to see in this area. At the same time, one could say there is not much to see here. However, you would enjoy it here as you like climbing. I wish good health and happiness for you and your wife. Regards To my friend Eiji From Yoshikazu.86

In this letter, Tamura is more revealing and accurate about the circumstances of his locale, and he vividly contrasts his alien environment – which failed to support the familiar canola crop so pervasive at home – with the lush, fertile, nourishing environment of Japan. There is a glossing over of his circumstances. The difficulties of his life are hidden in the descriptions of the incessant rain being the ‘rainy season’ and the chronicling of his daily life as ‘extremely busy’. The surrounds are only denoted as ‘unusual’ and the mountains as imminently ‘climbable’. While there is a definite enhancement of the favourable aspects of New Guinea, Tamura nonetheless alludes to

86 Ibid., p. 65 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 13 April 1943 but dated 12 April.

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his deep desire for the food and nurture of home, with references to the vegetables of the homeland and the lush surroundings of springtime in Japan. Recollections of walking in the mountains heartened Tamura, even more so when he could draw a friend into the situation. In this unknowably alien environment, the surroundings were so ‘unusual’ that it was almost as if there was ‘not much to see at all’. Nevertheless, given Tamura’s affinity with mountains, it was perhaps to be expected that there was a sense of relief in comparing the New Guinea mountains favourably with the familiar sights of home. Tamura’s home environment was surrounded by mountains. While to the south west, Mt Fuji was visible from the Tamura farm on a clear day, closer to home were Mt Tsukuba and Nikko’s Renzan Omote ranges. Notable is the fact that the letters written to those who can be assumed to be actual people in Tamura’s life are limited to his brother and his ‘friend’ Eiji, which brings into question the number of friendships Tamura had experienced in his homeland.87 A second letter to Eiji leaves the poignant impression that Tamura’s relationship with the addressee is, in fact, quite limited. Nevertheless, in this correspondence, too, Tamura creates a sense of familiarity through reference to a shared love of mountains. Dear Eiji It’s been such a long while I suspect you have probably forgotten me by now. I got called up. Please accept my apologies. How are you all? I hope you are well. Is your child going to school? I’ve even forgotten how old he is. This place at the very South is really a backwoods. Only a few natives live here, otherwise there’s no-one. Coconuts and bananas are unexpectedly scarce. The only specialty of this Southern land is just mountains and it’s a life that hasn’t anything particularly usual or unusual about it. Luckily, we are carrying on undaunted. Greetings to all Yoshikazu88

Although he had been absent for less than a year, the impression from the letter is that Tamura had spent an incredibly long time in the South. Above all, a disconnection with this past, seemingly fleeting friendship combined

87 It is also possible that there were two friends who shared the name Eiji. 88 Ibid., p. 99 (translated by Keiko Tamura).Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. Of note is the fact that Tamura used two different character combinations for his name in each letter to this friend, both of which can be read as Yoshikazu.

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with a deep sense of loneliness, loss, and longing pervade the letter. Tamura is deceptive in suggesting that he is ‘carrying on undaunted’. Eiji, it would appear, had gone on to live a fulfilled life. Thirty pages separate the two letters in the diary, and in the short intervening time of about one month Tamura’s mood had changed. He was more willing now to express his growing disdain for the ‘backwoods’ where he had been installed, while struggling to find a connection to the familiar which would keep his dwindling friendship with Eiji alive. Tamura worried that his friend had possibly forgotten him, not surprisingly, given what appears to have been the tenuous nature of their relationship. The one thing that kept them tied in some sort of rapport was the grandeur of the mountains, a physical tie to the homeland and the glory of Imperial Japan. The shared love of mountains permitted a memory of friendship in a document in which there was a desolate absence of close and consoling human relationships.

Image 1 Dumpu, New Guinea. One of four Japanese prisoners of war captured awaiting interrogation at Headquarters, Australian 11th Division. April 19, 1944

Image 2 Dumpu, New Guinea. A Japanese prisoner of war is brought to Headquarters, 21st Australian Infantry Brigade. October 5, 1943

Image 3 Dumpu, New Guinea. One of four Japanese prisoners of war awaiting interrogation by Intelligence Officers at Headquarters, Australian 11th Division. April 19, 1944

Image 4 Aitape area, North East New Guinea. Four naked Japanese prisoners of war crouch on the ground after capture by American forces. Circa April 1944

Image 5 New Guinea. Japanese prisoner of war, too weak to keep up with the retreating army, was abandoned by his comrades. January 14, 1944

Image 6 New Guinea. A Japanese prisoner of war captured on New Britain, Private Nishimura from a sketch by Douglas Watson, 1944

Image 7 Sanananda, Papua. Japanese prisoner of war has a cigarette rolled by his Australian soldier captor. 1943

Image 8 Kumbarum, New Guinea. Wounded Japanese prisoner of war has a cigarette lit while waiting on a stretcher at a mobile surgical team headquarters. December, 1943

Image 9 New Guinea. A Japanese prisoner of war is stretchered to the operating theatre by Australian soldiers. December 1943

Image 10 Dumpu, New Guinea. A Japanese prisoner of war has a cigarette lit for him by an Australian soldier at Headquarters, 21st Australian Infantry Brigade. October 10, 1943

Map 1 Tamura’s Journey to the New Guinea Warzone (see Chapter Two “The Black Current: Kuroshio”) (see Chapter Eight “The Ocean as a Facilitator to a Noble Death”)

Map 2 The New Guinea Warzone (see Chapters Four, Five and Epilogue)

Map 3 Tamura’s home prefecture (see Chapter Two “An Extraordinary Diary of an Ordinary Soldier”)

7

Re-creating an Emotionally Accommodating Landscape

Setting It Right An ‘exiled’ existence is also often eased by the ability to physically recreate healing aspects of the ‘home’ environment such as shelter, gardens, clothing, and food. In fact, diasporic studies have shown that displacement frequently produces the need to reconstruct a familiar environment, be that landscape, amenities, belief systems, language, or lifestyle. Displacement means that ‘[…] the keywords that have organised the fields of diaspora and transnational studies thus far have involved historically charged terms (i.e. nation, nationalism, ethnicity, culture, politics, economics, society, space, place, homeland, home, narrative, representation, alienation, nostalgia, and all their cognates […])’.1 Those that move to another landscape that is completely different to their homeland often live in opposition to their new landscape. That is, they continue the traits and life choices that were relevant to their previous existence. Their way of dealing with their acquired landscape means that the landscape will be seen by them through different eyes than those who were the original inhabitants, and the landscape will also serve to change them from the people they were from whence they came. As time goes on, and the next generations evolve, their descendants do not totally assimilate to the new environment, but rather bring to it their own style and stamp of existence. In this way, the ‘landscape forms the soul, but the soul also forms the landscape’.2 We see, then, that in order to exist outside the ancestral homeland, the new environment is often reconfigured or replicated so that it remains nostalgically closer to that which has been left behind. Often, that replication will require the re-creation of amenities and environment that are more in keeping with Heimlich landscape. Food also plays an important role for those who have been supplanted in a new and extraneous location. However, for the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army, lacking in the quotidian elements of a familiar life, re-creation of anything resembling the homeland was impossible. Likewise, acting like a second generation who manipulated the landscape to suit their emotional needs was equally 1 Quayson and Daswani, eds., A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, p. 3. 2 Mosse, Nazi Culture, section titled ‘Racial Soul, Landscape, and World Domination’, p. 69.

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unattainable. Seeing the landscape through the ‘eyes’ of the homeland to extricate ‘exactly such at-homeness’ may have been a possible strategy to acclimatize better in difficult and very different surroundings.3

Nature: Controller or Controlled The media of Japan had created a romanticized image of the tropical islands where their soldiers were fighting for the homeland, and while this was in direct contrast to the land they knew and loved, it provided a vision of a kind of paradise. However, arriving on the shores of New Guinea, Tamura soon realized that this was no paradise, nor did it offer any sense of ‘at homeness’ but was rather a living hell. Soldiers were, in fact, not only out of familiar landscape but in a landscape so remote from anything they could possibly have anticipated. The ‘familiar’ for soldiers was not only food, shelter, and media but also the landscape, the climate, and the sylvan nature of the innately Japanese concept of furusato, a Heimlich landscape that was represented by forests and mountains, rice fields, babbling brooks, and thatched roofed farm houses – a kind of ‘rustic simplicity’. 4 In order to reconcile the alien landscape of New Guinea, Tamura attempted to find meaning within it in his own cultural terms, resisting the fall of becoming a ‘being out of place’.5 Watsuji Tetsurō affirmed that the individual must be able to become ‘part of the objective world of nature; [that is] the self [must] absorb the outer world into itself’.6 Rather than finding 3 Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, p. 97. 4 Jennifer Robertson, ‘Furusato Japan: The Culture of Politics and Nostalgia’, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 1, no. 4 (June 1988): 494. Furusato literally means hometown or native place, but, in my usage, has deeper connotations of rustic simplicity and a sylvan lifestyle in a Japanese context. 5 Bronwyn Davies, (In)scribing Body/Landscape Relations (Walnut Creek, Lanham, New York, Oxford: Altamira Press, 2000), p. 54. Epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot, who studied Japanese diaspora in Hawaii and California in the 1960s, saw that there was a marked difference in health outcomes for those Japanese who were able to live within the very structured ‘Japanese’ society without trying to assimilate totally to an American societal model. He argued that ‘part of the reason for the low rate of heart disease in Japan was that Japanese culture had stress-reducing devices: the cohesion of Japanese culture, the fact that it’s well organized, it’s not a culture in great flux, people know where they are and their position in the hierarchy and so on’. This meant overall for those in diaspora, ‘the degree to which people are able to live in society groups with which they’re comfortable seems to have a powerful influence on their health’. Michael Marmot, ‘Is Inequality Making Us Sick?’, Unnatural Causes, https://www.unnaturalcauses.org/ assets/uploads/file/MichaelMarmot.pdf 6 Lebra, ‘Self in Japanese Culture’, p. 113.

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conflict in his new and difficult environment, Tamura attempted to ‘reframe and redispose’ the more challenging aspects, thereby reproducing a climate and landscape that was in reality ‘lacking to him’.7 For Tamura, nature was, in fact, ‘saturated with desire’, so much so that he devoted a considerable amount of his diary to reconciling himself to his new environment.8 Tamura’s relationship with the unfamiliar and hostile environment of New Guinea presented the diarist with the binary of controlled and controller. Since it was impossible for Tamura to re-imagine the inescapable physical impact of the incessant rain and stifling humidity, or the deprivation associated with illness and lack of food, these elements of the environment became his controller. Tamura’s attempts to ‘absorb’ his current physical world were assisted by envisioning them in terms of that which was already known to him rather than by resisting the total ‘alien-ness’ of what was now his ‘home’, allowing him to be empowered as the ‘controller’ of his natural landscape. There is some foundation to his reactions and the way in which he dealt with his new environment. According to the philosophy of Watsuji Tetsurō, ‘the totality to which a person belongs is circumscribed in terms not only of historical, political, and sociological factors, but also climatic, geographic, and ethnographic specificities’.9 As a person whose ‘totality’ was grounded in his role as an Imperial Army soldier and also in his role as a member of the community of Imperial Japan, Tamura strove to maintain some sense of connection to the ‘climatic, geographic and other ethnographic specificities’ of the Emperor’s homeland. Watsuji believed that Japan had a unique fudō, a word that can be interpreted as ‘climate’, ‘landscape’, ‘environment’. This uniqueness was enhanced by ‘the unpredictability of typhoons and monsoonal floods […] the regularity of the seasons’, and it was this that had ‘created a distinctive and complex sensitivity to nature, vividly represented in Japanese art, architecture, and literature’.10 In fact, our understanding of ourselves in climate is also one that has a historical aspect, given that it has been accepted as part of our framework of life and living since times long past, meaning that our understanding of climate and seasonal changes is, in fact, inherent, intrinsic, and historical. Cultural habits are also influenced by the climate of one’s birthplace and 7 Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 110. 8 Davies, (In)scribing Body/Landscape Relations, p. 13. 9 Naoki Sakai, ‘Return to the West/Return to the East: Watsuji Tetsurō’s Anthropology and Discussions of Authenticity’, Japan in the World: Duke University Press 18, no. 3 (1991): 176. 10 Morris-Suzuki, Re-inventing Japan, p. 57.

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the seasonal practices that occur because of that climate.11 Climatic seasonal changes were part of the accepted cultural landscape of the Japanese psyche.

Autumn as a Seasonal Anchor In the opening entry of the diary, Tamura wrote about his early attempts to engage with and make sense of his environment. We appreciated coconuts when they were still novel to us. In the autumn sunshine, mayflies12 are flying here and there. The night in the land of everlasting summer is long, as fireflies flit across the darkness.13

Wewak has no seasonal change – just wet and not so wet. While there was an initial novelty in coconuts for Tamura and a sense of recognition of the ubiquitous autumn-based mayfly (or dragonfly), the reference to ‘autumn sunshine’ in the ‘land of everlasting summer’ nevertheless elicits the cognitive uncertainty precipitated by this contrast to that which was previously experienced. Tamura’s challenge was to interpret the physical stimuli that invaded his senses by engaging in terms of that which was known and familiar to him.14 In Japan, of course, the dragonfly appears in late summer/autumn, and the sight of the dragonflies flitting about made Tamura mistakenly feel that it was autumn in New Guinea too. The appearance of the well-known fireflies made the long nights of New Guinea less daunting. The trope of autumn is often saturated with the cultural melancholy associated with this season. In the following poem, for example, the image of falling leaves is used to express sorrow and loneliness. The sound of the falling leaves is lonely in my sickroom, here on the front, I long for autumn at home.15 11 Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p. 202. 12 Keiko Tamura uses mayfly here, also more commonly called dragonfly. She renders these verses in one line while the original is in two lines. 13 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 2 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written sometime between 22 February and 6 March 1943. 14 Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch, eds., Memory in Mind and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 29. 15 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 77. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943.

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In this passage, Tamura alluded to ancient Japanese references to autumn as a season of melancholy. Thus, even when expressing despondency, traditional autumnal references were used to identify and label emotions in recognizable cultural terms. Literary commentator Ōnishi Yoshinori (1888-1959) identified this process as the ‘“fragility” of Being’, that is, a tendency to find comfort in the ‘“sorrowful nature of the world”’.16 As evidence, Ōnishi offers the following verse by Buson There is also happiness [sabishisa no ureshiki mo ari] In loneliness, at autumn dusk [Aki no kure]17

In enabling this sorrow to be experienced in an objective position, there is a kind of liberation from the actuality and reality of the sorrow experienced. Autumn continued to provide scope for this objectification for Tamura. Autumn The bone-dry leaves rustle, autumn’s depths. The dragonflies are high in the blue sky, autumn’s end. Insects call the sentry standing in the moonlight, the voice of autumn visiting for one night the land of everlasting summer.18

The onset of autumn in Japan is also a welcome relief from the scorching summer days, and the imagery used by Tamura alludes to the seasons in the homeland; to mid-autumn and the falling of leaves, then to the end of autumn with the appearance of the dragonfly in a clear blue sky. Yet, as was all too clear to Tamura, this was only an illusion in this land of everlasting summer. We are reminded, though, that this was indeed a warzone when Tamura again referenced the solitary figure of the sentry. In the passage below, in spite of the unchanging nature of the tropical locale, what was likely to have been a mild drop in temperature inspired Tamura to attribute a ‘sentimental’ homeland-like autumnal ‘melancholy’ to the New Guinea surroundings. It’s autumn, and the tops of the palm trees are rustling. Until just a few days ago it was summer, and suddenly it’s cool like the middle of autumn. 16 As quoted in Michele Marra, Modern Japanese Aesthetics: A Reader (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), p. 117. 17 Ibid. 18 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 108. Written between 27 May and 1 June 1943.

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The sound of the falling leaves adds a touch of pathos. Autumn in the southern land is somehow sentimental.19

While the end of May signifies the start of cooler trade winds in New Guinea, there is little variation in tropical temperatures throughout the year. And yet, regardless of the meteorological facts of his circumstances, the sound of the falling leaves evoked in Tamura a sense of autumn in Japan. It is of significance here that he used the word pathos to describe the sound of the falling leaves. This pathos is also associated with the concept of mono no aware [the pathos of things], and scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) recognized the power of nature to evoke these feelings – in this case, grief and sorrow at the falling leaves.20 The merging of autumnal-inspired falling leaves and summer crickets is not the only example of the discordant overlay of seasonal imagery found in the diary. In the poem below, the call of a native bird of New Guinea evokes an association with the advent of summer in Tamura’s Tochigi Prefecture hometown. In the faraway Southern land, there was a cheering nostalgia associated with the prospect of summer, yet paradoxically there was a sense of hurtling headlong into autumn. As if singing an ancient happy song, the call of the native bird suddenly seems to grow livelier. It is like the coming of summer at home. But this tropical island seems to be rushing towards autumn.21

Nature became the provider of the ‘ancient, happy songs’, reminding Tamura of the advent of the Japanese summer, which in peacetime would have been a splendid time with its festivities, happy events, and holidays. Other seasonal markers are also invoked. Pampas grass, prized in Japan as one of the seven grasses of autumn, was a common sight in the New Guinea highlands. In Japan, it was appreciated for its white flowers and, when dried, was traditionally used for thatching roofs. Tamura was elated to discover

19 Ibid., p. 107. Written between 27 May and 1 June 1943. 20 It is of significance here that he uses the word ‘pathos’ [aishū] to describe the sound of the falling leaves. The first character in the word pathos means to pity or feel compassion, and the second is again the character for melancholy which includes the kanji for autumn and heart. For more on mono no aware [the pathos of things], see also Morris-Suzuki, Re-inventing Japan, p. 48. 21 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 107. Written between 27 May and 1 June 1943.

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this natural element which did not need to be re-created to provide a direct reminder of the homeland. Like in early autumn, the pampas grass sways. It’s mountain tramping in May! I guess May is autumn in this strange land. I ate banana and papaya too.22

Mountain tramping in May in Japan would have been impossible due to the rainy season there. This activity usually takes place between late August and early November, coinciding with the onset of autumn. Occasionally, when Tamura’s unit moved to the mountains, references to autumn may, in fact, have represented the climatic conditions experienced. The verse below, for example, appears in a section of the diary headed ‘Transporting Food and Supplies’. Here, the combination of cool air and the sight of the tall, swaying pampas grass elicited a cry of recognition from the diary writer. 4 May The rain has cleared in the high country. The tall pampas grass is moving in the wind. It’s autumn! When I deeply inhale the cool air the hardship of marching through the mountains seems worthwhile.23

Undoubtedly, conditions at higher altitudes were less demanding, and like the experience of ‘breath[ing] in the evening cool’ during the overbearing heat of summer, there was a sense of relief in the milder external conditions experienced as a foil to the difficulty of the mountain climb.24

Mountains as Redemption As noted, the title of the section of the diary discussed above is ‘Transporting Food and Supplies’, an unremarkable label for what must have been the enormous difficulty of a trek hauling heavy materials across a mountain range where road construction was minimal if it existed at all. This is particularly evident when we note that, for Australian soldiers, ‘man-packing’ was the regular method of transporting goods and supplies, and this was 22 Ibid., p. 92 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943. 23 Ibid., p. 93 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 4 May 1943. 24 Augustin Berque, Japan: Nature, Artifice and Japanese Culture, trans. Ros Schwartz (Northamptonshire: Pilkington Press, 1997), p. 29. Berque notes the relief when one is able to ‘breathe in the evening cool’ during the overbearing heat of summer.

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frequently for five miles, carrying a 20-kilogram pack.25 Peter Ryan, an Australian reconnaissance soldier in New Guinea, asserted that these heavy packs ‘chafed and cut, made our backs ache, and several times caused an overbalance down a precipice’. Such was the enormity of the weight and the toil of the task, the men ‘put on [their] best boots and threw the others away and abandoned most of [their] food’.26 Ryan also observed that ‘headaches, faintness, giddiness and attacks of nose-bleeds plagued us all’.27 Similarly, a Japanese soldier recorded that: One part of the troops crawled up and scaled the mountains and continued its advance. Troops are covered with dirt and sweat so much that it is difficult to tell one man from another. […] The jungle is beyond description. Thirsty for water, stomach empty. The pack on the back is heavy. My arm is numb like a stick. My neck and back hurt when I wipe them with a cloth. No matter how much I wipe, the sweat still pours out and falls down like crystals. Even when all the water in your body has evaporated, the sun of the southern country has no mercy on you. The soldiers grit their teeth and continue advancing, quiet like mummies. […] We reach for canteens on our hips from force of habit, but they do not contain a drop of water. Yet the men still believe in miracles. The fierce sun makes them sleepy. The weeds and trees are snatching a peaceful sleep under the burning sun. The sound of the enemy planes and our marching seem to lull us to sleep. The men sleep while they walk and sometimes bump into trees. Enemy planes fly over the jungle and repeatedly attack.28

These excerpts paint a vivid picture of hardship, and yet, absurdly, as we saw in the extract above, merely breathing in the autumnal atmosphere of this scenery made the hardship meaningful for Tamura. If Tamura had a deep-seated love of mountains in general, as we have seen, Mt Fuji had a special place in his consciousness. As a symbol of the uniqueness of Japan depicted in the kokutai, Mt Fuji is a mythical representation of courage.29 When Tamura despondently questioned both his role in society and his station within the army, a picture of Mt Fuji that was circulated among the troops during a sea voyage on a hot, cramped troop ship in the 25 See Richmond, The Japanese Forces in New Guinea during World War II, p. 205. 26 Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet, p. 253. 27 Ibid., p. 255. 28 As quoted in Bergerud, Touched with Fire, p. 141. 29 Berque, Japan: Nature, Artifice and Japanese Culture, p. 67. Berque notes that the form of Mt Fuji was believed to be of hands joined in prayer: ‘Mount Fuji eternally pray for the Japanese’.

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South made his heart, and the hearts of his comrades, brim with resolve. He recorded looking at the image while resting after a period of prolonged work, presumably being transported to another area of work. For the first time in a long while we took a much-needed rest. The new songbook Imperial Shield circulated by the military comforted our hearts as we gazed absorbedly at the picture of Mt Fuji. In the hot ship, no matter how often we looked at it our hearts burned with resolve.30

This entry came soon after Tamura had expressed anguish and vexation at the unfairness of his lowly standing in both society and the army. Ahh, why have I had such a miserable fate? Because of my lack of knowledge since birth, I have not been able to overcome a whole series of obstacles and have fallen behind. If my parents had taught me to strive more, maybe I could have done much better. Becoming a soldier, I am so mindful of people’s ranks. If I return alive, I’m going to make it!31

In this entry he gives a glimpse of his burning desire to return alive to Japan to enable him to undo what he saw as the wrongdoings of his past.32 Focusing on the image of Mt Fuji – that iconic mountain ‘understood to reach into the realm of transcendency’ – provided Tamura with an opportunity to return to a sense of the majestic nature of Japan and seemed to serve to revive his spirits.33 We remember also Tamura’s awe at the sight of Mt Fuji on his train journey through the homeland on his way to the front.34 On the basis of his wholehearted acceptance of the grandeur of Mt Fuji as the supreme kokutai icon, Tamura was able throughout his diary to re-imagine the local mountains as places of spirituality, nobility, courage, and solace and to thereby gain a sense of strong resolve. Tamura wrote a lengthy seven-page entry – one of the longest single entries in the diary – under the title ‘Memories’ on 5 June Shōwa 17 July 5 Record of my impressions of our Mt Fuji climb as I remember them at the burial ground at the New Guinea front. 30 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 124. Written between 13 and 22 June 1943. 31 Ibid., p. 121. Written between 5 and 13 June 1943. 32 This aspect is discussed in detail in Chapter 9. 33 Peter Ackermann, ‘The Four Seasons: One of Japanese Culture’s Most Central Concepts’, in Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives, eds. Pamela Asquith and Arne Kalland, Man and Nature in Asia (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997), p. 47. 34 See ‘Travel in the Homeland’ in Chapter 6.

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Dozing in the train to keep us fresh for the hard mountain climb, we were woken by a sudden screech. Passengers were beginning to scurry off the train. We had reached our destination! When we came out of the Yoshida platform, it suddenly grew cooler. Ah, here we are, on the mountain! At the tea shop Fujimi in front of the plaza, preparation was underway for the climb. Twelve people per group, it was an enjoyable way to spend a day off. Everyone was trying to get hold of the same kind of walking cane for the climb. There were people buying straw sandals, people trying to get hold of umbrellas. Pernickety people were hunting for souvenirs. However, most stalls were shut by 1 pm. We headed for the mountain.35

Recorded in what he termed the burial ground of the warzone, this memory of a joyous young man on a much-loved pastime on a day off was of a better time, a better place, and an infinitely more pleasurable experience than his current existence. Young folk with the same purpose were milling about in the dead of night. Which way? Which way? The crowd headed off in what they thought was the right direction, carefree and cheerful. Being a famous spot, the tea shops were open even in the middle of the night. However, every shop was deserted, with the merchandise in total disarray.36

Apart from a brief reference to ‘deserted shops’ and ‘merchandise in disarray’– presumably implying that, due to the war effort, customers were few and retailers preoccupied with issues of national importance that prevented them from organizing their stock – there was little in Tamura’s recollections to suggest that the excursion occurred during a time of war.37 On the contrary, the tale of the Mt Fuji climb is one of unbridled joy and enthusiasm, of young people full of energy and joie de vivre. The account of this mountain climb is in direct contrast to Tamura’s life at the time of this diary entry, in which uncertainty was deeply rooted in his quotidian experience. For the young people on the climb, there was no structure; there were no rules, no obligations, and no threat of death. Tamura noted 35 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 115. Written on 5 June 1943. Tamura devoted five pages of his diary to reminiscing about the mountain climb of Mt Fuji with work colleagues. Ibid., pp. 115-120. The date of the climb is recorded as 5 July 1942. 36 Ibid., p. 116. Written 5 June 1943. 37 Ibid.

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that ‘we visited the Sengen shrine to say a prayer. We got a carved seal on our walking sticks. This was supposed to give us good luck on our climb so that we wouldn’t give up halfway’.38 This positive luck, of course, was in enormous contrast to the bitter fate upon which Tamura now had to rely in New Guinea. His climb to Fuji’s summit, a purely personal, indulgent endeavour, was assisted by the talisman of the carved walking stick and was replete with refreshments and transport. Since there was no water further up, we drank as much water as we could, and put some in our canteens. We untied the lunch boxes we had prepared and ate. With our stomachs full, we were all fired up. We boarded the vehicles at the back of the shrine. Fifty people were crammed into a vehicle with the capacity of only twenty-five. Being packed into this vehicle like sardines was a bit of a novelty, and we didn’t fall even though we didn’t hold on to anything. ‘What the […]’ someone burst out, and all at once it became lively. The women couldn’t stop laughing.39

When Tamura’s friend Watanabe ‘jokingly [recited] the [Buddhist] Purification of the Six Roots of Perception’, 40 all in the group ‘roar with laughter’. 41 The whole scene was portrayed as one of delight and merriment, contrasting markedly with the desperate struggle and personal loneliness of the warzone. During this trek on Mt Fuji, the group stopped to take a meal together. Such a memory of being fully supplied with water for the climb and the luxury of having a pre-organized lunch box resulting in a full stomach was anathema to Tamura’s situation in New Guinea. Even the uncomfortable inconvenience of an over-packed vehicle is described by Tamura as a ‘bit

38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 The Six Roots of Perception under Buddhist doctrine are the Eyes (seeing), the Ears (hearing), the Nose (smelling), the Tongue (tasting), the Body (feeling), and the Mind (thinking). These lead to visual sense (sight or vision); auditory sense (hearing or audition); olfactory sense (smell or olfaction); gustatory sense (taste or gustation); cutaneous sense (touch or tactition); and perception (balance). The doctrine is as follows: The eyes see many kinds of dirt, but the mind/heart does not see any. The nose smells many kinds of dirt, but the mind/heart does not smell any. The mouth talks many kinds of dirt, but the mind/heart does not talk any. The body touches many kinds of dirt, but the mind/heart does not touch any. The mind thinks many kinds of dirt, but the mind/heart does not think any. 41 Tamura, , Jūgun techō, p. 117. Written 5 June 1943.

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of a novelty’, with the women on board with him laughing happily at the awkwardness. The f irst timers were over-cheerful and set a cracking pace. The mountain was darkened by the thick growth of various small trees. The pathway on undoubtedly Japan’s number one mountain was superb. After the second tea house, alpine flora began to appear. The white deutzias bloomed fragrantly on the wayside. At some point we lost sight of the women who had been with us in the beginning. Dawn began to break faintly. Grouse were calling out from the trees on the ridge. Once we passed the point where it was foot traffic only [i.e. where horses could no longer pass] it started to really look like a mountain and became steep. 42

This climb was also a mammoth effort, taking most of the climbers from day into night and back out again as the dawn broke. Tamura was not only able to recreate the scenery of the mountain climb, he also confirmed a palpable camaraderie and tangible conviviality, which was missing in his descriptions of his fellow soldiers in New Guinea. First off was our group of returned soldiers, Inahashi, Ochiai, Tsurumi, and me. Going ahead gave the others following a bit of courage. Since we started to outstrip the people in front of us, someone said enviously ‘you young ones are as fit as a fiddle’. At the third station, we gasped in awe at the majestic dawn, with the rays of the rising sun shining through the pine trees. A mountain sunrise is incomparable. 43

We are here made aware of just what a robust young man Tamura was when he writes ‘since we started to outstrip the people in front of us, someone said enviously “you young ones are as f it as a f iddle”’. At the summit, after a five-hour climb, he writes that ‘we just lolled about dozing in the sunshine in front of the shops selling souvenirs’. 44 In these entries Tamura presented himself as a fit, spirited, relaxed, and happy young man climbing with other returned soldiers, possibly from the China campaign. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., p. 118. Written 5 June 1943. Tamura notes of his fellow climbers: ‘First off was our group of returned soldiers, Inahashi, Ochiai, Tsurumi and me’. Another acquaintance named Ochiai is mentioned on pages 109 and 110, but it is unclear if they represent the same person. Ochiai is discussed in the section ‘Already Dead’ in Chapter 7. 44 Ibid., p. 120. Written 5 June 1943.

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Most importantly, though, it is the splendor and grandeur of the mountain and the experience of joy that he felt at being in this place which are of significance. His mountain trekking in New Guinea provided him with the same sense of awe and excitement as his trek on Mt Fuji. Completing the entry regarding his mountain pack trek listed in the first part of this section, he wrote: I had longed to come to the high country, and finally my wish has become a reality. I feel satisfied. 45

Tamura’s simplest desire was to be among the mountains, even though in reality, the mountains represented an arduous trek. These same mountains ‘satisfied’ Tamura, elevated his mood, comforted his angst, and removed previous vexations associated with his posting to New Guinea. He expanded upon the scene of the trek into the New Guinea highlands with his fellow soldiers. White clouds floating here and there are moving slowly across the mountains. The scenery resembles a painting. The road has gone through mountain after mountain and valley after valley. When I think about the road ahead, I feel awed as if I have f inally experienced the real mountains. 46

Undaunted by the road ahead (in much the same way as he had felt about his Mt Fuji climb), Tamura appeared to relish the opportunity to undertake the trek. The adversity of his situation was not only assuaged by the beauty of the mountains but also transformed into a deeply spiritual experience, and Tamura was able to ‘purify’ the ‘potentially threatening elements of natural beauty’ by recognizing their aesthetic qualities. 47 Additionally, the strenuous trek, which took a full eight days (and possibly nights), gave him a sense of duty and value as a soldier and provided the impetus for him to reminisce about his friends from home. Soldiers who march one after another have an important responsibility. It has been three days and nights so far since the start of our journey,

45 Ibid., p. 93 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 4 May 1943. 46 Ibid. 47 Marra, Modern Japanese Aesthetics, p. 117.

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and we still have five days to go. I wish I could show these mountains to my friend who loves climbing. 48

With a short ‘twenty-minute rest’, he continued on, ‘full of high spirits’. 49 For Tamura, mountains – even mountains in an alien land – ‘welcome and succour souls in distress’.50 Elsewhere in the diary, Tamura recorded his joy at having to tramp over mountains to change base camp.51 Under the title ‘Mountain Beauty’, he wrote: Above the white clouds, Dotted with mountain peaks It feels like a mysterious world, that mountain range view!52

This mountain scenery was reminiscent of the splendour associated with his memories of Mt Fuji, and as such, was like a utopia away from the dystopia of the battleground where Tamura was ground down in the drudgery and hardship of construction and constantly at the mercy of relentless bombing attacks by the Allies. There was a freedom provided by the mountains, a release from the quagmire of war and a consoling escape backwards to a better time and place. His description of the beauty of the scenery was, however, in direct contrast to the degree of effort required for the troops to reach their destination. When I realize that we have traversed on foot this mountain and that mountain and yet another mountain, I am surprised myself at the strength of my feet. The mountains are not particularly high, but the slopes are steep.53 48 Tamura, , Jūgun techō, p. 93 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 4 May 1943. 49 Ibid. 50 Berque, Japan: Nature, Artifice and Japanese Culture, p. 66. 51 Japanese forces were running dangerously low on food supplies and ‘Determined to take some positive action against the Americans, [General Adachi, Commander of the 18th Army] ordered elements from each of his three divisions to begin the overland trek to Aitape. In early June, nearly twenty thousand men from the 20th, 41st, and the 51st Infantry Divisions undertook the arduous task of a forced march through rain-soaked jungle. It took almost a month to walk the ninety miles […] the men were required to carry everything they needed on their backs’. Duffy, War at the End of the World, pp. 307-8. 52 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 92. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943, possibly May as this month is stated in the text. 53 Ibid.

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The mountain climb was, undoubtedly, a gruelling effort. Nevertheless, for Tamura, the arduous trek paid dividends in terms of the vision of the mountains revealed. Experiencing the difficult mountain march Makes me homesick for the mountains of home. And I see the beauty of the mountains after the difficulty of the climb.54

In spite of the effort required, for Tamura, the local mountains were conquerable. They were in direct contrast to other natural phenomena with which Tamura had to grapple. Traversing mountain peaks – even in New Guinea – provided a sense of cheer in addition to instilling a strong sense of pride. Both physically and psychologically, the mountains of the warzone transported the diarist above the enclosing and isolating canopy of the jungle, a jungle that denied him the view of another well-loved aspect of nature: the moon.

The Moon as Traveller The moon was a firm and familiar companion that took the same journey as the writer and was a prominent element in the landscape of the diary. Recalling a train journey to the front in an entry entitled ‘The Moon on the Wide Plains’, Tamura noted as he traversed the barren plains of North China that ‘The plains at dusk are lonely’ and that his ‘head is filled with the racket of the train’.55 This grim scene, however, was transformed by the rising of the moon. The moon is coming out. Ah the moon is out! The moon now begins little by little to rise and the surroundings gradually become lighter. Seeing the same moon as of home from the window of the train running on the embankment, all of us are glued to the windows, overwhelmed with a longing for home. The faraway horizon grows dim.56

In this entry, the moon aroused mixed emotions. Firstly, Tamura was invigorated by the sight of the moon as it illuminated his daunting journey. It was 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., p. 58. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943 as a description of an event dated 18 January. 56 Ibid., p. 58. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943 as a description of an event dated 18 January.

