Hiroshi's Story: The Journals of a Japanese Soldier in Viet Nam, 1941–1968

Epilogue

About the Author

Richard A. Rajner volunteered for the draft in 1966, spent some time on the Korean DMZ, and then served three tours in Viet Nam where he earned more than two dozen decorations. After military service, he entered an apprentice program and began a career as a steamfitter. Later in life, he taught Anthropology at the University of Toledo and authored a number of scholarly, popular, and history-for­hire works. In retirement, he and his wife, Katherine, live in rural Northwestern Ohio.

Dedication

For all the brave Americans who served in Viet Nam.

Copyright Information

Copyright © Richard A. Rajner (2019)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, corporations, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and/or are used fictitiously.

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Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication data

Rajner, Richard A.

Hiroshi’s Story: The Journals of a Japanese Soldier in Viet Nam, 1941–1968

ISBN 9781641824408 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641824415 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781641824422 (Kindle)

ISBN 9781645369592 (ePub)

The main category of the book: Fiction/War & Military

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First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd LLC

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my dear wife, Katherine, for the hundreds of hours she spent editing the manuscript. More thanks go out to Steve Banko, Don Becker, Carson Cheek, Bruce Dunzweiler, Arne Espedal, Curtis Harper, Peter MacDonald, Jan Tidd, and Ralph Wineland; their opinions, encouragement, and assistance made this book possible. In addition to these individuals, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Holly Baumgartner and Amy Hartman who taught a Veterans Writing Workshop which inspired a number of former servicemen to put pen to paper and record their military experiences.

Prologue

War is the province of chance. Those words, penned by the distinguished Prussian military philosopher, Carl von Clausewitz, define conflict. Events recorded during the Viet Nam War provide thousands of examples: bullets ricocheting off helmets, a soldier’s pocket bible absorbing a machine gun round, a dud mortar round landing in the middle of a barracks filled with sleeping soldiers. Strange things happened, and lucky Americans lived to tell their incredible stories. On a larger scale, chance determined the outcome of battles. A few weeks after the Tet Offensive, I experienced a million-to-one encounter at map coordinates XT 881-158. That event provided the foundation for this book

It began on 10 March 1968, when I led a perimeter patrol out of Phu Loi Base Camp’s main gate. None of us liked that particular assignment; it was usually a long, hot, boring walk, looking for any sign of recent enemy activity. Typically, one squad made a three-quarter circuit examining the terrain for any changes in appearance. There were two ways to circle the base camp, clockwise or counter-clockwise. Either option made us targets for infrequent sniper fire and provided plenty of opportunities for well-laid booby-traps and mines to injure someone. Our only variants were a wide sweep, searching for footprints, tunneling, and markers, or a close-in patrol that looked for evidence of tampering with the minefields or the barbed wire entanglements, which were a part of the perimeter defense system.

We went wide that morning and chance brought Hiroshi and me closer to our encounter. It was a warm morning, at least eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and by the time we had traveled three thousand yards, we were all sweating profusely. I called a break and the squad sat down on the low embankments separating the dried-up rice fields, facing outward in all directions. I rested on a dike and took out my canteen for a drink, when I noticed four short bamboo rods sticking out of the earth nearby. I stood and casually walked over to the spot. When I saw that the ends were freshly-cut, I became suspicious and strolled a few feet further until the bamboo was between me and the perimeter. I squatted and took a rough sighting across the top of the sticks, noting that a bunker was centered between the two rows. These were aiming stakes, and I knew there had to be more. My course of action was pre-determined by my role as squad leader: to investigate and report. Taking my time, I wandered to where each man was resting, visited for a few minutes, then took a photograph, all the while scanning the terrain for other markers. The diversion was essential; while the enemy did not harass perimeter patrols frequently, we assumed they were always watching. By the time I completed my circuit, I found nine more sets of markers and recorded the locations in my mind. Then, I shouted for the men to move out and continue the patrol. There were two more sets of aiming stakes near our route that morning, but nothing else for the next eight thousand yards. By the time we reached the end of our patrol, the squad was weary, soaked with sweat, and hungry. My eight infantrymen dumped their gear in the barracks and headed for lunch at the mess hall. I went to the Operations Office and reported my findings.

The operations officer questioned me for quite some time and had me mark each set of stakes on a map. He then called several sergeants, a captain, and two majors into the room and asked me to explain my interpretation of the bamboo rods. I told them ten sets of stakes were aimed at particular bunkers. I believed these indicated heavy weapons positions which would attempt to disable a portion of the perimeter defenses. The other stakes were evenly-spaced around a large rice field, suggesting an assembly area for an attacking force. The staff discussed the matter for most of the afternoon, frequently asking me questions. Finally, one of the majors sent me back to the platoon command post, which doubled as our non-commissioned officer barracks. As I left the room, the operations officer ordered me to remain silent about what I had discovered during the morning patrol.

I didn’t give the perimeter patrol much thought until 2230 hours, when I was awakened by the distant sound of enemy mortars firing rounds at the base camp. Before the first rounds hit the runway, six loud blasts erupted on the east side of the perimeter, followed by machine gun fire and the boom of recoilless rifles. With uncommon swiftness, our artillery batteries responded, hitting the rice fields east of the base camp with hundreds of shells. For a minute or two, the volume of incoming small arms fire increased, then it diminished as the artillery took its toll. Several members of the platoon grabbed their rifles and ammunition and rushed to the perimeter to join in the fight. I reached for my weapon, but the platoon sergeant stopped me, saying it would be best for the two of us to remain in the command post and monitor the action on the radio. I brought one of the PRC-25 radios over to the side of the building, where the old NCO had taken a seat on the concrete floor, resting his back against the wall. Comfortable with the fact that a half­height sandbag wall protected us from stray rounds, he opened a bottle of Irish whiskey and the two of us sipped from our canteen cups, while we listened to the sounds of artillery pounding the rice fields and the occasional crack of small-arms fire passing overhead. The battle continued for two hours, but the outcome was certain from the beginning. The enemy ground attack on Phu Loi Base Camp was doomed. When the shooting stopped around 0030, I crawled into my bed and went to sleep.

