Category Archives: war

Today will be a clear-weather attack. They loaded us into a car with the divine eagles who will attack and not return, and we drove straight to the waiting aircraft along Guidance Road. On the way we sang “Sinking from the Sky” over and over. Together with our teachers we pulled the camouflage netting off the squadron leader’s plane. The revolutions of the propeller on his plane, the one with a bomb on its belly, were fine. Motoshima’s plane made a buzzing sound. That was probably the exceedingly kind squadron leader. We climbed onto the starting car (in those days, when aircraft started their engines, their propellers would not always turn automatically, so many had to be started with a starting car) and went to the control tower to send off the pilots. When I turned around, the squadron leader and Motoshima, both wearing pretty Chinese milk vetch necklaces, boarded their aircraft and looked back at us. A plane covered with cherry blossoms taxied by right in front of us. We thought that we, too, should shower the planes with cherry blossoms and ran back to the barracks. On the way we met Kawasaki, who was riding a bicycle.

We picked as many cherry blossoms as we could and ran back as fast as our legs would carry us, but the planes had gone to the starting line and were about to begin taxiing down the runway. They were far away, and we were sorry we couldn’t run out to them. Motoshima’s plane was late and went to the starting line right in front of us. Then the squadron leader’s plane took off. It was followed by planes piloted by Okayasu, Yagyu, and Mochiki. The Type 97 fighters wagged their wings from left to right, and we could see smiling faces in all the planes. The plane piloted by Anazawa from the Twentieth Jinbu Squadron passed in front of us. When we waved branches of cherry blossoms as hard as we could, the smiling Anazawa, his head wrapped in a headband, saluted us several times.

Click! … when we turned and looked behind us, it was the cameraman taking our pictures. When everyone of the special-attack [“kamikaze”] planes had taken off, we just stood there for a long time, gazing at the southern sky, which seemed to go on forever. Tears welled up in our eyes.

We didn’t feel like talking, and when we were about to return together, we discovered Motoshima and Watai. Motoshima was crying unashamedly … when I asked, “What’s wrong?” he said, “My bomb dropped off, and I couldn’t take off. When I ran over to our squadron leader, he said, ‘Motoshima, come later. I’ll go ahead and will be waiting for you in that other world.’ I didn’t expect this, and I’m so upset! After squadron leader’s plane took off, I just sat alone and cried to my heart’s content.” Teary-eyed Watai added, “It is really a shame! I’m sorry.” All at once, the tears we had been stifling welled up, and we all cried together. They said that tonight was a wake for the squadron leader, so sake couldn’t be drunk. Horii, who came today, told jokes, and the men listened, but their minds were somewhere else. Since they cried whenever they thought about their squadron leader, who had such deep affection for his subordinates, and about the way he’d say “Motoshima, Motoshima,” they asked us not to say anything at all.

It was unfortunate that Motoshima and Watai weren’t able to body-crash together with their splendid squadron leader or to participate in the second general attack.

SOURCE: Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005),
pp. 230-231

Motoshima got his wish 4 days later. The diarist was among the high school girls “assigned to the quarters of the special-attack [“kamikaze”] pilots and told to look after them, which meant cleaning their quarters, doing their laundry, and mending their clothes” (p. 221).

August 16, 1945

The expressions on people’s faces haven’t changed much at all. When one meets people, instead of uttering the usual greetings, they blurt out, “What’s happened is terrible.”

This morning there was an air-raid warning and alert. At the company, we were told that female employees would be on vacation until there was a better sense of what would happen next. Whether I’m in the mountains or wherever, I just want to stay in touch. Apparently, government offices will tell us what procedures to follow. What in the world are they thinking of doing? I expect there is a mountain of serious problems, but what are the officials managing the country getting so excited about?

Haven’t they lost their power and been defeated? The military is calling for complete resistance and appealing to all citizens. This is a very difficult problem. The true nature of a people is apparent when they lose a war, rather than when they win, and the day has arrived when we should reveal Japan’s greatness.

Now that we’ve been defeated in war, I’m eager that our national identity as a people not be completely ruined.

August 17, 1945

Clear. Beginning today and for some time, it was OK to stay home from the company, but because I was the only one who knew how to handle mail transfers, I went to work. There were reports that the young military men haven’t accepted the peace and were still active, and wild rumors circulated. We were fearful of what couldn’t be foreseen, perhaps because we were hearing that everything was in chaos and that people were uneasy about the evacuation of women and girls and because as a people we had never experienced defeat. [There were widespread fears of rape by the victorious American troops.]

Today leaflets were dropped from friendly aircraft.

