I left Rumoi station to join the army on November 30th, 1940. It was sleeting and cold. Even today I clearly remember the memorable day. I came back to Rumoi station again on September 7th in 1949. Almost 10 years had passed since I left my hometown. I feel like I was Urashima Taro on that day. Taro is a hero of a Japanese fairy tale. He was a fisherman who visited a paradise in the sea riding on the back of turtle. When he came home he realized that a lot of time had passed. All his friends had passed away. No one could recognize Taro.
When I came home, I, like Taro, could not recognize the faces of my younger sister, nephews and nieces. I felt very sorry about that. I realized that I had spent the most precious time of my youth (from age 20 to 29) at war. I feel as if all the spring time of my life has been consumed by the history of war.
When I look back at the path I followed during the war, I am amazed what a long distance I had moved around. I had various hard experiences throughout my days as a soldier. However, I know that those people who immigrated to Manchuria to become farmers encountered much more difficult times than I did. I can not imagine what a difficult time people had in Japan. I know they suffered much in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokio.
Both on the battle fields and on the home front everyone suffered during the war. I feel really sorry for the Chinese people who lived in the battle fields. They must have suffered many privations beyond description.
I deeply realize the guiltiness and cruelty of the war. Recently I learned that China offered kind help to Japan immediately after the Kanto Earthquake in 1923. In spite of its budget difficulties, China had been so thoughtful. In this sense, with our aggression, I should say that we have returned their kindness with ingratitude.
On the same day when I joined the army, two other men joined the 7th communication corps of the North China detachment. Out of the three of us, only I returned home alive. Two of them were killed at the front in the South. My 10-year experience is just a part of a cruel war. I am not saying that my experience is all-encompassing. There must be many people who were much worse off than I.
At Hakodate, I boarded the Irie-maru, a military ship, on February 5th, 1940. The ship left the Saiwai ("Happiness") pier, sailed across the Sea of Japan and arrived at Tangkou port in Tienchin, China on December 13th. We settled at Yemin, Shantung Province as a wireless communication troop. The new conscripts consisted of different kinds of people. I was not a radio communication technology specialist. There were graduates of wireless communication school and professional wireless operators. All of us were put in a six month wireless communication class. After the training, we were dispatched to the front as a wireless operators. At first, there were wars with guerrilla fighters. We moved around Shantung Province.
All members of my radio communication troop gathered in at Yemin to hear the news that Japan started the war in the Pacific on December 8, 1941. My heart leapt when I heard the news. After that, Japanese military forces were relocated to the Southern part of China. Resistance from the Chinese army, especially from the Communist party, had become very severe. Eventually we lost control of the air completely. American B29 bombers, based in China, frequently attacked the Japan mainland. Huge formations of B29's flew over our heads to attack Kyushu island.
Everyday the B29's attacked Hefu in Henan Province, which we had occupied. They attacked us with showers of fire bombs. The American Lockheed P38's soon became very good at taking out our tanks, so the tanks could not move during the daytime -- only at night. We were also forced to march at night without sleep. We walked tens of kilometers along muddy roads, in dust storms, and during air raids. The battle had become intense and the number of people killed in action grew constantly.
The Pacific war was not going well for us. The imperial headquarters was always announcing that we had won a battle here or there. After the defeat of Saipan island, American and Chinese radio stations increased thier output power. So we listened to them to figure out the real status of the war. We were in a very difficult situation. We were suddenly ordered to guard the Russia-Manchuria border. We started to move one day in July, 1945. Our post was Peishuntsu, Chilin Province. The town is located near the border of the Inner Mongolia Republic, near Nomonhan.
For a while we had a calm life there, which was a relief after a long period of severe fighting. We had almost forgeten those hard days, but our calm life was interrupted a month later when we were attacked by Soviet fighter planes on August 9, 1945.
After the start of Soviet participation in the war against Japan, our radio communication squad was sent to the front. I was surprised by the poor equipment at the front. We were digging a trench in a kaoliang field while listening to the news of surging Soviet tanks. I realized that the time had come. I thought that we would soon be killed.