Our lieutenant came to the barracks just after sun-up and ordered us to form ranks in front of the building in preparation for our next operation, policing the battlefield. This is one of the infantry’s least desirable tasks. In most cases, soldiers form a line and methodically sweep across the landscape, picking up weapons and military equipment, and searching enemy bodies for maps, documents, or other items which intelligence specialists might consider useful. Two platoons were assigned to the macabre duty on the morning of 11 March 1968. Artillery is an efficient killer and the fields were littered with torn corpses, smashed weapons, and shattered gear. A few badly-wounded enemy soldiers remained, left behind by their comrades in the retreat that followed defeat. As my squad approached one of these unfortunate fellows with a bloody gash in his thigh, the man gestured with scarred hands, indicating his intent to surrender. I told my radioman to inform the platoon leader that we had a prisoner-of-war, then I turned my head back just in time to see the enemy soldier reach under his leg and extract a grenade. Before anyone could react, the grenade was in the air, flying toward two of my riflemen. I instinctively fired an entire magazine of M-16 bullets into the assailant, who slumped to the side. Cautiously, I moved forward while the medic treated the injured squad members. When I reached the corpse, I began searching for intelligence data. I found a letter in the breast pocket of his uniform, and two leather-bound books inside a knapsack which lay nearby. I tucked the items in the cargo pocket of my trousers, took the dead man’s rifle and ammunition, and checked on the medic’s progress.

The medic said one rifleman had serious injuries and would have to be evacuated to Saigon; the other was hit by a few small fragments. I radioed for a medevac helicopter, then left the medic to watch over his patients while we continued the sweep. Two minutes later, another enemy soldier pretended to surrender before opening fire with his rifle. Fortunately, his aim was off, and my machine gunner suffered only a minor wound. Before we finished policing the battlefield, a half dozen seriously injured enemy soldiers surrendered peacefully, and one more hopeless casualty made an unsuccessful attempt to kill an American. It was a tough morning.

As we returned to the base camp, Vietnamese civilians emerged from nearby villages and led oxcarts toward the battlefield. No one said anything. Their nation had been at war since 1941 and had developed customs for gathering the dead. It was best to allow the people to honor the fallen soldiers in their own way, with no interference from outsiders. Policing the battlefield was our dismal task; identifying and burying the casualties was theirs.

Back at our barracks, we took the time to examine and evaluate the items we had collected during the sweep. In addition to a pair of Russian-made rifles, two cartridge belts, a grenade, and a field medical kit, I had two leather-bound volumes filled with Japanese characters and a letter. I was surprised to find Japanese script on the blood-smeared letter I found earlier. I was even more astonished when I pulled the books out of their oilcloth sack; both were filled with Japanese characters. During a layover at Tachikawa Air Force Base in September, 1967, I had picked up an abandoned Department of Defense Pocket Guide to Japan, thinking it would make good in­flight reading material. From its pages, I learned to recognize the differences between Japanese and Chinese characters. Without that knowledge, I might have dismissed Hiroshi’s journals as insignificant and turned them in without further ado. Faced with a sticky situation which placed my curiosity above standard operating procedure, I tucked the items back in my cargo pocket and went to lunch.

Later in the day, I visited an acquaintance, Master Sergeant Tachibana. The Japanese­American was the senior enlisted man in the battalion intelligence office, where I worked before my assignment as a reconnaissance sergeant. When I showed him the journals and the letter, he whistled. Then he asked me to have a seat while he assessed the materials. I sat patiently watching him leaf through the pages and read occasional passages. At the end of an hour, Master Sergeant Tachibana told me I had found something extraordinary: two journals which recorded the experiences of a Japanese soldier. I was surprised and asked him if he was sure, since the items were discovered in an enemy knapsack. He replied, saying it was a little-known fact that thousands of Japanese soldiers, sailors, and airmen had remained in Viet Nam after World War II. Most of them enlisted in Viet Nam’s insurgent units, and more than four thousand lost their lives before the French were defeated in 1954. By chance, I captured the journals of Hiroshi Watanabe, one soldier who lasted longer than most of his countrymen. Master Sergeant Tachibana offered to translate the books but warned me it might take several weeks.

Twenty-three days later, I received a message telling me the task was finished. I reported to his office that afternoon, taking along a case of beer as a thank you. Master Sergeant Tachibana handed me two manila envelopes, the journals, and the letter. Each envelope was filled with one hundred seventy-six single-spaced pages of text, covering both sides of the pages. After a brief conversation, I returned to my unit and turned over the captured materials and the original copy of the translation to my superiors. I kept the carbon copy, read it once and found it absolutely amazing. It was so much more than a soldier’s diary, it revealed many of our opponent’s deep secrets. Then, just as I finished, the Operations Office learned the enemy was planning a new offensive and my free time was limited, so I mailed the translation home.

Hiroshi Watanabe’s story sat in a box with my other military mementoes for exactly fifty years, the anniversary of my induction into the U.S. Army. I studied the first page for a very long time, allowing the words to sink in. This was indeed extraordinary; it was one of the Viet Nam War’s greatest stories, and it needed to be told. After a few days of careful review, I began converting Master Sergeant Tachibana’s literal translation to a more readable writing style. Throughout the process, I preserved a suggestion of Hiroshi’s East Asian grammar and syntax. The result was this inimitable book which illustrates the fact that war is truly the province of chance.