At Kanda Station I saw a flier plastered on a wall that read, “Both the army and navy are fine and believe that the people will endure,” and people had signed their names. As far as the feelings of military people were concerned, I thought this was not unexpected, but we already had had a statement from the emperor. If we are to build the future, don’t we have to begin clearing a path today? Dying is cheap. In the long history of the state, this defeat probably will not amount to very much, whereas the reconstruction that was about to begin could end up as a great achievement.

What was there to say? We did our best and were defeated. Only those who did not work as hard as they might have would feel any regret.

Take C, for example. While he was in the city, he was angry about everything and said he wanted to go off, even to the mountains, and I was surprised by the narrowness of his perspective. That may be a purist position to take vis-à-vis the country, but it was only his personal philosophy, one that was too beautiful, and it really hadn’t taken root or spread. C’s philosophy made me feel the need to broaden my vision.

SOURCE: Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005), pp. 218-219

September 13, 1945 (Thurs.), clear and windy

We talked all day, half-believing and half-doubting what the pacification team members told us last night. I lay down alone and dozed. No matter how much we talked about it, without seeing the evidence the pacification team said they’d bring, conversation was pointless. I didn’t like talking.

It was around eight in the evening. The same two members of the pacification team who had come last night arrived with conclusive evidence of imperial Japan’s surrender.

First, letters from our war buddies in units that had been attacked and surrendered were distributed to each of us. The letters explained Japan’s unconditional surrender and urged us to surrender right away. Then they showed us copies of the “Potsdam Declaration,” which Japan had accepted; the emperor’s “Surrender Rescript”; and the “Surrender Instrument” from the deck of the USS Missouri. There also were orders from Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, the top official overseeing the occupation of our country, and issues of the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri newspapers that had pictures and articles about the August 9 “Soviet Invasion of Manchuria,” the “Damage from the Atomic Bombs” dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the “Failed Suicide Attempt of Prime Minister Tojo.

The seven of us stared silently at the evidence–its meaning was all too clear. I felt as though my whole body had suddenly collapsed and I were being attacked by a dark loneliness.

Then after recovering from this feeling of loneliness, I was assailed by an inexpressible anger. Who or what in the world was the object of my anger? I couldn’t say.

I stamped my feet on the floor like a child and screamed words of anger. I felt the urge to run like a cannonball right into the center of the American camp.

In the end, even as I was being attacked by these violent feelings, I agreed with everyone else that we should surrender.

Frankly, even if I acted alone and raced out of the bunker, the surrender of Japan as an actuality wouldn’t change, and the mop-up operation the American troops would launch in the wake of such an action would be directed continuously at all the Japanese soldiers in the vicinity of the military field warehouse bunker.

Rather than rant and rage, I kept my thoughts to myself, left the group, and slowly walked to the back of the bunker.

SOURCE: Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005), pp. 154-155

This soldier, Nomura Seiki of Kochi City on Shikoku, surrendered the next day, but didn’t retrieve his diary until later, after which he wrote a long and poignant account of his actions and feelings on his final day as a soldier of Imperial Japan. It was too long to excerpt here, but here’s his subsequent and final diary entry on 10 November 1945.

Today, with the help of American soldiers, I visited the field storage bunker at Shuri and was able to recover the diary I left in the back of the bunker the night before I surrendered on September 14. This was a wonderful find. I have followed and recorded my memories of that day that brought things to an end for me as a Japanese soldier, and this is the end of this diary.

December 31, 1944, Sunday
End-of-the-Year Thoughts

At long last, today is the last day of 1944, and when the new day dawns, we’ll greet 1945, the Year of the Rooster. The enemy attacks are a daily affair, and there’s no New Year’s spirit. I got up at eight, but there were no sounds of tatami being beaten [in the traditional New Year’s housecleaning].

The crowing of the neighborhood roosters is pathetic, as though their lives were being sucked to the bone.

Toshie and Haruko [daughters] put on their clogs and cleaned the planks laid out over the mud. Up until two years ago, as a morning exercise, they polished the area between the Iroha [billiards parlor] signs with oil until it was smooth, but in no time, this area, which guests were once reluctant to walk on in their shoes, had become muddied and dirty. It was New Year’s Eve, and not a single cent was owed me, no loans had to be repaid, no end-of-the-year gift to be given, and nothing coming in. When I thought about this strange, unprecedented sort of New Year’s Eve, I simply accepted the fact that it felt good, and that was enough.

New Year’s Day
Impressions of a Sweet Potato New Year

Wartime conditions have come to prevail with extraordinary speed, and the weak have become food for the strong. How will we survive in this harried world? The new year promises to be one filled with problems.

