# The Flowering of Racial Spirit/An Enemy General

An Enemy General
The ceremony of unveiling the Memorial Monument for the Filipino soldiers who died from diseases at the concentration camp in O’Donnell was held on the 18th of September, 1942. A part of the prisoners of war, numbering about tens of thousands, who were sent from the battlefields of Bataan to O’Donnel after the surrender of the USAFFE, died after they were concentrated in the camp. It was an inevitable fate, considering their conditions at the battlefields of Bataan. At the battlefields under the scorching heat, while American soldiers could get enough provisions, the Filipino soldiers could scarcely get food. And they were at the extremity of exhaustion; moreover, they were suffering from malaria and dengue fevers, and some of them, furthermore, contracted dysentery. If hostilities lasted longer, they would have ​fallen dead in Bataan, and really there were not a few of them who died not because of bullets. Thinking of such things, I cannot help feeling a strong indignation toward the inhumanity of the American forces.
For the unfortunate Filipino soldiers who died after their arrival in the concentration camp, the Memorial Monument was erected in a lot within the compound of the camp. The unveiling was held in the rain, which began to fall just at that time. There were present from the Japanese Forces, the Chief of the Staff; Colonel Utunomiya; Lieutenant-Colonel Katuya, Chief of the Department of Information; the instructors for the training of the prisoners of war, Lieutenant Nakamura, Sub-Lieutenant Miyabe, Sub-Lieutenant Ikeda, Mr. Hamamoto, a civilian on special military duty; and others. A funeral dirge was played by the former military band of the Filipino prisoners of war, and beautiful flower wreaths were dedicated by the members of ​the Filipino Women’s Association. Being wet by the windy rain-fall, the cloth which veiled the square pillar, which was nearly one zyō (about three meters) in height, was flapping in its black lustre, and the several thousands of prisoners of war, with tanned complexion and in various costumes, were standing in the mud and wet with rain. The cloth was removed slowly by the hands of Lieutenant-Colonel Itō, commander of the concentration camp, and we could read three characters in gold, in Japanese, “I-rei-hi”, meaning “the Monument for the Consolation of the Souls,” and the epitaph in Tagalog meaning, “Praying for the bliss of the souls of unknown warriors.”
I recognized an old man standing among the invited guests. He is, however, not of such an age as to be called “old”. He is still ​fifty-seven years of age only. But his figure, receiving the rainfall directly on his face, bending his body a little forward, and with his eyebrows showing a very slight shadow of a frown, made him appear to be very old. He was General Capinpin. He had on a plain white suit, which was quite crumpled, with an indifferently fixed necktie, and he held his helmet with both hands; his pair of brown shoes, however, was very muddy due to his having come on foot through the mud, and although the lower edges of his trousers were rolled up, they were splashed with mud nearly up to his knees. I felt an irrepressible good feeling for this general. This was the second time for me when I felt very strongly inclined to pat his shoulders.
Hearing about the ceremony of unveiling of the Memorial Monument, he requested that he be allowed to attend the occasion, and he came here in spite of his illness. He is at present staying in Manila, and receiving ​medical treatment for his inveterate disease, hepatitis, or inflammation of the liver. But he could by no means stay peacefully in Manila, and so he came to O’Donnell, hobbling his way afoot after having ridden the slow train for four hours. He is short, moreover stocky and bull-necked, and gives us an impression of a certain resemblance to a hippopotamus. Anyway, he is a person of rather unprepossessing appearance. If we look at him in his plain suit, he seemed to be a village pedagogue, and one could scarcely think of him that he was once a commander of a division, leading and ordering the regiments under his command in the battlefields of Bataan.