Hiroshi’s Story

My name is Hiroshi Watanabe and these two books are the journals which I used to record the important events of my career as a soldier. At the beginning, I felt it was important to explain why my cousin, Matome Tanaka, and I chose to serve the Emperor of our homeland. Then, as time progressed, my entries told our story until the books were filled, causing me to purchase another pair and rewrite the narrative, discarding unimportant events. I also acquired a new writing instrument with a very fine point, which allowed me to reduce the size of the script. When I return to Japan at the end of my honorable military service, I intend to conceal the journals in an iron box and seal them with wax and store them until I am an old man of seventy years. On that day I will take them from their secure location and read them to my grandchildren.

In order to understand why Matome and I became soldiers, one needs to be aware of our childhood. I was born in a small farming village in Nagano Prefecture. Matome was born four days later. Our lives were bound to each other in several ways by the gods of our ancestors. Our mothers were sisters, each with two sons. Our fathers were not closely related, but owned houses next to each other on the edge of Kushiro. Growing up alongside each other, Matome and I shared most of life’s experiences, times of great joy, and times of sadness. We were cousins and neighbors, but most importantly, we were true friends.

Farming is an ancient and honorable vocation in Japan, but land suitable for agriculture is very scarce. Perhaps one-seventh of the nation can be used to grow crops, and some plants thrive in certain soils and fail in others. Our fathers farmed earth that was refreshed by mineral-rich ash from the volcanoes which frequently erupt in our homeland. In every century of our recorded history, at least one mountain has exploded, killing many people and covering valuable cropland with molten rock. Our schoolteachers explained that while the events were tragic, the benefits of increased fertility across the whole of our island nation must be weighed against the loss of Japanese citizens. In our middle school science classes, we learned that there were three volcanoes continuously throwing ash into the air.

Constantly enriched, the soils of our district produced good yields of rice, barley, millet, buckwheat, soya beans, and a wide variety of vegetables. Every household also cultivated a few fruit trees, carefully pruning and shaping each one to maximize the harvest of plums, cherries, or apples. Kushiro’s mayor, Takeo Inoguchi, kept fourteen apple trees on a steep, rocky hillside. His extra plot had been a gift to one of Takeo’s ancestors, who saved the life of a warlord in a battle, two centuries before he was born. The orchard made Takeo the most advantaged man in Kushiro. His mayoral title came with few duties; he watched over the communal mulberry grove, arbitrated minor disputes, and presided over ceremonies. Inoguchi and his family were a little better off than most of the others in the community, but his home was as humble as any other dwelling. Apples allowed them a little economic security; otherwise, they worked just as hard as all the other farmers. A mountain village such as ours had no rich men. A contented existence was the most any one of Kushiro’s citizens could hope for, anything more was a blessing from the gods.

Matome’s father and mine would have provided a more comfortable life for their families if the fields were larger and more accessible. Each of them inherited a plot of hillside that measured one hundred meters by two hundred meters. Over the centuries, our ancestors had terraced the land, making dozens of small, level areas suitable for raising crops. The little plateaus equaled about one-half of a man’s holdings. Still, this was enough land for each man to raise about twelve hundred kilos of rice in a season, using just half of his fields. Summer rainfall in the mountainous region of Honshu, which the Japanese people call Tosan, was always adequate. Each year, without fail, the rains replenished the ancient reservoirs that our hard­working ancestors created on the upper slopes of the hillside above the village. Little channels, lined with rocks, brought water from the ponds to every farmer’s fields. In an average year, fifty kilos each of millet, buckwheat, and barley came from the rest of the land sown with grain. Vegetables occupied one-third of the fields each growing season. Our fathers grew soya beans on the remaining plots, providing our mothers with enough beans to make tofu, a staple item in the Japanese diet. Our mothers also dried fruits and salted vegetables for the lean months, storing many crocks of pickled cucumbers, cabbages, radishes, and melons in the cool cellars beneath our homes. Until my last days, my thoughts occasionally wandered back to remember the delicious taste of pickled kin makuwa, a traditional melon, which seemed to taste best in the spring when the cherry and plum trees came into bloom. In our youth, Matome and I were well fed, but never knew prosperity. Taxes, clothing, salt, tools, dried fish, cooking oil, and other expenses consumed most of the profit our families extracted from their land. The few yen my mother earned raising silkworms, purchased items that made our home more pleasant. It was the same throughout Kushiro; everyone in the village worked the farms. Wives joined husbands in the fields at planting and harvest times, and children added their labor after school. It was a hard life, made more difficult by the climate. On average, a Kushiro farmer and his wife could expect to see his sixtieth year and her sixty-second. Japanese people did not complain about adversity in everyday life; they accepted their fate. Like most farm families in our nation, our parents labored willingly, hoping for two things: good crops and success for their children.

In most years, our harvests were adequate, but bad weather and the ravages of predators and pests reduced the quantity of one or more crops each season. Typhoons, great storms that brought heavy rainfall and high winds, sometimes came in September when the rice was ready for harvest. The fierce storms did not strike every year, nor were all of them equally severe. Usually, we benefited from three or four good rice harvests between typhoons, and sometimes there was only a day or two of rain accompanied by more moderate winds. These storms did less damage to the rice crop, but each one reduced the yield in proportion to its intensity. Even in years with no storms, nature acted to reduce our food supply. Creatures, large and small, took their share. Sometimes, a fox would slink out of the wooded lands near the top of the hill and raid a chicken pen in Kushiro. Hawks and owls also fed upon our fowl. Small insects nibbled at our plums and cherries, ruining a portion of the fruits. Weevils invaded stored grain during the winter months, and beetles of various types fed upon most of the other fruits and vegetables. Only one insect, the grasshopper, provided some sort of benefit in exchange for the damage they inflicted upon our crops. Every summer, the children in our village spent many hours capturing grasshoppers and placing them in tightly woven baskets designed for that purpose. In late afternoon, our mothers would fry the insects in hot oil, making traditional summer treats for their children. Even in the worst years, Matome and I had enough to eat. Surplus crops were sold to provide money for things that our families could not produce through their own hard work. One important cost that our fathers always accepted, was tuition paid to our schools.