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a stabilizing force that provided a sense of security and encouragement in its omnipresence. However, the sight of the moon also created a sense of loss, an overwhelming longing for the homeland. The darkening ‘faraway’ horizon represented not only Tamura’s exodus from the familiar past but also his journey towards the uncertain destiny of his future. Tamura recorded these recollections in a location where the jungle canopy and the late-afternoon cloud cover of constant rain would have frequently denied him a view of the moon.57 The moon’s presence, therefore, was often merely a remembered construct, filled with symbolism that elicited a spiritual experience far deeper than being merely physically inspired.58 While the landscape of China was inhospitable and barren, with only ‘fiercely tangled barbed wire’ to greet Tamura and his fellow soldiers, the appearance of the moon, the same moon that was seen at home, evoked a lingering homesickness for the troops who viewed its shape in the evening sky.59 While there was an underlying melancholy associated with this homesickness, there was also a sense of unity in the universal nature of the moon. He concluded: The moon lights up the plains of North China, north and south, and our destination nears. This moon resembles the moon on the night my mother sent me off. Maybe my mother’s love can reach this far.60

The wide expanse of the North China plains was illuminated by the moon, and this rising moon also brought the destination closer. Even though this was likely to be a local reference to the destination of the train journey, it paradoxically intensified the sense that the young men were being fatefully transported closer to the battlefield and all that this experience would hold in store. Most poignantly here, Tamura made a reference to his mother. The maternal image was one of the most ideologically loaded and powerful images of Japan’s militarist era, where the catch cry was ‘good wife, wise mother’ [ryōsai kenbo].61 While there were claims that soldiers at the point of death were inspired to shout tennōheika banzai [long live the Emperor], 57 American soldier Ernest Gerber wrote that ‘Whether the moon is shining or not makes no difference. It’s absolutely pitch-dark’. See Bergerud, Touched with Fire, p. 71. 58 Michael Russell Peterkin, ‘An Analysis of Landscape and Character in the Works of Japanese Author Nitta Jirō’ (University of Newcastle, 2002), p. 191. 59 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 58. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943 as a description of an event dated 18 January. 60 Ibid. Here Tamura recalls his mother on his send off to China in his first enlistment. 61 Earhart, Certain Victory, pp. 422-423.

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there were, in fact, few soldiers who actually witnessed another soldier displaying this behaviour. In fact, soldiers were more likely to call out to their mothers.62 Another soldier, Inoue Hisashi, wrote of his passionate desire to serve his country but tempered this passion with the words I hope that I too will never forget about my mother’s tender love until the final moment when I perish in some southern sea. Until the very end, then, led on by my parents’ love, I shall not forget what is in the heart of the true samurai.63

In Tamura’s diary, the pathos-filled image of the isolated soldier in the freezing conditions of Northern China gazing up at the moon and recalling the mother of the homeland and of his original call-up is here associated with a grimly ambiguous future. Written as it was in the warzone of New Guinea, there is even more poignancy at the memory of a mother sending her son off to war. Without doubt, the link between mothers and home was a foundation for debilitating homesickness. In fact, home can be a place ‘associated with mother and safety where no-one – least of all the mother herself – ever dies’.64 For Tamura, this was the only entry in the diary that mentioned his mother, who was deceased by the time of his departure for the South. His memory of her sendoff possibly alludes to his first departure for war in 1939. We are reminded here of the Lacanian theory that ‘it is an original lost object – the mother’s body – which drives forward the narrative of our lives, impelling us to pursue substitutes for this lost paradise in the endless metonymic movement of desire’.65 The moon not only evoked these homeland and mother-based memories but also provided a chance that the lost love of the mother could be transported by its light. In a later entry, it was the soft roundness of the moon that provided Tamura some solace as a contrast to the fearfulness of the setting. The round moon rose gently above the waves of the sea, and in the gathering dusk the silhouette of the coastline grew dark. With the sound of the

62 See Fujii Tadatoshi, Heitachi no sensō: tegami, nikki, taikenki o yomitoku (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 2002), p. 269. 63 Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-kai, ed., Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices from the Sea), p. 265. 64 Rubenstein, Home Matters, p. 45. 65 Eagleton, Literary Theory, p. 161.

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waves a lullaby, weary from a hard day’s toil, the men in the barracks on the beach also grew still.66

In addition to the reassuring image of the moon rising ‘gently’, the movement of the waves is yet again expressed as a rocking sound, here articulated as a lullaby that soothed the troops after one more day in an endless series of ‘hard day’s toil’. Tamura’s recollection of the journey by troop ship along the coast of New Guinea was also dominated by his memory of the moon.67 With the appearance of the rising moon, the landscape of New Guinea, like the landscape of China, became less threatening. The sea mists over faintly. It’s the full moon! The round full moon gradually emerges from the wispy clouds, its light growing brighter. No-one on board is talking. As we watch the moon emerge, the silhouette of the island grows dark. We progress along the coast, and even though there doesn’t seem to be much of a swell, we are swayed from side to side like fluttering leaves.68

There was excitement about the appearance of the full moon, perhaps eliciting memories of tsukimi or moon-viewing, a treasured activity during the autumn harvest in Japan. While the waves tossed the boat (and recognizing that many of these troop ships were the subject of strafing and bombing by the Allies), the moon steadily and constantly rose to light the way. Comfort was also derived from the fact that the moon is a fellow traveler, and regardless of the circumstances under which Tamura now existed, the

66 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 83. Written 19 April 1943. 67 Tamura’s unit moved between Wewak, Dagua, and But. His diary does not elaborate on these movements. The exact location of the troop ship is unclear, except that it was travelling along the coastline. 68 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 84. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943. As the terrain was difficult in the area, and manpower to construct roads was insufficient, the Army investigated the use of sea lanes to transport the troops. Barges were initially employed; however, they were large and very visible, which made them easy targets for enemy planes. ‘In June 1943, 90 fishing boats and motor auxiliary sailing boats were dispatched to Wewak in an effort to alleviate the transport situation […] The crews of these boats had not received any military training and were composed mainly of fishermen from the Shikoku area, even 13 and 14-year old boys accompanied their fathers and elder brothers […]’ Detwiler and Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 195.

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moon provided a link to the homeland as the same moon experienced by those at home.69 On board the ship sailing back, bathed in the moonlight, every one of us would have felt that this moon is not different from the moon at home.70

Given that it was the identical moon as observed in Japan, there was no need to re-fashion, or struggle to make sense of, this aspect of the New Guinea night sky.71 While the moon is repeatedly used to transform an alien and bewildering setting into one that is identifiable and understandable, the moon, and the starlit night sky, continued to offer a sense of comfort, even security. This is the case in a section of the diary relating to one of Tamura’s short sea trips, probably from Wewak to But or Dagua, where his unit was involved in airfield and road construction between April and June.72 Memories of my past experience of ship life came to me, as I gazed at the stars, when all at once our ship arrived at its destination.73 69 The description given here echoes the imagery of the moon given in the Tosa Nikki, the f irst example of Japan’s so-called ‘diary literature’ [nikki bungaku]. On the twentieth day of an arduous journey to the capital undertaken by Ki no Tsurayuki (872-945), the author of the classic text, the writer compared the moon viewed on that occasion with the vista of the moon in the capital: It is the same moon I saw at the mountain rim in the capital yet now it comes from the waves and into the waves retreats As quoted in Vladislav Goregliad, ‘The Space Category in Medieval Japanese Literature’, Japan Review 6 (1995): 97. 70 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 85. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943. 71 This effect operated on Tamura as it did on Abe no Nakamaro (701-770), over twelve centuries ago, who wrote from exile of the same moon of home while spending thirty years in exile in China: As I look into the vast expanse Can this be the same moon That I saw rise in Kasuga behind Mount Mikasa This poem is attached to the 64th representation of the moon by Yoshitoshi. See John Stevenson, Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2001), page numbers not present in text. See also the 45th representation of the moon (variance in translation) in Tamara Tjardes, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon: Japanese Woodblock Prints by Yoshitoshi (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2003), p. 54. 72 As noted in Chapter 2, Tamura’s unit was deployed to these three coastal areas in New Guinea. Tamura, ‘Tamura Diary Transcripts’. 73 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 85. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943.

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Tamura complemented the entry with a poem Bathed in the light of the moon, the fatigue duty soldiers return. Fatigue duty soldiers rocking in their ship in the moonlight, A troop ship of soldiers celebrating the full moon on the battlefront.74

Tamura’s juxtaposition of the pure light of the full moon and the vessel with its cargo of war-weary soldiers transformed a battlefront scene into a serene picture echoing innumerable moon tanka where the juxtaposition is ‘all the more striking in that the elements at the core of this sensation are opposites’.75 Here, those contradictions were the cleansing and purifying moon of nature and the grueling daily life of the soldiers in a merciless warzone. As we have seen, the complexity of the autumn images often expressed Tamura’s growing melancholy. This complexity works to heighten the sense of the familiar, which contradictorily was both consoling and nostalgic as is evident in the following passage evocatively titled ‘Moon’ dated 22 May. The moonlight glistens on the tips of the palm trees. In the silence bathed by the white light, the moonlight paints the tips of the palms beautifully, brilliantly white. The insects chirp, their voices so close I feel I can touch them. A peaceful, really peaceful evening! Gazing at this moon I feel emotional, as if I am seeing autumn at home. This night in the Southern land is surely autumn. The pampas grass is swaying. The insects are chirping. The sound of the flapping wings of a night bird whose name I do not know for some reason stabs at my heart. It’s half a year since I left home.76

The environment is alien, with palm trees and the unfamiliar sound of a night bird. However, yet again, the recognized signs of autumn in the sounds of the insects, the swaying autumn grasses, and the round full moon suggestive of the harvest moon of autumn reminded Tamura of home. Tamura was possibly in the high country (we noted his mountain trek earlier 74 Ibid. 75 Leopold Hanami, ‘Loosening the Links: Considering Intention in Linked Verse and Its Consequences’, in Matsuo Bashō’s Poetic Spaces: Exploring Haiku Intersections, ed. Eleanor Kerkham (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 143. 76 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 97. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943.

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in this chapter), given that he mentioned the pampas grass and the fact that he could, in fact, see the moon. Again, the vision of the moon transported him away from his current reality and its inherent unknown insects and birds back to a more favourable time and place. Ever present though it is, the moon does not always provide the desired solace of familiarity. In the extremity of his grief a few days after the death of a comrade, Tamura was beyond solace, removed from all that could console. Forgetting My Grief A night when the thoughts of the riverbanks of home do not reach me at the battlefront, even though the moon is shining.77

Although the title of the entry is about forgetting grief, the prose is filled with only melancholy and loneliness. Here the moon has lost its capacity for either consolation or nostalgia. Thoughts of even the familiar riverbanks of home are elusive and out of reach. Now, even this familiar trope of the moon has become a part of the unheimliche landscape of the battlefield and is no longer a link to home. In the next pages the moon, like Mt Fuji as observed earlier, served to purify the obscenely earthly setting of battlefield. Moonlight The battlefront is quiet with the swaying autumn grasses, The night birds call, and the moonlight is white.78

Now silent, except for the strange night bird’s cry, the midnight battlefield became a transcendently serene autumn scene, with the melancholy of the pampas grasses illuminated by the cleansing moon’s immaculate white light.

The Battlefield as Surreal Landscape The association between moonlight and the field of battle often creates a surrealistic effect in Tamura’s text. Another soldier we have cited, Wada Kiyoshi, gave a factual account of his war-time experiences, with reference to the ‘discouraging and miserable state’ of the battlefield, a place where ‘trees have fallen, limbs have been cracked and the hospital is in a horrible 77 Ibid., p. 98. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. 78 Ibid.

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state’.79 Tamura, on the other hand, chose imagery that virtually transforms the field of battle into a place of beauty. This effect is particularly apparent in his discussion of the sky and its features. Inevitably, Tamura made repeated reference to the Allied air attacks on Wewak, which occurred mainly at night, frequently waking Tamura. While his description of night raids was written with powerful action images, he ironically juxtaposed this with reference to the ‘music’ of the weaponry involved. Tamura wrote of a raid on 11 April Through the quiet of the night, we could hear the sound of a plane engine. I gradually woke up, wondering what time it was. The guard shouted, ‘air raid!’. Soon enemy planes approached above us and the searchlights lit up the sky. The anti-aircraft gunners started to open fire. The special music of the night began to play.80

Unlike Wada Kiyoshi’s disconcertingly realistic references to the horrors of the warzone, Tamura, even when under direct attack, ironically imaged these horrors in terms of calmative and familiar notions such as music. Despite the dire situation, Tamura seemed to hold no fear of the enemy attacks. He was, in fact, surprisingly nonchalant. On a sleepless night, I stayed up in my bed, thinking. I could hear the continuous anti-aircraft fire from our troops, but the attack did not have much effect on the enemy planes. They flew around two or three times and dropped bombs. When the bombs exploded with a loud bang, the ground shook. The sky lit up. It was all so close.81

Still lying in his bed, Tamura describes the air raid and ensuing fire from his comrades almost in the third person. His fascination with the allure of the attack meant that he ‘did not bother to enter the air-raid shelter but stared at the sky’. Once again, he beautifies the raid by describing the ammunition from the enemy planes and his own artillery that ‘glowed in the dark beautifully and looked like grand fireworks’.82 In the following page’s entry, where Tamura continues to describe the attack, he nonchalantly notes that ‘We have experienced many air raids since our landing. We are no longer 79 AWM ATIS CT No 28 (348), ‘Diary of Wada Kiyoshi’. 80 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 40 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 81 Ibid., p. 41 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 82 Ibid.

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surprised by them and think, “Oh, it’s just another air raid”’.83 The soldiers had become desensitized to the potential threat. Tamura continues: ‘When the enemy plane flew over us, we anticipated a direct attack and bombs to fall down. Yet, none of us got out of bed. All the soldiers were very much relaxed, and I was impressed with their boldness’. The relief at surviving such an attack is evident as he continues the entry. Finally, we felt relieved when the dawn came, and the sky began to grow light. We did not know the extent of the damage, but we could hear the morning reveille. We celebrated that we were beginning another day uninjured.84

And yet Tamura hints at the fear that was lurking beneath the bravery of his words when he follows with I believe the people back at home are really lucky as they can sleep through the night without fear.85

Further into the diary, complacency again creeps into Tamura’s reaction to enemy bombing. Miscellaneous My friend returning from hospital is well, we chat. My friend on relief duty does not return to shelter from the rain. Listening to the gossip about life in the hospital, ‘They’ve come again, have they?’ we hardly notice the enemy planes, high above us. A baptism of bombs matures a man: ‘How noisy,’ we say to the enemy night raiders and doze off again.86

The scene presented here is undoubtedly of a warzone, replete with wounded or ill soldiers, a relief duty soldier out in the pouring rain, and the constant threat of bombing raids by the Allied forces. Yet, Tamura saw only this ‘baptism of bombs’ as part of the maturation process that would make him and his fellow soldiers ‘men’. There is no hint of fear, merely frustration at the din caused by the blasts. There is a blasé and detached element as the 83 Ibid., p. 42 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. (section translated by Victoria Eaves-Young) 86 Ibid., p. 108. Written between 27 May and 1 June 1943.

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soldiers ‘doze off again’. There is a hint at the monotony that accompanied the regularity of the bombs and raids. In contrast to the monotony shown here, Tamura also continues to use highly aesthetic terms to describe the bombing attacks by the far superior enemy. The beauty of the bullets that were fired from the flying planes. They are just like fireworks soaring from the ground.87

He continues the entry with dark humour We have come far away to attack this strange land of New Guinea Where crocs crunch coconuts with a smile.88

Describing a bomb raid a few days later, Tamura again embellishes the scene by using the concept of music and ‘night serenade’ to express the sound of approaching enemy planes. The nightly serenade: interwoven the impudent Boeing’s visits and the antiaircraft guns: A regular baptism of bombs89

Tamura’s identification of the sight and sound of the bombs with nostalgic summer festive images of fireworks and music renders the battlefield compellingly surreal and at the same time familiar and enchanting. By writing about these terrifying raids in such terms, the battlefield is transformed from a dangerous, alien reality into a beautiful, exciting celebration, and the sublimation of fear into an aesthetic thrill. However, Tamura was not totally won over by the ‘imagined’ beauty of the war scenery: Today is raining, the enemy won’t come. I wrote some letters home. The fondness I let slip for my vanished youth, who would understand it?90

87 Ibid., p. 44 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid., p. 68. Written 13 April 1943. 90 Ibid.

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The rain and its role as the agent for cessation of enemy activity allowed Tamura precious time out to write to his family. Lamenting the loss of his youth, Tamura ‘let slip’ his anguish to those at home. Yet he knew that even the consoling relationship offered by family would not allow for comprehension of the way he was feeling now. The feeling of isolation and loneliness is palpable as he ends the entry In the unlit tent When I take up my gun for sentry duty the frogs exchange croaks, the fireflies flit And the southern night deepens. That’s all.91

In the darkened world in which Tamura now existed, his only company was the sound of the frogs and the light of the fireflies. The passage below is a fitting exemplar of Tamura’s use of the sky and the stars to express his profound craving for release from his present circumstances. The sky has cleared. After I don’t know how many days, I can see the stars. They shine brightly through the branches of the big trees. I can’t tell you how much I have missed those stars. It really stabs at my heart living here in the middle of the mountains. Perhaps because I’m confined to this dwelling, my yearning for the crystal clear, wide-open sky becomes all the more intense.92

The jungle, encircled as it was by his beloved mountains, is the alien landscape of conflict that created confinement to a prison-like abode and was only made bearable by Tamura turning his eyes to the astronomical phenomena. Although the melancholy of his situation was transformed into joy at the sight of the stars, familiar even here in this alien landscape, it was the wide-open sky – presumably of Japan – that Tamura longed most keenly to see. He continues Maybe because the rain has stopped, the waves seem louder. Like just before, the south eastern king tide comes in, when everyone has left the week seemed extremely long. 91 Ibid., p. 68. Written 13 April 1943. Ijō can mean ‘That’s all’, ‘The end’, ‘Over’. In this context I have chosen to translate it as ‘That’s all’. 92 Ibid., p. 73. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943.

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Since I have obeyed the imperial command this second time, I still haven’t seen the enemy. I stroke my arms and count the uncountable, In this April of flowers.93

His loneliness was exacerbated by the departure of the main body of the troops, and that emptiness was heightened by the sound of the crashing waves of the king tide. Tedium is evident in ‘counting the uncountable,’ and Tamura revealed some despair and disillusionment in his reference to ‘obeying’ the Imperial command; yet with no enemy to fight, no sense of glory was present at all. The diarist expanded the entry with a concluding reference to ‘this April of flowers’, alluding again to the splendour of springtime in Japan.94 Soon after the entry above, Tamura gave an account of the return of friendly fighter planes. There was an understandable sense of joy expressed for the fact that pilot comrades had returned to base unharmed. One plane went towards the clouds, another towards the mountains, the leading plane flew low in a huge circle dipping his wings and then after one more circuit descended to the base in the shade of the trees. The others, showing signs of fatigue from the bombing raids, waited obediently for their turn, circling once or twice over the sea and then came in. Another one descended. Like children waiting their turn cheerfully as they come home at dusk, having finished their work.95

There is a naivety and innocence to the passage relating the fighter pilots to children dutifully and eagerly returning home at the end of the day that belied the deadly missions being flown by the pilots. Tamura’s words recall the propaganda texts for children that exhorted the young subjects of the Emperor to ‘cheerfully’ do their part for the cause. Tamura expanded the entry with a reference to the response of the soldiers at the base to the sight of the aircraft that had returned safely for one more day. Everybody watched the sky, their hearts filled with gratitude, thinking, if not saying ‘well done’. You young stars! At the base that is fading into

93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., p. 87. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943.

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dusk, all the aircraft safely land, and as the sound of explosions ceased, the surroundings suddenly grew dark.96

Here Tamura expresses a sense of collective solidarity with the Imperial cause on the part of himself and his confrères. Each member of the unit worked with the same express purpose, creating a sense of community that transformed the landscape into one of belonging. In the following entry, Tamura contrasts the violence of the war-zone with the awe of the night sky and the tranquillity of the dawn From inside the mining hut we use as barracks, we see the beautifully glittering stars. The roar of an explosion shattering the dawn stillness and the chirruping of insects in the thicket out the back, both seem to be right inside this room. The chirruping insects make me feel like I have been visited by the beloved bell crickets which I used to hear on the riverbanks of home.97

The glittering stars from his refuge provide a striking visual backdrop for the roar of the explosions. The soothing sound of the bell crickets, as one of the familiar sounds of summer at home, provides a calming diversion from the overloaded reverberations of the explosions of the warzone. The juxtaposition of the mining hut as his barracks and the splendid beauty of the starlight visible from this makeshift shelter again highlights Tamura’s ability to overlay surreal and exquisite images upon the parlous state of his world. While the man-made environment may have been in disarray, nature in its beauty evoked Ōnishi Yoshinori’s ‘fragility of Being’ which, in fact, provided the writer with a momentary escape from his real-life circumstances to find beauty and fragility in his hideously unreal environment.98 June 02 It was a quiet night, the stars across the whole sky glittering brilliantly. Dozing on my restless bed, a dream of my hometown. The stars in the southern land are so beautiful. Like the sky in North China. Tonight, again there will be explosions.99

96 Ibid. 97 Ibid., p. 107. Written between 27 May and 1 June 1943. 98 As quoted in Marra, Modern Japanese Aesthetics, p. 117. 99 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 112. Written 2 June 1943.

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Here Tamura reflects on the exquisiteness of the star-filled night-time sky in both his wartime locales. Yet the appearance of stars also heralded the nightly bombing raids by the Allies. The drums rapped. Another air raid? They passed overhead and disappeared. Just as we, with relief, were settling down to sleep, two or three planes came down quite low. Here they come! In a split second there was the eerie sound of falling shells, as if glancing off the branches of the palms. Suddenly, about ten bombs in succession drop just 200 metres south of our quarters. The enemy are pretty gritty too.100

Even though this passage reveals the intensity of the nightly attacks, and the sheer luck that allowed Tamura to survive them, we find a surreal image of life under this danger as he concludes the entry with ‘The nights consist of enemy air raids which we endure in bed’.101 Tamura’s attempts to alter the timbre of his bizarre world by implanting a sense of wonder and meaning on this landscape enabled a re-creation of the warzone as something more palatable, even beautiful.

100 Ibid. 101 Ibid.

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The Grand Desire to Die for the Emperor Not only were Japanese soldiers encouraged by the military and society at large to go off to war to die on behalf of the Emperor, there was apparently an ardent desire on the part of soldiers to achieve this lofty yet morbid aim. Countless examples of soldiers aspiring a self-sacrificing death can be found in the fictional narratives of the pre-Pacific War era. Soldier authors who wrote during the battles on the China mainland expressed in passionate terms almost a craving to die. In the Russo-Japanese War tale Nikudan [Human Bullets, 1906], the author Sakurai Tadayoshi (1869-1965) refers to the determination of soldiers to ‘turn into dust’. This narrative is an account of soldiers who declare that they ‘stand ready to die!’ and who believe that ‘by these actions, the soldiers had never forgotten our desire to return the Imperial favour and beneficence with death, and death only’.1 Three decades later, in the novel Mugi to heitai [Wheat and Soldiers, 1938], Hino Ashihei (1907-1960) wrote of the protagonist’s wish to shout ‘Banzai’ at the point of death.2 This work, wildly popular at the time of its publication, also expressed the notion that soldiers were above the average human in their ability to face death. ‘Soldiers have passed beyond the banal philosophy humans hold. They have passed beyond death itself’. Taking on the persona of the protagonist of his novel, Hino himself expressed his own willingness to die when, referring to himself by one of his pennames (Kappa), he wrote, ‘Now I am ready to die, so the road for Kappa is very bright’.3 Written during the harsh censorship regime of the pre-war era, the two narratives referred to above were indisputably produced to comply with official requirements and undoubtedly served a propaganda purpose. As we have seen, much of the rhetoric surrounding death as honour was rehashed from the code of the samurai, Bushidō. Zen master and military chaplain 1 Sakurai Tadayoshi, Human Bullets, trans. Masujiro Honda (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), Chapter XX111 ‘Promotion and Farewells’. 2 Hino Ashihei, Wheat and Soldiers (Mugi to heitai), trans. Louis Bush (New York: Farra, 1939), pp. 202-3. 3 Hino Ashihei, War and Soldier (Sensō to heitai), trans. Lewis Bush (London: Putnam, 1940), p. 309. Kappa was the nickname that the author used for himself. The kappa is a mythical creature, resembling a cross between a monkey and a turtle. This creature is known for its mischievous and trouble-making nature but is also seen as the avatar of the Water Deity under Shintō. Once befriended, the kappa can be of great assistance to his human colleague.

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Seki Seisetsu (1877-1945) wrote in his work ‘The Promotion of Bushidō’ [Bushidō no Kōryō, 1942] that Bushidō was said to ‘prize military prowess and view death as so many goose feathers [… and that samurai] revered their sovereign and honored their ancestors […]’. 4 Under a section headed ‘Bushidō’, the consummate kokutai text, the Kokutai no Hongi, published in 1937, exhorted not only soldiers but also citizens to go selflessly to their death on behalf of the Sovereign and the State: Bushidō may be cited as showing an outstanding characteristic of our national morality […] though a sense of indebtedness binds master and servant, this has developed into a spirit of self-effacement and of meeting death with a perfect calmness. In this, it was not that death was made light of so much as that man tempered himself to death and in a true sense regarded it with esteem. In effect, man tried to fulfill true life by way of death. This means that rather than lose the whole by being taken up with and setting up oneself, one puts self to death in order to give full play to the whole by fulfilling the whole. Life and death are basically one, and the monistic truth is found where life and death are transcended. Through this is life, and through this is death. However, to treat life and death as two opposites and to hate death and to seek life is to be taken up with one’s own interests, and is a thing of which warriors are ashamed. To fulfill the Way of Loyalty, counting life and death as one, is Bushidō.5

In further attempts to instill the apparent samurai spirit, the Kokutai no Hongi also offered verses such as the following from samurai Hirano Kuniomi (1828-1854): Oh that I could die Beneath the Emperor’s banner Though deserveless of a name!6

And one from Munenaga Shinnō (1312-1385), fourth son of the Emperor Godaigo (1238-1339), who wrote What loss count I to lay down my life 4 As quoted in Brian (Daizen) Victoria, Zen at War: Second Edition (New York, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2006), p. 112. 5 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 85. 6 Ibid.

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For my Lord and for the world – Since my life’s worth sacrifice!7

Postwar novels and memoirs, too, referenced the soldiers’ requirements to die on behalf of the Emperor. In Nobi [Fires on the Plain, 1951], by Ōoka Shōhei (1909-1988), the main protagonist (also coincidentally named Tamura), nearing death from tuberculosis, is ostracized by his company.8 He is told by the squad leader ‘And look here, Private Tamura, try to cheer up! Remember – it’s all for the Fatherland. To the very end, I expect you to act like a true soldier of the Emperor.’9 It would seem, then, that the most important order made to a soldier was in fact the order to die.10 Was death and the ability to submit to a noble death willingly the final determinant of the military self?11 Soldiers were required to yield incontrovertibly to death on behalf of the Emperor, like the quiet, unquestioning carp lying motionless on the cutting board awaiting its indisputable fate.12 Was the ‘cutting board’ in fact the kokutai ideology itself, which demanded absolute commitment to the notion of self-sacrifice? Did soldiers lay down their lives as calmly and obediently as the carp for the love of the ideology under which they served?

Ego Involvement: Reward for Loyalty After the uprising that ended Japan’s feudal period, members of the Emperor’s forces who died in battle were rewarded by elevation to the status of military god [gunshin].13 Under the Meiji government, then, death as a demonstration of loyalty was repaid with deification, confirming that death was indeed the keystone of a soldier’s function under the dictates of the kokutai. One of the 7 Ibid., p. 99. 8 Ōoka Shōhei, Fires on the Plain, trans. Ivan Morris (Tokyo: Charles E Tuttle Co., 1967), p. 6. 9 Ibid., p. 6. 10 See Fujii, Heitachi no sensō, p. 7. 11 Eric Robert Lofgren, ‘Re/configuration of the Self in the Early War Literature of Ooka Shohei and Umezaki Haruo, Two Sengoha Writers’ (Standford University, 1998), p. 277. 12 ‘Sojō no koi’ means the carp on the cutting board.The Japanese word for carp (koi) is also the word for love. Therefore, although the use of characters in written Japanese clarifies the meaning, in spoken Japanese the term ‘the carp on the cutting board’ (sojō no koi) can be translated as either the carp on the cutting board or for the love of the cutting board. Metaphorically, the cutting board can be the Japanese ideology of kokutai, and the koi of this statement can be interpreted as both the carp (Japanese soldier) and/or the love that he held for the ideology. There is a belief that a carp will lie quietly on the cutting board awaiting its fate of death. 13 Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries, p. 22.

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most potent concrete representations of Japan’s kokutai and symbols of the reward for death was created in 1869 when the Tōkyō Shōkonsha [literally: Tokyo Shrine to Call Back the Souls of the Deceased], renamed Yasukuni [literally: peaceful country] in 1879, was erected in Tokyo under Emperor Meiji’s orders. From its origins as the shrine for the souls of those who assisted in the formation of the Meiji rule, it was eventually consecrated to house the souls of every serviceman who died in the military service of the nation in all ensuing wars. They were now known as gunshin, or warrior gods.14 There was a quid pro quo in this, too, as Yasukuni was consecrated to also pacify the vengeful and disquieted spirits known as goryō that were capable of inflicting suffering unless appeased with enshrinement as kami [gods]. This, of course, also insured against ‘calamity for the state’.15 The other side of the equation was that a soldier’s elevation to the status of god of the nation bestowed distinction on the entire family, and so death in the service of the nation was also an act of filial piety.16 The fact that soldiers had to die to be glorified perpetuated the ‘kokutai triad’: the Emperor engaged in the ritual deification of the war dead at Yasukuni, their families were able to mourn them there as war gods, the spirits were pacified so as not to cause harm to the homeland and its peoples, and thereby Japan became a ‘sacred land’ through the sacrifices of the war dead.17 With the pervasiveness of the ‘cult of the fallen soldier’ by the 1930s, the practice of visiting Yasukuni by the Imperial couple to pay respects to the war dead became entrenched, and a national holiday for the Yasukuni Festival was cemented. From 1933 onwards, schoolchildren visited Yasukuni as part of the regular curriculum.18 The concept of ‘ego involvement’ is instructive here.19 As part of the process of the creation of a nation, ego involvement meant that the personal contribution of the individual provided a reward for the involvement of that individual, as was represented in the case of Imperial Japan’s elevation of deceased soldiers to war gods. In the case of Tamura, ego involvement also enabled his personal contribution to Japan’s expansionist cause to provide him with personally derived satisfaction. This involvement also fed into 14 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 11. See also Naoko Shimazu, Japanese Society at War: Death, Memory and the Russo-Japanese War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) for an excellent explanation of gunshin. 15 Shimazu, Japanese Society at War, p. 148. 16 Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual, p. 125. 17 Earhart, ‘All Ready to Die: Kamikazefication and Japan’s Wartime Ideology’, p. 576. 18 Beatrice Trefalt, Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan 1950-1975 (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), p. 41. 19 Ego-involvement is introduced in Chapter 1.

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the notion of goal involvement, where the subject contributed as part of the whole to achievement of the national cause. These two concepts, when operating contemporaneously, instilled in subjects a sense of purpose: for the individual, it meant self-esteem, and for the nation, a shared identity.20 These sentiments echo the words of Lieutenant-Colonel Sugimoto Gorō (1903-1937) who, in the pamphlet he published for Imperial Japanese Army troops, focused on four important aspects associated with a commitment to taigi, a great obligation to die. The first of these was that soldiers should revere the Emperor, the second that soldiers should relinquish their sense of self, the third that the sacrifice of soldiers would play an integral part in the expansion of Imperial power, (all associated with goal involvement), and lastly, that soldiers could expect a reward in the afterlife for their sacrifice (ego involvement).21

Committing to Taigi It is self-evident that overpowering thoughts of death inevitably dominate the mind of someone in a crisis situation, such as a warzone, where life is constantly under threat. Terry Eagleton tells us that Culturally speaking, death is almost limitlessly interpretable, as martyrdom, ritual sacrifice, blessed release from agony, joyous freedom for one’s long-suffering kinsfolk, natural biological end, union with the cosmos, symbol of ultimate futility and the like. But we still die, however we make sense of it.22

Eagleton’s premise is valid in its assertion that no matter what pathway to death we take, or how we make sense of that pathway, death is indeed inevitable, but for most of us, the timing and method of our death is a welcome unknown. Records of war experience are frequently accounts of the writer’s grappling with the possibility – even likelihood – of death. 20 Daniel Druckman, ‘Social-Psychological Aspects of Nationalism’, in Perspectives on Nationalism and War, eds. John L. Comaroff and Paul C. Stern (Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach, 1994), p. 50. 21 Sugimoto Gorō was a Zen practitioner and a lieutenant-colonel who died, reportedly standing up, in battle in North China. He wrote the book for soldiers titled Taigi. Sugimoto Gorō, Taigi (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1938), pp. 23-25 as quoted in Brian (Daizen) Victoria, Zen at War, p. 117 For more on Sugimoto, see also Victoria, pp. 116, 126, and 127. 22 Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, p. 87.

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Certainly, soldiers feared death on the battlefield. One Japanese soldier wrote of his desire to fail the call-up exam because of this fear. I shall certainly fail, I should hate to be passed. I dream of being demobbed. What a dilemma! I long to breathe the air of freedom once more […] Since I received my calling-up papers, I have been afraid of death and my desire is to live. It is becoming ridiculous. I am like a man buried in his grave who would like to taste hot rice once more. I must really free my mind from all these thoughts […].23

While we see that Tamura made every effort to remain committed to the pathway of the sacrifice of his life on behalf of the Emperor, we also see that there were circumstances present on the New Guinea battlefield that could potentially lead to a disintegration of conviction. Under the all-pervasive ideological environment of home, and indeed on the more ‘successful’ battlefields of the China Mainland, Tamura may have been inspired with thoughts of the reward of a gallant death for his contribution as a soldier of Imperial Japan. Once in New Guinea, however, belief in the strength of the army and its noble role was ironically overshadowed by the primitive torment of staying alive. From the outset of the diary, Tamura was aware of the bitter contrast between his previous war experience and his present situation. This is apparent in his reference to an arrogant territorial comment made by a Japanese soldier about conquered land at the height of the victorious period of the Imperial Army’s Southern campaign. I remember reading in a magazine that a soldier who was marching toward Rangoon during the Burma Campaign said, ‘I want to piss in the Pacific Ocean’.24

The invasion of Burma in March 1942 came swiftly on the heels of the bombing of Pearl Harbour – a matter of only four days. Burma was strategic in that it was the pathway to India and China and therefore provided the IJA with the opportunity of having complete control of China and India en route. By catching the British by surprise, the invasion of Burma and the inevitable fall of Rangoon was a pivotal success for the Japanese Army in the region. At the time it occurred, Japan was on a trajectory of ascendency in the 23 Written by Kamimura Genta, who was called up for military service in January 1943. Aldrich, The Faraway War, p. 413. 24 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 16 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 1 April 1943.

