Zen War Stories (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism) by Brian Victoria

Author:Brian Victoria [Victoria, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136127786
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-12-05T23:00:00+00:00

Soldiers speak

Up to this time we have listened primarily to the voices of observers, both Japanese and western, outside of the Japanese military itself. What were Japan’s military men thinking? Needless to say, most of the voices remaining from the war period are those of “good soldiers” and their remarks naturally reflect the values of their superiors. This, however, does not lessen the fact that a very large number of Japan’s fighting men had, as they were trained to do, “resigned themselves to death.”

This resignation can be seen as early as the Russo-Japanese War. In Human Bullets (Nikudan), one of the most famous books to come out of that war, author Captain Sakurai Tadayoshi related the following story concerning the assault on the Russian stronghold at Port Arthur:

We left Japan fully determined to turn into dust, … saying, “Here I stand ready to die!” Our hearts were impatient but the opportunity was slow in coming. More than one hundred days had passed since we had left for the front.… At night sleeping on our arms or in the day exposed to the hail-storm of bullets, we had never forgotten our desire to return the imperial favour and beneficence with death and death only. Thousands of our comrades had died without the joy of seeing the final success.… We were eager to avenge them.…

How was it that we were still alive, after fighting one, two, three, already four battles without having fallen … on the battlefield! I had been fully resolved to die on Mt. Taku, but still I was left behind by a great many friends. Surely this time, in this general assault, I must have the honour and distinction of offering my little self to our beloved country. With this idea, this desire, this determination I started for the battle [Italics mine].83

As revealed above, there was a very close connection between resignation to death and the idea of self-sacrifice, the “offering of my little self.” Shortly before the Yamato, Japan’s greatest battleship, left port in April 1945 on a one-way suicide mission to Okinawa, Second Sub-Lieutenant Yoshida Mitsuru confided the following to his diary: “With a few days’ rest, I will gain the mental strength to turn the tide of war and will cultivate my fighting spirit for sure death in a state of selflessness (muga).”84

Had he read Yoshida’s words, Lt. General Chō Isamu, second in command of the ill-fated Japanese garrison on Okinawa, would surely have nodded in approval. As will be detailed in chapter 9, General Chō was himself a newly-ordained Buddhist priest who wrote the following parting message to his own Buddhist master: “I am filled with joy at having found the best place in all of Japan to die!”85

Finally, the preceding comments would all have been warmly welcomed by Imperial Army General Kawabe Masakazu (1886–1965). In 1942 General Kawabe served as Chief of Staff of Japanese forces in China and in 1943 became Commander-in-Chief of the Burma Area Army. More importantly, Kawabe had been Inspector

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