A solid education promised a better life for Japanese citizens, and our parents encouraged Matome and me to study diligently. In earlier times, the Emperor of Japan had declared that formal learning must be widespread; there should not be a community with an ignorant family, nor a family with an ignorant member. Our small village had one school, which we attended from the time we were six until we were twelve. There we learned morals, reading, arithmetic, gymnastics, and poetry. In our last three years in Kushiro’s elementary school, we were given some instruction in manual arts, carpentry, and light metalwork. Children from five nearby villages attended the middle school in Kanegafuchi, a market town, two kilometers south of Kushiro.

Matome and I studied in Kanegafuchi for four more years, learning history, mathematics, chemistry, moral philosophy, drawing, natural science, and the Japanese language. I met my first mentor in the Kanegafuchi Middle School. Noritsune Kurita, Honored Teacher of Japanese Language and Culture, was a most wonderful man and loved by all who knew him. He could teach in a manner unlike anyone I encountered during my life. Kurita-san was different; he abandoned the memorize-and-repeat method of education which was customary in our schools. This teacher shared knowledge with his students. In every class he encouraged his young charges to explore, to think, and especially to write. Our cohort spent two hours with Kurita each afternoon during our four years of Kanegafuchi Middle School, and every topic in our schoolbooks was presented in his unique manner. Three days of lecture began each week, but it seemed like Kurita was always engaged in story telling as he led us through our study of Japanese language and culture. I was impressed from the first lesson to the last, and all were equally memorable.

Year one of Kanegafuchi Middle School, began with Japan’s Seven Lucky Gods. Over the course of our initial six hours in Kurita’s classroom, we learned of Bishamonten, the patron of soldiers, writers, ambassadors, doctors, and nurses. Perhaps it was Kurita-san’s interpretation of that particular God, which guided my spirit toward the Imperial Japanese Army. On day one, our teacher told us about how Bishamonten bestows happiness and fortune upon those who perform life’s duties with honor. In our belief system, a Japanese man has to seek a profession which serves the greater good of our people, protecting the nation from some form of malevolence. As examples, Kurita used ambassadors who kept foreign influence at bay, doctors who dealt with illness and injury, and soldiers who defended the Home Islands and the distant colonies. All three groups achieved their goals through dedication, self-sacrifice, and courage.

A two-day writing assignment rounded out each week’s topic, and in our first essays, the class wrote about how, in our imaginary future, we would seek a career which Bishamonten safeguarded. I constructed an account which wrapped my body in an ancient suit of armor that I discovered in a roadside ditch, en route to a battle against foreign troops assaulting a seacoast near the Imperial Palace. Of course, I was a hero in the battle, slaying a large number of invaders with a very old sword, while modern bullets bounced off my steel-clad body. In keeping with the lesson, I proclaimed Bishamonten as my protector and inspiration. Kurita-san saw through this as easily as holding old clothing to the sun. He told me to re-write the essay and place my emphasis on honor and duty. I did, and he rewarded me with great praise, noting in the margin that I should consider writing as a career, because Bishamonten also watched over journalists.

For the next three years, Kurita-san looked over every word I wrote and offered a great deal of criticism. At first, I thought the teacher was too judgmental, but his remarks were always paired with reasons. My greatest problem was one that was all too common among the sons of farmers. I had a tendency to write fast during the times of spring planting and fall harvest; I was tired from long hours in the fields and just wanted to sleep after an excruciatingly long workday. At critical times in the agricultural cycle, every able-bodied family member worked until daylight faded into darkness. Our humble existence hung in the balance. In those busy weeks, I ate a simple meal and did my schoolwork by lamplight before I collapsed into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. Noritsune Kurita, in his role as mentor, never let that pass; he required more of his best students. Three times during my first month in his class, he dropped unsatisfactory home assignments in front of me with his well-known look of disapproval. So, to avoid embarrassment in front of my classmates, I learned to write well.

By my third year at Kanegafuchi Middle School, I was the best writer in our cohort, and according to our teacher, improved with every essay. During the last quarter of that phase of our formal education, Kurita-san taught The Art of the Journal. We each received a copybook on the first day of the nine-week lesson. Our teacher had us record each day’s events in the book and encouraged us to be concise. Fifty pages seemed like a lot of paper to fill before we plunged into the lesson, but by the end of the second week, I was so diligent in recording the details of my everyday life, that I had to reduce the size of my script in order to compress one day’s events to a single page. Kurita-san was most impressed with my work and often had me stand at the front of the classroom and recite my most recent journal entry. Thus, early in my teenage years, I began writing the story of my life. Since that time, I recorded every significant experience.

In the cities, middle schools had a five-year course of instruction, but in the rural districts, this was shortened to four. High school was three years of study, which prepared us to work at agricultural pursuits. The Minister of Education sent an open letter to the rural districts that was read at the beginning of each school year. In it, he explained that we were taught everything Japanese farmers would ever need to know. In later years, Matome and I spent a great deal of time discussing the rural schooling that limited our knowledge of the world, to subject matter which prepared us for a life of servile work in the fields. In some ways, we felt that the Minister of Education and his staff had transgressed certain boundaries when they limited the scope of our instruction to agricultural topics. We were bright young men, capable of learning things beyond farming with the same primitive tools that our ancestors used to work the soil. We did not want to be limited to a life bound to the earth by the spade, the hoe, the rake, and the sickle.