While we were talking about what we should do when the time comes, I was contemplating how I should commit suicide. When I was young, we were not taught about democracy, respect of human rights, and humanism. We were only taught that we should be loyal to our Emperor. We were told Japan is a country of God, so we will never be defeated. Kamikaze ("divine wind") will blow to help us. We believed that.
I learned in Manchuria about the atomic bomb attack at Hiroshima. However I still naively believed that such a divine wind would blow and it would defeat the Americans.
To be loyal to the Emperor we have to devote our life. This phrase was used frequently. In other words, to give up one's life is the best proof that you are loyal to your country. With such an idea, it is a sin to survive when you are defeated.
Sacrifice one's life for the eternal cause of loyalty and patriotism. They taught us that is the greatest thing we can do for our country. According to the theory, we should not be captured alive as a prisoner of war. We were thoroughly taught to praise death. As a result I believed that we could protect our country only through our death. Nowadays there is a saying "A life is heavier than the Earth." However, in those days, it was said that a Japanese soldier cost only 1 sen 5 rin. A post card costed 1 sen 5 rin at that time. A postcard to summon a man to the ranks cost 1 sen 5 rin. "My life is worth nothing compared to our cause." To be sure, a war will make heroes. It is a terrible sin to kill a person during peace time. On the other hand, he will be a hero when he has killed 100 enemies at war. Our powers of reason are paralyzed during a war. To kill an enemy is the best way to survive and to defend our fatherland.
I am sure that many of you watched TV during the recent Gulf War. For those who watched the screen, the war was something like a heroic movie which set the blood dancing in your veins. But please think twice. Under the shower of bombs live many people. Women and children without any defenses at all. Put yourself in their position. War time Japan was like that. Crowds of people running about trying to escape an Atomic bomb attack or a shower of bombs and machine gun bullets from a B29. It happened only 50 years ago in Japan.
It means that the Japanese army had also tortured Chinese and other people in Asian countries. "Peace of Asia", "Make the world one family", "Happy Republic of different nations" and "Happy country ruled by right and justice". All those phrases sound nice and were frequently used in Japan those days. I do not know how the Chinese heard and interpreted those phrases. As soon as the Soviet Union joined the war, the Japanese army started to withdraw from China. They called their withdrawal an "operational movement" and left Japanese settlers in Manchuria defenseless. Then those settlers also started to withdraw under Chinese and Korean oppression, and under plunder and assault from the Soviet soldiers. Many people had to give up their little children on the way to Japan. They handed their babies to Chinese along the road. This is why there are many Japanese who were left in China at the end of war. They have had a difficult life in China and it is very difficult for them to find their real mothers, fathers, or relatives in Japan.
While we look on those poor Japanese, we could do nothing but to watch and cry. On August 15, in Tean, a town located between Changchun and Peishuntsu, we listened to a radio broadcast -- the voice of the Japanese Emperor announcing the surrender of Japan. We set up all receivers available and set the volume to the maximum. We could not hear the broadcast clearly but we understood that the we had lost the war. We were really agitated. Some shouted that we should fight again. Some said we could go back to Japan. I am sure that all soldiers who had family dreamed of reuniting with their family soon. I was shocked by the news of our defeat.
We then disarmed. All soldiers left their rifles in a certain field. We were taught that our rifles with the Imperial chrysanthemum crest were a gift from the Emperor and that they were more important than our lives. I thought that when we lost the war, our home county should be in ruin. I could not even think about going back to Japan. I was wondering how I could commit suicide before we were humiliated as prisoners of war. I got a chemical to commit suicide and I sew it into my underwear.