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South. Poignantly, by the time that Tamura recalled this article, Japanese soldiers, particularly in New Guinea, had been reduced to a state of utter desperation, a fact apparent in the sardonic comment that concludes the entry with a mocking tone, ‘When I remember the article, I cannot help but smile wryly’.25 For the soldier cited in the passage above, the act of urinating in the ocean expressed his sense of mastery, totally in keeping with being part of the greater taigi [obligation to die] for victorious Japan. Arrival on the shores of New Guinea, however, gave no such sense of superiority to Tamura. The only space of domination was an imaginary one. A Japanese soldier’s commitment to taigi was possibly part of the Japanese concept of seken [community honour and observance] and therefore was more likely a case of tatemae [keeping up appearances], while the deep-seated personal ambition of soldiers was their honne [real intentions]. The concepts of honne and tatemae are important socio-cultural themes. Especially during Imperial Japan, when acting outside of the social morés was not only highly frowned upon but was virtually impossible to do, keeping up appearances of acting within the prescribed boundaries (or tatemae) was paramount to acceptance and, indeed, survival. The self-reflexive impulses of acting out and expressing opinions based on one’s true intentions or gut implied in the concept of honne were frowned upon and to be avoided at all costs. For Tamura, though, the boundaries of honne and tatemae were not so distinct because he was both the subject [honne] and the object [tatemae] of the desire to die a noble and meaningful death. His determination to die as part of a social and personal obligation is woven throughout the diary. One of the strategies employed by Tamura in this determination was the use of lofty kokutai-inspired language. Copying state-sanctioned slogans into diaries by soldiers was an effective means of motivation to fulfill the state’s goals.26 It is also entirely possible that Japanese military personnel included patriotic slogans in their diaries in order to comply with regulations, another form of tatemae.27 If we accept that Tamura’s words were written primarily for himself, then it is problematic – particularly at this juncture of his existence in New Guinea – to deny that Tamura was at all times committed to the greater cause of taigi. In the case of Tamura, it was his stirring words and the depth of belief in his role that, in fact, assisted him to motivate himself. In order to suppress any ruinous decline into the 25 Ibid. 26 Nishikawa, Hito wa Naze Nikki wo Tsuzuru no ka?, p. 201. See also Moore, ‘The Chimera of Privacy’, p. 185. 27 Keene, Chronicles of My Life, p. 37.

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miserable actuality of his life now, he clung with deep pride to a belief in the superior intestinal fortitude of the soldiers of the South, revealing in the process a naïve purity and sincerity of heart [makoto gokoro or magokoro].28 From the opening pages of the diary, Tamura declared his commitment to the true path, which was ‘to sacrifice my life for the Empire’, 29 even though this meant he would ‘say farewell to my 20 odd years of life and leave for the front’.30 As we have seen, memory and recollections were key strategies of self-motivation for Tamura. Part of this self-motivation was his enthusiasm for the training he undertook in China on the way to the New Guinea battlefront. The surprising zeal of the drafted soldiers fills me with confidence. My joy at being born a subject of the empire deepens as I put on my soldier’s uniform. No matter the harshness of the military drill or the cold, we are the children of the sea, the young men of Yamato! Never ceasing to protect the countless generations, The Yamato spirit handed down from our forefathers. Sent to my friend in hospital (28 January).31

Tamura was a second-time draftee, and it is likely that he was referring to first-time conscripts when he expressed his confidence in their ‘surprising’ enthusiasm even in the bleak conditions under which they were forced to train. It also provides us with some confirmation that at this juncture, there were ‘no half-hearted soldiers’.32 While the summer uniform itself gave no protection against the bitter continental winter, Tamura revealed that donning the uniform of an Imperial Japanese soldier provided him with 28 In the word magokoro, the first character stands for truth and the second stands for heart: true heart is usually translated as sincerity, pure heart, uprightness. Tessa Morris-Suzuki writes that under this belief, ‘humans are endowed with an innately pure heart (magokoro) […]’. See Morris-Suzuki, Re-inventing Japan, p. 47. 29 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 13. Written between 22 February and 1 April 1943. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., p. 9. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 32 AWM ATIS CT 47 (494), ‘Messages and Directions to Troops from Japanese Commander in New Guinea, Maj-General Yamagata Tsuyuo, Commander of the Buna Detachment’.

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great pride and reminded him that he was a son of the Empire. His relentless joy mitigated the harsh reality of the seasonal conditions. Although the themes of weather and war are a feature of the poems, these are embedded within a framework of the kokutai lexicon and associated expressions such as the ‘Yamato spirit’ [yamato damashii ], ‘young men of Yamato’ [yamato danshi], ‘subjects of the Empire’ [teikoku no tami], and ‘child of the sea’ [umi no ko], expressions that also appear in countless war anthems and other propaganda-type cultural production. Terms such as these reveal Tamura’s sense of achievement and involvement at being a member of a great nation with a civilizing mission beyond the distant seas. They position Tamura firmly as a figure in the long and feted history of modern Japan. The spirit of yamato damashii within Tamura’s text is replete with ‘“bravery”, “humanity”, “innocence”, “patriotism”, “filial piety”, “purity”, “youth”, “sincerity”, “resignation” and “death”’.33 The association between this spirit and the ‘countless generations’ of Japanese who had gone before him positions Tamura within the shared experience inherent in goal involvement. The passages cited above were recorded early in the diary and are a testament to Tamura’s desire, from the beginning, to remain committed to his quest for a noble death.34 While it is clear in the following passage that the conditions under which Tamura now wrote were taxing and difficult, he nonetheless acknowledged the strength of his fellow soldiers. Aside from my army comrades Nobody could live here. Advancing through this wild territory, We, the Infantry Advance Unit.35

Even this acknowledgement of the difficulty of the locale did not temper Tamura’s belief in his role as a soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army. Tamura had pledged to serve his Emperor until death: Of course, I have never regretted Dedicating myself to you, my Emperor! 33 Dowling is commenting particularly on the student soldiers whose posthumous works were compiled into Kike Wadatsumi no Koe. Eric Dowling, ‘The Beauty of Personal Sorrow in War: Kike Wadatsumi no Koe’, in Japanese Cultural Nationalism, ed. Roy Starrs (Folkstone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2004), pp. 165-66. 34 Homi Bhabha, Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 2. 35 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 51. Written 11 April 1943.

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Here in the South Seas where the red flowers bloom To fall and bear fruit is my long-cherished desire.36

Here we see Tamura’s brash assertion that the death he accepted on the Emperor’s behalf was a death that was so noble as ‘to bear fruit’ – presumably the “magnificent” expansion of the Empire – and his assertion is further bolstered by the metaphoric reference of the bloodied soldiers as the ‘red flowers’ blooming. He used the iconic ‘fall’ to describe his death which we will explore in the section on the Motifs of Death later in this chapter. Even the insufferable weather failed to dampen his enthusiasm for the military campaign. This heat is nothing to this body that was trained in China: My comrade heads off to the challenging battlefront with a huge grin on his face.37

While the reality of Tamura’s current existence is encapsulated in the words ‘challenging battlefront’, he ascribed his physical grit to his China experience, again where circumstances and the personal fortunes of war were more favourable. Not even embarking on a battlefront sortie could have diminished the optimism of his friend, who may also have been trained in China, perhaps even together with Tamura himself, but instead he proceeded ‘with a huge grin on his face’. Tamura returns to a language that expressed the continuing desire of both himself and his fellow soldiers to contribute to the Emperor’s goal when he adds We will carry out our duty on this soil Till the end of the Greater East Asian War. The pledge of the bearded warriors, We are the South Seas Expeditionary Force.38

36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. Written 11 April 1943. ‘Most of the Japanese soldiers who fought in the Pacific theatre were dark-skinned, tanned through lengthy service in the tropics, usually sporting a head of hair shaven to the scalp which was the standard hairdress of the Japanese services. Jungle service saw the enemy troops also sporting facial hair – unusual for the Japanese soldier as a rule’. Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 160. (Arthur Page was a member of ATIS who interrogated Japanese prisoners of war.)

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This entry may have been penned by Tamura or may have been part of a battle cry or a motivational speech, but of interest here is how Tamura describes the soldiers. Within the samurai tradition, the wearing of a beard was known to make the warrior look more fearsome, and Tamura identified with that exalted convention. This was in sharp contrast to the fact that, in reality, the beards of the soldiers in New Guinea were merely an outward sign of the wretched deprivation that the men were experiencing. On 13 April, Tamura once more unhesitatingly identified himself with the mission of the South-West Pacific battlefront. In this entry, he acknowledged the Southern Cross, a constellation signifying the delineation between the northern and southern hemispheres which was repeatedly mentioned in war anthems glorifying Japan’s resolute penetration in the South. Crossing faraway seas and mountains, I too have come all this way to the New Guinea battlefront, under the stars of the Southern Cross.39

Yet, Tamura’s determined resolve was overshadowed by his sense of separation. The sight of the Southern Cross, so absent from Tamura’s northern hemisphere homeland sky, only served to confirm Tamura’s isolation. The only solace available was from the strange native birds. Today as the tops of the palm trees sway and the waves crash out to sea at night, birds of the Southern land, won’t you comfort me with a song as I take up my gun?40

Couched within the somewhat serene description of tropical landscape is the harsh reality of his existence – the gun as the tool of the soldier in this foreign land. It was a paradise, and it was a warzone. As the diary progresses, we see that, regardless of hardships, he continued to motivate himself by committing himself through both ego and goal involvement to the ultimate aim of death on the battlefield: Falling on the battlefield as loyal subjects of His Majesty, this is none other than a man’s true calling. 39 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 67. Written 13 April 1943. 40 Ibid.

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We will be reborn seven times as the nation’s guardian demons and protect our Imperial territory. Accepting life’s misfortunes, We pray for the success in battle of our brother soldiers. 41

Tamura reveals that he accepted the requirement of death as ‘man’s true calling’. In this entry, Tamura’s strategy again involved a re-crafting – in this case, Tamura attempted to re-fashion his demise into something that appeared outstanding and meaningful, aligning himself also with the soldiers engaged in battle as his ‘brother soldiers’. In doing so, he leaned heavily upon the ideology of the kokutai, referring to himself as a potential ‘guardian demon’ who would protect Japan’s spoils of war. So, as Allied air raids intensified and death loomed, Tamura found reassurance and meaning in the exalted language of wartime propaganda and war anthems, as we mentioned earlier in his reference to ‘man’s true calling’, when he concluded the entry with Reaching the limits of life, our souls are now about to vanish. Our spirits will remain forever in this place as the shields of our glorious country. 42 We desire to press forward together until the establishment of Greater East Asia. 43

By the time he wrote this entry, Tamura had been in New Guinea for almost six months. As the outlook became increasingly dire and escape from death became progressively improbable, it would have been reasonable for Tamura to draw upon his faith in the glorious Imperial mission. Indeed, the pursuit of a noble death seems stronger here and through the remainder of the diary than in the earlier parts. As a more ferocious Allied assault made the battlefront increasingly dangerous, Tamura appeared to feel compelled to prepare spiritually and emotionally for the likelihood of death. Despite the occasional expression of uneasiness at the fate that awaited him, Tamura’s resolve to die a noble death remained robust. While

41 Ibid., p. 123. Written between 13 and 22 June 1943. 42 The concept of the shield will be discussed in the section ‘The Motifs of Death’ later in this chapter. 43 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 123. Written between 13 and 22 June 1943.

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undertaking a sea journey, he was motivated by the spirit of Etajima, the Imperial Naval training academy in Hiroshima Prefecture since 1888: As subjects of the Empire, we ask to be united at one with the Emperor, this is our spirit. All our training is for this purpose. With all our might, without a second’s break, we will work to fulf il our desire. Is there a greater blessing for a human being? What can obstruct this Way into which we have poured our whole soul? We envy the spirit of Etajiima, the treasure of tradition. 44

The Ocean as Facilitator of a Noble Death The very name of the war in which Tamura was involved – the South Pacific War [Minami Taiheiyō Sensō], a part of the Greater East Asian War [Daitōa Sensō] – evokes images of an immense sea and an immense task to match. The beginning of this stage of the war was, of course, the attack on Pearl Harbour on 8 December 1941. Furthermore, the expansionist policies of the military meant that a large proportion of the war that followed was to involve the sea. 45 The natural barrier that segregated Japan from the Asian mainland was a column of water known as the Black Current [kuroshio], a reference to the dark blue of its very deep waters. The Black Current is a warm Pacific Ocean current flowing north-east from Taiwan to Japan. Watsuji Tetsurō argued that the Japanese race was formed when a ‘southern race […] riding on the Black Current […] mixed with a northern race’, assigning the Black Current a role in the development of the unique Yamato race. In the context of Japan’s Imperial project, the Black Current is important as a symbolic boundary between Japan and those regions of Asia that Japan sought to conquer. Japan as a mighty nation is able to traverse the boundaries of the expansive ocean. This is in direct antithesis to the xenophobic and self-centric attitude that had pervaded Japan until the arrival of Commodore Perry. 46 44 Ibid., p. 125. Written 22 June 1943. 45 One of the most popular films of the period was, in fact, Sea War (1942 Hawaii Marē Oki Kaisen. The full title was Sea War from Hawaii to Malaya produced by Toho in 1942. For a discussion of the film, see Peter B. High, The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years’ War (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), pp. 382-3. 46 In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its doors to trade from the United States. This was during the Tokugawa Period of feudalism in Japan. The weakening of the Tokugawa regime precipitated by this act eventually saw the toppling of the Shogun in favour of

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A crucial topic of the diary as a tool of self-motivation is Tamura’s experience of the sea. Nature again is the focus in these sections. Tamura’s desire to aid in the creation of the greater Japanese Empire in Asia is expressed most powerfully in the entries that recorded his journeys by sea and his encounter with the strength of the Black Current. Tamura was aware that crossing this natural barrier of the Black Current led to the far extremities of the Southern battlefield when he wrote Across the Pacific, across the Black Current, from far away, a boat is coming with might and courage, with letters from our homeland. 47

The magnitude of Tamura’s sense of mission is also evident in this piece, with the boat from the homeland endowed with the pride of the nation. Tamura recalled that he was heartened during his journey by the sight of the Black Current in an entry entitled ‘At Sea, 7 February’: The throb of the Black Current, now is our manly courage tested. Our ship is heading straight for the South, guarded closely by the gallant men of the patrol ship. All around, a world of sea and clouds. 48

The Current was even seen by Tamura as a metaphor for the masculine strength that sustained the Empire, reminiscent of the words of Major General Horii Tomitarō (1890-1942), Commander of the South Seas Detachment (Nankai Shitai), who wrote: Vigorous youths of the Southern Seas, Who have been reared by the sea, The time to test your strength has come. It is delightful to cleave a wake behind, Cleaving the black [current] Where are you Japan? Your light cannot be seen. 49 a return to imperial rule known as the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Commodore Perry is discussed in Chapter 1. 47 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 20 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 1 April 1943. 48 Ibid., p. 10. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943 but dated as 7 February. 49 See Paul Ham, Kokoda (Sydney: Harper Collins, 2005), p. 118.

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These entries involving the Black Current were written while Tamura was narrowly encircled by the dark and dank claustrophobia of the jungle, where the greatness of the Imperial purpose would have defied even the most vivid imagination. The memory of the ocean’s grandeur signified by the Black Current served to elicit a sense of exhilaration, positivity, and strength. The Black Current is alive with the life of the water, foaming white spray on a heavy swell. The Current really is alive, as if it will go on forward forever. Its mighty pulse throbs like blood through the body.50

For Tamura, this mighty life force, pulsing with the blood of warriors, was perhaps a metaphor for the now-dwindling hope that, like the Current, the Empire of Japan would also go forward on its conquering mission, forever. The strength of this natural phenomenon and the extent of its advance were enhanced by Tamura’s acknowledgement of the Black Current as a kind of repository of knowledge. In the end, what can I learn now from this Black Current? I must push forward, to the last gasp of the faith of my father and my siblings left at home. No, of my own faith.51

The notion of military valour in the face of inevitable destruction was intimately tied to memories of the homeland, parents, and siblings for whom Tamura had to strive. While the great life force of the Current appeared to be a source of inspiration for Tamura in the early stages of his exile across these waters in New Guinea, we see here that even this powerful life force could not completely quell Tamura’s recognition of the power of his own faith. With a growing awareness that the battlefront of New Guinea would be the ultimate test of his will, Tamura declared: My faith must be even stronger than the memory of my last battle. What is learning? What is destiny? It is the power to reveal the fierce depths of my heart. It is the knowledge and wisdom that teaches me where I am and where I will go in this world of clouds and water, on this endless sea journey. 50 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 11. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 51 Ibid., p. 11. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943.

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On the battlefield lives the spirit. Certainly, it is where we need the greatest strength of spirit. But can the military really fulfill this mission just with strength of spirit?52

For Tamura, the ‘power’ that was able to ‘reveal the fierce depths’ of the heart lay in four elements of his life. The first of these was learning, something that had been a very powerful attraction to him in his early life and which might also reference the Imperial Army training he had undergone, and certainly refers to his strong desire to improve himself should he be fortunate enough to survive.53 The second element was fate or destiny. The Imperial Army soldier had little control over these circumstances. That control lay with the senior command, whose actions and commands would dictate outcomes in the Emperor’s ‘holy’ war [seisen]. The third element was ‘strength of spirit’, on which the Imperial Japanese Army relied heavily for soldiers to overcome all odds, even in the face of a lack of essential items such as food and equipment, when fulfilling the obligation to fight to the death. Yet here we see Tamura stumble on this point of ‘strength of spirit’. Idealistically, strength of spirit was the key weapon that set Japanese soldiers apart from their enemy. This was what he had been told in all of the teachings and military speeches to which he had been subjected. However, now in the depths of the New Guinea warzone, even Tamura recognized that strength of spirit alone may not be enough for Japan to triumph. Faith in the teachings of the kokutai was the fourth and ultimate element in the quest for courage in the face of death. But Tamura’s faith could not rely on the success or failure of battle, which simply sapped the spirit of the warrior, but ‘must be even stronger than my memory of the last battle’. Only faith could confront the reality of death and destruction. Here in the mire of New Guinea, for the spirit to triumph, faith in the kokutai – and, on his own admission, faith in himself – had to be supreme. Tamura ends the section on the Black Current with a proud, idealistic declaration. Now seeing the Black Current right before my eyes, My heart is refreshed. I feel I have found the true manly way. I will sacrifice my life for the Empire.54 52 Ibid. 53 This aspect will be discussed in Chapter 9. 54 Ibid., p. 13. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943.

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However oppressive the atmosphere of Tamura’s current situation, he could not help returning to the majesty of the ocean to embolden himself. We can see how this majestic stretch of ocean became a metaphor for his own ‘manliness’. The noble and grand nature of this ocean current afforded Tamura the strength to ‘sacrifice my life for the Empire’ – this great and expanding Empire that had traversed even the boundaries of the Black Current. The following declaration, too, finally makes clear that Tamura knew that the sacrifice of his life for the Empire was real, not just an idealistic dream. The passage also reveals the connection in Tamura’s consciousness between this reality and the sea. As I say farewell to my twenty odd years of life And leave for the front I pray to be granted a place to die Cloud and more clouds, sea and never-ending sea The vast ocean will become my burial ground.55

Tamura alludes to the fact that there was no turning back. More than 2000 years ago, the Chinese referred to the Black Current as We-Lu, the ‘current to a world in the east from which no man has ever returned’ – prophetic words for Tamura and the other soldiers.56 Tamura, too, was a man of no return, the wide-open sea was his destiny, and the nobility and sheer magnitude of the ocean led Tamura to yearn for a death at sea, which was undoubtedly preferable to the wretched alternative of death in the warzone of New Guinea. In the verse above, the enormity of nature – clouds, never-ending sea, and vast ocean – once more presents itself as the only metaphor that can encompass the task ahead, a task for which the only likely reward would be the necessity to ‘say farewell’ to the writer’s ‘twenty odd years of life’. Tamura’s writing on the Black Current is replete with vocabulary and expressions from war anthems [gunka] and other popular material circulated to exhort the subjects of Japan to a state of war. Over the great ocean where the Black Current seems alive I go as a brave warrior to defend my homeland. 55 Ibid. 56 Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano, ‘Borne on a Black Current’, www.smithsonianmag.com, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Borne-on-a-Black-Current.html?c=y&page=2

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The sky and sea meld together, no horizon. I am a child of the sea who wakes and sleeps on the waves.57

While envisioning himself in standard bushidō terms as a ‘brave warrior’, or even hero, who was defending ‘the homeland’, terms that were used in most gunka, Tamura concludes the verse by citing a line from the popular wartime song ‘I am a Child of the Sea’ [Ware wa umi no ko].58 The lyrics of the song were typical of Japanese wartime songs in their glorification of the uniqueness of the Japanese identification with nature and the love of the homeland. Characteristically, the piece valorized the sylvan, thatched roof home of a rural lifestyle, deeply rooted in nature replete with white-capped sea-side and pine forests, as the preference of the Imperial patriot.59 The idea of being ‘people of the sea’ [umi no tami] or ‘child of the sea’ [umi no ko], and boarding a warship to ride the majesty of the ocean to protect the country at sea, was associated with spreading the idealized spirit of Japan throughout Asia. Tamura’s declaration of himself as a child of the sea aligned him with the ocean crossings undertaken by those Japanese that initiated and now sustained Japan’s imperial push over the boundaries of the ocean. That is, his recognition of himself as a child of the sea equated in fact to being a child of the vast and glorious empire of Japan. 57 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 13. Written between 22 February and 1 April 1943. 58 Osada Gyōji, Nihon gunka zenshū, p. 466, verses 1-3 of 7 I am a child of the sea, raised in a rush-roofed hut In a pine grove, along the seashore, with the sound of waves. A thin trail of smoke rising, drifting in the air. That’s the dear old home of mine, where I always belong. Soon after I was born, I was bathed in the sea. In the sound of lapping waves I hear sweet lullabies. Breathing in the fresh air of waves coming from afar, I grew up to be a boy, healthy and strong. In the strong scent of the sea I can smell something good, As good as the ever-lasting fragrance of flowers. Hearing the wind blow against the pine trees on the shore, It sounds like the rousing strains of music and song. Miyahara Koichirō, ‘Ware wa umi no ko’, http://jiten.cside3.jp/Warewa%20Uminoko.html. Translated by Yamagishi Katsuei. 59 Ienaga Saburō comments that this song was tampered with by the military, who added another verse: Let’s go. Aboard the ships and away. We’ll gather the treasure of the sea. Let’s go! Aboard the battleship. We’ll defend this nation at sea The appended verse linked the unique Japanese love of the sea and of nature directly with the expansionist plans of the Japanese Empire and exhorted its subjects to join with the grand ocean for the nation’s just cause. Saburō Ienaga, The Pacific War 1931-1945 (New York: Random House, 1978), p. 27.

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In the early pages of his diary, alluding to the mastery of the sea and more particularly crossing the Black Current carried Tamura forward as a noble warrior of Japan. It took the writer from the realm of life to death. However, Tamura’s seeing himself as a child of the sea, of the infinite and revered ocean, enabled him to romanticize his fate and thereby come to terms with its inevitability. His conviction was strengthened by the almost divine status he gave the Black Current when he wrote that it urged him on in his great cause. When I hear the voice of the current urging me ‘Conquer! Conquer!’ I suddenly see the victory of the land of the gods.60

The Black Current revealed to Tamura the divine nature of his mission as a warrior of Japan, the land of the gods, and reflected the popular use of the sea in gunka such as ‘Pacific March’ [Taiheiyō Kōshinkyoku, 1939]: All sea people Have had the longing once To navigate in high spirits On the Black Current of the Pacific Now the day has come, Our blood boils with joy61

For Tamura, though, there was some confusion in this pathway when he lamented his lack of direction. If only the gods would show me the path I must take. I wouldn’t mind leaving my life and death to heaven.62

Here, however, there is also a slippage in the text that reveals Tamura’s half-doubt of the rhetoric. Leaving his life and death to heaven would be 60 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 14. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 61 See Satoshi Sugita, ‘Cherry Blossoms and Rising Sun: A Systematic and Objective Analysis of Gunka (Japanese War Songs)’, p. 43. Ohio State University, http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf. cgi/Sugita%20Satoshi.pdf?osu1170788993. Naval surgeon Watanabe Tetsuo notes a song he requested naval soldiers to sing in the jungle of New Guinea while sheltering from the enemy’s bombardment. ‘As a last song, I told all naval soldiers to sing Taiheiyō Kōshinkyoku [The Pacific March]. We sang it sobbingly […]’. As quoted in Aldrich, The Faraway War, p. 553. 62 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 14. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943.

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an acceptable option to Tamura, if only heaven would ‘show me the path I must take’. There is a suggestion here of confusion, of being let down, in spite of the fact, as already noted, that this never translated into a direct questioning of the official position. Empowered as he was by the natural phenomena associated with Japan, Tamura called upon the bushidō-inspired lexicon of the kokutai to remain motivated to accepting his fate.

Motifs of Death By drawing on well-known and revered parts of history, soldiers were brought together through the ‘retailing’ of a shared past.63 This shared past revealed motifs that bestowed a sense of nobility and glory on futile deaths. National learning scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) wrote a stirring poem that linked the yamato spirit to the cherry blossom, signifying the ‘Japanese soul’.64 Isles of blest Japan Should your yamato spirit Strangers seek to scan Say-scenting morn’s sunlit air Blow the cherry wild and fair.65

With the installation of bushidō as the ‘warrior’s way’ by the late Meiji era, cherry blossoms indeed became the signifier of the soul of Japan.66 This trope gained particular significance after the Sino-Japanese War when cherry trees began to be propagated in great numbers.67 In fact, the cherry blossom held a prominent place throughout the emergence of Japanese imperialism. Most sinister was its progressive aesthetic use by successive governments from the Meiji period to provide a visual anthropomorphic 63 Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origin of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1988), p. 191. 64 Ibid., p. 128. 65 Translated by Nitobe Inazō, as cited in Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 128. 66 Saitō, Yamato damashii no bunkashi, p. 123. 67 Cherry trees had symbolized the ‘old’ Japan, and post-feudalism cherry trees were originally chopped down as a sign of ‘Westernization’. One of the reasons for their re-planting was originally for the benefit of tourists visiting Japan. Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 104. The planting of cherry trees also had ceremonial significance such as the birth of the crown prince and were always planted wherever a military unit was established. Ibid., p. 122.

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concept of a beautiful and pure death.68 Fallen cherry blossoms came to represent fallen soldiers, and fully blooming cherry blossoms their souls.69 In fact, the ephemeral nature of the cherry blossoms was used to urge soldiers to isagi-yoku shinu [to die without clinging to life].70 Like the cherry blossoms, whose bloom and fall is almost simultaneous, the ideal soldier does not linger; death, in fact, comes with a ‘quick end’.71 The verb used for death in a military sense is in fact the verb to ‘fall’ or ‘scatter’ [chiru], as in the falling of the cherry blossoms.72 This equating of cherry blossoms and death was a complete reversal of the ancient mythological belief that the mountain deity [yama no kami], the most powerful of the gods, descended on cherry petals from the mountain peaks to provide farmers with the rice grains that meant sustenance and therefore life.73 The image of the exquisitely fragile cherry blossom was a powerful motivator for soldiers. One recorded that he would ‘like to return and flower as the cherry blossom at Yasukuni shrine’.74 The graduating song for naval cadets around 1942, ‘Cherry Blossoms of the Same Class’ [Dōki no sakura], read You and I are two cherry blossoms. We bloom in the shadow of a pile of sandbags. Since we are flowers, we are doomed to fall. Let us fall magnificently for the country. We bloom on the branch of the same squad. Though not brothers, we became good friends and cannot forget each other. You and I are two cherry blossoms. We both bloom for his majesty’s country. We stand side by side during the day and we embrace each other at night. We dream in the bed of bullets. You and I are two cherry blossoms. Even if we fall separately. The capital of flowers is Yasukuni Shrine. We meet each other in the treetops in Spring.75 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid., p. 107. 71 Ibid., p. 124. 72 ‘Chiru’ is the verb for the falling (or scattering) of flowers such as the iconic cherry blossom. Ohnuki-Tierney also notes that the military ‘began using the term sange, or to “scatter like flowers”…[and that] soldiers themselves began to refer to their own deaths as sange, which came to mean a glorious and heroic death. The first character of the word is to fall or scatter and the second is the character for flower, blossom, bloom or petal.’ Ibid., p. 111. 73 Ibid., p. 29. 74 AWM ATIS Information Bulletin No 14 (2768), ‘Information Bulletin 14 (2768)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM). 75 Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 140.

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This aspect of the cherry blossom became all the more powerful towards the end of the war when it was used as the symbol of the Special Attack Forces [tokkōtai, popularly known as kamikaze]. Their theme song was as follows: At the same time in the same Air Force garden. When we come into blossom, we are resolved to scatter (like petals in the breeze). Let’s scatter splendidly for the sake of our country. You and I are cherry blossoms flowering At the same time in the same Air Force garden. We are not brothers, but for some reason We cannot forget each other.76

It is apparent that ‘many “nationalistic” editors, including those at the Yasukuni Shrine, published books that reproduced soldiers’ wills proclaiming the sentiment “I shall fall happily for the Emperor like a cherry petal”; however, many of these were written after the men were told their wills would be displayed on the walls as exemplars written by model soldiers’.77 Even without such a promise, the image of scattered flowers as fallen soldiers featured throughout Tamura’s diary. However, frequently his attempts to remain committed to his fate failed to conceal a sense of both deep regret and despair. Tamura recalled his train journey through the bleak landscape of Korea, where the starkness of his surroundings was heightened by the chilling reflections in the cold train window of conscripts and enlisted men travelling to their deaths. The reflections in the windows of our train are cold Oblivious that it’s the parting of flowers who go to be scattered.78 76 Cited in Isolde Standish, Myth and Masculinity in the Japanese Cinema: Towards a Political Reading of the Tragic Hero (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000), p. 68. Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries, p. 29. Ohnuki-Tierney notes that ‘a single cherry blossom was painted in pink on a white background on both sides of the tokkōtai airplane’ and that the names of the tokkōtai sqaudrons were references to cherry blossoms: ‘Yamazakura-tai (mountain cherry blossom corps), Hatsuzakura-tai (first cherry blossom corps), Wakazakura-tai (young cherry blossom corps), Hazakura-tai (leaf-cherry blossom corps), Ōka-tai (cherry blossom corps) […] Sakon-tai (Sakon refers to the cherry tree planted on the left side in front of the imperial palace), Yoshino-tai (Yoshino is the mountain chain best known for cherry blossoms…), Dai-no Ōka-tai (second cherry blossom corps), Sakura-i-tai (cherry blossom-well corps…) […]’, in Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, pp. 165 and 164. 77 Ibid., p. 21. We note that Ohnuki-Tierney focuses heavily on the tokkōtai (special attack popularly known as kamikaze) pilots. 78 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 34. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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This verse is followed by an account of the journey from the Korean border through Manchuria to Mukden on the Japanese-operated Manchurian railway system. Featuring the fastest train on earth at the time, a product of superior Japanese technical and administrative know-how, this railway was the pride of the Japanese Empire. Both sides of the train line were flanked by industrialized cities and ports that by their very existence announced Japanese civil and economic dominance in the Chinese North-East. However, Tamura’s recollections made no reference to this aspect of the journey. Rather, in keeping with his inward focus on the presence of death, he created an eerie otherworld of ghostly spirits on an irreversible journey. Although he used the image of scattered flowers, there was no sense of glory. While the travellers were oblivious to their impending fate, death was exposed as a place of no return. Even without the image of the cherry blossom, the word ‘scatter’ invokes the falling of the cherry blossom and the death of soldiers themselves. Even in the dismal rain-soaked battlefront, Tamura again leaned on the iconography when he wrote: ‘Even though I know I must scatter at the front with the dew, in this endless rain, the sky is bitter’.79 The deaths of his comrades profoundly affected Tamura.80 Even in this circumstance, Tamura used the same iconography to describe this death. How can I not lament you, my friend, a young cherry blossom? fallen and gone? That was all the life you had.81

This descriptive use of the term is perfect in this instance. The depiction of the short life of his friend is as melancholic as the loss of the beauty of the cherry blossoms as they bloom and fall. The concept of the Emperor’s shield [shiko no mitate] was another important element in the reinvented tradition of the military.82 The term appears to have originated in the Nihon Shoki (720) with the warrior Yorozu who, when attempting to protect his chieftain Monobe no Moriya (d. 587), is wounded by an arrow to his knee. In the face of the onslaught of arrows from the opposing side, Yorozu prostrated himself on the ground, calling out: ‘The Emperor’s shield, a man whose courage would be devoted to defending

79 Ibid., p. 62. Written 13 April 1943. 80 Tamura’s reactions to the deaths of comrades is discussed in Chapter 9. 81 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 90. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943. 82 We recall that Tamura made reference on page 124 of his diary to the book called The Imperial Shield as discussed in Chapter 6.

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his majesty – that is all I wished to be’.83 Yorozu failed in this battle, and was an example of the tragic hero as he subsequently took his own life by stabbing himself in the throat. The term ‘The Emperor’s Shield’ was also recorded in the Manyōshū (759) when border guards described themselves as ‘ugly shields’ to protect the Emperor.84 The lyrics of a schoolchildren’s song ‘In Praise of the Special Attack Force’ [Kōgekitai wa tataeru uta] combined the icons of cherry blossoms with the Emperor’s Shield to describe the attack on Pearl Harbour by attack forces who were the forerunners of the tokkōtai formed in the dying stages of the war. Do not forget 1941. On December 8 for His Majesty They went as an ugly shield for His Majesty. Young cherry blossoms, Special Attack Forces Scattered under the morning sun. Lieutenant-Colonel Iwasa and eight brave soldiers.85

In a highly challenging environment and a totally alien landscape, Tamura employed these kokutai expressions. We have noted Tamura’s verse when he recalled his departure for the front, Sent off by the white seagulls, With the memory of their homeland harbour, Tomorrow the young sakura [cherry blossoms] who go off to die will bloom and fall as a shield for the homeland.86

In Tamura’s poem, the stark realization that he was doomed to die becomes manageable yet again by recourse to images of young sakura who would bloom specifically in order to ‘fall as a shield for the homeland’. In one sense, the poem is a valorization of the vitality of youth, but it is also a sinister declaration that young men’s virile bodies had to be dedicated to death. A few pages later, Tamura once more referred to his role as a protector of the Emperor when he wrote

83 Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (London: Secker and Warburg, 1975), p. 21. 84 Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries, p. 179. 85 As quoted in Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms, p. 141. 86 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 32. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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My life, I know, is not that valuable But as a shield of the Great Emperor, I cannot waste it lightly.87

When he wrote this piece, Tamura was unwell, noting that he had remained behind due to illness.88 This is reflected in his feelings of unworthiness, of little value. Yet as a shield for the mighty Emperor, his life could become powerfully meaningful. In fact, the idea of the specific body of an individual Imperial Army soldier being used to personally protect a living, breathing Emperor is a much more powerful motivating force than being required to fight for abstract notions such as the nation-state. In an entry that recalls his training in China on the way to New Guinea, Tamura again referenced the Emperor’s shield. By order of the commanding officer we salute the flag And bow to the Imperial palace far away in the east If I go away to the sea, I shall be a corpse washed up If I go away to the mountain, I shall be a corpse in the grass My Emperor’s drums, here on this journey, pierce my breast. Be at peace, my homeland, We will march on, shields of our Emperor. Our commands in hand, our squad, full length, Gallantly, gallantly, marching: cavalry, army. We are strong. The next day, sent off to the people of North China, In high spirits we set out on our expedition A crowd of carriages carrying our equipment, The valiant progress of our imperial soldiers hurrying far ahead, Bind the spirits of Japan and China together.89

87 Ibid., p. 44. Written 11 April 1943. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid., p. 57. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943.