On the 3rd of April the general assault was begun, and at the same time of the breaking through enemy positions at Mount Samat, Division Commander Capinpin was also captured by our forces. Japanese soldiers found an old Filipino soldier who was wandering alone in a jungle, and they brought him to ​their unit headquarters. The Japanese soldiers took him, judging from his appearance, for someone like a non-commissioned officer. Seeing that he was emaciated, and appeared to be hungry, they gave him biscuits. He ate them greedily, crouching by the telegraph-pole. He was Division Commander Capinpin, but they could hardly identify that he was a Division Commander; moreover, it could scarcely be imagined by the Japanese soldiers that a Division Commander would wander about in the mountain alone. There came upon the scene, Mr. Sakihara, interpreter of the Department of Information, and unwittingly spoke to him. Then he said that he was a Brigadier General. Mr. Sakihara suspected that this old soldier might be out of his mind, and he brought Turingan, a Filipino prisoner of war, to identify his shoulder-straps, and it was found out that he must certainly be a Brigadier General. Then they asked more detailed questions, and this ​miserably appearing old soldier was undoubtedly the Commander of the 21st Division, General Capinpin himself. The 21st Division included, besides the 22nd and 23rd Regiments, other special units: numbering to seventy-five hundred in all; but since the outbreak of the war deserters and sick-soldiers occurred one after another, thus reducing their original number to one-half. He said that the 21st Division took up the defense of the Eastern regions of Samat, but at the same time with the beginning of the general assault, all the troops under his command were completely routed, and even his staff officers and adjutant were dispersed, and he was left alone. Mr. Sakihara said to the soldiers who brought him, “You have brought in a big game. He is a Division Commander. You have done a distinguished service which merits a first-class recognition.” And then, it was said, the soldiers blushed in embarrassment. When I heard the story from Mr. Sakihara, ​I was dumbfounded at the slovenliness of the USAFFE, and at the same time I felt a shadow of something like sympathy for the Division Commander, who had been left alone and became a prisoner of war.
But as the conditions of battle-operations developed and numberless prisoners of war appeared, I slowly forgot unawares about the firstly captured Filipino general. Then, when the assault against Corregidor was finished and the pacification of the Philippines was almost accomplished after several months, I by chance got the opportunity of meeting this enemy general again. It was at the concentration camp at Stotsenburg. Near the Dau railroad station is Camp Del Pilar, where formerly a regiment of the USAFFE was stationed. Between Mount Arayat, which is like the pressed shape of Mount Huzi in Japan, and the mountain ranges of Zambales which is stretching long but with sharp and peaked undulations, there is the vastly ​stretching grassy plain of Stotsenburg, in which there are several blocks of barracks with neat and tasteful red roofs. There, several thousands of Filipino soldiers, who were transferred from O’Donnell were undergoing a cultural training. If I describe in detail this training camp, the space cannot accommodate it, but in short, the educational training was carried out for them, emphasizing that our real enemy is the United States of America but not the Philippines; that Filipino soldiers once fired against us, but we recognize that they were under the pressure of inevitable circumstances; and that we expect, as Oriental brethren alike, and as co-operators in the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Filipino soldiers, moreover, should assume the responsibility and mission as champions of the reconstruction of the New Philippines in the future; and afterwards they were released by an unprecedentedly benevolent measure. Thus, I, too, spent ten and several days at this camp.
​As I mentioned at the beginning, many prisoners of war who were concentrated at O’Donnell, died of disease every day. Moreover, water is not ample, while that place is a basin and when rain falls it becomes a swamp. In spite of every possible suitable measure taken by the Japanese military authorities, there arose a complete undefensible condition, as if it were a kind of act of God. For this reason the prisoners of war who were transferred from O’Donnell to Stotsenburg, expressed themselves their feeling that “it is as if they were being lifted to the Kingdom of Heaven.” So much so that some of the Filipino soldiers recovered their spirits, and they were completely cured of their diseases, only by the fact that they came to Stotsenburg, where the air is fresh and water is abundant. The training was carried out in three terms. And some of those who graduated returned to O’Donnell again, as instructors to train the remaining prisoners of war there ​also. The chief of the faculty of training who was sent to O’Donnell was General Capinpin. It was on the 9th of August last that they started.