Our troop gathered at Hontsurin and we were preparing to go back to Japan. Through our peaceful lives after the war, we gradually lost our impulse to commit suicide. Instead we started to think how we could go back to Japan. At that time we had no idea that Stalin was planning to use Japanese prisoners of war to develop Siberia. We were jeered by a shouts of "Tokyo damoi" and urged to get on a freight train headed north. We went through Harbin and arrived at Heihe in mid-November. We all expected to be sent back to Japan from Vladivostok by way of the Siberian railroad. Most of the generals of the Kanto army seemed to have the same idea. We waited for the Amur river to freeze over. We made a sleigh and put our luggage on it and crossed the river under threat of the Soviet soldiers' bayonets. They shouted "davai" , "davai" and shook their bayonets menacingly. We arrived at the other side of the river in Blagoveshchensk, totally frozen by the Siberian wind. We were searched and almost all our valuables such as watchs and pens were confiscated. I still remember clearly the pitiful scene of that day.
There in Blagoveshchesk, our only interest was which direction our train would go. If it goes to the west, the hopeless life of prisoners awaits us. If it goes to the east, we will be able to go back home via Vladivostok. Our hope was in vain. Our train started to move to the west! We spent several days in the train without sufficient food. We were treated as if we were cattle. Some people suddenly exclaimed that they could see the sea!! We all got very excited. It turns out we were just going along the huge lake Baikal. We realized the we were already deep in Siberia. It was hopeless! The taste of frozen rye bread only increased our despair.
After our long journey, our train stopped at a small station. It was December 1st, the fifth anniversary of my army life. I was standing on the snow-covered earth of Siberia. To be more precise, I was on Grisheva Hill in Cherenhovo, Irkutsk. It is located at 53 11" latitude and 103 05" longitude. We were forced to survive in a plain canvas tent in Siberia. A stove was burning in the tent. We slept in bunkbeds. The tent held twice the number of people that it was designed for. We were pushed in there like sardines. There was no room to extend our legs. We warmed each other and passed many sleepless nights.
Extreme cold and insufficient food forced us to live at the verge of starvation. Heavy labor put us in an extreme situation. Many of us suffered malnutrition. Many of us died during this period. You can imagine our difficult life. Heavy labor for Japanese in minus 30 degrees. It was really beyond description. When we dug into the ground, it was as hard as concrete. We collected wood and burned it to melt the frozen ground. Only the surface of the earth would thaw. But finding wood was itself a very difficult task. We were told if we could not reach our work quota, our food would be decreased. The quota was set for Russians and we Japanese are not as strong as Russians. We were only thinking about "damoi," or how to go back to Japan. We could not be efficient. We had difficulty even in walking in line. Usually we ended up in walking in a very long lazy line. We have heard that Soviet generals were shocked to know the reality of the Kanto army which once scared them so. By then we understood the importance of life. Our main objective was to survive Siberia and get back to Japan alive.
We performed various tasks. The largest and more labor-intensive was coal mine development. Labor condition there were worst of all. Even under temperatures of minus 30 degrees, we were not allowed to stop working. The other work was railroad construction, working at strip coal mines, water pipe works, work in a brick factory, construction works, stone cutting, etc. All of this work was very hard for us.
A day's ration: rye bread 350 grams vegetable 800 grams meat 25 grams salt 25 grams tea 0.5 grams cereals 450 grams tobacco 5 grams fish 100 grams oil 10 grams sugar 18 gramsAccording to their calorie calculation, we were given 2000 to 2800 calories per day. But in reality we were given much less.
At first there was exploitation by Japanese generals and Russians. Anything edible was served. Barnyard grass with husk, sea weed kelp, soy beans, etc.
We know that Soviet Russia was suffering a food shortage. But this poor food on top of the extreme cold and heavy labor caused many deaths. Instead of rice we were fed boiled kelp. Completely boiled kelp is still kelp and it was no substitute for rice. Soup with ten soy beans could fill our stomachs. Barnyard grass with husk were very hard to digest even though it made us full. It caused serious constipation. The Russian's insufficient knowledge of Japanese food and the language barrier made our life as prisoners of war only more difficult.
In spring, wild grass started to grow. Wild grasses were a source of vitamins for us. We especially ate wild spinach. It was a source of vitamins and helped to keep our stomachs full. There were poisonous wild carrots there. It made many of us seriously ill. So we call it the crazy carrot. Even with such risks, we were forced to hunt for carrots to get rid of our eternal hunger.