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The opening section [in italics not in the original] of this entry records the words of the famous Japanese gunka, Umi Yukaba.90 The entry is a stirring example of the power of motifs such as the Emperor’s shield to motivate soldiers to ‘gallantly, gallantly’ march on to the sound of the Emperor’s drums, with strength and determination. Not only was this perceived as a valiant effort to bring peace of mind to those of the homeland, it was altruistically regarded as a powerful device to bind the spirits of Japan and China together. We recall earlier that Tamura referenced death on the battlefield as ‘man’s true calling’ and in the conclusion to that entry Tamura again bolstered his flagging spirits with the hope that even though his life was at an end, his spirit would continue to act as a shield for his beloved Japan. Reaching the limits of life, our souls are now about to vanish. Our spirits will remain forever in this place As the shields of our glorious country. We desire to press forward together until the establishment of Greater East Asia.91

The thought of making a positive contribution to the war effort was a major factor in motivating soldiers to go to war, and the pinnacle of this commitment was a determination to die on behalf of the Emperor and the country. Ultimately, this commitment took on a metaphysical aspect: it was the eternal truth of the noble cause of eternal loyalty [yūkyū no taigi].92 Tamura, as we have seen, was committed – even devoted – to these ideals. He recognizes in this entry that in fact he was destined to 90 As discussed in Chapter 3. Based on a poem by Ōtomo no Yakamochi from the eighth-century collection of works known as the Manyōshū, the poem was set to music by Nobutoki Kiyoshi and became the second anthem in 1943, being used at send-off and patriotic parades. The song was linked to honourable deaths and was always played at the start of radio bulletins to report such deaths. See Campbell and Wiggins, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Musical Cultures, pp. 100-101. Keith Richmond notes that repetition of this poem (which he titles as prayer) every morning by the recruits was part of the indoctrination towards obedience, truthfulness, and bravery. See Richmond, The Japanese Forces in New Guinea during World War II, p. 25. 91 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 123. Written between 13 and 22 June 1943. 92 Fujii, Heitachi no sensō, p. 275. The basis of this ultimate truth is that it is an integral part of filial piety. The Senjinkun had stated in Part Seven, entitled ‘The Viewpoint of Life and Death’, that ‘you should be happy with the idea of yūkyū no taigi’. Yuki Tanaka also uses this translation. Yuki Tanaka, ‘Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers’, The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 3, no. 7 (July 6, 2005).

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die, as his spirit would remain ‘forever in this place’. He was, in fact, one of the already dead.

The Already Dead The spiritual training that exalted the benefits of dying in the Emperor’s name laid a foundation for soldiers to cogently prepare for death. As we have explored earlier, Imperial Japan drew heavily on the past, and specifically the literary productions of the past, as the backbone for the narrative of the kokutai. The Hagakure [Hidden by the Leaves, 1709-1716], a series of anecdotes and reflections that were used as a code of ethics, both practical and spiritual, for the samurai warrior class of feudal Japan, was considered a ‘textbook’ for the military, especially during the Pacific War.93 Written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719), the Hagakure ‘appealed to the heart. It taught how to face death in order to gain life and to serve one’s master. Death was welcomed, even if it appeared absurd in another’s eyes’.94 As a ‘primer for Japanese military men’, the Hagakure covered a range of topics such as f ilial piety, loyalty, and chivalry.95 It was particularly the emphasis on the need for preparedness for death that saw this text become a focus of the spiritual training of Imperial soldiers. Buddhist leader Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō (1870-1966) promoted the teaching advocated in the Hagakure that ‘bushidō means the determined will to die’. Urging the Emperor’s troops to ‘choose the way to death’, he cited a verse by Tsukahara Bokuden (1490-1572), the great swordsman of the Sengoku [Warring States] era (1568-1615), who wrote The ultimate end of all discipline for the samurai Whatever form it may take, Is one and one only, that is, not to flinch in the face of death.96 93 The Hagakure (Hidden Leaves) was a compilation of commentaries by a clerk, Yamamoto Tsunemoto (1659-1719), and recorded in the early part of the eighteenth century. The emphasis of becoming one with death was particularly useful to the militaristic aims of Imperial Japan. The Hagakure was also seen as the textbook for the military. See Morris, The Nobility of Failure, p. 453. 94 Lu, Japan: A Documentary History, vol. 2., pp. 261-62. 95 Morris, The Nobility of Failure, p. 453. 96 Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō, Zen and Japanese Culture, trans. Momoo Kitagawa (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005), pp. 78, 82.

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Death must come without protest, without the cry of pain that suggests cowardice, and certainly without any sense of futility that questions the purpose or likely success of the Imperial project, reflecting the notion of the compliant carp. Early in the diary, Tamura recalled that ‘My hometown friend I left behind, urged just one thing: to die in silence’.97 It is evident here that death as the ultimate sacrifice expected of a soldier as both a public and private act was always at the forefront of Tamura’s mind. Not only did the military expect death, even those close to Tamura, such as civilian friends, encouraged death, and particularly an unflinching death, as a form of obedience to the kokutai. Theoretical accounts of the concept of seken often present the idea as an abstract objective process or force situated within Japanese society. However, the urgings of the hometown friend cited above demonstrate the highly personal aspect of the notion of seken and the manner in which, while the concept could refer to the wider society, it could also be interpreted as the close friend with whom one had an intimate and binding relationship and, hence, a strong sense of obligation. While one might be able to evade the demand of the anonymous voice, it was surely much more difficult to resist the appeal of family and friends. If we look again at the teachings of the Hagakure, we see that not only was there an expectation that soldiers should perform daily meditation on inevitable death, but even more dramatically, there was an exhortation that they consider themselves already dead. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider oneself as dead. There is a saying of the elders that goes ‘Step from under the eaves and you’re a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting’. This is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself as dead beforehand.98 97 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 8. Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 98 Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of Samurai, trans. William Scott Wilson (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979), p. 164. Italics are for my emphasis and are not present in the original.

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Tamura revealed in his diary that he, too, had begun to form a realization of himself as ‘already dead’. In a sense, Tamura was already a spirit, reminiscent of the Noh concept where ‘a dead person comes and goes freely in the space-time of real life bringing into sharp relief the complexities of human emotions’.99 This is particularly evident in an entry that relates to a very disturbing and recurring dream. Sometimes when I dream, I feel really strange. In my dream, even though I am already at the battlefront, I am called up again and again. It’s alright until I am sent off by Misao100 and others. Then it hits me! Hang on! I’m already a soldier! As soon as I realize it’s that kind of dream, I wake up. It’s really a stupid, stupid dream. There is no news from home but Flowery April must now be dressed in new green leaves.101

The trauma of being called up is painfully evident in the repetitive nature of the dream.102 The appearance of family members left a deep sense of longing for the intimacy and experience of home. Awareness of the irrationality of the dream in no way lessened Tamura’s desire for Japan or for contact with home. Poignantly, he consoled himself by again nostalgically recalling the flowers of the lush April of home, an exquisite time of rejuvenation and promise. When Tamura recounted the dream to his comrades, they merely laughed. New Guinea, where the war dead dream of enlistment, My army comrades laugh at my strange dream.103

There is an almost ethereal sense to the verse, as Tamura, though still living, reached into the realms of the deceased and recognized himself as already one of ‘the war dead’. Was it perhaps because, given his current 99 Noh performer Kunio Komparu as quoted in Russell Fewster, ‘Bleeding Ears Bron: Playing the String of Memory’, in Legacies of War, ed. Nigel Starck (North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012), p. 78. 100 Misao is Tamura’s sister. 101 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 81. Written between 18 and 19 April 1943. 102 ‘Folk tales, as depicted in traditional Noh theatre, regularly incorporate ghosts as key figures in the narrative to highlight the loss and suffering encountered in battle.’ Fewster, ‘Bleeding Ears Bron’, p. 78. 103 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 81. Written between 18 and 19 April 1943.

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circumstances, ‘the dead are those to whom nothing more can happen’?104 Tamura mentioned little in his diary about any conversations with comrades, and the fact that he related this dream to his fellow soldiers underlines the intensity of the foreboding feelings the dream initiated in Tamura. The laughter of comrades, however, could indicate either the lack of instinctive knowledge of the other soldiers or a disquieting recognition elicited by the dream that, like Tamura, they, too, were the ‘living dead’ and that few would return to Japan alive. The depth of this expectation of death from within even the closest circle of friends is demonstrated again in a passage Tamura wrote describing his final night spent with two friends before his departure for the front. Untitled 1 June ‘Come and stay at my place’. ‘No, that’s stupid, he is going to stay at my place.’ Spending my last evening with my two close friends, grieving over this last parting, they both wanted me to overnight at their houses. One of my friends, Kojima, lived in his own home. The other, Ochiai Shigeru was a lodger but we seemed to get on well, even though I rarely went to his lodgings. He was really appreciative of my going to war. When Ochiai went out for a pee Kojima said ‘My mother is really worried about you too. It’s morbid spending the night in a funeral parlour. It’s like beckoning death for a soldier departing for the front, so you should come to my place.’ How kind a friend and his mother!105

As we can see, one friend was a lodger at the home of a family that operated a funeral parlour, which presented Tamura with a further omen of his death. Both friends were ‘grieving over this last parting’ and ‘both wanted me to overnight at their houses’. When one went to relieve himself, the other took the chance to urge Tamura not to encourage death on his final night at home. ‘My mother is really worried about you too. It’s morbid spending the night in a funeral parlour. It’s like beckoning death for a soldier departing for the front, so you should come to my place’. While the 104 Terry Eagleton, How to Read Literature (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), p. 29. 105 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 109. Written 1 June 1943.

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entry seems light-hearted on the surface, with Tamura appearing to be merely recording the dilemma of deciding with whom he should spend his final night at home, the sombre shadow of death is evident in the writer’s cry of relief at the offer extended by Kojima. The notion of seken is further hinted at here with Tamura’s comment that Ochiai was ‘so appreciative of my going to war’. And yet, as the entry continues, we see a glimpse again of the finality of Tamura’s departure. Ochiai said that since this was most likely the final farewell, we should all spend the night together [text unreadable] They [ …] [text unreadable] waited for me, having prepared a feast and prepared all sorts of things for my farewell. I couldn’t help wavering between the two. At that time, I realized that a man’s word is more important than death, so even if I am leaving to go to die, I must not hurt my friends. ‘Kojima, please thank your mother for me. I don’t believe in those kinds of omens. We only die once. As a soldier it will be a splendid soldier’s death’, so saying, I turned his invitation down.106

Ironically, Tamura declined his friend’s mother’s offer on the rational grounds of rejecting superstition. Tamura is unequivocal in his recognition that he is ‘leaving to go to die’. As he wrote this piece around three months after his arrival in New Guinea, it is evident that this memory of the chance of a ‘splendid soldier’s death’ was still empowering for Tamura. Interestingly, Tamura mentioned his departure from his hometown, and it is unclear as to whether the offer for lodgings was while he was still away from his departure point. The fact that he had to rise early for departure which, as we have seen, was late at night, signals the possibility that Tamura was away from home at the time of his second call-up. We also recall that Tamura mentioned that his departure did not enable him to bid farewell to his family. The entry concludes with the doomed man, Tamura, eating a celebratory meal of rice cakes. I got up early the next morning, and to celebrate my departure from my hometown, I ate my fill of rice cakes. I remember fondly the events of my final departure for the front.107

106 Ibid., p. 110. Written 1 June 1943. 107 Ibid.

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Even this feeling of fondness at the night’s events (which he terms as his ‘final’ departure) is haunted by a dream, which he may have had at the time, even on that last night. My ominous dream of the sinking of the Kosei Maru at that time upsets me even now. I am so happy at my friends’ warmth, and in this strange land, I pray for my friends’ well-being.108

The portentous dream did not tarnish the affection that Tamura held for his friends, lucky enough not to have been called up with him, and fortunate enough to have been able to stay in the relative comfort of home while he was installed in ‘this strange land’. On the following page, his words portray the loneliness he felt as he wrote these memories in the remote battlefield. I recall with joy my friends’ warmth In the dreams of my departure. News of my friends does not come But I pray for their well-being. Crossing distant seas, crossing distant mountains, On this battlefield protecting our fatherland, I think of my friends at home, And fondly remember my last night with them. On the beach where the rain falls every night, In the southern land far beyond yearning, Yonder over the raging ocean, Is the horizon that I dream of. Sent off by the white seagulls I set sail from my homeland wharf. On the battlefield I have heart-warming memories Of last year’s summer.109

108 Ibid. 109 Ibid., p. 110. Written 1 June 1943.

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When he wrote this piece, Tamura had been gone from Japan for around six months. His sense of longing for both friends and homeland are quite palpable in this entry. Reminiscing about friends brought him both comfort and a juxtaposed sense of loss and longing. The disquiet caused by these conflicting emotions were perhaps a foil for Tamura’s other attempts to motivate himself. As his diary progresses, other aspects of his life in New Guinea – aspects associated with the farcical nature of the New Guinea campaign, the inequities of the military system, the tedium and the terror of life in a warzone, the death of his comrades, and his own desire for an individual self – threatened to destabilize his capacity to continue on the loyal path of servant to the Emperor.

9

Challenges to a Resolve to Die

The Useless Rhetoric of the Emancipation of Asia One of the significant motivators for soldiers like Tamura was the prospect of involvement (both ego-based and goal-oriented) in Japan’s expansionist programme, seen as a holy and just war that would result in the emancipation of Asia. As early as 1936, the Kokutai no Hongi [Fundamentals of Our National Polity) had exhorted that Japan must strive to eradicate the aggressive policies of the great powers and share with East Asia the joy that is based on the true principles of coexistence and coprosperity. This is the realization of the spirit of the Imperial Way, which must be accepted as the consistent guiding principle in Japan’s policy of foreign expansion […] Japan plans to promote her racial and economic development in the South Seas, especially in the outlying South Seas area […].1

Similarly, Seki Seisetsu (1877-1945), a ‘fully enlightened’ Zen master who served as a military chaplain, expressed the belief in his work entitled ‘The Promotion of Bushidō’ [Bushidō no Kōyō], published in 1942, that the soldiers’ role was one of duty for the development of East Asia. At this moment, we are in the sixth year of the sacred war, having arrived at a critical juncture. All of you should obey imperial mandates, being loyal, brave, faithful, frugal, and virile. You should cultivate yourselves more and more both physically and spiritually in order that you don’t bring shame on yourselves as imperial soldiers. You should acquire a bold spirit like the warriors of old, truly doing your duty for the development of East Asia and world peace. I cannot help asking this of you.2

The Nankai Shitai [South Seas Regiment] Western 34th regiment’s battle song also lauded their own role in the establishment of ‘A New World Order’, which would see all nations ‘under one Roof’. Oh, Heavenly Japan, The Emperor’s power is clear 1 2

As quoted in Lu, Japan: A Documentary History, vol 2. pp. 418-419. As quoted in Victoria, Zen at War, pp. 112 -113.

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We must build a new World Order Everlastingly, all nations under one Roof. While we have this weighty Mission, Even if in the waters, grass-grown corpses soak, Let us go, Comrades, with hearts united – The Western 34th regiment.3

The words of another Japanese soldier, Matsuoka Kinpei, echo that sentiment: [T]hey are dying, hoping for and believing in the construction of Greater Asia and the maintenance of a prosperous Japan. The same is also true for me. Those who are killed can rest in peace if and when the establishment of Greater Asia and Japan’s prosperity have been achieved. 4

His words are closely aligned with the teachings of the Kokutai no Hongi, which stated that Our Imperial Forces have come to hold a position of responsibility in which their duty is to make our national prestige greatly felt within and without our country, to preserve the peace of the Orient in the face of the world powers, and to preserve and enhance the happiness of mankind.5

The Kokutai no Hongi was designed to lay the foundations of a ‘national prestige’ that would see the dominance of Japan in all of the regions it decided to ‘liberate’; however, the document was ultimately lacking in the ability to justify ill-conceived and poorly resourced military campaigns doomed to failure. In 1938, when the lofty ideals of Japan’s push through Asia had first been championed by Kawai Tatsuo (1889-1965) in his book The Goal of Japanese Expansionism, Japan’s coalition with other Asian states, the so-called Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, had been little more than an ultra-nationalistic vision. However, by the time Tamura began his tour of duty in the South, the area controlled by the Japanese military included half of the Pacific and comprised some very strategic Allied military positions. Consequently, in the period between 1942 and 1944, newspapers 3 AWM ATIS CT No 9, ‘The Nankai Shitai Western 34th regiment’s battle song’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 31. 4 Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-kai, ed., Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices from the Sea), p. 131. 5 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, p. 171.

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and magazines provided images of promise for the birth of a greater Asia with Japan at the helm.6 By 1943, the Japanese Empire had expanded to cover not only 10% of the world but more importantly the majority of Asia. However, as we will see, while the building of ‘a new world order’ seemed possible in Tamura’s campaign in China, in the remote environs of New Guinea, the indigenous people were rarely encountered, as evidenced in the following poem Two cucumbers ripened, the jungle inhabitants unaware, their hut empty.7

In the oppressive desolation of the tropical jungle, there were no tangible traces of human presence to justify Tamura’s commitment to the greater cause of Asian liberation. New Guinea was never considered to be a prize in terms of either human or physical resources, and this is palpably clear as demonstrated here by the miserable sight of two abandoned cucumbers and an empty deserted hut. While pages of newspapers and magazines in Japan were adorned with images of the emancipated peoples of Asia now under the benevolent rule of the great nation of Japan, for Tamura, the encounter with New Guinea’s indigenous inhabitants suggested that, in their primitive state, the ‘natives’ of the tropics would fail to see the benefits of Japan’s civilizing mission, let alone make a worthwhile contribution to the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.8 Tamura’s dilemma of reconciling the alien nature of the battlefront with the need to remain committed to taigi is summed up in the final verse of the entry. (Night insects) In the jungle where the crocodiles live and the mountain valleys where the serpents crawl, 6 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 262. 7 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 44. Written 11 April 1943. 8 Earhart, Certain Victory, p. 271. Magazines of the period were replete with photographs of soldiers assisting in the education and enlightenment of indigenous inhabitants of conquered territories. The People’s Weekly Report (PWR, Shashin Shūhō) 249 on 2 December 1942 records a captioned photograph that reads ‘Mr Soldier Gently Takes Us by the Hand and Teaches Us’. The PWR was issued by the CIB (Cabinet Information Bureau), which ‘coordinated and monitored all information during the war’. Ibid., p. 3, 262. Earhart argues that the Co-prosperity Sphere was contingent on the very ‘“Asianness” of its inhabitants’.

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the unceasing commotion of construction, is it ringing in the dawning of Asia? This is the battlefront.9

The battlefront was no longer the relatively familiar terrain of China, with the prospect of both a noble death and liberation for the Asian brethren including the ‘dawning of Asia’. For Tamura, the battlefield was now truly a backwoods, with no human agency, a totally uncivilized place inhabited only by loathsome crocodiles and snakes which, with the night insects, added to an uncannily destabilizing sense of rupture from home. Japanese soldiers were not the only ones to see the war in the Pacific in these terms. Samuel Hynes asserts that, while soldiers in the war in Europe marched through a classical past and fought on great battlefields of history, The Pacific War wasn’t like that: Southeast Asia and the islands were remote, exotic places where everything was different, where the people had brown or yellow skins and spoke strange languages, and where the landscapes were hostile to Westerners. […] once Singapore and Manila fell, war moved away from those patches of civility, to the jungle and the islands. Out there the war life was all there was: no history was visible, no monuments of the past, no cities remembered from books. There was nothing there to remind the soldier of his other life: no towns, no bars, nowhere to go, nowhere even to desert to. Reading narratives of the jungle campaigns one occasionally comes upon a village or a plantation or a native hut, but the general sense they give is not of the imposed order of human occupation, but of a green and threatening mystery.10

Tamura was also confounded by the lack of evidence of any of the arrogant ideals of Imperial Japan being brought to fruition here in New Guinea. The only evidence that confirmed for Tamura that the New Guinea front was remotely related to the grander scheme of emancipating Asia was the sound of his own construction work. Was this part of the prescribed position on emancipation and growth of a new Asia under the banner of Imperial Japan?11 Tamura’s verse underscores the hollow value of this territorial 9 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 67. Written 13 April 1943. 10 Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale, pp. 159-160. 11 Tamura’s use of the expression ‘ringing in the dawning of Asia’ evokes the words of Kawai Tatsuo, who proclaimed that Japan needed to lead in the ‘dawn of a new Asia’. Kawai Tatsuo,

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dominance, where the reality of the creation of a new Asia meant only his hard labour here on a remote battlefront. Even Tamura’s chance meeting with the indigenous population of New Guinea did not provide him with the prospect of deliverance. Rather, Tamura’s accounts of his inadvertent and infrequent meetings with locals record his fascination with these manifestations of the primitive ‘Other’ ‘Natives’ When I saw real naked natives for the first time, I felt frightened. But they did not do any harm. They were very well hung, and proudly decorated their hair with bird feathers. It was a surprise for me to see the way they showed off their decoration. When we reached our destination in the late afternoon, we rested by the regimental barracks. There came forty to fifty natives, all of whom were naked. Some were carrying thick ropes and bush knives. A few were wearing crosses on their chests. Furthermore, about half of them were completely naked.12

Tamura’s reactions were initially of fear at the sight of the naked and decorated indigenous population, which was eventually allayed in favour of an awed description of their bodies, adornments, and implements. Australian soldier Harry Bell was less intrigued by the local indigenous people, and while his patronizing and derisive description of them is completely divergent to the observations made by the more fascinated Tamura, there was still a sense of the futility of liberation: These boongs are quite amusing. The Mary’s [sic] are disgusting looking creatures for the most part, with rope-like breasts drooping down, but the kids, or monkeys, are very funny […] The men are quieter and much fatter. They aren’t accustomed to doing much work, though, by ghost, they can carry cargo or stretchers if need be. And they’re not always quiet, by any means. You should see them crossing a strong river – or rather, hear them. They hop, cat call, laugh, shout – and as soon as they get out, you hear shrill ‘Whoo-oops’.13

The Goal of Japanese Expansion (Tokyo: The Hokuseidō Press, 1938), p. 109. 12 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 95 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. 13 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 112.

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Tamura was more captivated, and his record of meeting the natives showed a recognition of the alien-ness of each to the other. The soldiers stared at them strangely. The natives were also staring at the soldiers intently. They went around the building about twice and disappeared. When I asked other soldiers who had been here previously about them, they told us that the natives came to have a look at us. To them, the soldiers looked very weird. Probably, we looked very foreign to them.14

Overall, though, the local people were still described as ‘natives’, and the description of them was in stark contrast to Tamura’s description of the people he portrayed in both Korea and China.15 The Koreans and the Chinese were still the people who the ‘great and enlightened’ might of Japan had the chance to ‘liberate’ as against the naivety and novelty of the New Guinean inhabitants. I asked for bananas in the mountains. They seemed to be saying that they did not have bananas at the moment. I felt I understood their language a little bit. Compared with Chinese people, the native children did not have any traces of gloominess and looked so innocent, as if they were blessed by God. They seemed to regard the soldiers as a peculiar group. They were not frightened and did not cry although we were still new to them.16

Tamura alludes here to a ‘gloominess’ of the children he remembered in China, where war was waged against the local population. The war here in New Guinea was not being fought against the ‘native’ population, and so it was understandable that the children would be less disconsolate and less afraid than the children of the Chinese ‘enemy’. While there appeared to be little prospect (or interest) on the part of Tamura of drawing into the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere a group of people whose lifestyle

14 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 95 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. 15 For example, in Korea: the ‘children clothed in tatters’ and the ‘housewives busy hanging washing up high’. Ibid., p. 33. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943. For example, in China: ‘Tianjin was like a metropolis of North China and the platform was quite big too. The girls selling the Chinese flowers, a specialty of the region, were beautiful. Holding red and yellow flower baskets, they walked among the congestion of passengers. I fondly remembered the beautiful Chinese garments.’ Ibid., p. 54. Written between 11 and 12 April 1943. 16 Ibid., p. 96 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 4 and 25 May 1943.

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was so remote from his own, he did note that there was a shrewdness of the natives as to the hierarchical nature of the Army. The grown-ups knew who had power, so they were more generous and gave various goods to the officers. The natives knew about the world, didn’t they?17

Ultimately, the men in Tamura’s unit assessed the local people as friendly: ‘Everybody says, “The natives look very vicious at first, but isn’t it good to know that they are really gentle and innocent?”’.18

The natives were not only gentle and innocent, they were also described as possessing goods and amenities that the soldiers coveted. Given the dire resource shortage faced by the Imperial Japanese Army in New Guinea, it is hardly surprising that the men craved the humble sweet potatoes and pumpkins grown in jungle villages and even longed for the more appropriate shelter of the local indigenous people as torrents of rain washed through their flimsy military issue tents. Eventually Tamura concluded that this was an outpost where only the locals could survive. The nostalgia of his previous continental service exerted its considerable pull as, ‘[gazing] at the sky visible through the eaves’ of ‘houses built by natives’, he longed ‘for the North China sky’.19

The Tedium, the Terror, and the Lowly Role The powerlessness of the soldiers in the harsh jungle battling rain, disease, and starvation (in addition to the superior equipment of the enemy) was severely exacerbated by the drudgery of the tasks to which they were assigned. As a soldier of five years, Tamura was disappointed within just over a month of arriving in New Guinea with the menial nature of his tasks, and he complained that: Today we again pulled the luggage carts, weaving our way through the coconut groves. So this is our campaign! I just can’t help feeling what a strange employment!20 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 100. Written between 4 and 25 May 1943. 20 Ibid., p.17 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 1 April 1943.

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The absolute exhaustion caused by his role is vividly expressed in the following poem: Sweating profusely in the blazing sun, soldiers build an airstrip in complete silence. Under the blazing sun, soldiers construct airfields with sweat and without words. The construction work progresses day by day. The adjutant officer comes for inspection today as well. We sit down by the shore, wiping sweat from our face And look across the sea, waiting for letters from home.21

The onomatopoeic expressions – daku daku, moku moku – ‘with sweat and without words’ (or, more literally, sweating profusely in silence) express the writer’s intensity of emotion and paint a vivid picture of the incredible harshness and loneliness of his role. Soldiers had no recourse but to mutely and painfully toil away at their lowly tasks, burdened down by the physical and emotional isolation of their roles.22 In a memoir written about his time in Wewak, military engineer Hisayama Shinobu described the clearing undertaken to create the airfields as incredibly taxing work under the blistering sun. The soldiers worked away in pairs with two-metre-long cross-saws that were not up to the task of cutting through the coconut trees that crowded the area. It would take two soldiers working as a team to cut down only two trees per day. After the trees were cut down, the roots remained and had to be laboriously pulled out by hand.23 Other diarists also bemoaned their ignoble role. One soldier wrote of himself as a dark pathetic warrior (covered with sweat and dust) with long hair – what a sight – this is what makes us so strong and thinking thus tears 21 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 45 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 22 According to a report written for the US Army postwar: ‘The road building projects were next to impossible for the Japanese to accomplish. Their maps were poor. The routes they selected [ …] led them through disease-ridden jungles and swamps, over towering mountains, and up and across canyons and gorges. They never had enough machinery and what they had was ineffective […] Combat troops were unhappy as labourers […].’ Miller, Cartwheel, p. 42. 23 Hisayama, Tōbu Nyūginia sensen kikoku no senjō, pp. 237-238.

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come to my eyes […]. Who wouldn’t cry from this feeling – we who have suffered the same hardships and difficulties of a soldier.24

Yet another related that, at thirty years of age, in spite of all he had experienced, he was only a horse guard. Seeing a transport ship departing, he wished he could be on it returning home again. However, he remained committed to his role by affirming to himself that it was his duty to ‘serve until the objective has been attained’.25 Within the diary, we detect Tamura’s creeping despondency, which was exacerbated by the physical reality of his mundane and dreary role. Even though strengthening the area around Wewak, with its port and airfields, was of vital importance and significance to the Japanese campaign, Tamura found no value in the drudgery of his role as a labourer.26 From very early on, he lamented: ‘We are living in tents, and the days pass meaninglessly in hard labour’.27 The reality of what he considered a very humble role was evident from the beginning of his time in New Guinea Today we again pull the luggage carts, weaving our way through the coconut groves. So, these are military operations! I just can’t help constantly feeling: what a strange employment!28

Tamura’s dismay and frustration are evident in this entry, and his words convey the disillusionment of a soldier whose efforts, which should have been paving the way for the enlightenment of Asia, seem in vain. There was also an unsettling precedent when the 41st Division landed in Wewak in February 1943 to undertake the construction of air bases and supply lines. This was, in fact, the first time that strategic troops had been engaged in such tasks, a disgruntling fact for the soldiers.29 Tamura was not alone in 24 AWM ATIS CT No 140 (1480), ‘Diary of Komatsu Rokuzo’. 25 AWM ATIS CT No 1 (38), ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier 38’. 26 ‘Under the revised strategy [of Imperial Headquarters…] Lae, Salamaua, Wewak, and Madang on New Guinea’s north coast were specifically mentioned as bases to be held. […] These points were valuable as harbours, airfield sites, or both’. See Miller, Cartwheel, p. 34. 27 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 6 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 6 March and 1 April 1943. 28 Ibid., p. 17 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 1 and 2 April 1943. 29 Takushiro Hattori, Complete History of the Greater East Asia War (Tokyo: United States Army Forces Far East, 1959), Part IV, vol. 3, p. 114; Richmond, The Japanese Forces in New Guinea during World War II, p. 89. ‘It was expected that the road would be used in tandem with a sea

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his exasperation with such menial labour, and frustration of the officers and soldiers with the fact that, as a tactical division, they were meant to be engaged in combat did create some impediment to the construction work they were to undertake.30 Another soldier in New Guinea lamented dissatisfaction at his tragic circumstances which precluded him from the honour of a noble end. Ide Ninja wrote: ‘of course I do not expect to return safely, but it is regrettable to die in such tragic circumstances. I want to go to Yasukuni Shrine only after a gallant and brilliant fight’.31 Not only were they engaged in manual labour, on arrival, the soldiers were confronted with the fact that all of their equipment had been destroyed in an air attack by the Allies, leaving them with the only option of plucking the grass with their bare hands.32 The gruelling nature of the work was not the greatest bugbear for Tamura though; it was the drudgery and discontent that are most evident in Tamura’s words. Even the coconut groves, which upon arrival held fascinating promise, now appeared complicit in condemning the writer to insignificance. As early as April, Tamura showed that he was deeply disheartened by the system under which he was forced to operate. It is disgusting, on this second call-up, that life in the squad differs greatly according to rank. After all, that is not in the Imperial Rescript. On my previous tour of duty I was so distressed that I hadn’t at least reached the rank of corporal, while here on the southern war front, they fall like flowers. The funeral service of one of my friends was held on the first of April by the company commander. How I ache at my friend’s adversity. How much more miserable the conditions here are than at my time on the warfront in China.33

Distressed by the treatment he received because of his lowly rank; Tamura noted that the ranking system of the military was not the product of the Emperor’s will as it was not in the Imperial Rescript of which he is obviously route. But the use of landing craft proved impossible beyond 60-80km from Wewak. […] the 20th Division continued to be used for construction work in including airfields and roads […] by late July, three infantry battalions were engaged in repairing the airfield in the vicinity of But and constructing roads between But and Maprik.’ (see Japanese Monograph No.39 p. 73). 30 See Japanese Monograph No. 37 in Detwiler and Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific, p. 173. 31 AWM ATIS CT No 98 (1071), ‘Diary of Ide Ninja’. 32 Heath, ‘Southern Cross’, Chapter 8, p. 1. 33 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 23. Written between 2 and 11 April 1943.

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conversant. He referred to the fact that he had devoted himself not once but twice to the cause, and yet on his second call-up, his life was adversely affected by the fact that he remained on the lowest rung of military rank. We noted earlier that farming families often benefited from their son’s war service, and this was because The army was seen to afford peasant soldiers new prospects. If one became a non-commissioned officer – a corporal or sergeant – through service in the field, a road lay open to becoming a person of influence in one’s village upon return. Soldiers were eager to make the rank of corporal that teasing of soldiers who remained privates sometimes led to incidents of assault.34

Tamura was obviously affected by his lack of prospects and by the lack of future that his inability to rise up the ranks afforded him. There is also the lack of military support evident in his diary when he writes Contact has completely ceased. All that is left for us is to confront the enemy With our own strength.35

In the immediacy of this situation, which was foregrounded by the hardship and toil of constructing airfields at the battlefront where he and his comrades were ‘Sweating profusely in the blazing sun, soldiers build[ing] an airstrip in complete silence’, there was also the realization that soldiers were ‘falling like flowers’ around him. Tamura was again confronted with the recognition that his conditions here were so much worse than anything he had experienced in China.36 Although Tamura was increasingly unsure of the role he was expected to play, he refrained from explicitly criticizing the kokutai, the ideology. Rather, he committed himself uncomplainingly to his life as a soldier, as evidenced by his ongoing attempts to make bearable the desolate New Guinea surroundings. The sound of the waves has become our lullaby Living in a tent is comfortable once you get used to it.37 34 Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism, p. 50. 35 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 40. Written between 2 and 11 April 1943. 36 Ibid., p. 45 (Translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943. 37 Ibid., p. 46 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 11 April 1943.

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Nature again served to nurture, with the sound of the waves as his lullaby reminiscent of the words of the song “Ware wa umi no ko” [We are the children of the Sea]. Even the enforced familiarity of the tent brought a certain security. Furthermore, Tamura ascribed the fact that he was capable of enduring the unendurable to his training as a soldier. Only because I became a soldier Could I manage to be strong and courageous.38

Here the diarist used his belief in the spiritual invincibility of the Japanese soldier as an effective form of motivation. He further noted that ‘here on the Southern front, the heavier our defense duties, the more devoted our loyalty’.39 This ‘spiritual strength’ was also alluded to by another soldier commenting on the dire circumstances in which he and his fellow soldiers had found themselves. Stragglers seem to be increasing daily. Is it because of the absence of daily training, or is it lack of physical energy? What we need is spiritual strength […]. 40

What Tamura had hoped for was to be able to Tomorrow forward march, then batter the enemy target to pieces. That’s what we want to boast to those at home, The soldiers of five years talk big. 41

The kokutai had dictated that soldiers forsake all else for their duty, which was ‘weightier than a mountain’, and Tamura implies here that this was in fact his big ambition as a soldier. 42 Perhaps, too, the concept of seken played a role here. Tamura wanted only to be able to boast to his friends and family that he had been part of the glorious Imperial Army, marching forward with strength and might to quash the enemy. And yet, his ‘talking 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., p. 50. Written 11 April 1943. 40 AWM ATIS CT No 7 (116), ‘Diary of Sadahiro (last name unknown)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 5. 41 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 50. Written 11 April 1943. 42 Monbushō, The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors (page numbers not present in the document).

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big’ was no match for the reality of being left with only the lack of spiritual strength implicit in the following entry. We are generally in bad shape. In spite of our superior’s words, our fighting spirit has been in decline. It might be to do with working too hard or malnutrition. No, no. It was not like this at the beginning. Military life is never exciting, but the current situation is not at all rewarding. 43

Here, Tamura was very aware that there was no glory in his military life; it was not what the kokutai had implied it would be. Life was the daily grind of construction and hardship. It became increasingly clear that the glorious prospects promised for him as a soldier of the Empire were now blatantly chimeric. Despite the need for spiritual strength, it was perhaps the lack of nurture and order, which should have been provided by the agents of the kokutai themselves, that proved to be the greatest challenge to Tamura’s resolve.44 The inequitable hierarchy brought forth a deep cynicism in Tamura, and this was further heightened by what he perceived as a lack of moral principles among the officers themselves. This is particularly evident in an entry cryptically entitled ‘Emotion: Unboiled Water Incident’ in which an officer clearly broke his trust. How do you respond when someone behaves immorally? The superior officer who preaches the military code? How can we trust someone who should be morally upright but who behaves in a two-faced way, leading people astray?45

Whilst the details of this incident remain unclear, Tamura’s antagonism here was focused on the superior officer’s inability to operate not only within the military code but as a morally sound fellow human. Tamura’s belief in his own role as a soldier of the Empire was not in question here,

43 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 102 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 25 and 27 May 1943. 44 ‘The criticisms mainly directed against officers were abandonment, greed (specifically with regard to food supply), incompetence, deliberate falsification of information, and ill-treatment. Tensions between officers and enlisted men led to decline in discipline, refusal to obey orders, instances of soldiers intentionally killing their own officers, and a great deal of bitterness and resentment, which detracted from unit cohesiveness and morale’. Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets, p. 83. 45 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 113. Written 5 June 1943.