Servile labor was to be our life if we remained in Kushiro; from ancient times, rigid customs and laws had determined an individual’s place in the family and in Japanese society. The eldest son inherited the land that had been farmed by his ancestors. In return, he was required to care for his parents who remained in the household. My grandfather was head of the family and legal owner of the home and farmland until he died a few days before my twelfth birthday. His younger brothers, like those of many generations before them, left Kushiro. In poor years, the harvests could barely support the thirty-one families who lived in the village. Both of my uncles and one of Matome’s uncles, found work in Tokyo factories. These men visited infrequently, bearing small gifts, but their worn clothing suggested they were having difficulty supporting their families on the small sums that represented factory wages. Matome and I each had one younger brother. My brother, Junichiro, was two years behind me in school and already had his eye on a pretty girl named Yoshiko. He confided in me, saying that she filled out her kimono in certain places and that he would like her as his wife. She seemed like a nice girl, and she always smiled at Junichiro whenever they saw each other. Matome’s brother, Tysuoshi liked farming. So, it seemed proper for two lifetime friends to seek our destiny elsewhere.

My saga as a soldier began when Matome and I were discussing our future during the last week of our schooling. The facts determined our decision. We were the sons of peasants who lived in a less-than-prosperous farming community, situated in the mountains northwest of Tokyo. Our future, like that of our forefathers, promised decades of backbreaking labor eking a living from steeply terraced hillsides. Our sole alternative in life was to leave the village and seek our fortunes elsewhere. Factory jobs in Tokyo or Osaka, only offered urban poverty as a substitute for the rural variety we were accustomed to, so we decided to join the Imperial Japanese Army and see where that took us. Two weeks after our graduation, we walked fourteen kilometers to Yamasaki, entered the district’s recruiting station, and enlisted, asking to be posted to China. Japanese newspapers had reported that the Empire’s soldiers were enjoying a string of victories in that distant land, so it seemed logical to go there. Perhaps we would become heroes or at least serve with distinction. In either case, we would bring honor upon our families and our homeland. Matome and I also requested we be assigned to the same unit, since we had been friends all of our lives. The recruiting sergeant was a pleasant little fellow, who said the Imperial Japanese Army welcomed friends who wished to serve together, and it was an honored custom which fostered unity in the ranks. After we signed papers, the sergeant granted us a four-day furlough to return to Kushiro and put our affairs in order. At the end of that brief leave, we were to report to him at the recruiting station for shipment to an army training camp.

Our departure from Kushiro was one of mixed emotions. When we returned from the army office in Yamasaki, Matome’s father immediately went to meet with Takeo Inoguchi. He found the mayor working among the apple trees and informed him of our enlistments. Inoguchi replied he already knew, for there are no secrets in a small community. That afternoon, the mayor went from house to house and spoke with each family, arranging a ceremony. He explained that it would be most appropriate, if the entire village gathered in the square and repeated a ritual which was performed more than two decades earlier. In living memory, only one man from Kushiro had served in the Japanese Army. When Seizo Hirota, the son of a farmer, was conscripted during the Great World War, the entire community staged a simple ceremony.

My father was a young man at that time and often told the story of the event. Each of the thirty-one households silently paraded before the soon-to-be Imperial soldier, turned and bowed with respect, then walked back to their place at the center of the village square, as another family demonstrated their awe of his call to serve the Emperor. When everyone had completed the procedure, Inoguchi’s father, who was mayor in those days, presented Seizo with an embroidered silk scarf. Three columns of Kanji script were stitched into the red fabric: Serve with Honor, Return Safely, and Seizo of Kushiro. According to my father, the first two were well wishes; the last was a return address for the scarf, if the gods determined that the young conscript was destined to die in battle.

Seizo Hirota served with honor and fought well in battle, but he came back to Kushiro a changed man. The World War was still raging in Europe when Seizo received discharge papers, which told of his courageous actions at Tsingtao. Another set of documents stated that his wartime injuries rendered him unfit for further service and eligible for a small pension from a grateful nation. The two sets of bullet scars on his left arm and a gouge in his hand, were evidence of his disability. His silent disposition and a distant look in his eyes, said much about the hardship and suffering that he witnessed. Seizo never took a wife or inherited his family’s farmland. Instead, he lived under his brother’s roof with his aged mother, forever carrying a look of sorrow on his face.

Matome and I were the guests-of-honor at our own ceremony. It was an experience that tore at my heart. I was filled with pride at the prospect of serving the Emperor, but deep inside, I felt that this morning was perhaps the last time I would see all the people who were important in my young life. Or maybe I would return like Seizo Hirota, sad and crippled. Seizo and his mother were the last two villagers in the procession. A chill passed through my bones as I watched them go back into the square, suddenly having second thoughts about being a soldier. Next, Takeo Inoguchi gave a short speech which ended with the presentation of our ceremonial scarves. My scarf read: Hiroshi Watanabe, a loyal servant of the Emperor, and a humble son of Kushiro, Nagano Prefecture. Matome’s eyes watered as he received his scarf, it prompted wetness in mine. Homesickness was coming early and it was difficult to say farewell to my parents. Yoichi and Mina also were moved by the moment, as their first-born son embarked on an uncertain future. My mother shed a few small tears, turned her head away and whispered goodbye. My father’s eyes were as moist as mine as we looked squarely at each other, nodded, and turned in different directions. I met Matome at the edge of the village. He said nothing. It was not a time for words. We walked most of the way to Yamasaki, and our future, in silence.