It was unusual, but even the enemy planes seemed to have some humanity. On New Year’s Day alone, we’re not worrying about air raids over our heads. First of all, although it was a small matter, there was mazetakimi rice, some bamboo shoots, and sake. I’m seventy-six, and although I’m of no value for the honorable country, today I realized my humanity, and it felt like an old-style New Year’s.

It was a sweet potato New Year’s. Otsuru [eldest daughter] must not be surprised. She went to a place about a mile east of Shimokameyama in Mie Prefecture to buy fifteen or sixteen loads of sweet potatoes. What made this possible was the fact that the potatoes were black market goods. We’ve developed good relations with the farm families, and we came to buy sweet potatoes at one kan [about 8 lbs.] for three yen; even with the train fare included, one kan cost only three yen, eighty sen.

When we eat glutinous rice [mochi], we have to sacrifice one month’s worth of rice, and as a rice substitute, the honorable sweet potato is full of nourishment. Under the circumstances, while both [daughter] Toshie and I are in the house, it’s strange for us, rather than Otsuru, to be searching for, and eating, food.

SOURCE: Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005), pp. 108-109

January 3, 1945, cloudy then clear, rain in the evening

We’ve had stews for the past three days. Today’s was the most delicious, perhaps because it was made with a miso broth. I couldn’t stomach the strange smell of the herring roe, though. The roe would have been fine if it had been soaked in water for two or three days. Serving things that even the Payroll Department couldn’t eat was just for show and was irresponsible.

Take-yan read my fortune with cards. According to what he said–in the tone of a real diviner–I would be poor and struggle, and my social standing and advancement were uncertain. My future was exceedingly uninteresting. Will Dad die before me and Mom live on? Even if I had a romantic relationship, he told me, I’d be completely rejected and defeated. He says that I absolutely will not be bound to anyone and that a man I would approve of will appear, steal her heart, and steadily captivate her. And apparently I will die young. Well, that can’t be helped, and besides that’s my basic wish. What’s strange is that she’s going to die young, too.

If he’s this sort of diviner, he doesn’t need to borrow any cards. When I laughed and said, “If you offer fortunes like this, your business will fail,” he said, “Because I do it only when asked, I don’t give discounts or do it for free.” He nonchalantly and noisily began to eat a pomelo. He gazed longingly at a second pomelo that was big and looked like a head, and he finished that off, too.

I remember that it was two years ago today that I got a thirty-six-hour pass and went home, together with a student pilot at Yatabe, my chest festooned with seven medals. A send-off party was held, and lots of sake was poured. My older brother Kitaro made a speech. I recall that he pointed out that it was the anniversary of the fall of Manila.

I’d like to reflect on that. It’s been a full three years since the fall of Manila. Hasn’t Manila been transformed into the site of frontline fighting? In that time there was the change of course at Guadalcanal. There was the gyokusai [‘jewel shattering‘ = honorable fight to the death = total annihilation] at Attu Island. The gyokusai at Kwajalein and Rota. The many infuriating results continue: the gyokusai at Tarawa and Makin and more recently the gyokusai at Saipan and Tinian at this time last summer. But we are not defeated. We’re winning. We are definitely winning this war. While everywhere we rout two or three times as many enemy and achieve splendid victories, resistance is hard, quantitatively, and we go off to commit gyokusai, pledging resolutely to save the country for seven lifetimes. Decisive battles are now taking place in the Philippines. At the moment, Japan will make a comeback with this last stand, break the enemy’s nose, and push with irresistible force, push to the end.

Both the army and the navy have formed special-attack units and are continuing the intense and endless battles. I believe that 1945 is the autumn of emergencies when the Yamato race, one million strong, will choose death and make a last stand. I am overcome with emotion as I remember my send-off two years ago.

SOURCE: Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005), pp. 65-66

April 8, 1945, clear

In the morning we practiced dropping thousand-kilogram practice bombs. One bomb was twenty meters off the target, and a second misfired.

The engines of our planes were in great shape, and we were in good spirits. Preparations for the attack.

This time–I’m definitely not expecting to return alive.

No, it’s not that I don’t expect to return alive. I simply intend to body-crash, and thus my dying can’t be avoided, can it?

I’ll get myself ready, write my last letters, and make arrangements for the things I’ll leave behind.

In the end, my life will have been twenty-two years long.

I’ll smear the decks of enemy warships with this teenager’s blood. It’ll be wonderful!

SOURCE: Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005), p. 79

The pilot, Itabashi Yasuo, died in a special-attack flight on 9 August 1945.