Even now, I can not forget wild spinach. On August 15, I will eat wild spinach and boiled potatoes to think of my dead friends and pray for their souls. If we were given sufficient food as officially announced, many people would not have starved to death. After my return to Japan, I had studied how Chinese prisoners of war were treated in Japan and found that they were treated much worse than we were. So I know now that we should not criticize only Russia and insist that we are not at all guilty. During the war, any nation or any people may do cruel things. War is such a terrible phenomenon. When the cold winter had gone and the spring had come, we were gradually becoming accustomed to hard labor and poor food, and we were beginning to accept the world as it was. Our camp remained calm but it wad changing gradually.
Due to the number of deaths and illnesses, food and labor conditions were slightly improved. At that time, a so-called democracy movement was sweeping over our camp. According to the theory, we can not be a man if we are not democrat. The theory itself may not be wrong. But the reality of the movement was that it was encouraged by the Soviet authority to change fascist Japanese into communist Japanese. People who were declared democrats by the camp authority might be given first chance to go back to Japan. We started to fight an ugly war among ourselves to prove who was a real democrat. Slander, defame, disbelieve, egoism. A leader of yesterday may be criticized today. People subjected him to a kangaroo court. People like us who do not understand such politics well were labeled as opportunist and accused. So it became difficult to utter words carelessly. The democratic movement, reactionary elements, and self-criticism became the mail topic of conversation. In the hard life of the camp, we were threatening each other instead of helping each other.
Rye bread, wild spinach, lice, bedbugs, and frostbite, etc., etc.; I will not forget these words... I will not forget hard labor on an empty stomach in extreme cold.
Our camp No. 6 in Grishevo was closed in August 1949. I have similar bad memories of a democratic movement in Nakhodka port. Some of us were left behind at the gate just before our departure from Nakhodka. Our commanders with whom we had lived for six years of battle in China and then in Siberia were ordered to remain in Russia as war criminals. They were then confined to a camp in China and returned to Japan only in 1955. Those of us allowed to come back Japan underwent several examinations in Nakhodka. We were not allowed to bring any paper back to Japan. While I was walking up the ladder of the ship to Japan, I was worried that I might be ordered to go back to camp at any moment.
The Yamasumi Maru, a 4000 ton transport ship left Nakhodka port on August 29 for Maizuru. On August 31, the ship arrived at Maizuru port and approached through the islands and finally came alongside the pier. I can not express my feeling when I saw the green Japanese mountains in rain which I dreamed of so many times when I was in the camp. At last, after 10 years I could come back to Japan, my home country.
In June 1992, I visited Siberia again after 43 years to pray in front of the graves ofJapanese who died in the camp. It was my dream to visit the place again while I was alive to pray for my dead friends. We visited the hill of Grisheva, Cherenhovo in Irkutsk. In 43 years, the hill of Grishevo has changed completely. Tombs of 521 Japanese are laid calmly in the birch woods. Slightly heaped ground indicates that there is a body underneath. There is no grave stone. We do not know who is buried where. No Japanese had visited the site for 43 years. I called out their names remembering that they were longing for Japan. We left water, sake, tobacco, and rice which we carried all the way from Rumoi. We also left candles and sticks of incense. We offered a silent prayer. Then all of us read aloud the Prajna paramita sutra. Before I visited the place, I had thought that this visit would complete my post-war obligations. When I saw the situation of tombs there, the unfinished list of the dead, the unmarked tombs, I realized that there was still a lot to be done by us who survived the war.
When I look back at the war with China, I do not understand why we had to go so deep into China. And I am not sure whether it was a justifiable war or not. I do not want to think that we worked for an uncertain cause. The difference between the cause put forth by the government and reality of war is incredible. As a single human being, I do not have a clear answer for this. I do not know what my colleagues had died for during and after the war.
It is 50 years since the end of the World War II. For me it seems that the war still continues, but in different form. The cold war between Russia and America has ended at last. But we still see battles between races and religions everywhere. There are many border disputes. I sometimes feel a limit of human wisdom. I think that each of us needs to think seriously about war so that we never again engage in such a stupid act.