The Imperial Japanese Army was on a wartime footing when we enlisted, and we were told our training was designed to prepare us for the rigors which lay ahead. The recruiter had arranged for Matome and me to take a bus to Nagano, the capital of our prefecture. We passed a row of shops on our way from the bus depot to the train station, and I rushed into one and purchased three leather-bound copybooks. These, I thought, would be sufficient to record all my experiences in the Imperial Army. A train took us from Nagano to Saitama, the first city in the prefecture to the east. When we arrived, another sergeant directed us to a line of motor trucks marked with the emblems of the Saitama Training Encampment. We sat on hard wooden benches in the back of a truck for two hours, watching as more trains and busses delivered recruits to the terminal. When all the trucks were filled, we were transported to a city of barracks buildings. A senior sergeant ordered us to leave the trucks and form four lines on a grassy field. Army duty began the moment the last young man took his place in line. By the end of the afternoon, we had our uniforms and equipment issued and were scrubbing down our barracks. That building looked like five hundred others at the Saitama Training Encampment. It was a two-story masonry and concrete structure, erected during the Great World War. Each floor had two coal stoves and fifty wooden platforms topped with thin mattresses. Small windows, set high in the walls, admitted a limited amount of light during the day. A dozen bare bulbs mounted on the ceilings, provided an equally gloomy atmosphere at night. When our sergeant determined that the living space met his approval, he led us to the dining hall for our evening meal.

Matome and I were surprised by the poor quality of the food we were served. All soldiers in training ate the same rations at every meal. The dining hall staff meted out small but equal portions. First, each man received a bowl of thin soup, which was barely flavored by the few vegetables that may have been steeped in the water. The second server ladled two hundred grams of rice onto the mess tray. The next man dispensed a similar quantity of boiled vegetables. The fourth added two slices of daikon, and the fifth server handed us a liter of green tea. Our rice was inferior, with broken grains, fragments of the husks, stones, and dirt. Tough, pithy turnips, and over-ripe cabbages dominated the soup. Gritty spinach, old carrots, stringy pea pods, and a few other leafy greens were mixed together and boiled to soften the fibers. The vegetables were obviously picked beyond their maturity, but they nevertheless provided some nutrition to our diet if we drank its rank broth. Daikon, a turnip-like radish favored by the Japanese people, might have been good had it been fresh. Our ration was nearly spoiled. Fortunately, the tea was very good. It was tasty, served hot, and appreciated by everyone. Matome and I agreed we needed decent tea to rinse the unsavory flavors of army food from our mouths. One man dared to criticize the food during our first meal in the dining hall. Our sergeant slapped his face and told him the harsh rations were needed to prepare us for conditions on the battlefield. I was glad I was not the foolish one. After the meal, our sergeant escorted us back to the barracks and advised us to sleep soundly, as this would be our only long period of sleep during our training.

A loud bell woke us at 0430 the next morning. The sergeant, accompanied by a corporal, ordered us to rise from our bunks immediately and stand at attention at the foot of our bed. We rolled our tired bodies from the cots and stood in our under-drawers, as they walked between the rows of would-be soldiers, barking out rude comments as they passed each man. When the non­commissioned officers had finished their review, they ordered us to dress, gather the field gear and rifles from under our beds, and form ranks in front of the barracks. As soon as the last man took his position in line, we departed on a five-kilometer march. I was tired when I entered the dining hall that morning and remained tired throughout this phase of my life as a soldier. The first day’s activities were typical of the nine-week training period. We turned out of our cots, dressed and tidied our quarters before daybreak. A five-kilometer march burdened with our rifles and field equipment preceded our breakfast. An exercise period, bayonet practice, and another march made us weary before the mid-day meal. The first two hours of each afternoon were reserved for classroom work. The next three hours of our daily training were devoted to more marching and practicing the skills we learned in the classroom sessions. After the evening meal, our training unit retired to the barracks where we spent the next few hours cleaning our equipment. Exhausted by the day’s activities, we were usually resting on our cots when the lights were extinguished at 2100 hours.

Matome and I were accustomed to long hours and hard work; farming fatigue prepared us for army training fatigue. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the rough treatment we received from Corporal Kenji Anami and Sergeant Koki Sata, the two non-commissioned officers who were assigned to guide us through our training. Corporal Anami was a small man, barely one-hundred-fifty centimeters tall, with a buck-toothed face that would scare a rat. He beat us with a baton. Sometimes, he announced a fabricated reason for brutality while he thumped his victim with ten well-practiced blows, but his smile betrayed his words; Anami was a bad man with no soul. Sergeant Sata was quite tall and somewhat handsome. Rumor among our fellows claimed Sata’s mother was a Tokyo prostitute. Some trainees speculated that he was hoping to beat one of his half-brothers one day, so just to make sure he didn’t omit any possible relatives, he hit all of us at least once a week. A few days after we arrived at Saitama, Matome and I risked sharing our thoughts about the two evil men. Both of us had received blows from the non-commissioned officers during the afternoon. Anami clubbed Matome’s thighs and my lower back, then beat two other men in one of his example-setting sessions. Sata followed-up lashing all four of us in turn with his favorite limber stick, a stout willow branch that stung like fine-grained salt in a deep cut. The stick was supple for one of its diameter, and every one of Sergeant Sata’s whacks curled it across a lot of flesh. I never forgot the words Matome whispered to me after dark that night: My friend, this is very bad. Help me. An ugly bastard and a whore’s whelp trap us here. Carry me and I will carry you. We shall go to the war, become heroes, and return home saner than Seizo Hirota. Saitama must not defeat our spirits. We will be good soldiers who serve the Emperor. We will help make Japan great, and then flee back to Kushiro. There, we could again appreciate farm life. Help me Hiroshi, and we can endure this brutal training. I want only a plain and simple life. I miss my home and my family.

I heard him crying softly in the dark; I cried silently, but just as much. I was barely older than Matome, but in our society, it was my responsibility to help my friend through the difficult times that we were experiencing. That was not an easy task. I was just as tired, bruised, under­fed, disillusioned, worried, and homesick. Stifling my own feelings, I assured Matome that our predicament was temporary, our training would end. We were Japanese citizens who were bound to our beloved Emperor, but on a more personal level, we could not disgrace our families or our community. We could not run away. We would have to endure everything that army life imposed upon us until we were discharged from service at the war’s end. Then we could return to Kushiro and receive a welcome as its heroic sons. Before we fell into a troubled sleep that night, Matome and I debated whether we could tell our fellow villagers about the many beatings we suffered as trainees. Japanese soldiers cannot appear to be weak. Servants of the Emperor must bear every hardship and answer every call to duty.