It is not so difficult to imagine how they felt about returning again to the place from where they came out with a feeling of “ascending to the Kingdom of Heaven.” It may be said that the feeling of Brigadier General Capinpin, and the three hundred instructors under him, was heroic. But Brigadier General Capinpin, with a countenance full of determination, said, “We start here with determination to deliver our comrades-in-arms, with whom we shared the tribulations in Bataan. We are starting with a feeling of going to the battle-front again to prosecute our duty.” The time to start approached. They fell in lines, as if they became soldiers again, hanging their knapsacks and canteens across each other from their shoulders, and carrying in their hands their various ​personal paraphernalia. Brigadier General Capinpin stood in front; and after him, Generals Segundo, de Jesus and others followed. They began their march at the striking up of the farewell music played by the former military band of the prisoners of war.
After the march was commenced, a heavy rain suddenly came falling in torrents at the same time when they went out from the gates of the camp. General Capinpin has been suffering from inflammation of the liver, and so he limped slightly as he walked. When the rain began to fall, he hastened his pace and trotted along, and his lameness became more obvious. As he carried baskets in both his hands, he could not unstrap and unfold his overcoat; and he merely rolled up the lower edges of his trousers. Brigadier General Capinpin, who is short and looking like a village pedagogue, took the lead and toddled at the head of the group, all the while being pattered by the heavy rainfall. Lieutenant ​Nakamura, who was beside him, being unable to remain merely a spectator, proposed to carry one of the baskets for the General.
“Never mind, I was formerly an infantryman,” General Capinpin said, and hurried toward the Dau railroad station.
I cannot suppress the emotion which was overflowing from my bosom at such a sight of General Capinpin. I instinctively felt a strong inclination to pat the shoulders of this admirable general with all the capacity of my sincerity.
Thus Brigadier General Capinpin reached O’Donnell, and he devoted himself to the training of the prisoners of war there. Then, all the terms of training were over, and on the 18th of September the graduation ceremony was held at the same time with the ceremony of unveiling the Memorial Monument. In the evening, after all the ceremonies were over, I was entertained with unusual dishes of turkey at the official residence of ​Lieutenant-Colonel Itō in the town of Capas. Thus, at the supper I was favoured with the opportunity of exchanging a glass of wine with General Capinpin. Before this, he was a man who led a military life for thirty-seven years, twenty-two years of which, I was told, he served as a captain. The highest rank for the Filipino soldiers is Major-General, and General Francisco is such; and it seems that it was the policy of the United States of America, not to promote the Filipino officers from rank to rank for a long time. He is a very studious person and he acquired various knowledges through correspondence courses, and he spoiled his eyes because of such a practice. Wine is a great favourite with him, but since he suffered from a disease of the liver he was prohibited from drinking by his physician, and recently he has not drunk so much. He is suffering not only from a diseased liver but also, recently, from ailments in various parts of his body, and a few days ​ago he could not stand up owing to the pains in his waist; while, I was told, on one hand, his ankles ached, his fingers, on the other hand, were also benumbed.
Outside of the windows Philippine acacia trees were growing thickly, and as it became evening they began to fold their leaves as if they were preparing to go to sleep. Capas is a fine town, thickly verdured, calm and serene. An Indian, called David Shaw, came and added to the entertainment of the group by displaying very clever sleight-of-hand tricks. There was an atmosphere of a kind of relief in the group after the completion of the long training of the prisoners of war; but at the same time there was also a shade of something resembling lonesomeness.
As we were offered, we lifted our glasses of wine. There was also “sake” or Japanese wine, which could be seldom secured here. I made it one of my pleasant routines during my stay at Stotsenburg to read again ​Manyōsyū (the oldest anthology of Japanese poems), and at this magnanimous banquet, which followed the ceremonies at Stotsenburg, I was reminded of the eulogistic poem on “sake” written by Lord Ōtomo-Tabito.