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yet his disappointment at the system under which he now operated was clear as he continued: The soldiers are the children of the Emperor. How sad it is to have to obey someone just because he is a superior officer. 46

In this passage, Tamura deferred to the Emperor as the ultimate father figure, which was the promise the kokutai had pledged, yet the ‘one great loyalty’ due to the Emperor was here perverted by those of higher rank who failed to fulfil honorably their responsibilities to their soldiers. 47 The continued commitment to ‘national virtues’ was evoked in speeches on the battlefield. One such speech was a moral lecture in March 1942 by First Lieutenant Horiguchi Tsugio, who stated that ‘Loyalty is the basis of our country’s moral principles; the progenitor of our national virtues […] Our soldiers must march courageously along this great pathway of spirit’. 48 The duty of enlisted men to subjugate their sense of self in order to more effectively act as subordinates to their superior officers was a common theme of Imperial Japan’s military rhetoric. Okubō Kōichi, a military participant in the discussion Bukkyō Nippon no Shihyō o Kataru Zadankai [A Discussion on the Aims of Buddhist Japan], was quite clear on the role of enlisted men and conscripts and the need for loyal warriors of the Emperor to nullify any sense of self by obeying those in authority. [The soldier] must become one with his superior. He must actually become his superior. Similarly, he must become the order he receives. That is to say, self must disappear. In so doing, when he eventually goes onto the battlefield, he will advance when told to advance […]. On the other hand, should he believe that he is going to die and act accordingly, he will be unable to fight well. 49 46 Ibid. 47 Drea, In the Service of the Emperor, p. 81. Drea argues that all ‘little loyalties to higher authority, cultivated originally in one’s own family, in this surrogate or substitute family [of the military] added up to one great loyalty due to His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan’. 48 AWM ATIS EP 80, ‘Enemy Publication Moral Lecture by First Lieutenant Horiguchi Tsugio’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM, March 1942), p. 4. 49 Victoria, Zen at War, p. 103, cited from Daihōrin March 1937, p. 86. The Daihōrin, a monthly magazine on Buddhist topics, has been in circulation since 1934. See Edwin P. Hoyt, Three Military Leaders (Tokyo; New York; London: Kodansha International, 1993). As early as 1937, when the likelihood of war between China and Japan had increased, discussion groups centred on Buddhism (and particularly Zen Buddhism), Bushidō, and the military occurred frequently. See Victoria, Zen at War, p. 102.

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Tamura’s dilemma in committing unqualifiedly to this belief is evident in the following passage: How unhappy are the soldiers who cannot respect their superior officers whom they should be able to trust unreservedly?50

Although the requirement to acquiesce to the command of the senior officers is well understood by Tamura, he concluded the entry with a selection of clichés that suggest that he ultimately recognized the nature of the power struggle with the officers in which he was enmeshed. If you win you are the loyalist army, if you lose you are the rebel army. You can’t win against a crying child and the lord of a manor.51

He could equally have been referring to the onslaught of the enemy or to the demands of the senior ranks when he bitterly observed that Where force prevails, righteousness withdraws.52

In other words, ‘might makes right’, even though the ‘righteousness’ is indeed in question. As a low-ranking soldier, Tamura accepted that here in the army there was only one sense of right, and that was on the side that has the power; and for him that meant conforming to the status quo rather than displaying any sense of individualism – which would have left him in the ranks of the rebel army. The actions of those officers who were not operating within the boundaries of legitimate behaviour had to be accepted purely because of the strength of their position. The behaviour of the senior officers, then, was diametrically opposed to the higher, self-sacrificial road of the true spirit of yamato damashii, which prided itself on a moralistic spirituality that lives by pure ideals, far superior to the ‘dog-eat-dog’ philosophy conveyed by these sayings. Tellingly, Tamura then encouraged himself to rise above his current demeaning circumstances and to continue in the higher, truly manly way.

50 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 113. Written 5 June 1943. 51 Ibid., p. 114. Written 5 June 1943. 52 Ibid.

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Pull yourself together and be a man. Don’t give in to anger like a wicked man, just don’t let these things shake your faith.53

The reference to anger is directed decisively at the degree of frustration he was experiencing in the face of off icer self-interest. In order to combat any disintegration of his faith, Tamura exhorts himself to remain committed, and to not fall prey to that anger ‘like a wicked man’. Again, Tamura had to rely on his own inner strengths as the consistent resource to self-motivate. The need to trust the senior officers is backgrounded by the fact that this was still very much a dangerous warzone. The enemy planes which fly over almost daily haven’t appeared in the last few days. We walk down the road feeling somehow unsettled, as if someone we expected hasn’t come. The anti-aircraft guns start blasting, a bit before the air-raid siren, as usual. ‘Aah, they’ve come. To the left of those clouds. They’re in the clouds’. Everyone stands still, unperturbed, watching the Boeing’s flight. It’s pretty big isn’t it. It is pretty high up but flying slowly, tormenting us. ‘Even though it is the enemy, it’s quite impressive isn’t it,’ someone mutters admiringly. ‘What are our planes doing?’ says one of my friends.54

The regularity, and indeed nullity, of the warzone made it possible for the absence of the ‘tormenting’ enemy planes to be akin to the non-arrival of ‘expected guests’. The arrival of the planes was almost a welcome relief, as the soldiers watched ‘unperturbed’ and ultimately feeling that the actions of the enemy fighter planes were ‘quite impressive’. The entry is, however, overshadowed by the obvious lack of firepower from within Tamura’s army’s air support. The day-to-day quest for victory is evident in the following line: ‘We were in the middle of our perpetual bayonet skills only because rigorous training would strengthen our faith in victory’.55 This entry was written on 18 August, the time of severe bombardment by the Allies on Tamura’s

53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., p. 18. Written 1 April 1943. 55 Ibid., p. 133. Written 18 August 1943 [some script illegible].

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position in which almost all aircraft were destroyed.56 Tamura recorded the devastating onslaught. We thought it was practice by our planes but, glancing up, the pitch-black shapes of three North American planes bore down on us as if to crush us, strafing us with machine gun fire. In a split second we threw ourselves flat down in shock. This is an air raid by the hated enemy. The leaves of the trees scattered with a pitter-patter onto the trenches. The planes flew away over our heads with a boom, trailing a terrifying roar. Then the surroundings suddenly became quiet as the grave. This is enemy action.57

Tamura was relieved at the stroke of fate that kept the men on the ground safe. But luckily not a single person was injured: it was divine intervention. Enemy air raids continued five or six times a day, back and forth. On the second day, they came over so boldly that we shot at them with light machine gun fire, but how nonchalantly they flew away! Our machines were so inadequate!58

The air raid, however, exacerbated Tamura’s feelings of inadequacy as a fatigue soldier who had no sense of involvement in the ‘glory’ of battle. Infantrymen suffer terribly. They fight neither on the ground nor in the sky No time to distinguish between enemy and friend Just terrifying gun battles Bodies covered with flames come falling Enemy fire takes away our comrades in arms.59

56 See David Dexter, The New Guinea Offensives, vol. vi, Australia in the War of 1939-1945 (Canberra, Australia: Australian War Memorial, 1961), p. 232. By the time of these raids, Wewak had four airfields in operation ‘and contained the highest concentration of Imperial Army troops anywhere in New Guinea’. See Duffy, War at the End of the World, p. 225. 57 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 133. Written 18 August 1943. 58 Ibid., p. 134. Written around 18 August 1943. 59 Ibid.

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His role of toil and tedium was a great disappointment to Tamura, and his impotence was accentuated by the fact that neither he nor his comrades on the ground were injured, while the fighter pilots fell from the sky in flames. Tamura was nonetheless entrenched in a dangerous warzone. In addition to providing details of the raids, the entries in the final pages build a vivid montage that depicts the men toiling under the blazing sun in the unbearable heat. We can see the heat haze, and the sandy ground is baked like a hot plate. The sky is clear again today and from morning the heat is intense. The size of the airfield is huge, with a perimeter of about 8 km. The work continues day after day.60

The enormity of the task was clear from the size of the perimeter of the airfield, and this task was exacerbated by the image of the scorching conditions that persisted from the early morning. As Tamura continues the entry, the indifferent way in which the soldiers reacted to the air raids, now almost incessant, reveals that emergency events such as enemy bombings eventually became normalized as an everyday event in the emotionless, ‘nullified’ atmosphere of the battlefield.61 Suddenly, the siren sounds loudly. Everybody stops working and jumps into bomb shelters. Yet, people are relaxed. Some bring along magazines that they have not finished reading. Others carve wood pieces with small knives. Everybody acts as if expected guests have arrived and evacuates to the shelter half-jokingly.62

The theme of the ‘expected guests’ is repeated here in the final pages of the diary. Instead of fearing the arrival of the far superior enemy, we see that Tamura welcomed them with a convivial reference to this anticipated ‘company’, further emphasizing the absurdity of the world in which he found himself. As a consequence of both the numbing of the senses and the millstone of the constant sapping labour they had to perform in this warzone, the attacks came almost as a welcome relief, an opportunity for some well-earned relaxation and the time to indulge in trivial pursuits. At 60 Ibid., p. 140 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 1 September and 8 December 1943. 61 Yasuko Claremont, Japanese Prose Poetry (Sydney: Wild Peony, 2006), p. 59. 62 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 140 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 1 September and 8 December 1943.

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times, he even managed to write a lighthearted parody in the face of the terror of the enemy bombs that rained down around him. ‘The Earth’s axis rumbles whenever red dragonflies drop their droppings’.63 This entry, one of the last in Tamura’s diary, nonetheless evokes the intensity of the air attacks. The sound of engines is getting close. The watch shouts, ‘Here they come!’ We enter the shelters. The bombs fall, and it sounds as if sand is falling above us. The noise is shattering. The ground shakes several times. My ears hurt even though I put my fingers in them. The walls of the shelter become loose.64

The reality is that the air attacks were petrifyingly dangerous, and the soldiers were at risk of losing their lives even in the shelter. Another soldier wrote of his experience as follows: I am writing a poem in the bomb-shelter and listening to the sound of the bombs; How pitiful it is that the springtime of my life is now about to end. Struggling through the loneliness in this southern land, I am alive in a bomb-shelter filled with the breath of others. How pitiful is a man who has to live so alone, in a bomb-shelter? That is becoming ever more foul from the comrade’s breath65

Pitted against a greater foe in the form of the mighty airpower of the Allies, Tamura’s world, too, was continually characterized by restricted spaces: if not the twilight jungle then the confined and claustrophobic environment of the hazardous bomb shelter. While the womb-like nature of the shelter might have appeared to protect the soldiers from the horror of life on the battlefield above, any sense of security was momentary. However, eventually the danger did pass. When the engine sound becomes distant, everybody comes out of the shelter and looks around to see if any damage is done. We did not suffer any damage. Feeling relieved, we resume our work on the bugle signal. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Written by Hachiya Hiroshi, who entered service in December 1943. Written on 13 December 1944. Tōdai Gakusei Jichi-kai Senbotsu Gakusei Shuki Hensan Iinkai (Committee for Compiling the Writings of the University of Tokyo Students Killed in the War), ed., In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers (Harukanaru Sanga Ni), p. 134.

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We complete every day in a similar pattern, but finally the wings that symbolize courage and strength start to descend on the airfield.66

As soon as the soldiers have ascertained that they were safe and that no damage had occurred, their lives returned to the grind of airfield construction, with no time for the men to collect their thoughts or to compose themselves. In juxtaposition to their depressing work, Tamura shifted his attention to the returning airmen, who symbolised for him ‘courage and strength’. Perhaps respect for the deeds of the airmen also allowed him to include himself in the ‘goal involvement’ of the Imperial mission when he expressed a sense of shared accomplishment and readiness to take on a new mission, as is evident in the final lines of this piece of descriptive prose. Finally, our mission is accomplished. Furthermore, we will carry on to complete new missions. I do not fear the heat or enemy planes. I will carry on without complaining.67

Once more, though, Tamura included himself in the grander cause and committed himself to persisting in his responsibility without lament. His words are full of resolve and determination to persevere against the enemy that was both the pitiless environment and the obvious enemy represented by the Allied bombers. The final poem in the entry, couched in the language of military songs, demonstrates a willing support for the noble pilots of the friendly bombers overhead. Moreover, it is a triumphant expression of pride at the success of his own contribution, which permitted the ‘young eagle’ to rise from the nest-like airfield constructed by his unit to defend the sky above the South Seas.68 How wonderful to see the young eagle Defending the Southern sea sky Leave its nest. 66 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 141 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 1 September and 8 December 1943. 67 Ibid., p. 141 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 1 September and 8 December 1943. 68 A popular pre-1938 gunka was Arawashi no uta (Song of the Wild Eagles) Another popular song was Sora no Yūshi (Courageous Men of the Sky) and during the Pacific War period, the song Wakawashi no uta (Song of Young Eagles) gained popularity. Arawashi is the Japanese word for fierce eagle, but is also used for intrepid flyer or air ace. A propaganda movie produced in 1944 and directed by Hozumi Toshimasa was titled Kimi koso tsugi no arawashi da (You are the Next Brave Eagle).

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The gunwall defense is shaken but In the Southern sea our airbase remains safe.69

The palpable happiness that filled Tamura’s heart in this passage perhaps served to discount the precarious circumstances of the troops and to create the illusion that the base was ‘safe’.

Death as Ignoble Reality Right from the outset, Tamura committed himself to what he hoped would be a noble death for the Emperor. However, Tamura’s humanity was revealed when he was confronted with the devastating actuality of death. Tamura showed how completely inadequate the ‘spiritual’ training provided by the military was for such a traumatic event. While the strategy of leaning heavily on the concepts of the kokutai had been the primary means of preparation for his own death, this approach proved totally futile and wanting when faced with the death of his comrades. Tamura suffered grief, and although death should be engaged with in culturally prescribed ways, the cultural morés of the kokutai provided Tamura with no relief. Early in the diary, Tamura recorded the ‘misfortune’ and miserable feelings generated by the death of a friend. Here, too, he made a comparison with the China front, hinting not only that soldiers’ deaths in China seemed noble and meaningful but also that funeral services for Imperial Japanese Army troops in China had a dignity and sense of ceremony completely absent in New Guinea. The funeral service of one of my friends was held on the first day of April by the company commander. How I ache at my friend’s misfortune. The conditions here are more miserable than at any time on the warfront in China.70

69 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 141 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 1 September and 8 December 1943. 70 Ibid., p. 23. Written between 2 and 5 April 1943.

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The deaths of fellow soldiers took their toll on Tamura, leaving him weary and in poor health. He ended the entry with the recognition that even the once solacing act of writing could not heal his sense of loss. Joyless, I take up my pen. Illness comes one after another, And I am weary.71

The soldier’s untimely and ignoble demise served to cement the realization for Tamura that he, too, was awaiting the same miserable fate. I know I will not return, So why do I long so for the home I have left behind? True, I am a soldier, But my Yamato spirit has a heart and soul too.72

Recognizing the importance of the yamato spirit, Tamura nevertheless felt compelled to vocalize the fact that this spirit was not solely a mechanism of the state as it actually resided within him; he was not devoid of feelings and emotions linked to the concept of ‘heart and soul’. He could not divorce himself from the fact that, as a human being, he experienced these ‘heart and soul’ emotions and feelings, especially now of grief. Rather than exalt the yamato spirit to metaphysical heights as prescribed by the kokutai, Tamura humanized this spirit with the flaws and failings inherent in man. His fighting spirit had been eroded by the death of his comrades and made him sense an even greater longing for that which was now unattainable: home. More disturbing for him, though, was the reaction he as a soldier would have when confronted with death. On 19 April, he wrote under the heading ‘Sad News of Death’ about the loss of one comrade whom he had bid farewell to on a ship departing for fatigue duty and of the potential demise of another who had recently left sick bay. This morning a senior soldier came from headquarters to tell us that the ship which departed last night with my friend had been destroyed. When I heard such terrible news, I couldn’t help thinking what sort of stupid news it was.

71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., p. 32. Written between 5 and 11 April 1943.

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I never thought it possible that he would come so swiftly to this bitter doom In the morning first class private Tamai leaves sick bay. As he still hasn’t returned, I feel anxious. Sad news authenticated 9 dead (19 April).73

Tamura was unable to fathom how swiftly and easily death had visited these men. How could the friend with whom he had recently exchanged affable banter so suddenly meet the ‘bitter doom’ of having his life obliterated? Had Tamai, the soldier who had left sick bay that morning, also met the same fate? The text suggests that he probably had. In a slightly later entry six pages further into the diary, Tamura wrote again of the death of a friend, although it is not clear whether he was referring to his friend who died on the 19th of April, Tamai, or to yet another comrade-in-arms. Now, in a verse entitled ‘The Sea in which My Friend Tragically Disappeared’, we find that the sea, which had in Tamura’s diary hitherto been a mighty symbol of the glorious Imperial mission, becomes an alien, all-consuming monster. On the sea which devoured my friend the little waves rise but leave no trace. The waves rise but the sea never changes, how horrible it is to think it swallowed my friend. Even though I searched for him, he never appeared. How far has he gone? To the very depths of this alien sea.74

In Tamura’s earlier reminiscences of the journey to the battlefield, the sea was a symbol of affirmative life force and masculine courage. As a source of knowledge and succour, it was also clearly an ally. Now, Tamura viewed the sea as a malicious and duplicitous enemy, turning from the grand, knowledge-giving ally into an unhospitable and hostile site of tragedy and horror.

73 Ibid., p. 82. Written between 19 and 20 April, 1943 (dated 20 April but the following page’s entry is dated 19 April). 74 Ibid., p. 88. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943.

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There was no corpse, no proof of a glorious demise; rather, death was inauspicious and coldly f inal. The lack of a body robbed Tamura of the chance of a mourning ritual, or indeed any chance to cremate the body and return some of it in the prescribed white wooden box to family members where it could be welcomed home and continued to be prayed for in the family altar. No doubt Tamura was now patently aware of the likelihood of his own fate: no body, no cremation, no possibility of being returned to the bosom of his family. There was a crisis of attention to the present here that was impossible to gloss over by any words that the kokutai discourse might have afforded him. The reality was that his comrades had perished and there was no glory, nor any reward for having died. Grappling with the problem of how to manage the grief by which he was overcome, Tamura continued to use the diary in his attempts to make some sense of both his friend’s death and his own reaction to it. A few days ago, my friend was killed by enemy shells in this bay. However, the bay with its white waves does not look any different. There are a few drums floating away from boats. The landscape of the headland is as lush as before. Boats are moored to the wharf as before. However, how devastated I feel! He left us after a work session, sending his regards to other members of our section. The next morning, this friend could not be found anywhere and now he is at the bottom of the sea after an attack by enemy planes. What an unfortunate fate he had.75

Although a splendid death was a central concept in kokutai discourse, Tamura here clearly inferred that the loss of this friend’s life had been without meaning. He acknowledged that the enemy was, in fact, the reason that his friend had died, and so the sea was relieved of the burden of guilt. However, nature persisted in its complicity, as the bay – the site of his friend’s death – was now the same peaceful scene that it had been prior to shelling, displaying no sign of that tragedy. The fact that his friend had disappeared, leaving no trace, highlighted not only the impersonal nature of death but also the very ordinariness of death. Tamura was also struck

75 Ibid., p. 89 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943.

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by the brevity of his lost comrade’s life. He fleetingly grasped again at the kokutai promise of eternal god status. However, it is no use lamenting. We hope he is in a peaceful slumber and becomes a god protecting the nation. At his grave, I prayed for my dead friend’s peaceful repose.76

There is an inference here that the majestic promise of becoming a god that will be revered by the nation-state was small compensation for a life cut short. As we have noted, Tamura’s sense of loss was further heightened by the destabilizing fact that the comrade’s death occurred at sea. Since this was the very sea to which he had once turned to shore up his own resolve to die a noble death, Tamura went to the pier to try to find some trace of meaning in his friend’s demise and to assuage the sense of loss by which he was consumed. He expressed the depths of his anguish as follows We pledged our life and death together, and now my friend is dead. In my overwhelming loneliness, all alone, I come to the pier where we parted, but all I saw were the unsmiling black faces of a couple of natives giving me a casual nod of the head. Sadly, in my heart I called out my friend’s name. The answering sound of the waves didn’t even say ‘sayonara’. No image of my friend appeared in my mind. Ahhh!77

Once again, the meaninglessness of the loss of young life was highlighted by the fact that neither the now detestable sea nor the indifferent natives showed the slightest interest, concern, or despair at his friend’s demise, nor did they offer Tamura some succour in his grief. In fact, in no way at all did they acknowledge the effect that this death had on Tamura. Isolated and gripped by an ‘overwhelming loneliness’, all that remained was to visit the site where he bid his comrade the final farewell and to call the friend’s name ‘in my heart’. The recalcitrance of the sea’s response denied Tamura even a ‘sayonara’ [farewell] reply from this former comrade. Still trying to make sense of the event and trying to add some grandeur to his friend’s death, Tamura momentarily clutched at the language of the official discourse. In this sea at the extremity of the Southern Ocean At the far end of New Guinea 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid., p. 90. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943.

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He died as a flower defending his country May he rest in eternal fragrance, a guardian god of East Asia.78

Again, Tamura draws on the iconography of the kokutai, using the motif of the fallen flower, and wishing for his friend the eternal reward promised by the official discourse. However, the fragility of this faith is apparent in the lines that follow. How can I not lament you, my friend, a young cherry blossom, fallen and gone? That was all the life you had.79

Although the kokutai asks him to accept the sacrifice of life for the noble cause of Japan, having claimed all too soon this young cherry blossom, his friend, death had now become a personal, private matter and a matter for lamentation, not praise. In the f inal frame, Tamura revealed that there was no perceptible reward for this young friend in demise. Tamura therefore found it impossible to feel the mandatory calm ‘joy’ demanded by the Department of Military Education’s booklets distributed to officers offering advice on the implementation of the Senjinkun. This material stated that ‘Transcending life and death’, the soldier should ‘earnestly rush forward to accomplish your duty. Exhausting the power of your body and mind, calmly find joy in living in eternal duty’. 80 For Tamura, it was little reparation for a friend’s ephemeral, ‘cherry-blossom-like’ existence. Tamura recognized that he did not have the means with which to deal with his deepening and compounding grief. He wrote under the heading ‘Sentimentality’ Feeling lonely is such a sentimental thing. I become sad at the slightest thing. Ahhh! Is this how it is on the battlefield? When I think of half my life, just a young shoot still growing, I feel miserable.

78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. 80 Four booklets were produced at the same time as the Senjinkun (January 1941) under anonymous authorship by the Department of Military Education ‘designed to provide the officer corps with guidance for the implementation of the [Senjinkun]’. Victoria, Zen War Stories (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), p. 117.

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What is faith? I’ve put so much effort into becoming strong and yet I am so weak. Why is that?81

Tamura’s ‘efforts’ to become strong had presumably been, in part, his total commitment to the requirements of being a soldier of the Empire. There is an absurdity, though, in Tamura’s assumption that his reaction was due to his own weakness. While Tamura could claim that his sadness came ‘at the slightest thing’, the death of a comrade, and the prospect of his own demise, were actually very serious things. The clear inference in the lines above was that this loss had forced Tamura to confront the fact that, even though he himself, like his friend, was ‘just a young shoot still growing’, there was almost no doubt that his fate would be one with that of his lost comrade. The turmoil in dealing with this existentialist dilemma is demonstrated by the lines below. It’s hard to stop feeling sorrowful. How should this body that cannot resign itself to its destiny now live?82

There is an undertone of survivor remorse in this entry. Even though Tamura was reluctant to release his hold on this mortal existence and ‘resign [himself] to his destiny’, his anguish was directed at the fact that his friend had already made that sacrifice. Sorrow for his friend became sorrow at his own continued existence, and confused speculation at just how he could continue in composure until his impending fate befell him. He was trapped here in an atrocious environment that promised nothing but a wretched death. Again, he blamed himself for not being able to let go of his life in the manner required by the tenets of the kokutai when he writes As a man who came to this strange land to sacrifice his life for the Emperor I am unmanly. Maybe I just cannot let go of my life. Bestowed this agonizing existence, living and dying is a paper-fine difference known only by the gods.83

81 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 91. Written between 19 April and 4 May 1943. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid.

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Tamura was well aware of the insistence that he had to relinquish his life, yet his tiny, muffled voice of self-preservation continued to torment him with the fact that he was as yet unready and indeed unable to let go of his mortal existence and forgo his chance of life. He was painfully aware that he was living towards death alone, and the only way to digest that was to offer up his destiny to the metaphysical, that strange force that continued to drive him towards his ultimate fate.84 His grief caused him to call into question his own ‘manliness’, yet he does not shrink from the obligation that he would inevitably die. In a moving entry in the latter part of the diary titled ‘Battle Comrade’, Tamura observed that he had not divulged the details of his previous warzone experience to a colleague who was departing, presumably for battle and likely death. Distant memories of my expedition, I kept my exploits from my comrade On his departure.85

There is a grim sense of resignation to the verse, a sadness and foreboding at what was likely to be a final farewell. Past battle exploits in China were not only irrelevant but deathly ironic here in New Guinea, and the fervour and excitement of being an Imperial soldier expressed in the passage on the Black Current early in the diary had by now disappeared completely. For Tamura, the ability to remain emotionally grounded in the New Guinea battlefield had been contingent on his acceptance of the obligation to die on behalf of the Empire. The hollowness of this obligation, however, was summed up by Lieutenant-General Yoshiwara Kane, writing after the suicide of the New Guinea campaign commander, Lieutenant-General Adachi Hatazō, following the life sentence handed down to the latter by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal) on 12 July 1947. As Yoshiwara observed, ‘meritorious deeds on the New Guinea battleground brought no laurels of victory, only funeral wreaths. The dead received no eulogies, and no-one recorded their glory’.86 Tamura’s confrontation with death aroused in him a paradoxical deepseated desire to live life more fully as a subject of Japan. In reflecting, the diarist assessed his life thus far as less than satisfactory. This assessment 84 Tamura’s exploration of his own reaction to these circumstances recalls the response of the main protagonist, also named Tamura, in Ōoka Shōhei’s novel, Fires on the Plain, p. 59. 85 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 103. Written between 25 and 27 May 1943. 86 Drea, In the Service of the Emperor, p. 109.

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generated an inner turmoil which, in total contradiction to the requirements placed upon him by adherence to the kokutai, again threatened to create an egocentric approach to his current task as a soldier.

A Life Flawed In addition to horror at the despicable nature of the Pacific War, Tamura often felt a combination of bewilderment and a sense of inferiority. There was also despair at the weakness that longs to cling to the kind of life he had in the past and the hope for success in his role both as a soldier and also as a citizen of Japan. Tamura frequently used recalling the past as a strategy permitting him to remain connected with the familiar. However, this propensity had an unexpected and challenging consequence. Part of Tamura’s way of trying to reconcile his own desires for achievement with the requisite noble death was to mentally review his past civilian life, experiencing himself ‘within a liminal space of what is and what could be’.87 In his exile on the far shores of New Guinea, he had time to reflect, and that reflection evoked an even greater longing to survive because of what he perceived as his failings in life thus far and a desire to compensate for these. Tamura had chosen not to take up the option of becoming a farmer on the family farm, deciding instead to work in factories in the city. In the following passage, he ruminated on his performance as a citizen. Reflections I have only accomplished 30 per cent as a farmer and really only 10 per cent as a city person. I know I have not achieved much by now. When I reflect, I feel really ashamed of my conscience.88

We have seen that Tamura’s sense of self was enmeshed in a socially constructed environment, or culture, and he was inescapably shaped by its processes and influence.89 And yet, there remained a very personal and individual sense of self, which meant that the further Tamura probed his own desires experienced outside his current world, the harder it became for 87 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination. As quoted in Cynthia Lightfoot, ‘Fantastic Self: A Study of Adolescents’ Fictional Narratives, and Aesthetic Activity as Identity Work’, in Narrative Analysis: Studying the Development of Individuals in Society, eds. Colette Daiute and Cynthia Lightfoot (Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004), p. 36. 88 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 63 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written on 13 April 1943. 89 Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, p. 95.

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him to sacrifice his life to the greater cause of taigi without regret. These lingering regrets and the internal questioning caused by them are reflected in the writing of other soldiers as well. I used to agonize over a whole range of questions: ‘How can we make our lives valuable?’, ‘For whom are we sacrificing our lives?’, ‘Wouldn’t it be a useless death?’, ‘I don’t want to die in this manner’, etc. […]90

Before departing Japan, Tamura had believed that his life was fulfilled and valid. Once in New Guinea, however, a sense of lost opportunity began to intrude on his consciousness. I felt I was a fully developed as a person and was confident that I had led a full day-to-day life as a member of society. Yet, when I look back, that seems to have been an illusion.91

As we have seen, Tamura was overt in his assertion that the illusion was in fact of his own making. Poignantly, though, he believed that it was his own lack of commitment to strive for excellence that had created his unhappiness. ‘Whatever duty I had’, he wrote, ‘I did not dedicate myself earnestly, and my life so far has not been happy’.92 What is crucial here is that while he was disappointed with himself as a civilian, Tamura firmly believed throughout the diary that he was indeed a dedicated and devoted soldier. Now he was extricating one from the other – his role as a soldier meant that he had to remain totally committed to taigi, yet his life ‘outside’ the military seemed more aimed at achievements of the self. Tamura’s existence, disordered by his attempts to resolve this conflict, was given security once more by returning to the principles of the kokutai, manifested now as the transcendental principles of devotion to battle. What is the use of sentiment? What is the use of education? The only thing we believe in on the battlefield is destiny and the world of loyalty and love.93 90 Written by Gaikaku Yasuhiko, who entered the Navy Corps in December 1943. Tōdai Gakusei Jichi-kai Senbotsu Gakusei Shuki Hensan Iinkai (Committee for Compiling the Writings of the University of Tokyo Students Killed in the War), ed., In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers (Harukanaru Sanga Ni), p. 126. Gaikaku does go on to say he has reconciled himself once his training had begun, and he considered it a ‘job’, ‘something like deciding whether or not it’s time to go to bed’. 91 Tamura Jūgun techō, p. 63 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written on 13 April 1943. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid.

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Tamura realized that not even the education he so coveted could be of assistance to him in his cause. Finding consolation in his deep-seated belief that his role as a soldier who would die for the Emperor was the most important he could play, Tamura was able to summarily dismiss the internal turmoil that threatened to overwhelm him and thereby dedicate himself once more to the higher ideal. Tamura vowed to take what he had learned as a soldier to facilitate success in civilian life after the war. He declared his commitment to becoming ‘a competent farmer or reliable worker’ who would pursue pleasure only ‘when I have extra energy’.94 There is often an obsessive quality to Tamura’s reflections that results in the diarist castigating himself irrationally. In the extreme conditions of the wretched battlefield, he could regret even the most irrelevant things. In the boredom of the battlefield, I feel deeply embarrassed about my lack of education when I think of an opera I once saw. First, I can’t read the alphabet, so even when I see the lyrics, I can’t respond emotionally. It’s just as if they were about strange, faraway events.95

There is no logical basis for Tamura with his primary school education to regret being unable to read the alphabet, let alone the lyrics of an opera. Nevertheless, this grand and rather ludicrous expectation reveals the extent of Tamura’s burning desire for personal achievement. The cultural nature of his preferences shows, perhaps, the side of his abilities that produced this quite literary diary. The pathway towards achievement, though, was strewn with what he considered his own flaws. One particular failing that he pointed out was a lack of sensitivity, an inability to write good poetry. I seem to be very sensitive, but I don’t actually understand my emotions at all. For me, even writing poems consists of nothing more than stringing together 31 syllables. How pathetic. Because I have no teacher to guide me, I learn by myself and enjoy by myself.96

The diary itself demonstrates that Tamura was very capable of rendering his deeper feelings and views into verse and that his fears in this respect were groundless. Rather, these lines reflect the diminishing hope of achieving more outside of the life he now led. Actuality and reality had taken a firm 94 Ibid., p. 63 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written on 13 April 1943. 95 Ibid., p. 75. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 96 Ibid., p. 76. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943.

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hold, and even the act of writing was relegated to a solitary and isolated pursuit. While he felt that his senses had been numbed, he nevertheless tried to remain committed to his aims. Tamura’s desires for achievement were also rooted within the concept of living well. At present I would only just be at the sprouting weeds stage of development in a society of countless stages of progress. How does our heart change over a lifetime in this world? I believe my heart’s desire to learn will never die.97

He again returned to the recognition that he had only managed to live a very small portion of his life, and that while there were many stages to the life that lay ahead, his innate desire to continue to grow and learn could not be quashed. Ultimately though, here in the warzone, Tamura was only too aware that his lot was now entirely at the mercy of fate. To my comrades going out to search for coconuts, I would like to imprint in their minds my smiling face When I say that I will wait for their safe return. Man proposes, God disposes.98

His desire to be remembered – and to be remembered in a positive light – is evident in this entry. The final line is revealing, as it recognizes that Tamura was unable to control his final destiny.99 There was no free will; Tamura could make plans for his life, yet he acquiesced to the fact that he could not control the outcome. In another entry, we see Tamura considering the need to balance the demand of the self with family obligations. Even now, if circumstances permit, I want to progress down the road of my aspirations. While I am not the kind of person to develop myself at the expense of the happiness of my parents and siblings, there may yet be some purpose to my life.100

97 Ibid., p. 75. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 98 Ibid., p. 76. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 99 It is unclear how Tamura is aware of this proverb, which is originally from the Latin Homo proposit, sed Deus disposit, translated by German cleric Thomas Kempis, Book 1, Chapter 19, The Imitation of Christ. 100 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 75. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943.

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While desiring to continue on the pathway of self-achievement that would give meaning to his existence, Tamura could not but consider the ‘happiness’ of his ‘parents and siblings’. Even with this consideration, which was completely under the construct of filial piety, he nevertheless desired ‘some purpose’ to his life outside that of the military dictates. Tamura learned to become desensitized and, to a degree, to sanitize events that occurred around him as a necessary strategy for survival, yet we also see that he continued to motivate himself towards future goals. In an entry following the one quoted above, he compellingly referred to himself as ‘the bearded daruma’ who engaged in ‘arranging flowers on a makeshift desk’.101 The daruma is highly prized for its spirit of determination, and the talisman is purchased to enlist its services in helping people to achieve their aims. The proverb associated with the daruma ‘Fall down seven times, get up eight’ has some resonance with Tamura’s attempts to resolve his own conflict between accepting death and living a life well-lived.102 The reference to flower arranging also points to the side of Tamura’s personality that was interested in culture and artistic pursuits. His desire to learn and improve himself is again revealed in an entry where he was deeply moved by an article he had read in the girl’s magazine Shōjo no tomo [The Girl’s Friend].103 During a break I saw [unclear text] an article about the aggressive spirit of society in the magazine Shōjo no tomo, and it left a very deep impression on me.104

Interestingly, this exhortative material to soldiers was perhaps in contrast to the teachings of the kokutai. The ‘aggressive spirit’ of those wishing to better themselves in society would appear to promote more individualistic

101 Ibid., p. 76. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 102 One story suggests that the daruma, a more familiar name for the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma (440-528), achieved enlightenment by living in a cave for seven years without blinking, which eventually caused his eyelids to drop off. Japan Antique Roadshow (softpapaya), ‘Bearded Daruma’, Tokaido Word Press, http://tokaido.wordpress. com/2008/02/06/47-inch-bearded-daruma-japan-zen-buddhist-bodhidarma/. 103 A young ladies’ magazine published from 1908 to 1956. It is not surprising, however, that soldiers found materials of interest within its pages. Even though this was a magazine for girls, its contents became increasingly militarized as the war progressed. Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase, ‘Girls on the Home Front: An Examination of Shōjo no tomo Magazine 1937-1945’, Asian Studies Review 32, no. 3 (2008): 324. 104 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 121. Written between 5 and 13 June 1943.