The horrible and insensitive beatings at the hands of our alleged leadership, were not the worst aspect of our stay at Saitama Training Encampment. Disease ran rampant. There were fifty men on each floor of our barracks. Six of those trainees died in the camp infirmary. Nearly every one of our soldiers-to-be cut himself during movements which involved barbed wire entanglements. Scratches became infected, festered, and swelled while men hid their injuries from the sergeants. Eventually, fever or collapse sent the worst cases to the infirmary, where liberal applications of iodine determined whether a man lived or died. Rampant infection claimed two men from our barracks. Influenza was another killer; it took three. The disease seized trainees at random. Men awoke with a fever, sweated through the first five-kilometer march, vomited after breakfast, and collapsed by mid-morning. Eleven men who slept in our barracks caught influenza and six had to be carried to the infirmary. Of these, three saw their disease slip into pneumonia. Those men all died before their twentieth birthday. The others recovered, more or less, but all eight lagged behind everyone else during the more strenuous training exercises. Corporal Anami and Sergeant Sata beat these men a little more frequently, adding to their suffering. A bloody flux of the bowels sent another trainee to the grave. Perhaps it was good fortune and healthy bodies hardened by farm life, which spared Matome and me from death at the Saitama Training Encampment. Every one of those poor victims was the son of a factory worker or shopkeeper and grew up in one of Japan’s industrial cities.

Our military education was boring and repetitive, but I always remembered the sergeants’ lectures concerning Seishin Kyoiku. The words mean selfless spiritual strength, but our trainers applied a military construal, linking the basic concept to patriotism and nationalism. In this context, the Japanese Armed Forces were described as benevolent crusaders trying to free Asian peoples from exploitation emanating from Europe and North America. Since the 1890s, Japan had taken possession of Karafuto, Manchukuo, Korea, Formosa, Tsingtao, and many islands in the Pacific Ocean. The conflict in China was another important step in the program to expand the Empire and help other Asian peoples free themselves from greedy Westerners. In view of the fact that the Japanese were superior to all others, it became our obligation to lead Asia toward freedom and prosperity. Once Japan expelled the foreigners, there would be an era of peace and goodwill. In return, the Japanese Empire would oust inept local governments and replace them with efficient administrations trained in Japan. China and other nations would not be subjugated; they would be guided by a superior race. I was a young man from the hinterlands, and it was very easy to believe everything our instructors told us about the current state of Asian politics. I did not believe I could separate propaganda from patriotism at that point in my life.

We were required to memorize the seven duties of the soldier: loyalty, valor, patriotism, obedience, humility, morality and honor. By the end of the first week, we could recite them backwards or forwards on command. Any trainee who failed to deliver a perfect response on demand was immediately punished. A brief hesitation while a soldier collected his thoughts, brought out the worst in Corporal Anami. Ten whacks with the baton reminded the unfortunate one to think faster and speak clearly in the future. The instructor-sergeants who taught the lessons did not discipline trainees. They paused and stood by with composed looks on their faces, while brutal non-commissioned officers thrashed hapless privates, then resumed their lectures as if nothing had happened. Instructors insisted that their trainees had to embrace the qualities which made the Imperial Japanese Army great and powerful: frugality, simplicity and scant existence. We were told that conditions in the field armies were far more rigorous than we could imagine, but men who held the seven duties in their hearts would help Japan achieve its goals in Asia.

Although we were soldiers who enlisted while our nation was at war, we received limited weapons training. A few of the afternoon lectures were designed to familiarize us with certain arms we might encounter during our future duties with the Imperial Army. During these classes, we sat on the parade field where a particular gun was on display. The instructor walked around the weapon and described its features, but never allowed us to approach or touch the gun. We learned some things about 70mm field guns and a bit more about the three types of machine guns that the Japanese Army used in battle. The manner in which we were taught about weapons was such that it became abstract knowledge to us. It was intangible and as distant as the war in China. Although we were issued rifles and carried them everywhere during our training, we spent only three afternoons at the firing range. This was during our final week at the Saitama Training Encampment. Every man fired ninety rounds; thirty per session, at a concentric ring target fifty meters distant. That was the extent of our marksmanship training. Matome and I remarked that we learned little about firearms and probably spent more time cleaning our rifles, on those three days, than we spent firing the weapons. I was worried about the lack of actual practice with my rifle and wondered how many of Japan’s enemies would conveniently allow us to shoot them at such close range. Perhaps our concerns were unfounded.

After our training period, Matome and I were assigned to an anti-aircraft unit in Manchukuo, the Japanese name for its conquered territory in Northeast China. We had hoped for a short furlough which would provide enough time to visit our families, but our army travel orders dictated an immediate deployment. The documents included a voucher for a rail ticket from the City of Saitama to the Port of Yokohama. The trip was exciting; it was only my second train ride, and the first time I rode in a civilian passenger compartment. Matome enjoyed the ride as much as I did; that afternoon, we felt like tourists, gawking at the passing countryside. When the train stopped in Yokohama, we asked the sergeant manning the Imperial Army Personnel Services booth in the city’s railway station to give us directions to the embarkation pier. He told us the harbor was about four kilometers from the railway depot and that most soldiers walked to the dock area to save money. We decided to follow his advice and shouldered our packs for the next part of our journey. At the pier, another sergeant examined our orders and pointed toward an old ship moored a short distance away. I led the way up the boarding ramp and presented my papers to the one-armed corporal posted at the top of the sloping walkway that led to the Niigata Maru. The troopship was an old passenger liner that had been converted into an army transport seven years earlier. Eight soldiers were berthed in each of the former cabins and we took our meals in the once-elegant dining salon. I thought this rather comfortable mode of travel was unusual for an army at war and mentioned my thoughts to Matome. He suggested that swift troopships were efficient; soldiers en route to a destination were unproductive mouths to feed. When we arrived at our destination in less than two days, I knew he was correct; a good army does not waste manpower. We disembarked at Darien, a port near the southernmost tip of Manchukuo, reported to the Imperial Army Shipping Office, and presented our orders to the sergeant on duty.