General Capinpin, being cautious of his disease in these last few days, would not drink. It was an extreme pity to see the General, who was called a “hard drinker”, sitting lonesomely before his favourite wine. However, it was only at the beginning. He said that a little wine would not hurt him and, making an excuse that it is not courteous to the guests that he alone should abstain from drinking, he touched his mouth timidly to a glass of wine and drank as if he were drinking a bitter medicine. Then, it became just like the priming water poured into a pump. A little more would not hurt him, he said, and he drank two or three glasses in succession. After that, displaying a complexion of resolution, he said, “I will not regret it even if I die,” and ​forthwith he began to empty glass after glass by taking big draughts.
Standing up, he approached me, and grasping my hand, he said, “I have seen you in the mountains of Bataan.” But actually we did not see each other. Suddenly, his figure in uniform, commanding the troops under him, appeared in my mind, and immediately afterwards his figure biting biscuits by the telegraph-pole was superimposed upon the first vision. Seeing his rolled-up trousers splashed with mud, I was reminded of his figure walking wet in the heavy rainfall. I have no means of realizing the thoughts conceived deeply in their inner selves and the real changes in their hearts. How can it be explained that those who once took up arms under the colours of the United States of America and fought against us, are now thus drinking wine with us, who were their enemies only several months ago? We can laugh at their opportunism at any time. But the ​sincerity of human beings which is involved in the great war of thoughts, cannot be considered not to be able to be drawn out into the movement of history. It can be thought that everything is false; but will it not deny both human beings and history to think so? Now, we are feeling around our own persons, as bitter reality, the fact that the human will, which was thought to be small and false, is changing history. The gigantic will is the current of destiny including human beings.
General Capinpin is now already fixing his necktie carelessly, shakes my hand frequently, and he even tries to pour wine into my mouth. This, his hand, must have written many times the order, which rendered our comrades-in-arms into the earth of Bataan. However, the discovery that we can already elevate our feeling of hatred by lofty and sublime thoughts, gives us hope. While the wine is poured by the drunken man into my mouth, I could not help the welling up of ​magnanimous thought within my heart. Already we cannot think of any fraction of our daily life without realizing that we are Japanese, and we are within the orbit of history. That is not a haughty, but must indeed be a humble thought.
General Capinpin, who narrowed his eyes like a hippopotamus, and with a pose of staring a little obliquely at me, said, “I am already quite old, so I am no match for you, but I can beat you with the aid of one more person.” He seems to have already completely forgotten his old care for his disease. Then, lowering his voice, he asked, “How do you think of Major General Francisco?” He had once been Chief of the Staff under Major General Francisco. Major General Francisco is a famously reticent man, and there was scarcely any person who saw his face in a smile. But I think I have observed that the unamiable Major General Francisco, since he was taken as a prisoner of war, experienced a ​serious mental struggle. I can feel history even in the significance of Major General Francisco’s recent smiling. Moreover, General Capinpin and General Francisco might have been good comrades-in-arms. Thus, it is a very pleasant spectacle for me to observe the figures of these two generals who, after the experiences at the battlefields, having made up their minds to cooperate with Japan, endeavour and, sometimes even experience agonizing mental struggles.
Being quite drunk, General Capinpin at last began to sing with a glass of wine in his hand. Then he began to dance in a strange manner. All the persons said that they have never seen a very pleasant General Capinpin as tonight. What made him so happy? Already there is no need of such an inquiry, but I was inclined to be as drunk as he was.
At the town of Capas, I left General Capinpin, who said, “I am so drunk that I may die tomorrow.” I wonder whether at present he ​is already beginning to suffer from his diseased liver, unable to stretch himself, and groaning with pain. At daybreak, strati, flowing across the cloudy sky, surround Mount Arayat, striping its summit with several lines; and over the grassy plain of Stotsenburg verdant breeze wafts, and from the direction of Camp Del Pilar the chorus at the ceremony of hoisting the national flag, which is a daily ritual, resounds to me.
(At Stotsenburg, the 19th of September, 1942.)