Boy General

Nowadays we are afraid of direct terrorist attacks to the homeland United States by Islamic suicide bombers. The effectiveness of the systematic suicide attack was first demonstrated by Japanese fighters during the Pacific War. At that time, not only soldiers and sailors, but many civilians were willing to commit suicide. After the defeat of Japan, these people who had committed suicide attacks were disdained as victims of foolish wartime fever by self-proclaimed pacifist-defeatists. There was no serious study or discussion about volunteer-suicide attackers. To me, a person who survived the Pacific War, it was unsettling. We were serious and ready to die willingly for the country. I decided to write about how we were brought up to be a ready-to-die patriots based on my personal experience. This book describes my boyhood life from my earliest memory to the time immediately before the Pearl Harbor attack. I was born in a part of the city of Tokyo, in 1932, the year the Manchurian Incident occurred. My father was an Army Sergeant involved in a failed coup-d' tat, the 2-26 Incident in 1936, and forced to resign from the Army. This event obliged our family to move into a slum area of the city. I encountered events similar to those many children faced in their world, such as bullying, petty theft, etc. Also I observed the unique attitude toward death in Japanese communities. My mother struggled to secure a permanent job and eventually gained a clerical position in municipal government after considerable hard work of preparation and overcoming of psychological obstacles. My father, who pretended to be a modern-day samurai, guided me to have the character of samurai. He also hoped for me to become an Army General to restore his lost ideal. In school I encountered a new wave of Emperor worship and militaristic education reform. All pupils had to behave like miniature soldiers including corporal punishment, a common practice in the Japanese Army. When both parents had jobs, our economic situation improved but it also brought a new problem to us. My baby sister and I endured a motherless life during working hours. Then suddenly, all Japanese people were thrown into the incomprehensible war against the United States and Great Britain.