Like the corporal aboard Niigata Maru, the sergeant manning the Darien post was also a cripple. Two fingers were missing from his left hand, leaving a wide gap between his thumb and the remaining digits. A round pinkish scar marked the spot, where another bullet had passed between the bones that once connected the missing fingers. Seeing this wounded man provoked thought. Seizo Hirota served in the Great World War, and his wounds were less severe than those suffered by the two non-commissioned officers we encountered at Yokohama and Darien, but the Japanese Army considered him unfit for further service. Yet these soldiers, obvious casualties of the war in China, were still in uniform. I wanted to think that Japan was making the most of its soldiers in order to defeat the enemy as soon as possible. Reason said that the amputees’ story was complex and beyond the concerns of an ordinary soldier, so I tried to put worrisome thoughts out of my mind. That never happened. At least I had the wisdom to say nothing and follow the orders the sergeant gave us.

We waited nearby while the non-commissioned officer processed other soldiers, then boarded a truck which drove us through the city to a warehouse. A corporal took our names as we went inside and took seats on the rough plank benches. After a few minutes, an old-looking captain strolled to the front of the room and delivered a short orientation lecture. It was filled with words of caution, warning us of the many dangers Japanese soldiers faced while serving in China. Bandits preyed upon unsuspecting soldiers who traveled alone. Assassins silently stabbed unwary men walking a guard post. Prostitutes intentionally spread venereal diseases. Cholera, plague, typhus, malaria, and other illnesses were rampant in China. Each warning shocked me, and when I looked toward Matome, I saw my friend sitting there, slowly shaking his head. The officer finished by wishing us luck at our new assignments and directed us to a supply sergeant and two privates. The low-ranking men issued woolen blankets, gloves, and other winter clothing. The sergeant gave each man a brand-new rifle and one hundred rounds of ammunition, before sending us through a rear doorway.

Outside, a troop train waited. We climbed into the first carriage in line and gave our names to a soldier who directed us to certain seats. There was a short wait as other groups of incoming soldiers processed through the warehouse. About an hour after we boarded, the engineer gave a long blast on the whistle and we started the final segment of our trip. Eight hours later, we arrived at a point where a siding branched from the main line. The sergeant in charge of our car told Matome this was our destination and ordered us off the train. As we disembarked, the sergeant told us to follow the rails until someone from our assigned unit met us. He also gave us additional ammunition for our rifles and told us to watch out for bandits who preyed upon Japanese soldiers. Matome and I loaded our weapons, hoisted our packs, and began walking. About ten minutes later, we met a corporal and two privates who guided the way to our new duty station, an out-of-the-way airbase more than three hundred kilometers behind the battlefront. I was disappointed. I had enlisted to serve the Emperor as a fighting man and, instead, found myself posted to a second-rate installation in an inhospitable country.

Manchukuo was a dirty, vermin-filled place where cold winds forced their way through our uniforms. We were dismayed by the poor living conditions at the base. The Imperial Japanese Army had taken control of the airfield two years before Matome and I arrived as replacements. The barracks, which had housed Chinese soldiers at one time, were poorly constructed wooden shacks with leaky roofs. Daylight seeped through cracks in the rough plank walls and the constant winds drove dust and dirt into the buildings. Our barracks were uncomfortable in the warmer months and unbearably cold during the other nine months of the year. From early December to late March, frost frequently covered the interior walls, and thin lines of wind-blown snow streaked across the floor during winter storms. The small coal stove in the center of the room barely kept us from freezing. Its weak heat forced us to sleep fully clothed and huddled under all three of our blankets. The climate was bad, but the vermin were worse. Despite repeated fumigation, our barracks housed all types of insects. Fleas bit us, cockroaches scampered across every flat surface, and bedbugs infested our cots. During the warmer months, mosquitoes feasted on our blood, raising hundreds of welts each week. Mice rustled through the rafters every night, but after a couple of months, Matome and I learned to tolerate the little creatures. Rats were the real problem. The ever-present rodents could not be eliminated. Traps caught very few and poisons seemed to increase the number of rats in the barracks areas. Our dining hall was infested even worse than our sleeping quarters, and it was not uncommon to see one scurry across the floor during mealtimes.

Living conditions in Manchukuo were terrible and duty at the airfield in China was boring. We manned our guns from sunrise to sunset. Chinese warplanes were mostly obsolete models that could not operate at night. In any case, Japanese fighter planes could drive off enemy bombers long before they approached our airfield. The men of our unit spent most of the time standing long watches in the machine gun emplacements, waiting for the alert sirens that never sounded. Often, the high point of our day was cleaning our machine guns. It was nevertheless a war zone and we had little free time, and nowhere to go if we had any. Soldiers in our unit spent their off-duty hours on the base, gambling, reading or gossiping. A few risk-takers went into the nearby Chinese town on occasion, but most of us were uneasy about this because local bandits, who called themselves resistance fighters, had murdered some Japanese soldiers.

Our anti-aircraft unit had a good commanding officer, a professional soldier who cared about the welfare of his subordinates. Captain Shigeki Hasegawa was of average height with the wiry build that men develop through years of hard service under field conditions. He stood erect, walked swiftly, and moved with a cool efficiency that inspired confidence. His close-cropped hair was nearly gray, and I guessed that he was about forty-five years old. Captain Hasegawa looked like almost every other Japanese officer, but his behavior was very different. Corporal punishment was forbidden; no officer or sergeant could strike an enlisted man. In our