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aims. Tamura continued to show admiration and respect for those who strove to better themselves. Looking into the lives of the people in the upper classes, you perceive a certain spitefulness, but the idea of a life of advancement is exciting: stories of self-made men who brought up their children from poverty and made them into fine people.105

The ability to be self-made and self-propelled was far out of Tamura’s reach now in the warzone. These were selfish and individualistic pursuits that nevertheless excited his senses, and yet this admiration for those who had found success heightened Tamura’s sense of torment at his own lack of achievement. Ahh, why have I had such a miserable fate? Since birth, because of my lack of knowledge, I have not been able to overcome a whole range of obstacles and have fallen behind. If my parents had taught me to strive more, maybe I could have done much better.106

Here, the agony apparent in his words is briefly directed at his parents, who he believed share some of the blame for his lack of achievement. This was likely in reference to his father not allowing him to continue his education. However, he quickly recovered his equanimity and declared ‘If I return alive, I’m going to make it!’.107 These entries are in the latter part of the diary, six months into Tamura’s time in New Guinea and after Tamura had been faced with the deaths of his comrades. His tenacity at this juncture was remarkable, when all had been lost to him and the hope for a noble and glorious death was dimmed by his experiences. Inevitably, Tamura’s resolve to live life well could not overcome the fact that in the end he had to accept his destiny. The grim reality was that, notwithstanding all his desires outside of his current existence, he was in fact trapped in the vortex of war as a soldier of the Imperial Army of Japan facing almost certain death. Poignantly, towards the end of his diary, and

105 Ibid., p. 121. Written between 5 and 13 June 1943. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid.

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after a spate of ferocious bombing attacks, Tamura reflected on his life as a student. He recorded in his diary: When our hearts were filled with the hope of the passionate springtime of youth, we were happy all year round. It was a wonderful time. Eight years in the garden of learning where you taught us knowledge and morals and guided us with warm affection, then, as now, the chaos of war prevailed.

He had lived through war, both as a student child in Japan in the ‘passionate springtime of his youth’, then as a soldier on the China mainland. Now, here in New Guinea as death approached, he had to dig down through all the knowledge and morals taught by a much-loved teacher in order to face the chaotic reality that war demanded of him.

10 Reconciling Death Relinquishing a Sense of Self – Jibun ga Nai The kokutai discourse was intent on ensuring that only a Foucault-like ‘disciplined society’ operated, where ‘group salience’ prevailed. It was therefore expected that the citizens and soldiers of Japan would act only under their prevailing ‘social identity’, that of the kokutai, thus relinquishing any sense of a personal self.1 This was made clear in the rescript The Way of the Subject [Shinmin no Michi], released in 1941, which noted that ‘The Way of the Subject is to be loyal to the Emperor in disregard for the self […].’2 The pervasive impression of the Japanese soldier was of a person who had indeed relinquished all claims to individual autonomy and who had in fact bowed to the will of the kokutai and taken on the compliant and acquiescent role of the ant-like termite, acting in line with society’s demands.3 When that tendency towards ‘high group salience’ occurs, which was undoubtedly the case in kokutai-inspired Japan, compliance with the kokutai’s demands risked Japanese soldiers’ behaviour becoming ‘positively alarming’. 4 This is what has left behind the impression of the Japanese soldier that lurks in the pages of infamy. How could the independent will of the individual become so suppressed to the bidding of the whole? During Japan’s Imperial period, the individual sense of self [nikutai or bodily self] was expected to be surrendered to and supplanted by the state-sanctioned [kokutai] non-self, meaning that conscious decision-making on the part of the individual was impossible.5 The totalitarian nature of the regime at the time of Japan’s entry into the Pacific War ensured that there were almost no dissenting voices to challenge the official line. This was particularly evidenced at the Imperial Conference of 1 December 1941. Tōjō, in his capacity as Home Minister, declared: ‘We have strengthened our control over those who are anti-war and anti-military […] and those 1 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 217; Henri Tajfel, Differentiation Between Social Groups (London, New York and San Francisco: Academic Press, 1978), p. 42. 2 Lu, Japan: A Documentary History, vol. 2, p. 439. 3 Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 1961), p. 43. 4 Phillip Adams, ‘Australian Weekend Magazine’, Australian Newspaper, 19 Feb 2008. 5 Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual, p. 92.

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who we fear may be a threat to the public order. We believe that in some cases we might have to subject some of them to preventative arrest’ […] from the first round-ups […] in 1928 until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, about 74,000 persons were arrested on charges of violating the Peace Preservation Law. During the Pacific War, about 2,000 more people were arrested on these charges.6

The individual, then, had no voice to express any desires or wants; the only voice was that of the overarching national body, and all effort was concentrated on ensuring that the needs of that national body were not only met but were made paramount. Whether followed willingly or reluctantly, or under thorough fear-inspired coercion, the public face of this ‘unshakable will’ was the resolute allegiance on the part of the vast majority of soldiers to abide by the philosophy of their leaders.7 Superficially, then, most soldiers appeared to submit unflinchingly. We have observed that the intense spiritual training imposed on Japanese soldiers required them to identify with the inimitable nature of Japan, and also with what was considered to be the distinctive spirit of Japan – that is, with yamato damashii, that potent discursive force that constructed Japan as unique and superior to all other cultures. But yamato damashii also insisted on self-effacement. The emphasis on relinquishing a sense of self in the discussion of yamato damashii was outlined succinctly in Hibino Yutaka’s Nippon Shindō Ron [The National Ideals of the Japanese People, 1928], a document that called on subjects of Imperial Japan to ‘fulfil our obligations to the Emperor and to devote ourselves to loyal service’. He saw these ‘beautiful ideals of our people’ as the core of yamato damashii. He continued by declaring that this ethos of loyal service to the Emperor was ‘a spirit which refuses to yield under severest trials or even to death itself’. Furthermore, the paper stressed that it was the innate nature of all of Japan’s citizens – samurai, farmer, artisan, or merchant – all of whom gladly offered their services to the Emperor under the spirit of yamato damashii ‘without one self-ward thought’.8 Thus, not only was yamato damashii the foundation of the communal consciousness of all loyal Japanese creating a bond between subjects of Imperial Japan from all walks of life, it demanded a concrete 6 Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (London: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 12. 7 Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual, p. 97. Tsurumi argues that the aim of military socialization ‘was the internalization of compulsion to such an extent that [soldiers] would feel that they were acting on their own volition while in fact they acted under coercion’. 8 Hibino Yutaka, Nippon Shindō Ron, p. 160.

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expression of commitment through self-sacrifice and an abandonment of the individual self in the name of the Emperor, that is, no ‘self-ward thought’. The Emperor Shōwa reportedly stated in an address to the military that ‘a soldier who lacks the unshakable will to fulfil all his obligations to his country must be considered a good-for-nothing’.9 Tamura’s aims in this regard were quite clear when he wrote However much it is said that we humans are emotional creatures, I cannot believe that being ruled by your personal individual emotions makes for true loyalty. On this battlefield, where a soldier has pledged life and death, leaving hometown far behind, knowing the true principles of the army, his devotion should overcome his inner anxiety. Stripped of his birthplace, he should have all the more strength of character, I think.10 As long as I do not bring shame to the Imperial Way I can remain tranquil. I pray for more resolve.11

This devotion to the ‘Imperial Way’ firmly underscored Tamura’s commitment to fight on in New Guinea, not just as a mere soldier but as a soldier who was intent on adhering to the ideological framework that defined Imperial Japan. Even though Tamura was often overcome by longing and grief, he accepted unreservedly that on joining the army ‘his devotion should overcome his inner anxiety’. Devoid of all else that was familiar to him, the kokutai remained Tamura’s anchor. It was validated and valorized for him not through coercion but rather through his own free will, and we see that he remained anchored in its teachings, ‘an effect of this belief in itself’.12 We have seen that throughout his diary, Tamura recognized his own worth as one of the unique sons of Yamato; he placed himself within that chosen group that was formed around the mythological belief in the special characteristics of being Japanese. In spite of his apparent willingness 9 Nagatsuka Ryūji, I Was A Kamikaze: The Knights of the Divine Wind (London: AbelardSchuman, 1972), p. 28. 10 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 113-114. Written 5 June 1943. 11 Ibid., p. 114. Written 5 June 1943. 12 Like the existence of Zižek’s ‘Thing’, Slavoj Zižek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), p. 202. ‘The national Thing exists as long as the members of the community believe in it; it is literally an effect of this belief in itself.’

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to profoundly rely on and indisputably comply with the teachings of the kokutai, there remained elements of his role as a soldier of the Emperor that threatened to fragment Tamura’s commitment.

The Torment of Becoming a Man without a Me Through the pages of Tamura’s diary, we see him engage with exhortative language to portray a sense of purpose, and even excitement, at the prospect of fighting a glorious war on behalf of the Empire. There is also a significant portion of the diary where Tamura sank into the depths of despair as a result of his illnesses, the weariness associated with fatigue duty, his battle with the alien environment and lack of amenities and supplies, the deaths of comrades, the regret at the behaviour of the senior command, and his own perceived personal failings in society. Here we see a parallel in the words of an Irish Guardsman in Carroll Carstair’s ‘A Generation Missing’ In the beginning war is adventure. Then comes war weariness, a period of adjustment. You stick it or give up. The third phase is an acceptance, a resignation, a surrender to faith. The brave man is the man who gets through to the third phase.13

Tamura also wrote of what it took to be a soldier in the warzone: When you come as a soldier, no matter how far the war front, you live by a determined cheeriness. As long as you are not lacking in principles and energy, with no money, nothing to boast about, no pride, you are great. When you don’t have to work you are just flat out having fun, whereas on the battleground you are all out crushing the enemy, with preparation in between times. This is all there is to our life. No more complicated than that.14

Written in the first three months of his consignment in New Guinea, we detect a simplistic view of what it means to be a soldier. Remain cheerful, retain your principles and energy, be devoid of pride and boastfulness, and when you are not engaged with the enemy, relax and enjoy yourself. No more complicated than that. As Tamura’s diary progresses, though, we see that 13 As quoted in Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale, p. 73. 14 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 74. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943.

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Tamura certainly went through the first two phases mentioned in Carstair’s work, initially showing the will to undertake this glorious adventure, and then, as time progressed, the war weariness he experiences sees him teetering precariously on the cliff-face of resentment and disillusionment With these thoughts, I finally decided, rather than be resentful, to think about my ruined past seriously and vow to make a new resolve.15

Discarding his disappointment at his past failings inspired Tamura to project forward to another chance at success. This renewed confidence saw Tamura still cling to the hope of a future that would allow him to rectify the mistakes of his past. He was so confident here of the prospect of a future that he in fact opened the above passage with a commitment to his prospective offspring I will dedicate my whole life to making sure my children and grandchildren do not go through the same things as I have.16

As a half year passed on the battlefront, we see that his commitment to being a member of the community of Imperial Japan provided him with the chance to reach the ‘third phase’ – that is, ‘resignation’, and a ‘surrender to faith’, committing his fate to the metaphysical when he concludes the entry Living as a child of the gods, my destiny will be strong.17

These words encapsulate resignation on Tamura’s part. But rather than the perhaps negative connotations implied in the Irish Guardsman’s words, Tamura’s faith in his superior spiritual strength of yamato damashii as a chosen child of the gods meant for him that he would be afforded a fulfilling and satisfying destiny, even if that was death. In the final section of the entry, he again submitted his commitment and future prospects to a higher entity, investing his faith, accepting his lot, and surrendering to the will of ‘Heaven’, which we can perhaps perceive as the Emperor, as the ‘living god’ and the ‘son of heaven’. The ultimate futility of my desperate struggle to survive, I put on record here. 15 Ibid., p. 122. Written 13 June 1943. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.

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Fate decides all. From now on I will make my life stronger, Obey orders from Heaven and become a man 18

While he had been consistent in his willingness to give up his life for the cause, we see here there was still a slippage into the ‘ultimate futility’ of his ‘desperate struggle to survive’. That admission of his fraught effort to remain alive shows that, while Tamura accepted the role he was meant to play, his ardent desire as a human being was always to live on and ultimately to return home to his beloved Japan to fulfil the dream of a successful and meaningful existence. This verse reveals an agony experienced at the depths that Tamura had plumbed in order to work towards accepting the fact that he was effectively devoid of a future, devoid of choice, and now, by necessity, devoid of aspirations past his desire to become this ‘man’ who would serve his role as a soldier of Japan. The struggle that had persisted for Tamura was ameliorated by prioritizing the will of ‘Heaven’ and so, finally, it was the acceptance of direction from this higher power (ergo the kokutai) that would enable Tamura to become the ‘man’, in this case a loyal soldier, that he had persistently struggled to become in New Guinea. While relentlessly striving to find the balance within himself that he needed to pursue the Imperial way, we see a further example that proves that Tamura’s resolve was tenuous. His commitment was severely shaken and called into question by an incident that led to him writing a lengthy piece under the title ‘Remonstrance’ or ‘admonishment’. This piece was written less than ten days after he had pledged to leave his fate up to a higher entity. The arduous task of survival and the debilitating effects of illness, malnutrition, and fatigue suggest that by the time Tamura penned this piece, his daily life had become almost insufferable. In spite of these trials, the senior officers maintained a detached and superior air, which damaged the morale of the troops. Another soldier in New Guinea wrote, when his move to Milne Bay had been ordered, that this command was […] simply to patch up the failure of this op[eration]. I could not accept this and frankly expressed my indignation to Capt[ain] Yasuda in these words – ‘I can’t bear the idea of going to my death to save the face of the Marine Staff, trying to cover up the failure of an inept organization. Staff officers are contemptible when they are satisfied they have done their duty by driving us to our deaths with a single order, knowing that 18 Ibid.

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it is like having [pouring?] water on hot stones’. I absolutely can’t accept dying this way.19

This indifference and insensitive attitude of the senior command was made patently clear in the reprimand by Battalion Commander Takamura at Nassau Bay in June 1943 when he wrote that Officers of higher and middle ranks, they have been weak-willed and deficient in firmness of purpose. They have lacked kindness and consideration in their leadership of those of lower rank. They have whined about the prevalence of illness, and then when they themselves became ill, their morale was feeble[;] they lost prestige in the eyes of their subordinates and forfeited their trust and confidence because of the contradiction between their words and deeds.20

Tamura strongly felt the same sense of indignation and remorse. The incident so severely shook Tamura’s tenacity that he devoted five pages to relate both what occurred and how he attempted to resolve the consequent emotions by which he was overwhelmed. 22 June The company commander gave me a dressing-down. I was lying in bed with exhaustion and a headache when the commander passed by our hut. Somebody shouted to salute, but I failed to do so.21

Despite the appalling conditions and gravely compromised living conditions at the base, there was no real sympathy for troops who fell ill. In fact, there are accounts of stretcher cases being left behind when the troops were retreating either by barge, trucks, or on foot, to make way for higher ranking officers.22 Japanese soldiers so afflicted were often left to fend for themselves, as one unknown diarist bewailed: ‘It was pitiful, no, it was like cutting my own stomach to leave Ota behind. Before departure, I went to

19 Written by Yamamoto Kiyoshi, an army lieutenant serving with the Yokosuka 5th Special Naval Landing Force on 4 September 1942, as quoted in Aldrich, The Faraway War, p. 22. 20 AWM ATIS CT 71 (1807), ‘Reprimand to officers on 14 June 1943 by Battalion Commander Takamura at Nassau Bay’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM), (14 June 1943), pp. 21-22. No first name given. 21 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 125 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943. 22 AWM ATIS IR 33 (Serial 11), ‘Interrogation Report 133 (Ser 211)’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 4.

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his bedside and took hold of his hand. He tried to rise but could not. We finally parted in tears’.23 Saluting was seen as a tool for the maintenance of the military hierarchy, but almost inconceivably, even when stricken with illness or the weariness of fatigue duty, off icers required that men acknowledged the status of rank.24 Tamura’s failure to do so by not saluting brought the wrath of the system down on his head. He had ordered me to see the doctor. However, since I did not feel it was anything serious and since the rest period was going to be long, I had not obeyed his order. Later, the commander summoned me and asked me why I had not gone to see the doctor. That was the first issue he raised. He expressed his anger and said that I did not possess enough will power. ‘Although you were not faking illness, things were not sorted out.’ ‘It was rude.’ ‘When a soldier fails to salute, he is gravely irresponsible.’ He continued to accuse me of acting selfishly and behaving differently to different people.25

These accusations were a turning point for Tamura. Firstly, Tamura was exonerated from having ‘feigned’ illness, which was a grave crime in the eyes of the Army (and apparently did occur).26 Secondly, he had shown some initiative in believing that his rest period would be enough to resolve his illness, which was ultimately considered a sign of his individual will against the rules he was expected to follow. Underlying this ‘remonstrance’, then, was the quandary for Tamura in staying couched within the confines of the official discourse and adhering to the demands of those higher officers who ostensibly represented that discourse on the battlefront and relinquishing 23 AWM ATIS Bulletin No 789, ‘Unidentified Soldier Diary 789’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 2. 24 Fujii, Heitachi no sensō, p. 38. Fujii states that ‘In military education, the salute was the most basic practice’. There is also considerable reference in the accounts of POWs of the Japanese being forced to salute, or in most cases bow, and the ire of the senior command on those who failed to do so. For example, see Tom Gilling, The Lost Battalions (Crows Nest, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2018), p. 84. 25 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 125 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943. 26 It seems there were some who did feign illness, as reported in comments on spiritual training by Lieutenant Colonel Kawano regarding the Bougainville campaign. He stated that ‘there were those who pretended to be sick and avoided duty, who inflicted wounds upon themselves and withdrew from the battlefield; who were ordered to catch up with their units but idled about’. AWM CICSPF TCJD Item 1353 Enemy Publication, ‘Comments on Spiritual Training’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM).

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any sense of individual desire and motivation. This is patently clear as the passage continues. I did not feel ashamed, as my conscience was clear, but the commander’s words made me aware of one thing. If my spirit can be divided into a Main-line and a Sub-line, my Sub-line is growing too long.27

This is a crucial passage and perhaps the cornerstone of the diary demonstrating the impasse between Tamura’s desire – and requirement – to be a dedicated soldier of the Emperor and his innate healthy and robust desire for personal achievement. Tamura’s elevation of the importance of what he termed the ‘main-line’ was entirely in keeping with the obligations placed upon him by the kokutai and its agents. Even though this obligation [giri] was brimming with the burden of self-sacrifice, Tamura elevated it to be his main-line.28 This metaphor of the main-line is the kokutai’s discursive demand that he sacrifice his life unconditionally. In relegating to his sub-line his personal (and unacceptable) sense of self-interest [ninjō] – i.e. his longing for achievement away from the kokutai’s requirements of him – we see his final attempt at effacement of the self. The Kokutai no Hongi left no doubt as to the need to submit selflessly: When man makes self the center of his interests, the spirit of self-effacement and self-sacrifice suffers loss. In the world of individualism there naturally arises a mind that makes self the master and others servants and puts gain first and gives service a secondary place. Such things as individualism and liberalism, which are fundamental concepts of the nations of the West on which their national characteristics and lives are built, find their real differences when compared with our national concepts […] The spirit of self-effacement is not a mere denial of oneself, but means living to the great, true self by denying one’s small self. Individuals are essentially not beings isolated from the State, but each has his allotted share as forming parts of the State. And because they form parts, they 27 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 126 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943. The author has substituted main-line (main line) and sub-line (sub line) in Keiko Tamura’s original translation to provide consistency with the use of the terms in this study. 28 For more on the concept of giri, see, for example, Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno, eds., The Japanese Mind (Boston, USA: Tuttle, 2002), pp. 95-101.

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constantly and intrinsically unite themselves with the State; and it is this that gives birth to the spirit of self-effacement [….] These characteristics, in union with the spirit of self-effacement, give rise to a power to assimilate things alien to oneself.29

Tamura, then, was confronted with living to the ‘great true self’ – that is, denying himself any individual rights and thoughts – and therefore becoming a ‘man without a me’ at the service of the state as espoused as part of the spirit of the warrior by Nitobe Inazō (1862-1933). One of the highest terms of praise was a ‘man without a me’. The complete effacement of self meant one’s identification with some higher cause. The very duties which man performs are, according to our idea, not to buy a salvation for himself; he has no prospect of a ‘reward in heaven’ offered him, if he does this or does not abstain from that. The voice of conscience, ‘Thou good and faithful servant’ is the one and only sufficient reward.30

Abruptly, then, there is an ideological rupture in the idea of a reward for service. Even though Yasukuni and deification were promised to soldiers, we see here a contrary viewpoint that negates the rights of the soldier (or the individual) to ‘buy salvation for himself’. The reward for service that was the soldiers’ ego-involvement had been totally suppressed by the overarching goal-involvement of the kokutai.  Until this point of recognition of his sub-line as his ‘small self’, Tamura had devoted himself with a sense of resolve to the greater cause but had also experienced immense difficulty relinquishing his sense of himself as a human being with a personal purpose. While he appeared to believe implicitly that he had tried to follow the prescribed course of action under the kokutai, he revealed the turmoil that following the pathway to death had created for him. My whole life has been devoted wholeheartedly to the Emperor, and my sense of dedication is genuine. However, I cannot help feeling a certain way. We did not care about our lives. I realize now that was the problem. We should not behave as if we do not care about anything, just because 29 Monbushō, Kokutai no Hongi, pp. 133-134. This passage was also quoted in Chapter 3. 30 Nitobe Inazō , The Japanese Nation, 2nd ed. (Safety Harbour, Fla: Simon Publications, 2003), p. 156 (first edition is from 1912). Nitobe also wrote the seminal text on the warrior spirit: Bushidō: The Soul of Japan

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our lives are out of our control. We should contemplate how we could best utilize our lives for the cause, but we did not think about it much before.31

Tamura touches on the fact that the soldiers no longer have any control over their destiny, but that this should not mean a lack of care for their lives. Ultimately, Tamura acknowledged the concept of living well and doing one’s best until the day of death, a salient part of yamato damashii. Tamura recognized that there was a required model of behaviour, since the kokutai dictated that the loyal warrior should approach death in a noble, honourable, and selfless way. However, the expectation of yamato damashii was not only to die in a noble way but also to live well until that inevitable and inescapable death occurred. This ability to self-motivate to ‘live life as truly as possible’ (until death) is evidenced in the writings of another soldier, Sakamaki Yutaka, who died in South Korea in 1944. It is just and right for us to live our lives through to the end. To be right and just is natural for us as human beings And is a state most suited to the gentle and true/sincere heart.32

In Tamura’s words, caring for their lives, though, ultimately meant contemplating the best way to use death for the cause. The pathway Tamura had been following in his ruminations was reflected in the November issue (presumably 1942) of Shisō (Ideology, a monthly journal) in an essay by Takashima Junji about the ‘Issue of the University Students during the Great War’ [Taisen-ka Gakusei no Mondai]: […] Both the decision in favor of a death for honor’s sake and making oneself psychologically ready for it are unrivalled and most noble accomplishments. They are also very diff icult things which require a foundation of unshakable belief. Resigning oneself to this particular reality is something that requires immense courage […] Reflecting upon one’s own life and facing unavoidable death […] in order to meet death head on, a person must transcend it and live his life as truly as possible. To live a life truly a person has to grasp the fact that his own life is jikaku-teki sonzai [a self-conscious existence] and that the only way to elevate it to its

31 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 126 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943. 32 Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-kai, ed., Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices from the Sea), p. 61.

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highest possible value comes through joining it with the one who already possesses that value – i.e., to devote and sacrifice to the sacred person.33

Even though Tamura had been committed throughout his diary to the pathway of death on behalf of the Empire, we have seen that underlining Tamura’s understanding were the demands of officialdom to devote himself wholeheartedly to the ‘cause’. The reprimand by the senior officer has prompted Tamura to find the best way to utilize what remained of his life for this greater ‘cause’. Merely to wish for death in order to escape from a wretched existence (or in Tamura’s case ‘not caring about [his] life’) was considered wasteful and counterproductive. The Hagakure stated clearly that We all want to live […] But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin and dangerous line. To die without gaining one’s aim in life IS a dog’s death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in this way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.34

Tamura’s challenge was to accept this ‘thin and dangerous line’ and resist the pull of his individual desires to attain his aims and goals in life so that he could remain committed to his role. The obligation to live fully until the day of death arrived, however, never overshadowed the requirement to willingly choose death should the opportunity arise. Again, in the words of the Hagakure […] the Way of the samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death, it is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.35

33 Written by Sakamaki Yutaka, who entered service in December 1942, in Tōdai Gakusei Jichi-kai Senbotsu Gakusei Shuki Hensan Iinkai (Committee for Compiling the Writings of the University of Tokyo Students Killed in the War), ed., In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers (Harukanaru Sanga Ni), p. 61. Sakamaki does not concur with the writings. 34 Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of Samurai, pp. 1-2. 35 Ibid., p. 17.

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Clearly, while one should consider that the inevitable would occur and therefore reflect on being ‘already dead’, the requirement was still to live well. However, that ‘living well’ implied under this code that one’s own personal desires for achievement were always subsidiary to the ultimate sacrifice of death as a loyal subject of the Emperor. For Tamura, however, acceptance of this fact did not lessen the struggle that fulminated within him following the superior officer’s accusations. The chaos in Tamura’s mind was still obvious as he continued to try to justify his own actions and his response to the requirements that the kokutai placed on him. I was called selfish, and that might be true. But having been labelled as selfish struck me hard. How dare he call me selfish? I have been giving my utmost priority to the public cause. I was so sad when he said I was selfish. He clearly did not understand the effort I had put in. I have been toiling for the greater good of the public cause up till now. But my efforts seem to have been in vain.36

The ‘toil for the greater good’ refers to Tamura’s physical commitment in the wretched environment in New Guinea, and so Tamura was deeply insulted by the accusation of selfishness, that is to say, his inability to relinquish his sense of self. Perhaps his dedication to his day-to-day life as a soldier in such a lowly and wretched position meant that he had neglected to fulfil some of his duties to the standards and demands of the hierarchy, but in his perception, he had certainly not neglected the dictates of the kokutai. Since he believed without reservation that his dedication to that task had been beyond reproach, the indignation that erupted within him at the superior officer’s words is palpable. Again, there was a sense of the lack of nurture provided by the superior command. Other soldiers also expressed their desire to do whatever was humanly possible to achieve the army’s goals despite the emotionally debilitating effects of the senior officers’ behaviour. For example, Second Lieutenant Ohara wrote: Do not call us all idlers, but act with more confidence in us. We will then make much more progress. The words of our senior officer can have such a negative result. ‘Human beings are creatures of feeling’.37

36 Tamura, Jūgun techō, pp. 126-127 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943. 37 AWM ATIS Bulletin Notes No 78 Item 11, ‘Diary of Ohara’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 64. No first name given.

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Tamura, too, was a ‘creature of feeling’ and he was distraught at having been labelled selfish merely for having failed to salute. More than that, though, by far the greatest affront for Tamura was the officer’s belief that Tamura, who was exemplary in his devotion to the Emperor, was not ready to die. When I was called to salute and did not, I was dishonest. I have to admit that. I would not mind if he reprimanded me further on this aspect. I would not hold a grudge against him at all. Yet, when he concluded that I would be fearful in the face of death or would hesitate to die for the country just because I missed a salute, I was devastated. It was so shameful. As a person, I cannot imagine any more shameful incident than this.38

The impact upon Tamura is unambiguous in this entry. While he continued to tackle these issues in his own thought processes, the main aim of the superior officer was to retain some semblance of authority. In fact, in belittling Tamura, the officer’s words almost appear to be a form of bullying, which was, of course, often the nature of the relationship between senior commanders and their subordinates. Undoubtedly, at the time these bitter thoughts were recorded, the likelihood of victory for the Japanese was slim in this part of New Guinea. In spite of – or perhaps even because of – the dire circumstances in which the troops now found themselves, the senior officers remained inflexibly attached to the Spartan regime of Imperial Army discipline.39 Each soldier had, after all, been told that they ‘must faithfully obey the orders of his superiors. Bravery and intelligence have their roots in this virtue’. 40 And that bravery and virtue meant only one thing in this case, and that was to acquiesce to the irrational demands of those in command. We see that the pinnacle of Tamura’s shame was not that he disobeyed orders, nor that he was called selfish. In fact, he accepted that he should be admonished on these issues and was even assenting to further castigation. His foremost humiliation was that he had been accused of being afraid to

38 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 127 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written about 22 June 1943. 39 We note that ‘an individual is weak when opposing a group. This is especially true in hierarchical groups where the senior members make decisions which younger members must follow. […] The distribution of power in a rigid hierarchical structure is effective for maintaining harmony and stability in human relationships within a group’. Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime, p. 85. 40 AWM ATIS CT 105 (1158) ‘Hints for the Soldier’, (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 62.

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die. The shame associated with such a condemnation caused him once again to face head-on the prospect of his own impending death. When I reflect upon myself, I cannot say I never feared death. However, I would never act as if I feared death on the battlefield. I will produce results and the commander will eat his words about my being selfish. That will be the best chance for my sincere intentions to be known. I will wait for that chance. I will not neglect training, in order to clear this shame. Oh, the devastation hit me instantly. I might need to spend my whole life to prove that the commander was wrong. 41

The brutal honesty of Tamura’s position is peeled open in this entry. Tamura finally admitted that he feared the prospect of death, and probably more so after having experienced the ignoble and senseless deaths of comrades. Tamura wasn’t alone in his fear. A 16-year-old Japanese soldier in New Guinea lamented that ‘I didn’t want to die. I was scared of death; I wanted to live. It was a tormenting agony […] Death, death, death. Death has a cruel whisper. This is what war did to us’.42 The cruel whisper of death hung like a pall over the soldiers’ heads. The reality was that, rather than march blindly forward to the death expected of them, there were those soldiers who feared the fate that awaited them and yet attempted, like Tamura, to bravely mask that fear on the battlefield or even in the vile circumstances in which they were entrenched. An example of this is the writing of another soldier From the time I entered the military, I kept saying that I was not afraid to die. Even though I believed what I said, I was really talking like a fool. The very fact, however, that over and over again I had to keep saying so loudly and so aggressively that, after all, the loss of life was nothing to cry about, itself signified to me that I did have a very strong concern over matters of ‘life and death’. The truth was that, even as I was saying I had transcended these matters, until very recently the subjects had really never left my mind. 43 41 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 128 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written 22 June 1943. 42 Matsuo Shigemitsu, a 16-year-old soldier taken prisoner in New Guinea. Hashimoto, The Long Defeat, p. 32. 43 From the writings of Gaikaku Yasuhiko, who entered the Navy Corps in December 1943. Tōdai Gakusei Jichi-kai Senbotsu Gakusei Shuki Hensan Iinkai (Committee for Compiling the Writings of the University of Tokyo Students Killed in the War), ed., In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers (Harukanaru Sanga Ni), p. 126.

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Poignantly, we see that this was a soldier who did, indeed, fear death. His ruminations over ‘life and death’ entertain the possibility that, like the soldier quoted below, it was a fear of giving up a life less lived. All this amounted to, however, was a temporary excitement, and there were as yet no realistic feelings about what it would be like to be conscripted – let alone any feeling of urgency about death. Soon that initial excitement dissipated, and what constitutes a problem for us now is just one thing: the necessity of facing death on the battlefield. We are not afraid of death itself, but we are agonizing over how we can resign ourselves to giving up the life that is the best and most beautiful possible. 44

Agonizing over having to give up on a life not yet lived reflects the words of British historian C.R.M.F. Cruttwell, who was in the trenches of Ypres in the First World War. In his book A History of the Great War, he wrote that […] nearly every soldier is or becomes a fatalist on active service; it quietens his nerves to believe that his chance will be favourable or the reverse. But this fatalism depends on his belief that he has a chance […]. 45

Tamura showed, too, that he had hoped for that ‘chance’ and was grappling with giving up his life less lived. But after being accused of fearing death, he was very overt in his admission that he would ‘never act as if [he] feared death on the battlefield’. Here the concept of seken [community honour and observance] again came into play and forced Tamura to show both his real intentions [honne] and his public face [tatemae] – or his ‘outer’ self [omote] contrasting with the private thoughts and demands of his ‘inner’ self [ura]. 46 In order to conform to the requirements of that public face, Tamura committed himself to ‘not neglect training’ to clear himself of this shame, even if it took his whole life. By this stage, Tamura would have been well aware that this whole life was going to be pathetically short, and yet he continued to commit himself to the task of being seen as a good and loyal soldier. He believed he had attempted to relinquish his individual self and 44 Written by Sakamaki Yutaka, who entered service on 1 December 1942. Ibid., p. 55. 45 As quoted in Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale, pp. 56-57. 46 Omote literally means ‘face’ in the sense of ‘public face’, and here I have termed it as ‘public self’. Ura literally means ‘the reverse’ or ‘the inside’ in the sense of ‘private face’, and here I have termed it as ‘private self’. I use these terms to refer specifically to the angst apparent in Tamura’s quest to find a balance between his publicly required persona and his private thoughts and desires.

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devote himself completely to the greater cause. The sense of shame inflicted by the senior officer produced in the diarist an indignant determination to fight on because ‘the way of avoiding shame is […] simply death’. 47 Furthermore, Tamura’s resolve to accept the senior officer’s challenge provides insights into the absolute requirement for Imperial Japanese Army troops to approach death fearlessly. Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō (1870-1966) recorded the words of Uyesugi Kenshin (1530-1578), a military general of the Genroku era (1688-1704): Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live. The essential thing is the mind. Look into this mind and firmly take hold of it and you will understand that there is something in you which is above birthand-death, and which is neither drowned in water nor burned by fire […]. Those who are reluctant to give up their lives and embrace death are not true warriors. 48

Above all, though, we see that the affront caused by the senior officer’s accusations of both selfishness and a fear of death forced an even deeper quandary onto Tamura. Not only had he lost faith in the senior command, he had also lost faith in himself and his judgement: I cannot trust my heart anymore. What is loyalty for? What is selfdiscipline for?49

Tamura clearly believed that he had attempted to devote himself with loyalty, and he consistently used his diary as a form of self-motivation to maintain his self-discipline. Again, we see that Tamura did not doubt the ideology but rather his own level of insight into its meaning. As an antidote to further slippage into despair, he quickly returned to the fold, resigning himself to the inevitable. Alas, every human life is destined to meet death. One must utilize one’s life fully until one dies. That is the Yamato spirit [the Japanese spirit]! Everybody fears death. However, how can we use our death to maximum effect?50 47 Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of Samurai, p. 30. 48 As quoted in Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, p. 86. 49 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 128 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written about 22 June 1943. 50 Ibid., p. 129 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written about 22 June 1943.

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Tamura had been drawn into the trap of the kokutai by accepting that death was the ultimate aim, that as part of the Yamato spirit he should adhere to the capricious demand to live well until death (as ludicrous as this was in his current environment), and that dying with the ‘maximum effect’ was his greatest legacy and the quest he now had to follow. Others followed this pathway to a death for greatest effect. One dead Japanese soldier was found after the battle of Attu in the Aleutians in May 1943 carrying a poem which read ‘I will become a deity with a smile in the heavy fog. I am only waiting for the day of death’.51 Ultimately, this desire to die in the best way for the greater ‘cause’ would result in the infamous gyokusai (and banzai) charges such as that which occurred on Attu. The word gyokusai, which was used to denote suicidal charges by the Japanese Army, was coined from two kanji meaning smashed jewels. The term signified choosing to ‘die heroically in battle rather than surrender […] choosing death over dishonour’, and that dishonour could be capture or defeat.52 Overall, then, for Japanese soldiers, ‘life [lay] in resolve for death’.53 According to a wartime document from New Guinea, soldiers were apparently told that ‘the spirit is indestructible, and death is eternal life. Never must death be feared’.54 Death was to be contemplated without fear and ultimately willingly accepted. For Tamura, fearing death was apparently ameliorated by some reliance again on the spirit of yamato damashii: ‘The Yamato spirit!’ – words the commander used got rid of any confusion in my mind. Yet, I wonder why I feel that I do not possess enough sense of aspiration. I am always conscious of the need for aspiration day and night. I wonder if this has overshadowed the sense of selfless devotion that I should have. I am in the Army now. I should never at any moment forget about the spirit of devotion, but my attention was misplaced. I have to remind myself again.55

51 As quoted in Dower, War without Mercy, p. 231. 52 Ibid. We also note that eventually this type of warfare was further developed in the use of the Special Attack Forces (Tokkōtai or popularly known as Kamikaze in late 1944. I have decided to leave this as outside the scope of this book, as it occurred post Tamura’s death). 53 This references a line in the movie Bushi no Ichibun [Love and Honour] 2006 (directed by Yamada Yōji) by the main protagonist Shinnojo, a warrior afflicted by blindness. 54 AWM ATIS SWPA RR no. 76 pt. 3 ‘Report on Psychological Warfare annex 3 “Answer to Japan” 11: The Warrior Tradition as a Present Factor in Japanese Military Psychology’., p. 6, as quoted in Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets, p. 55. 55 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 129 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written about 22 June 1943.

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No matter how hard Tamura tried to bring himself back to the requirements of duty placed upon him, this entry reveals that there remained the torment of his own aspirations. Again, he recognized that his tug of war between selfless devotion and self-centred ambitions was the obstacle he still had to overcome. The spirit of devotion had momentarily won over. Was it the ubiquitous nature of the seken that continued to regulate Tamura’s behaviour? In a similar manner, one tokkōtai pilot, Fukami, is depicted in the film Kumo nagaruru hate ni [Beyond the Clouds] as saying ‘there is a force invisible to the eye steadily pulling us into our graves’.56 Tamura had been watched over, appraised, and belittled for his indiscretion. Like the pilot portrayed in the film, Tamura, too, was being beckoned to the grave by a force outside of himself in the form of the overarching dictates of the kokutai and its agents. In grappling with this expectation, he recognized that he had ‘discriminating thoughts’, contrary to the teachings of the Hagakure which state that: Bushidō is nothing but charging forward, without hesitation, unto death (shinigurui) […]. You must become like a person crazed (kichigai) and throw yourself into it as if there were no turning back (shinigurui). Moreover, in the way of the martial arts, as soon as discriminating thoughts ( funbetsu) arise, you have already fallen behind.57

In order to dispel his reluctance to relinquish his sense of self and his thoughts of personal achievement and gain, Tamura had to delve deeply again to enable him to relegate his ‘sub-line’ and elevate his ‘main-line’. It is clear, then, that try as he might, it was impossible for Tamura as an individual of integrity and initiative not to engage in self-assessment.58 Tamura’s words reveal that remaining centred within the teachings of the kokutai discourse categorically demanded an effacement of self as ordered by the senior ranks.

56 [me ni mienai ōkina chikara ga, bokutachi o hakaba no naka e gungun, hikikonde iku no desu]. Standish, Myth and Masculinity in the Japanese Cinema, p. 74. 57 De Bary, ed., Sources of East Asian Tradition: The Modern Period. Vol. 2, p. 279. De Bary’s translation varies from Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of Samurai. The equivalent to the cited passage is ibid., p. 45. 58 David W Plath points out that ‘the human self is at once an individual, a mortal centre of initiative and integrity, and a person, a moral actor in society’s dramas’. David Plath, ‘Arc, Circle and Sphere: Schedules for Selfhood’, in Constructs for Understanding Japan, eds. Yoshio Sugimoto and Ross E Mouer (London and New York: Kegan Paul, 1989), p. 72.

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My commander told me to discard my sense of self. His words sounded old-fashioned, but this should be the main focus. The main focus is supposed to remain the main focus.59

Although Tamura had lamented his lack of self-discipline, we see here that his words were aimed at convincing himself that the officer’s admonition to discard his sense of self was fully digested. The main focus for Tamura in the pursuit of aligning himself with non-self demands recalls the words of Sugimoto Gorō (1900-1937), lieutenant-colonel and advocate of ‘soldier Zen’, who wrote that the greatest mission of these components is to promote an awareness of the non-existence of the self and the absolute nature of the Emperor. Because of the non-existence of the self, everything in the universe is a manifestation of the Emperor […]. Imperial subjects of Japan should not seek their own personal salvation. Rather, their goal should be the expansion of the Imperial power […]. In front of the Emperor, their self is empty. Within the unity of the sovereign and the people, the people must not value their self, but value the Emperor who embodies their self […]. Seeking nothing at all, you should simply completely discard both body and mind, and unite with the Emperor.60

In response to the remonstrance of the senior officer, Tamura once again devoted himself to the pathway prescribed by the ideology. In doing so, Tamura was forced to abandon the hope of making amends for his perceived lack of achievement in the past as well as to forsake any greater aspirations for the future. Loyalty to the cause could only mean living (well) in the restrictive present. And in a desperate attempt to comply to these demands, he asserted the need to combine everything he had learned into what should now be the ‘main focus’ – and that was to devote himself wholly to the aims of Imperial Japan. A person can show different attitudes to different people. I do not believe I belong to that category. As a member of the military I am proud that I am sincere with myself. The words the commander spoke unintentionally

59 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 129 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written about 22 June , 1943 60 Sugimoto Gorō, Taigi, pp. 23-25, as translated by Victoria, Zen at War, p. 120.

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made me more eager to prove myself. I should accept the present. I believe that is the way we should live.61

Perhaps, again, Tamura was referring here to the distressing behaviour of the senior officers when he mentions ‘different attitudes to different people’. He removed himself from this kind of approach and implanted himself in the category of sincerity and truth to self, even within the military context. He did, however, accept that the admonition had encouraged him to look within himself for a stronger commitment and an acceptance of the present circumstances in which he was forced to live. His aspirations for a future life were now focussed on proving himself in his current circumstances. However, accepting life as it was and channelling his energies into the ‘main focus’ were not without a belief that all of his lived experience was of value and could be brought into union with the requirements of the state. Tamura f inished this entry by saying ‘but surely the perfect way for an individual is to greatly expand society’s concepts with which we were brought up to bring them in line with the main focus’.62 Here he was trying to align his individual self with all that he had learned to be at the service of the ‘main focus’, and that was to work towards the achievement of the national aims in concert with his fellow soldiers, and indeed, fellow citizens of Japan.

Accepting Death: The Final Act of Loyalty There is again a gap of about two months before Tamura took up his pen once more sometime around 18 August. Devastating air raids by the Allies took place on Tamura’s base in August. Whether or not it was the privations of the warzone that contributed to his resilience, Tamura, in acquiescing to the demands outside of his control, had become a stronger person who was able to endure against all odds the diff iculties encountered in the South. War makes people incredibly strong. Endurance of all kinds of hardships, the fear for our lives, our material desires, all are in the hands of Heaven. The character of a people who can keep on fighting with calm smiles in

61 Tamura, Jūgun techō, pp. 129-130 (translated by Keiko Tamura). Written about 22 June 1943. 62 Ibid.

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the face of acute privation can be thought of, at the extreme level, as the commitment of a holy man. A life of faith in the Empire and death for the Emperor are indeed dedication to the grand, timeless cause that we follow.63

For Tamura, battle in the name of the Emperor permitted him to see himself as a ‘holy man’.64 In the passage above, Tamura returned to the teachings of the kokutai as the one constant for him, the core, in a sense, that provided the strength to endure. In our life of more than half a year at the battlefront, a life unimaginable to intellectuals, we have achieved a mental state transcending privation, breaking its shackles, surely man’s highest achievement. (29 August)65

Tamura took pride in achieving a spiritual depth and strength to survive in a shockingly devastated environment where he had absolutely nothing. This was in contrast to those ‘intellectuals’ who could not survive without all the trappings of cultured society. Tamura saw himself and his comrades on the battlefield as akin to holy men owning nothing, dedicating themselves to a higher spiritual cause and prepared to fight a war where there was no mercy – not from the environment, not from the senior officers, and not from the kokutai – to defend that cause. This was for Tamura, indeed, his highest achievement. The entry above has particular signif icance since it indicates that Tamura was now able to transcend the challenges he faced within himself as a person who, by his own harsh self-assessment, had little education or cultural f inesse. Only through introspection and self-motivation was Tamura able to triumph in spirit despite the boundaries that had been placed upon him. Tamura’s experience on the battlef ield paradoxically made it possible for him to now find some sense of peace with his station in life. Through his own journey of discovery and reconciliation, he was by no means an ‘unthinking actor in someone else’s plans’.66 Yet, even towards the end of his diary when he found the resolve to die, we see 63 Ibid., p. 135. Written 29 August 1943. 64 Fujii, Heitachi no sensō, p. 286. Fujii states that the term ‘holy soldiers’ or ‘war heroes’ [gunshin] gained currency around the start of the Russo-Japanese War but that it in fact related mainly to those who had actually died in the service of war rather than as merely soldiers of the Empire. 65 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 135. Written 29 August 1943. 66 Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore (London: Penguin Random House, 2017), p. 196.

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that he was still haunted by the memories of home. In this entry, there is mention of a companion, most likely a woman, who appeared to Tamura in a dream. The memory of waning springtime twilight in a field of flowers, the two of us talking appears in my dream far away on the battlefield.67

In the waning springtime twilight, perhaps a metaphor for his own dwindling young life, memory drew Tamura into the consoling embrace of home where a simple conversation in the surrounds of a field of flowers was a much-craved luxury utterly unattainable now. In a similar frame of mind, we see Tamura reaching for the comfort of his school teacher. 1 September Here at the extremity of the Southern battlefront, with what joy I would have read a letter from my teacher. I would only be able to let him know a miniscule of how I feel about the hell we are in here.68

In his final days, when air raids had become more intense and undoubtedly food and supplies were increasingly scarce, Tamura placed his experiences in a tragic global context.69 It is the curse of the world, culture, which we don’t know and can’t even imagine, against which we are striving. I don’t know whether I will live to go back to my old school or not. I enjoy my breaks in this utterly devastated battlefield with thoughts of the people at home. In my memories I recognize my hometown in a book. Here on the battlefront I take up my gun.70

67 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 136. Written between 29 August and 1 September 1943. 68 Ibid., p. 138. Written 1 September 1943. 69 The prospects for Japan regaining the balance of air power were completely dashed on 17 August 1943 with the loss of approximately 100 Japanese aircraft. Bombing attacks intensified around Wewak from that time on. Bennett Richardson and Fumiko Hattori, ‘Banzai! Debunking the Kamikaze Myth’, Asian Times online, www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/Fk06Dh01.html. 70 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 138. Written 1 September 1943.

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Here, at last, while the mention of a gun confirmed Tamura’s military role, thoughts of the Emperor have slipped away, replaced by the warmth of home and the familiar. War was nothing but a curse here, with no recognition of the just and holy war in which Tamura had been led to believe he was involved. The final stages of Tamura’s diary reveal a man who had acknowledged his failings, accepted his fate, and who therefore experienced a sense of peace and resignation. Yet all this was still underpinned by a quiet longing for an impossible future which would see him become an old man living life peacefully with family around him. Again, there was a gap of almost two months between the entry on 1 September and the second last entry written on 8 December. It is uncertain when the last entry was written, but it appears to be in context with the previous page. This second last entry, written in a period when his unit had been the target of relentless air attacks, displays an unsettling sense of resignation. Rather than the metaphors of his previous, almost desperate attempts to motivate himself, there was now a determined recognition of the reality of the situation. ‘On the Sea’ Tonight again, on the calm sea, the waves are glistening under the light of the moon. The tops of the palm trees sway in the gentle breeze. The evening clouds are billowing on the distant horizon. The sea is quiet.71

In this entry, the peacefulness of nature is striking. Tamura is describing what appears to be a serene scene on a ravaged battlef ield. He begins with a very vivid description of an ironically calm sea, lit by the pure and cleansing moon. The composure of the scene belies the fierceness of the decisive battle about to f inally determine Tamura’s fate. This serenity mirrored Tamura’s now calm state of mind. The sea he now reflected upon was part of a tranquil, almost nurturing, scene replete with rustling palm trees and the pure light of a placid moon. When we recall the earlier stirring visions of the robust, invigorating Black Current which conveyed a sense of purpose and impending glory, his final words become even more poignant. The calm sea was no longer the sea that became the alien and enemy force that had devoured his friend. Rather, it was a sea of equanimity, of acquiescence; almost a metaphor for a now calm and resigned soul.

71 Ibid., p. 142. Written 8 December 1943.

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Paradoxically, as the billowing clouds portend, the sea was also now the combat zone: This very sea is the decisive battleground of the fierce conflict between Japan and America. Unbelievable that we are here at the far reaches of the South Seas, here on the vast ocean lit up by the moon. Aah, today is the 8th of December, a day replete with significance, which we must commemorate for all eternity, the day, two years ago, when on this night in this month, one hundred million kindred souls with fierce determination decided to smash the inordinate ambitions of the American-British alliance.72

Tamura is referring to the attack on Pearl Harbour two years previously, which heralded the start of the Pacific War, a war that he continued to believe was significant and relevant and a war in which ‘one hundred million kindred souls’ shared his conviction on behalf of the Japanese Empire. The Official Imperial Rescript declaring war against the British American Alliance announced by the Emperor on 8 December 1941 had stated The whole nation should use all its might, with all the people united in one mind, in the effort to accomplish the aims of the war. Both America and Britain are supporting the Chinese government and disturbing peace in East Asia in an attempt to realize their unjustified desire to conquer the Orient under the pretext of maintaining peace.73

Tamura was now completely engaged with this rhetoric; the war he was involved with was, in the final event for him, not worthlessly fought out in the backwoods nor representative of a great scourge on humanity as he had previously thought. Finally, he returned to a recognition of his involvement in this war as part of a greater cause, that is, to liberate and unshackle the peoples of Asia from British-American dominance. The ultimate quest throughout his diary had been a desire for a noble end; aligning himself now with the attack on Pearl Harbour two years previously and engaging now directly with the officially declared enemy assisted in elevating his current circumstances despite their actual inglorious nature. By remaining immersed in the ideology that had nurtured him throughout his turmoil in New Guinea, and in fact holding it firmly in his grasp, Tamura was able 72 Ibid. 73 As quoted in Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime, p. 148.

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to be as prepared as he could ever be for what fate had in store for him. The ‘sound of the waves slapping against the rocks’ disturbingly heralded the enormity of the battle about to take place. Communications told us we must be on our guard. Through the sound of the waves slapping against the rocks and the distant flashes of thunder, I stood tensely guard, nerves quivering.74

About to participate in what he knew would be a conclusive battle, strained and tense, he did not shirk from the heavy weight of looming death. French historian Marc Bloch wrote of courage in the face of impending demise in his memoir of the First World War. Military courage is certainly widespread […] I have always noticed that by some fortunate reflex, death ceases to appear terrible the moment it seems close: it is this, ultimately, that explains courage. Most men dread going under fire, and especially returning to it. Once there, however, they no longer tremble.75

This is echoed in the writings of a Japanese soldier: whenever and wherever I did, I will not regret it because I have already given my soul and my body to my country […]. Our country is God’s country hence I shall fear no one. I shall smilingly undertake this great mission […].76

As the tantalizing leitmotif of death became a blunt reality, there was no reluctance on Tamura’s part, and yet, as ever, Tamura’s humanity was exposed, as there remained in his heart a grief-stricken yearning for the home from which he was separated by the vast expanse of ocean whose waves lap at the New Guinea shore. In this distant, relentless battlefield, I just silently take up my gun. Yonder across these waves are the homeland that I love, the friends that I long for.77 74 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 142. Written 8 December 1943. 75 As quoted in Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale, p. 58. 76 AWM ATIS 55 12/53, ‘Bulletin 12/53 part 2’ (Canberra, Australia: AWM), p. 4. 77 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 142. Written 8 December 1943.

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The unspoken undertone of the text is lingering regret at the fact that there was little likelihood of being united with those friends and family who were so out of reach in this, his final battleground. Although he would never return to Japan, in his very last entry of the diary, Tamura revealed how his role as a soldier was still backgrounded by a deep desire to return home alive. Predicting the arrival of the enemy, the entry is a contradictory mix of fear in anticipation of the forthcoming Allied onslaught and hope at the possibility of life-saving supplies of food and ammunition. However, these are just my wandering thoughts. The British and Americans, undaunted by their devastation, will very soon boldly land. I stand staring at the ocean till my eyes hurt. Are they coming? Why is that I have no fear of the Yankees’ worst? My heart dances with the rumbling advance of the provision trucks for our troops. Ah, everything’s going well, I feel relieved.78

Tamura was able to pull himself back from these ‘wandering thoughts’ of loved ones and home. Perhaps, at this juncture, he recognized the debilitating effect such thoughts could have on his morale. Instead, he returned to the tantalizing promise of victory. He, too, had become a prisoner of the Japanese war rhetoric that would seek the crushing of the American-British Alliance, who he clearly saw as the aggressors who were ‘undaunted by their devastation’. In the face of the destructive power of the Allies, Tamura was gleeful at the advance of supply trucks for the Japanese troops. For him, ‘everything is [now] going well’. In the concluding words of this final entry, we see that Tamura had also finally resigned himself to this warzone and its concomitant alien environment. The once-searing heat of the day was now compensated by the evening cool. Even the crocodiles that glided by the men were no longer to be feared. The call of the island bird was soothing and familiar, advising Tamura of the new day about to break. It’s almost a year since my departure for the front. Here in the South Seas where the days are always hot, the nights feel cool. Crocodiles come swimming up to the sentry. Even though we are exposed to the enemy planes all day, our guard remains firm. Have we survived again tonight? The island birds call and let us know that day is about to break. One of my friends stretches himself with an ‘ah’, perhaps relieved at his survival. 78 Ibid., p. 143. Written sometime after 8 December 1943.

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The relief sentry comes. Somehow I feel at peace, as if I have fulfilled my responsibility. This is life on the battlefield, day after day. The end.79

This final entry is a microcosm of the diary itself. The recognition of the danger of the frequency of enemy bombings underscored the climatic differences, and the bizarre vision of a crocodile swimming up to the often-referenced lonely sentry highlighted the curious nature of the New Guinea battleground. Most notably, beyond the sense of relief at surviving yet another night of relentless enemy attack, there was a steadfast sense of peace based on much more than surviving another day. In this final entry, we see that Tamura finally firmly believed that he had fulfilled his responsibility, and his mind was strangely calm and collected. His life on the battlefield had provided him with the tools to accept that, no matter what form it would take, death would be his greatest achievement.

79 Ibid. On other occasions in his diary, Tamura completed his entries with ijō [‘the end’, ‘that’s all’] (see pages 49 and 68) and kan [‘the end’, ‘completion’] (see page 105). In the current entry, however, his use of the term kan may, in fact, portend his final recognition of his fate. Kan is often used to complete a book or a film. I have translated ijō as ‘that’s all’ and kan as ‘the end’.

Epilogue The diary ends on about 8 December 1943. We can only presume what happened to Tamura after that time. Tamura’s family received notification that he was killed in battle in March 1944 at Biliau, New Guinea. In late December 1943, the 41st Division was moved from Wewak to defend Madang. Historian John Miller’s account of the march details the terrible conditions the Japanese troops had to endure: The retreat to Madang, almost two hundred miles away by the coastal route, was another of the terrible Japanese marches in New Guinea. The troops struggled through jungles, across rivers, and over the awesome cliffs and mountains of the Finisterres. Fatigue, straggling, disease and starvation characterized the retreat. ‘The men were no longer able to care for themselves and walked step after step looking ahead only a meter to see where they were going’. The two divisions [41st and 51st] had totaled twenty thousand in December 1943; only ten thousand wearily entered Madang in mid-February.1

The fact that 20,000 set out, with only 10,000 completing the march, provides some clues to the enormous difficulty of the manouevre. An Australian report of the Finisterre range states that ‘The country in the Finisterre Range is rugged, steep, precipitous and covered with dense rain forest. It rains heavily almost every day thus making living conditions uncomfortable. By day it is hot, by night three blankets are necessary. There is, therefore, a constant battle with mud, slush, rain, and cold’.2 Miller concludes: Yet that the ten thousand made such a trip and that the Japanese could make such marches in retreat and in the advance are tribute and testimony to the patient fortitude and iron resolution of the Japanese soldier.3

The Allied forces lost some 12,000 troops during the war in New Guinea. Around 223,000 soldiers and sailors of Imperial Japan perished as a result of artillery bombardment, strafing, and bombing by the Allies but also from

1 See Miller, Cartwheel, pp. 303-4. 2 Bergerud, Touched with Fire, p. 78. 3 Miller, Cartwheel, p. 304.

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starvation and exhaustion by the roadside, where their bodies were left. 4 Having made the arduous journey from Wewak to Madang, over the very mountains which we saw were a source of contentment for Tamura, we can only contemplate that Tamura perhaps finally received the ‘glorious’ death in battle to which he had aspired. This study, by its nature, can only provide the information that Tamura’s diary gives. Uncovering the diarist is problematic unless the constraints and influences operating on his or her work are fully understood. One of the most pressing issues relevant to this study has been the degree to which the society of Imperial Japan and its ideology (kokutai) shaped Tamura’s responses to his wartime experience and the degree to which this is revealed in his diary. Tamura’s memories, and his reactions to his experience, were not governed or owned exclusively by him but were a direct result of him being ‘situated in certain physical environments and social milieu’, the physical environment being that of a warzone in the very alien landscape of New Guinea, and the social milieu being that of the kokutai of Imperial Japan.5 Writing a diary under the gaze of a totalitarian regime or an all-encompassing ideology was not unique to citizens and soldiers of Imperial Japan. Indeed, the working of ideology on the thought processes of the soldier or the citizen is eloquently described by Jochen Hellbeck, who wrote about diaries written under the Stalinist regime. Rather than a given, fixed, and monologic textual corpus, […] ideology may be better understood as a ferment working in individuals and producing a great deal of variation as it interacts with the subjective life of that particular person. […] Ideology should therefore be seen as a living and adaptive force; it has power only to the extent that it operates in living persons who engage their selves and the world as ideological subjects.6

4 ‘Originally, in Japan, the corpse of a war victim used to be cremated, and the remains used to be cordially delivered to the family and buried in the ancestral graveyard. Against such customs, the corpses of the war dead in Papua-New Guinea were left as they were. […] The blood, flesh and bones of many Japanese soldiers numbering more than 223,000 men soak into the land and sea around Papua-New Guinea […].’ See Kengoro Tanaka, Operations of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in the Papua New Guinea Theater during World War II (Tokyo: Japan Papua New Guinea Goodwill Society, 1980), pp. 98-9. 5 Geoffrey Cubitt, ‘History, Psychology and Social Memory’, in Psychology and History, eds. Cristian Tileagă and Jovan Byford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 33. 6 Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 13.

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Although written in response to a different social and political context, Hellbeck’s words give useful insights into aspects of Tamura’s diary and the relationship between the diarist and the social – and ideological – discourses within which he operated. Recalling that much of the diary deals with the very grim reality of facing death and giving up on a life less lived, we see that the diary and its writing bear witness to ‘sociobiographical memory’, ‘(the existential fusion of one’s own biography with the history of groups or communities to which one belongs)’.7 Like the castaway exile Robinson Crusoe, Tamura’s ‘thoughts […can] fall back on the social frameworks of his homeland’.8 Notwithstanding the overarching influence of Tamura’s social construct, history, and community, the reading of Tamura’s diary also allows us to recognize that ‘approaches to social memory in psychology have generally started not from the collectivity but from the idea of the individual as a socially and culturally embedded agent’.9 Tamura reveals in his diary that he, too, was a ‘socially and culturally embedded agent’ operating under a ‘collective memory’ which had intrinsically become a part of his own ‘organic memory’.10 It was as this ‘socially and culturally embedded agent’ that Tamura was able to provide us access to the grass roots of Imperial Japan’s ideology and his attempts to utilize its tenets to assist him in his required goals in his warzone life.11 Pacific War veteran Taketomi Tomio believed that the diaries of nameless soldiers afford us the amenity of seeing the ‘true face of war’, and Tamura’s diary has also provided the opportunity to reveal the ‘true face of the kokutai’ as it operated on soldiers of Imperial Japan.12 So, what have we gleaned from Tamura’s diary entries? In providing us a glimpse into the ‘true face’ of the Japanese soldier’s war in New Guinea, Tamura’s diary paints a very vivid picture of the warzone landscape, conditions, inadequacies, and deprivations that beset his world. That is what we should expect from a diary written in a warzone. Yet Tamura’s diary shows us much more than his physical misery. We see how Tamura chose to deal with his environment and loneliness rather than merely succumb to his 7 Eviatar Zerubavel, Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Pyscholgy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 91-2. 8 Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 16. 9 Cubitt, ‘History, Psychology and Social Memory’, p. 30. 10 Maurice Halbwach’s theory of collective memory as quoted in Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 15. 11 Anton Chekhov, The Personal Papers of Anton Chekhov, trans. S.S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf (New York: Lear, 1948), p. 22. 12 As quoted in Moore, Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire. Electronic book, Chapter 6, Location p. 5833.

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fate. Firstly, Tamura endeavoured to tackle his loneliness and isolation by either copying letters into his diary that he had written or by copying letters and articles from other media sources. His private letters display a personal censorship of his abysmal conditions, conceivably to play down the actuality of his existence to his recipients. Other letters and articles are infused with the language of the kokutai and perhaps enabled Tamura to continue with resolve. That resolve was particularly enhanced by chronicling his memories of both his travel in the homeland and that of his journey to the front through Korea and China. In his record of these experiences, Tamura again drew on kokutai iconography and language to remain a proud and committed soldier of the Empire. It is important to note that Tamura remembered these journeys, that they were not written as they occurred, and that his retrospective documenting of them meant that they may not have been an accurate reproduction but rather afforded him an opportunity to perhaps enhance or alter the details considering his appallingly abject conditions and prospects at the time of writing, allowing him the outcome he sought.13 In the New Guinea landscape that was anathema Japanese sensibilities, Tamura was physically and psychologically challenged by the natural progression and patterns of nature. He was compelled to therefore re-imagine his world to retain some sense of equilibrium. The physical nature of Tamura’s homeland was, therefore, psychologically internalized in a way that nurtured a sense of comfort. As a being out of landscape, we see that Tamura used images that included aspects of Japan’s unique nature such as the iconic cherry blossoms and the majestic Mt Fuji. These images had been successfully appropriated by the authorities of the pre-war era, especially during the 1930s, and transformed into weapons of propaganda to justify setting Japan on the path to total war. Tamura also drew on this iconography in order to drive himself forward. The unique nature and seasons of Japan formed a part of Tamura’s musings about the nature with which he was confronted in New Guinea. Often these musings were associated with Japanese poetic traditions, and in his clear allusion to the unique nature of Japan, there was a compliance with the kokutai tenets. We have also seen that on numerous occasions throughout the diary, Tamura was committed to the noble and glorious death promised by the kokutai. These entries are largely couched in kokutai language and with kokutai-inspired motifs and symbols, such as the cherry blossom, the Emperor’s shield, and the majesty of the Black Current. The difficulties 13 Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 17.

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associated with Tamura’s final acceptance of death are played out through the concept of self-effacement for the greater cause of the nation of Japan as required by the kokutai. In grappling with obliterating his sense of self, Tamura continued to return to the kokutai fold, and rather than blame his inability to accept impending death on the outrageous requirements of the kokutai, he instead blamed himself for his inability to conform. Even under the hierarchical inequities and the terror he faced in his role in New Guinea, he continued to strive towards the aims that the kokutai expected of him. Tamura ultimately accepted the notion of himself as one of the ‘already dead’, acceding to the command of the kokutai to accept this requirement of death as his ‘highest calling’. Yet underlining his struggle to commit to the requirements of the kokutai and to sacrifice his life for the Emperor was an intense longing for home. References to home are the most numerous of the repetitive words used in the diary.14 Regardless of his stated commitment to die on the far-flung shores of New Guinea, it is excruciatingly obvious how much this young soldier longed for home and the chance to return to his beloved Japan. In his own words, ‘Dreams of home come nightly, my heart pounding with joy, but they leave no message’.15 Tamura’s humanity is reflected here, and we can see that his diary displays an emotion similar to the one in the song of the bruised and battered caged bird who longs for release in the following poem by the slave Paul Laurence Dunbar I know why the caged bird beats his wing Till his blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting – I know why he beats his wing!16

14 Of interest is the number of times certain words or references to words appear in the diary. For example, ‘home’ appears about 80 times, ‘rain’ appears about 40 times, ‘shelter’ (or house or tent) appears about 36 times, ‘death’ or ‘die’ appears about 28 times, ‘illness’ (including weary, sickness, sick) appears about 23 times, ‘food’ about 20 times, ‘the Emperor’ appears about 15 times, ‘cherry blossoms’, ‘flower’, and ‘scatter’ appear about 10 times. 15 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 77. Written between 14 and 18 April 1943. 16 Joanne M. Braxton, ed., The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Charlottsville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1993), p. 102.

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The diary gave Tamura both the voice to ‘sing’ and the wings to ‘beat’ against his enforced cage-like exile. It was both his gaoler and his liberator. The jungle warzone was his perch in the cage, and that wonderful furusato home that he longed for was the bough on the tree of freedom. In his struggle with divorcing himself from the home and life he had left behind, we are given a glimpse of a Japanese soldier who revealed himself as a very ‘feeling creature’.17 Home was the heartland, and home could also mean success in life, another chance for a life well lived. Tamura’s own failings in life were a source of deep regret, and it is here that he displayed the strongest side of his individuality. Despite his longing, despite his ambition, adherence to the kokutai meant that he was still able to put those desires for a life well lived to the side in favour of serving a greater cause, thus relinquishing his ‘sub-line’ to the ‘main-line’ causes of the kokutai. The progression of Tamura’s thought processes as evidenced in his diary reveal the diary as the facilitator of personal growth and change. In the words of Azar Nafisi, You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, I told him, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.18

The journey that Tamura took (both physically and intellectually) not only changed him from the person who left Japan, it helped to mould him into a loyal and committed soldier who had reconciled the requirements placed upon him by the kokutai. Tamura Yoshikazu did not, however, die like the carp on the cutting board, nor was he silenced by the ever-present but invisible gaze of seken.19 Although it is clear that Tamura was to a degree ‘indoctrinated’ in the way of the kokutai, Tamura was able, through the medium of the diary, to thrash out this pathway for himself while relying on the teachings of the kokutai as his guide. Ultimately, Tamura inscribed in himself a tangential ‘power relationship’ with the kokutai, enabling him to subjectively and voluntarily reconcile his sense of self with the state’s requirements. The basis of the kokutai was reinvented and often ‘imagined’, 17 Jeremy T. Burman, ‘Bringing the Brain into History: Behind Hunt and Smail’s Appeals to Neurohistory’, in Psychology and History, eds. Cristian Tileagă and Jovan Byford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 72. 18 Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (Sydney, Australia: Hodder Headline, 2004), p. 336. 19 Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, Code Name Downfall (New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 18.

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but for Tamura, the narrative of the kokutai was indeed ‘psychologically real’, and never once in his diary did he criticize its dictates.20 Not only did he act within the confines of this discourse, he actively sought its teachings and tenets in order to solve problems, face challenges, and inevitably to find the strength of resolve required to undertake his role as a loyal subject of Imperial Japan and accept the ultimate requirement of the sacrifice of his own life. The diary has shown us that Tamura wrote under his external ‘current sociocultural contexts’ but that his outcomes from that context were very much driven by his exceedingly personal and internal ‘experience of the present’, being his warzone life of deprivation and uncertainty.21 The answers that he found through this process were the result of a ‘kind of tangent produced when external and internal pressure combine to create it’.22 To a large degree, rather than being coerced by the kokutai, we see that the kokutai was his anchor, his ‘cultural memory’, a reliable and valuable ‘schemata’, which enabled him to draw upon its guidance to enable him to find his pathway as a ‘thinking actor’ in the grand Imperial plan, played out in a very volatile world where death was the likely outcome.23 In the warzone of New Guinea, Tamura toiled daku daku daku, moku, moku [with sweat, and without (spoken) words].24 Yet he did have a plethora of words, and with these words through the medium of the diary Tamura explored the depths of himself in tandem with the dictates of the kokutai, a process that saw the diary become his own manual towards a certain and fruitless death under the nationalistic dictates of Imperial Japan. In the end, Tamura sacrificed his youth and his chances at success, and ultimately his life. In the end, his death offered no glory, no laurels, and no victory for Imperial Japan. Had he been a survivor under the Allied forces, we might have been moved by his story of adversity and the ways in which he sought to deal with the misfortune he had experienced as a soldier in New Guinea.25 Had he survived, his diary could have been a proud narrative, and as a victim of survival, we may have witnessed Tamura, ‘though battered’, be 20 Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 53. 21 Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 91. 22 Murakami, Killing Commendatore, p. 110. 23 This is in reference to Sir Frederic C. Bartlett’s theory of cultural memory schemata as discussed in Erll, Memory in Culture, p. 83. The reference to the ‘thinking actor’ is attributed to the ‘unthinking actor’ in Murakami, Killing Commendatore, p. 196. 24 Tamura, Jūgun techō, p. 45. Written 11 April 1943. 25 Sandra K. Carney, ‘Transcendent Stories and Counternarratives in Holocaust Survivor Life Histories: Searching for Meaning in Video-Testimony Archives’, in Narrative Analysis, eds. Colette Daiute and Cynthia Lightfoot (Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004), p. 201.

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able to ‘“overcome” or “move on” or, best yet, “triumph” over the trauma’.26 But in reality, his historical legacy in New Guinea evoked poems such as this one written by an Australian soldier at the end of his time in New Guinea, when the war had been lost for Japanese soldiers. Before the saw whines [sic] and the axes rang And a wooden city was built here, and the ten Thousand slant-eyed soldiers laughed and sang And marched and slept and fought and died here – then This was the jungle: green and gloomy, shrill With insect shrieks. The war has gone again Now, and the armies have gone, and the raw, scarred hill Where the shells blossomed, mourns lonely in the rain.27

For Tamura there was no survival, no accolades and no glory, but there was the self-searching journey that wound its way through the horrendous milieu of the warzone and which ended somewhere in a faraway place without witnesses or mourners. Tamura did inevitably find his place of reconciliation in the last pages of his diary, and we see that, in his own words written on the last page, it was, indeed, ‘the end’. Hito wa chitte mo, na wo nokosu28

26 As quoted in ibid., p. 202. 27 Bell, From Wee Waa to Wewak, p. 205. 28 A fitting Japanese sentence to end this book. “Even though they may die, their names will remain.”



List of Images and Maps

Front Cover Artwork by Tom Williams from an original photograph of Tamura Yoshikazu provided by his family. Image 1 072473 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C64065 Dumpu, New Guinea. One of four Japanese prisoners of war, escorted by corporal A.S. Lukeman (1), 11th Division Provost Company, awaiting interrogation by intelligence officers at Headquarters 11th Division. The prisoners, captured at Nap Nap on the Wantoat River, were among the first captured in the Ramu Valley. April 19, 1944 Image 2 058651 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C229733 Dumpu, New Guinea. Sx12395 Lance Corporal (L/Cpl) W.J. Cullen (left) and SX17585 L/Cpl H.A. Scott, both of the 2/27th Australian Infantry Battalion, bring in a Japanese prisoner to Headquarters, 21st Australian Infantry Brigade. October 5, 1943 Image 3 072475 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C64067 Dumpu, New Guinea. One of four Japanese prisoners of war awaiting interrogation by intelligence officers at Headquarters 11th Division. The prisoners, captured at Nap Nap on the Wantoat River, were among the first captured in the Ramu Valley. April 19, 1944 Image 4 OG0976 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/OG0976 Aitape area, North East New Guinea. Naked Japanese prisoners of war (POWS) crouch together on the ground while awaiting transport after being captured by US invasion forces which landed at Karoka Village. The Japanese were probably stripped because of their habit of concealing weapons and grenades. Circa April 1944

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Image 5 016452 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/016452/ New Guinea. This Japanese prisoner of war (POW) was left behind by his comrades when they evacuated the Sanga River area. He was too weak to keep up with the retreating army. At Rear Headquarters, food and water were provided but some of the Japanese were too weak to feed themselves. They were taken to a Casualty Clearing Station where they received medical attention. While being taken to Headquarters, this Japanese POW, hungry and sick, collapsed exhausted on the beach and had to be transported by a Jeep. January 14, 1944 Image 6 ART26052 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ART26052 Depicts head and chest portrait of Private Nishimura not wearing a shirt, seen with serious facial expression. Nishimura was a Japanese prisoner of war captured by the Australians on New Britain. Drawn by Douglas Watson, 1944, in ‘Jungle Warfare (with the Australian Army in the SouthWest Pacific)’, published for the Australian Military Forces by the Australian War Memorial. 1944 Image 7 014218 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C33588 Sanananda, Papua. An Australian, probably from 27th cavalry regiment, wounded on the leg, rolls a cigarette for a Japanese prisoner captured at Sanananda. 1943 Image 8 016312 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/016312/ New Guinea. Private G. Hull of North Melbourne, Victoria, lights a cigarette for a wounded Japanese prisoner of war (POW) lying on a stretcher at a mobile surgical team’s headquarters at Kumbarum. December 1943 Image 9 016311 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/016311 New Guinea. December 1943. A Japanese prisoner of war (POW) with an arm and leg injury is carried by Australians to the operating theatre of the mobile surgical team’s headquarters at Kumbarum. The signs on the tree trunk indicate ‘Admission’ and ‘Orderly Room’. December 1943

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Image 10 058789 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/058789 Dumpu, New Guinea. NX74107 Corporal H.J. Murray of the 7th Australian Division Provost Company lighting a cigarette for a Japanese prisoner at Headquarters, 21st Australian Infantry Brigade. October 10, 1943

Maps Maps provided by Dawn Hendriks Map 1 Tamura’s Journey to the New Guinea Warzone (see Chapter 2 ‘A Soldier Diarist’s Journey’) (see Chapter 6 ‘Travel in the Homeland’) Tamura’s Journey through the Asian Mainland (see Chapter 2 ‘A Soldier Diarist’s Journey’) (see Chapter 6 ‘Journey Across the Asian Continent’) The Black Current (see Chapter 8 ‘The Ocean as Facilitator of a Noble Death’) Map 2 The New Guinea Warzone (see Chapters 4, 5, and Epilogue) Map 3 Tamura’s home prefecture (see Chapter 2 ‘A Soldier Diarist’s Journey’) (see Chapter 6 ‘Travel in the Homeland’) Tamura’s Journey through the Asian Mainland (see Chapter 2 ‘A Soldier Diarist’s Journey’) (see Chapter 6 ‘Journey Across the Asian Continent’) The Black Current (see Chapter 8 ‘The Ocean as Facilitator of a Noble Death’)



Glossary of Terms

Aikoku Fujinkai Patriotic Women’s Association Akagami draft paper the Sun Goddess Amaterasu-ōmikami living god Arabitogami lunch box Bentō Bushidō attributes associated with the samurai class – the way of the warrior Chiru to fall (die) Chū loyalty to the Emperor Chūgi a devoted and heartfelt sense of loyalty Chūkō ichi loyalty and filial piety Chūkun sincerity of heart towards the Emperor Daigunsui Generalissimo Daitōa sensō Greater East Asian War Fukoku kyōhei enrich the country and strengthen the military Furusato beloved aspects of the home-town or homeland Goryō unquiet or vengeful spirits Gunjin Chokuyū Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors Gunjin nikki field diaries Gunka military songs/ war anthems Gunshin war god Gyokusai suicide charge Haiken suru to see (honorific) Haizanhei defeated soldiers Hakkō Ichiu eight cords under one roof Hanseiroku record of self-reflection Heitai soldier Heitai susume Soldiers’ Advance (military song) Honne one’s true opinion Ichioku isshin one hundred million souls together (one hundred million souls beating as one) Ie no Michi the Way of the Family Igonsho last will and testament Imon comfort/ encouragement Imonbukuro care packages (comfort bags) for soldiers

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Isagiyoku shinu die without clinging to life Jinchū nikki war diaries work desperately for the Emperor Jinchū Jinchū kurabu the club at the front Jūgun techō military notebook Junjiru to sacrifice oneself for one’s country to follow one’s lord to death Junshi traditional Japanese theatre form Kabuki rhetorical devices used in Japanese poetry Kakekotoba a god Kami Kazoku kokka family state fundamental national policy Kihon Kokusaku Yōkō loyalty to the family Kō Imperial Army Kōgun carp Koi Kokubō Fujinkai National Defence Women’s Association citizens Kokumin National Schools Law Kokumin Gakkō Rei National Spiritual Mobilization Kokumin Seishin Sōdōin National Polity of Imperial Japan Kokutai Fundamentals of Our National Polity Kokutai no Hongi leader (of a nation) Kōtei training diary Kunren nikki youth training centres Kunrenjō the Black Current Kuroshio Kyodatsu  disillusionment and physical despair (particularly at the end of WWII) Kyōiku Chokugo Imperial Rescript on Education Kyōka Dantai Rengōkai Federation of Moral Suasion Groups Makotogokoro (magokoro) sincerity/ pure heart Makoto no kagami mirror of truth Makurakotoba figures of speech used in Japanese poetry (lit. pillow words) Meibunka statutory form Michiyuki a travel interlude in traditional theatre often associated with death Minami taiheiyō sensō South Pacific War Mono no aware the pathos of things Nankai Shitai the South Seas Detachment Nikki bungaku diary literature

Glossary of Terms

313

Nikki kensa diary inspection Nikudan San Yūshi three human canons bodily self Nikutai Nisshi diaries of bureaucrats Noh traditional Japanese theatre form Omote the public face, public self written by women Onnade filial piety Oyakōkō good wife Ryōsai good wife, wise mother Ryōsai kenbo unification of rites and governances Saisei itchi Cherry Blossoms Bloom (patriotic song) Saita saita Cherry Blossom Sakura SCAP The Supreme Commander for Allied Powers Seinen kunrenjō youth training centres Seisen holy war Seishin sōdōin spiritual mobilization Seken (imagined) community honour/observance Sengoha post-war writers Senji Katei Kyōiku Shidō Yōkō Wartime Domestic Guidance Essentials Senjinkun Instructions for the Battlefield Senninbari thousand stitch cloth Senpai kōhai seniority system Sensō sekinin war guilt Senyū army buddy Shiko no mitate the Emperor’s shield Shinmin Emperor’s subjects Shinmin no Michi the Way of the Subject Shinpei divine soldier Shizen nature/spontaneity Shūyōryoku record of self-cultivation Sojō no koi the carp on the cutting board Taigi the Great Obligation to Die Devotion to the Greater Cause Taigimeibun Tanka 31-syllable poems Tatami straw matting Tatemae opinions one displays in public Techō notebook Teikoku no tami subjects of the Empire Tennō Emperor

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Tennōheika Emperor Tennōsei the Emperor based system special attack (suicide) pilot Tokkōtai Torime night blindness Umi no ko children of the sea Umi Yukaba If I Go Away to Sea (military song) the private face, the private self Ura Japanese spirit – Chinese learning Wakon-kansai mountain deity/god Yama no kami unique spirit of Japan Yamato damashii song of the Japanese soul Yamato damashii no uta young men of Yamato (Japan) Yamato danshi shrine for deceased soldiers Yasukuni noble cause of eternal loyalty Yūkyū no taigi luxury is the enemy Zeitaku wa teki da



Abbreviations for sources held at the Australian War Memorial (Canberra, ACT)

ATIS Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, South West Pacific Area AWM Australian War Memorial (Canberra, ACT) Bull. Bulletin CICSPF Pacific Fleet Translations, Combat Intelligence Centre, South Pacific Force CT Current Translation EP Enemy Publication FELO Far Eastern Liaison Office IR Interrogation Report RR Research Report SEATIC South-East Asia Translation and Interrogation Centre Ser. Serial SOPAC South Pacific Force and Headquarters of the Commander SWPA South West Pacific Area

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AWM ATIS CT No 9. ‘The Nankai Shitai Western 34th regiment’s battle song’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS CT No 28 (348). ‘Diary of Wada Kiyoshi’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS CT No 57 (663). ‘Diary of Kawano Susumu’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS CT No 116 (1279). ‘Diary of an Unknown Soldier, Roosevelt Ridge CT 116 (1279)’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS CT No 140 (1480). ‘Diary of Komatsu Rokuzo’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS EP 80. ‘Enemy Publication Moral Lecture by First Lieutenant Horiguchi Tsugio’. Canberra, Australia: AWM, March 1942. AWM ATIS FELO 94 Box C54 (Undated). ‘Read This Only and the War is Won’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS Information Bulletin No 14 (2768). ‘Information Bulletin 14 (2768)’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR 33 (Serial 11). ‘Interrogation Report 133 (Ser 211)’. 4. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR 141 Serial 220. ‘Interrogation Report 141’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR 269 (1845). ‘Interrogation Report 269’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 23 JA 145042. ‘Interrogation Report Chiya Hiroshi Captured 26 November 1942’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 71 serial 122. ‘Interrogation Report 71’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. —. ‘Interrogation Report Yamakami Y. 8’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 87 Serial 144. ‘Interrogation Report of Kato Kumio’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 120. ‘Interrogation Report 120’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 128 (Serial 205). ‘Interrogation Report 128’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 147 Serial No 229. ‘Interrogation Report of Uyehara T’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 207 Serial 307. ‘Interrogation Report 207 (307)’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 211 Serial 317 ‘Interrogation Report 211’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 229 Serial 343. ‘Interrogation Report 229’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 230A Serial 354. ‘Interrogation Report 230A (354)’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 254 Serial 380. ‘Interrogation Report 254’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS IR No 286 Serial 422. ‘Interrogation Report 286’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS PR 02305 Tamura Yoshikazu. ‘Diary of Tamura Yoshikazu’. Canberra: AWM, circa 1943. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS PR No 86-260. ‘Diary Unknown Soldier North New Guinea’. Canberra, Australia: AWM, circa 1943. AWM ATIS RR 40 Information Request Report Serial No 79. ‘Research Report: Japanese Army Postal Service’. Canberra, Australia: AWM, 4 October 1943. AWM ATIS RR No 122. ‘Research Report 122’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS RR No 76. ‘Research Report Self -Immolation as a Factor in Japanese Military Psychology’. Canberra, Australia: AWM, 1944. AWM ATIS Serial 360 IR 238. ‘IR 238 captured 10 September 1943’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM ATIS SWPA RR no 76 pt 2 Box 119. ‘Research Report: The Emperor Cult as a Present Factor in Japanese Military Psychology’. Canberra, Australia: AWM, 21 June 1944. AWM ATIS SWPA RR no 76 pt 3. ‘Report on Psychological Warfare annex 3 “Answer to Japan” 11: “The Warrior Tradition as a Present Factor in Japanese Military Psychology”’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM CICSPF TCJD Item 1353 Enemy Publication. ‘Comments on Spiritual Training’. Canberra, Australia: AWM. AWM Library. ‘Order of Battle of the Japanese Armed Forces’. Canberra, Australia: AWM.

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Index 41st Division 45-47, 50, 120, 186, 243, 299 18th Army 28, 33, 47, 119, 186 A Discussion on the Aims of Buddhist Japan see Bukkyō Nippon no Shihyō o Kataru Zadankai Aikoku Fujinkai see Patriotic Women’s Association AJRP see Australia Japan Research Project) Akagami (draft paper) 154, 311 Allied Translator and Interpreter Service see ATIS Amaterasu-ōmikami (Sun Goddess) 28, 38, 94, 311 Arabitogami (Living god) 28, 311 Army Buddy see Senyū Asu wa otachi ka (So tomorrow you leave) 145 ATIS (Allied Translator Interpreter Service) 15, 57, 63, 118, 315 Australia Japan Research Project (AJRP) 21, 52 Australian War Memorial (AWM) 10, 14-16, 21, 23, 52, 57, 63, 308, 315 Banzai 154, 158, 188, 201, 288 Battle of Midway 31-32, 119 Battle of the Coral Sea 31-32, 119 Beyond the Clouds see Kumo nagaruru hate ni Black Current (Kuroshio) 213-217, 219, 262, 294, 302, 309, 312 Black Ships of Matthew Perry (Kurofune) 25 Bodily self see Nikutai Bukkyō Nippon no Shihyō o Kataru Zadankai (Discussion on the Aims of Buddhist Japan) 248 Bushidō (Way of the Warrior) 25, 37-38, 40-41, 127, 201-202, 218, 220, 227, 235, 289, 311 Bushidō no Kōryō (Promotion of Bushidō) 202 Buson 177 Care packages/comfort bags see Imonbukuro Carp on the cutting board (sojō no koi) 16, 203, 228, 304, 312-313 Cherry blossom (sakura) 82, 109, 144, 220-224, 260, 302-303, 313 Chian Iji Hō see Peace Preservation Law Child [ren] of the sea see Umi no ko China campaign 11, 31, 35-36, 44-46, 73, 76-77, 84, 86, 89, 119, 136-137, 184, 201, 206, 210, 237, 255, 262 Chiru (fall, scatter, die) 210, 221-224, 244, 303, 311 Chronicle of the Direct Succession of Gods and Sovereigns see Jinnō Shōtōki Chronicles of Japan see Nihonshoki Chū (Loyalty to the Emperor) 28, 70, 78-79, 81, 87-88, 311

Chūgi (Loyalty, devoted and heartfelt sense of) 81, 87, 311 Chūkun (sincerity of heart towards the Emperor) 28, 311 Clauss, Ludwig Ferdinand 93 Closed Country see Sakoku Club at the Front ( jinchū kurabu) 148, 312 Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves see Manyōshū Collective memory 27, 71, 93, 301 Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) 15 Comfort and Encouragement see Imon Comfort dolls see Imon ningyō Community honour/observance see Seken Conscription 11, 30, 34-35 CSDIC see Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (Dai Nippon) kokubō fujinkai (National Defence Women’s Association) 74, 83, 312 Dare ka kokyo wo omowarazu (Who does not long for their homeland?) 144 Daruma 267 Dawning of Asia 238 Defeated soldier see Haizanhei Diary Field diary (gunjin nikki) 43, 311 Diary inspection (nikki kensa) 43, 52-54, 312 Diary literature (nikki bungaku) 64, 191, 312 Record of Self Reflection (hanseiroku) 4344, 311 War diary ( jinchū nikki) 43, 312 Die as a martyr (sacrifice oneself) see Junjiru Die (as a soldier) see Chiru Die without Clinging to Life see Isagi-yoku shinu Discussion on the Aims of Buddhist Japan see Bukkyō Nippon no Shihyō o Kataru Zadankai Disillusionment and physical despair see Kyodatsu Divine soldiers see Shinpei Draft paper see Akagami Edo Period 25, 67 Ego involvement 27, 40, 203-205, 211, 235, 280 Eight cords, one roof see Hakkō Ichiu Emperor Devotion to/role of 19, 26-29, 33-35, 37-38, 41-42, 69-72, 77-89, 94, 97, 107, 134, 153, 198, 201-206, 209, 213, 222, 224-226, 248, 255, 261, 265, 271-275, 279-280, 283-284, 290, 292, 294-295, 303 Emperor Godaigo 42, 202 Emperor Jimmu 69, 84-85, 94

330  Emperor Kōmei 26 Emperor Meiji 26, 39, 41, 67, 70, 73, 82, 204 Emperor Shōwa 30, 75, 77, 79, 273 Emperor Taishō 30, 73 Emperor’s army see Kōgun Emperor’s shield (shiko no mitate) 212, 223-226, 302, 313 Emperor’s subjects see Shinmin Emperor System see Tennōsei Enrich the country, strengthen the military see Fukoku kyōhei Fall see Chiru Family State see Kazoku kokka February 26 1936 Incident see Ni ni roku jiken Federation of Moral Suasion Groups see Kyōka Dantai Rengōkai Field Diary see Diary (Field Diary) Fifteen Years War 35, 73-74, 77, 135, 139 Filial piety (oyakōkō) 42, 72, 86-87, 204, 209, 226-227, 267, 311, 313 Fires on the Plain (Nobi) 203, 262 First Sino-Japanese War 29, 40, 43 Following one’s Lord into Death see Junshi Forty-seven rōnin 40 Fukoku kyōhei (Enrich the country and strengthen the military) 34, 311 Fundamental National Policy see Kihon Kokusaku Yōkō Fundamental Principles of Our National Polity see Kokutai no Hongi Furusato (beloved aspects of the home-town or homeland) 174, 304, 311 General Nogi Maresuke see Nogi, Maresuke Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) 37 Girl’s Friend see Shōjo no tomo Goal involvement 27, 40, 205, 209, 211, 235, 254, 280 Good wife, wise mother see Ryōsai kenbo Goryō (unquiet or vengeful spirits) 204, 311 Great obligation to die see Taigi Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 31, 226, 236-237, 240 Greater East Asian War 210, 213, 311 Guadalcanal 32-33, 119 Gunjin Chokuyū see Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors Gunjin nikki see Diary (Field Diary) Gunka (military songs/ war anthems) 145, 150, 217-219, 226, 254, 311 Gunshin (war god) 203-204, 292, 311 Gyokusai (suicide charge) 288,311 Hagakure (Hidden by the Leaves) 227-228, 282, 287, 289 Haizanhei (defeated soldiers) 12, 89, 311 Hakkō Ichiu (eight cords under one roof) 8485, 311

WRITING JAPAN’S WAR IN NEW GUINEA

Hanseiroku (Record of Self Reflection) see Diary (Record of Self Reflection) Heimlich/ unheimliche 135, 173-174, 193 Hidden by the Leaves see Hagakure Holy war see Seisen Honne (real intentions) 91, 207, 286, 311 Human Bullets see Nikudan Ichioku isshin (one hundred million souls together) 83, 311 Ie no Michi see Way of the Family If I Go Away to Sea see Umi Yukaba IGHQ see Imperial General Headquarters Igonsho (Last will and testament) 44, 58, 311 IJA see Imperial Japanese Army Imon (comfort/encouragement) 146-148, 150, 152, 311 Imonbukuro (care packages/comfort bags for soldiers) 74, 136-137, 146, 311 Imon ningyō (comfort dolls) ) 151 Imperial General Headquarters 32-33, 119 Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) 16, 19, 23-24, 32, 37, 46, 50-51, 69, 82, 110, 115, 122, 125, 128-129, 131, 141, 164, 173, 205, 209, 216, 241, 255, 287 Imperial Rescript on Education (Kyōiku Chokugo) 71-73, 83, 87-88, 94, 312 Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors (Gunjin Chokuyū) 69-71, 73, 86-87, 126, 134, 246, 311 Instructions for the Battlefield see Senjinkun Invictus Generation 10 Isagi-yoku shinu (die without clinging to life) 221, 312 Ishikawa Takuboku 56 Itami Mansaku 88 Japanese expansionism 236 Japanese spirit see Yamato damashii Japanese spirit, Chinese learning see Wakon-kansai Jibun ga Nai (man without a me) 280 Jinchū kurabu see Club at the Front Jinnō Shōtōki (Chronicle of the Direct Succession of Gods and Sovereigns) 94 Junjiru (die as a martyr/ sacrifice oneself) 37, 312 Junshi (following one’s lord in death) 37, 41, 312 Kabuki 81, 157, 312 Kakekotoba (rhetorical devices used in Japanese poetry) 61, 312 Kami (a god) 204, 221, 312, 314 Kamikaze (see also Tokkōtai) 13, 17, 222, 288 Kawai Tatsuo 236, 238 Kazoku kokka (family state) 28, 87, 312 Keeping up appearances/public face see Tatemae Kihon Kokusaku Yōkō (fundamental national policy) 85, 312

331

Index

Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices from the Sea) 115, 189, 209, 236, 281 Kitabake Chikafusa 94 Kō (loyalty to the family) 87, 312 Kōgun (Emperor’s army) 34, 312 Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) 71-72, 76 Kokoda 10, 32, 63, 159 Kokubō Fujinkai see (Dai Nippon) kokubō fujinkai Kokumin Gakkō Rei (National Schools Law) 83, 312 Kokumin Seishin Sōdōin (National Spiritual Mobilization) 77, 83, 312-313 Kokutai (National Polity of Imperial Japan) 19-20, 26-30, 40, 42, 52-54, 66-67, 69-71, 73-93, 96-99, 123, 125-126, 132, 135, 139, 144, 160, 165, 180-181, 202-204, 207, 209, 212, 216, 220, 224, 227-228, 235-236, 245-248, 255-256, 258-261, 263-264, 267, 271, 273-274, 276, 279-281, 283, 288-289, 292, 300-305, 312 Kokutai no Hongi (Fundamentals of Our National Polity) 42, 71, 76-81, 86, 96-97, 126, 202, 235-236, 279-280, 312 Kore dake yomeba Ware wa Kateru (Read this only and the War is Won) 87 Kumo nagaruru hate ni (Beyond the Clouds) 289 Kurofune see Black Ships Kuroiwa Shūroku 41-42 Kuroshio see Black Current Kyodatsu (disillusionment and physical despair) 12, 312 Kyōiku Chokugo see Imperial Rescript on Education Kyōka Dantai Rengōkai (Federation of Moral Suasion Groups) 73, 312 Last Will and Testament see Igonsho Listen to the Voices from the Sea see Kike Wadatsumi no Koe Living god see Arabitogami Loyalty, devoted and heartfelt sense of see Chūgi Loyalty to the Emperor see Chū Loyalty to the family see Kō Luxury is the enemy see Zeitaku wa teki da Madang 33, 51, 63, 113, 120, 243, 299-300 Magokoro (sincerity, pure heart) 208, 312 Main-line 60, 279, 289, 304 Makurakotoba (figures of speech used in Japanese poetry) 61, 312 Malaria 46, 66, 100, 128-129, 133 Man without a me see Jibun ga nai Manchukuo/Manchuria 29-30, 35, 48, 74, 162, 223 Manyōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) 79, 87, 224, 226 Marco Polo Bridge Incident 30 Meibunka (Statutory form) 69, 312

Meiji 19, 26, 28-29, 34-35, 37-38, 40, 43, 67, 69, 75, 77, 81, 86, 93-95, 131, 203-204, 214, 220 Meiji Restoration 19, 69, 75, 214 Mental time travel 64, 143 Michiyuki (Road Travel Literature) 157, 166, 312 Military songs see Gunka Minami taiheiyō sensō see Pacific War Mono no aware (pathos of things) 178, 312 Monobe no Moriya 223 Moral Suasion Mobilization Campaign see Kyōka Dantai Rengōkai Mother 88, 134, 138, 146, 149, 188-189, 230-231, 313 Motifs of death see Cherry blossom; Emperor’s shield Motoori Norinaga 178, 220 Mt Fuji 123, 155-156, 170, 180-186, 193, 302 Mugi to heitai (Wheat and Soldiers) 201 Nankai Shitai (South Seas Detachment) 3233, 210, 214, 235-236, 312 Nankō 41-42 National Defense Women’s Association see (Dai Nippon) Kokubō Fujinkai National Ideals of the Japanese People see Nippon Shindō Ron National Polity of Imperial Japan see Kokutai National Schools Law see Kokumin Gakkō Rei National Spiritual Mobilisation see Kokumin Seishin Sōdōin Natives (indigenous people of New Guinea) 110, 116-117, 119-120, 124, 133, 166, 170, 237, 239-241, 259 Nihonshoki (Chronicles of Japan) 71-72, 76, 94, 223 Nikki bungaku see Diary (Diary literature) Nikki kensa see Diary (Diary inspection) Nikudan (Human Bullets) 201 Nikudan San Yūshi (Three Human Canons) 81, 313 Nikutai (bodily self) 271, 313 Niniroku Jiken (February 26th 1936 Incident) 75 Nippon Shindō Ron (National Ideals of the Japanese People) 41-42, 272 Nitobe Inazō 220, 280 Nobi see Fires on the Plain Noble Cause of Eternal Loyalty see Yūkyū no taigi Nogi, Maresuke (General Nogi) 41-42 Noh 157, 229, 313 Okubō Kōichi 248 One Hundred Million Souls Together see Ichioku Isshin Omote (public face/public self) 286, 313 Ōnishi Yoshinori 177, 199 Ōoka Shōhei 12, 203, 262 Ōtomo no Yakamochi 79, 226

332  Pacific March see Taiheiyō Kōshinkyoku Pacific War (Minami taiheiyō sensō) 9, 13, 16, 23-24, 28, 30-33, 41, 47-51, 71, 81-82, 118-120, 122, 137, 142, 201, 206, 211, 213-214, 227, 236, 238, 263, 271-272, 295, 301, 312 Pathos of things see Mono no aware Patriotic Women’s Association (Aikoku Fujinkai) 44, 53, 74, 311 Peace Preservation Law (Chian Iji Hō) 26, 30, 73, 272 Pearl Harbour 31, 63, 79, 155, 206, 213, 224, 295 Perry, Matthew (Commodore) 25, 213-214 Port Arthur 29 Port Moresby 31-33 Post war Writers see Sengoha Private face/ private self see Ura Promotion of Bushidō see Bushidō no Kōryō Psycho-topography 20 Public face/keeping up appearances see Tatemae Public face/public self see Omote Pure Heart see Magokoro Read This Only and the War is Won see Kore dake yomeba Ware wa Kateru Real intentions see Honne Record of Ancient Matters see Kojiki Record of Self Reflection (hanseiroku) see Diary (Record of Self-Reflection) Road Travel Literature see Michiyuki Russo-Japanese War 29, 35, 40-43, 73, 96, 201, 204, 292 Ryōsai kenbo (Good wife, Wise mother) 145, 188, 313 Sacrifice oneself see Junjiru Sadanobu see Tamura Sadanobu Saijō Yaso 81, 144-145 Saisei itchi (unification of rites and governances) 94, 313 Sakoku (closed country) 25 Sakura see Cherry blossom Sakurai Tadayoshi 201 Samurai 25-26, 34, 37, 40-42, 127, 189, 201-202, 211, 227-228, 272, 282, 311 SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) 12, 90, 313 Scatter see Chiru Second Sino-Japanese War 31, 154 Seinen kunrenjō (youth training centres) 83, 313 Seisen (holy war) 216, 313 Seishin sōdōin (spiritual mobilization) 77, 83, 312 Seken (community honour/observance) 67, 91, 207, 228, 231, 246, 286, 289, 304, 313 Seki Seisetsu 202, 235 Sengoha (post war writers) 11-12, 89, 313 Seniority System see Senpai kōhai Senji Katei Kyōiku Shidō Yōkō (Wartime Domestic Guidance Essentials) 86, 313

WRITING JAPAN’S WAR IN NEW GUINEA

Senjinkun (Instructions for the Battlefield) 86-87, 226, 260, 313 Senninbari (thousand stitch cloth) 48, 135, 313 Senpai kōhai (seniority system) 131, 313 Sensō sekinin (war guilt) 12, 313 Senyū (army buddy) 131, 313 Shiga Shigetaka 95-96 Shigematsu Kiyoshi 14 Shiko no mitate see Emperor’s shield Shinmin (Emperor’s subjects) 69,313 Shinmin no Michi see Way of the Subject Shinpei (divine soldiers) 34, 313 Shintō 38, 48, 72, 85, 94, 201 Shōjo no tomo (Girl’s Friend) 267 Shōtoku Taishi 78 Sincerity of heart see Magokoro Sincerity of heart towards the Emperor see Chūkun So tomorrow you leave? see Asu wa otachi ka Sojō no koi see Carp on the cutting board Soldiers American Kahn, Sy 55, 58-59, 65, 100, 118, 121, 135-136, 141-142, 168 Swofford, Anthony 66 Uno, Ernest 136 Australian Bell, Hubert Henry (Harry) 9, 32-33, 106, 116, 121, 130, 136-137, 158-160, 239, 306 Ryan, Peter 110-111, 116, 119, 180 Page, Arthur 15, 210 Japanese Adachi Hatazō 32, 119, 186, 262 Ide Ninja 113, 244 Komatsu Rokuzō 129, 243 Kurahashi Kazumi 58 Kuroki Toshio 124, 134 Matsuoka Kinpei 236 Ogawa Masatsugu 100-102, 106-107, 118, 128, 142, 159 Ohara, Second-Lieutenant 283 Sakaguchi Jirō 163 Sakamaki Yutaka 281-282, 286 Shinozaki Jirō 115 Tanimura Kanzō 150 Wada Kiyoshi 107, 122, 125-126, 193-194 Yoshiwara Kane 262 Son of Japan see Yamato danshi South Seas Detachment see Nankai Shitai Special Attack Pilots see Tokkōtai Spirit of Japan see Yamato damashii Spiritual Mobilization see Seishin sōdōin Statutory Form see Meibunka Sub-line 60, 279-280, 289, 304 Sugimoto Gorō 205, 290 Suicide charge see Gyokusai Sun Goddess see Amaterasu-ōmikami Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers see SCAP Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō 227, 287

Index

Taigi (Great Obligation to Die) 29, 205, 207, 226, 237, 264, 313 Taiheiyō Kōshinkyoku (Pacific March) 219 Tamura Sadanobu 21, 23, 45, 51-52, 109, 167-168 Tamura Yoshikazu quotes Black Current 214-219 Communication: letters, media 54, 57, 114, 135-138, 147-151, 167-168, 196, 214, 229, 242, 293 Death 47, 55, 138, 156-157, 165, 193, 210-212, 216-217, 219, 222-226, 228-230, 244, 251, 255-261, 273, 275, 284-285, 287, 293 Emotion: aspirations, regrets, selfdoubt 55, 60, 62, 123-124, 127,145, 158, 164, 168-169, 181, 196, 215, 219, 223, 247-248, 251, 256-258, 260-261, 263-268, 273-275, 279-281, 283-285, 287-288, 290-292, 296, 303 Emperor, Imperial Way 209, 211-213, 225, 248, 261, 273, 275, 280-281, 292 Family, friends. army comrades 55, 57, 108, 116-117, 121, 131, 137-138, 148, 156-157, 167-170, 181-186, 188, 195, 208-210, 215, 223, 228-232, 244, 250, 255-259, 262, 266, 268, 275, 296-297 Food 104, 111, 114-117, 121-124, 127, 136, 148, 155, 161-162, 167, 169-170, 176, 179, 183, 231, 237, 240, 266 Hardship: illness and privations 101, 107-109, 111, 117, 124, 127, 129-130, 138, 145, 176, 242, 244-245, 247, 255-256, 277-278 Journey to the Front Asian Continent 48, 159-164, 225 Homeland 48, 136, 153-158 Kokutai inspired language 60, 146, 155, 159, 165, 208-209, 211-212, 216-219, 222, 224-226, 228, 238, 256, 259-261, 273, 287-292, 295 Man’s highest achievement/ calling 60, 150, 211-213, 292, 303 Military: command, life, senior officers 131-132, 137, 147, 159, 164-165, 198, 216, 225, 242, 244, 247, 249, 255, 273, 277-280, 283-285, 288, 290-291 Moon 187-193 Motivation, loyal soldier 158-159, 162, 165, 181, 185, 206, 208-212, 214-219, 224-226, 232. 246, 250, 254-255, 259, 273-276, 279, 281, 287-288, 290-292, 295, 297-298 Mountains (including Mt. Fuji) 144-146, 154-156, 169, 179, 181-187, 211 Natives (indigenous peoples of New Guinea) 110, 114, 116-117, 124, 147, 170, 237, 239-241, 259 Nostalgia, melancholy 55, 105, 110, 115, 137-138, 144-158, 162, 168-169, 176, 178, 181-188, 191-193, 197, 199, 211, 219, 232, 242, 255-256, 259, 269, 293, 296, 303

333 Nature: fauna, flora, rain, seasonal references 100, 103-111, 137, 147, 151-152, 158, 169, 176-179, 184, 192-193, 196-199, 210-211, 224, 229, 232, 237, 293-294, 297 Songs 144-146, 152-153 War zone Experience: battles, enemy, life 46, 48-49, 101, 103-111, 117, 124, 141, 145, 148, 179, 185-187, 189-192, 194-200, 209-211, 237-238, 241-246, 250-255, 293, 296-298 Tatemae (public face/keeping up appearances) 91, 126, 207, 286, 313 Tennōsei (Emperor System) 70, 314 Thousand stitch cloth see Senninbari Three Human Canons see Nikudan san Yūshi Tōjō Hideki 86, 271 Tokkōtai (special attack pilots see also kamikaze) 17, 222, 224, 288-289, 314 Tokugawa Shogunate 25-26, 95, 157, 213 Tōkyō Shōkonsha see Yasukuni Treaty of Portsmouth 29 Treaty of Shimonoseki 29 Tsukahara Bokuden 227 Twenty-One Demands 30 Umezaki Haruo 11 Umi no ko (children of the sea) 209, 218, 246, 314 Umi Yukaba (If I go Away to Sea) 79, 87, 226, 314 Ura (private face/private self) 286, 314 Unification of rites and government see Saisei itchi Unique spirit of Japan see Yamato damashii Unquiet or vengeful spirits see Goryō Uyesugi Kenshin 287 Wakatsuki Reijirō 26 Wakon-kansai (Japanese Spirit-Chinese Learning) 37-38, 95, 314 War god see Gunshin War guilt see Sensō sekinin Wartime Domestic Guidance Essentials see Senji Katei Kyōiku Shidō Yōkō Wartime songs see Gunka Watsuji Tetsurō 93, 99, 110, 135, 139, 174-175, 213 Way of the Family (Ie no Michi) 86, 311 Way of the Subject (Shinmin no Michi) 85-86, 78, 85, 87, 134, 271, 313 Way of the Warrior see Bushidō Wewak 24, 33, 45, 47-52, 105, 118-120, 150, 176, 190-191, 194, 242-244, 251, 293, 299-300 Wheat and Soldiers see Mugi to Heitai Who Does Not Long for Their Homeland see Dare ka kokyo wo omowarazu Yamaga Sokō 98 Yamamoto Tsunetomo 227 Yamato 37, 39, 146, 155-156, 208-209, 213, 273, 314

334  Yamato damashii (Japanese spirit/unique spirit of Japan) 27, 36-39, 81, 90, 132, 208-209, 220, 249, 256, 272, 275, 281, 287-288, 314 Yamato danshi (son of Japan) 209, 314 Yasukuni (Tōkyō Shōkonsha) 82, 204, 221-222, 244, 280, 314 Yorozu 223-224 Youth training centres see Seinen kunrenjō

WRITING JAPAN’S WAR IN NEW GUINEA

Yuasa Yasuo 93 Yūkyū no taigi (noble cause of eternal loyalty) 226, 314 Zeitaku wa teki da (luxury is the enemy) 84, 314