武漢兵站This English-language translation has been carried out in accordance with the stipulations of Article 67-1 of Japan’s CopyrightLaw, whereby a compulsory license was issued by the Commissioner of the Agency of Cultural Affairs on December 18, 2019.

Wuhan
military logistics baseBukan Heitan
By Seikichi Yamada
Published by Tosho Shuppansha
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The Road to Hankou

1• Coincidence		

1• Military Logistics Base

4

• Chichijima Fortress Infantry Unit

5

• Drifting in the East China Sea

15• Machine Gun Strafing along the Yangtze River19• The Nurses		

21• Shayangzhen Freight Depot Guard Unit

26

Chapter 2 Hankou Militar y Logistics Headquarters

32• Transfer		

32• Appointment as the Recreation Section Chief

37• The Hankou Customs House Bells

40

Chapter 3 Hankou Special Comfort Facilities

44• Comfort Facilities System

44• Jiqingli		

48

Chapter 4 The Prostitutes• Profiles of the Prostitutes

Chapter 5 Episodes at the Militar y Logistics Base

55
55

70

• First Lieutenant Koizumi Seeks Advice70• Death during Sexual Intercourse70• On-site Inspection

72• The Death of Park Kyung Do

74• Movie Chastity

75• Foundation Anniversary

77• Privately Established Comfort Facilities78• Lectures		

80• The Prostitutes of Liuheli

82• Officers and Restaurants

84

Chapter 6 Recreation

91• Wholesome Recreation

91• Soldiers’ Amusement Park94

• The Military Logistics Hall96

• The Military Logistics Base’s Movie Team99

• Hankou Prisoner of War Camp101

• The Towa Theater104• Chinese Opera

108• Sumo, Kendo, Variety Shows, and Baseball Tournaments

112• The Backbone Army’s Painting Exhibition

116• The Wuhan Poetry Circle

117• Soldiers’ Library123• Military Logistics Base Cultural Lectures

137

Chapter 7 Operation Togo

139

• Diary of the Commander of the Shayangzhen Military Logistics Branch

Chapter 8 Wuhan Militar y Logistics Base

139

149

• Wuhan Military Logistics Base Commander

149• One Military Police Major

152• The Double Suicide at Suigetsu

154• Days at the Military Logistics Base155

• The Prisoners of War Who Were Dragged Through Town

160

• The Deaths of Two American Aviators

162• Murder at the Kaikosha Army Club163

• Inflation and Signs of Defeat

164

Chapter 9 Militar y Logistics Base Adjutant’s Diar y• 1944-1945		

Chapter 10 Defeat in War

167
167

186

• Withdrawal of the Yuezhou Military Logistics Headquarters

186• Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters

189• August 15		

191

• Japanese Prisoner of War Camp Yangtze District Unit

192

• Demobilization

196

Afterword		

200

Maps, diagrams and captionsii

Map of Chichijima Island

8

Main Map of China

34

Hankou Special Comfort Facilities Map

47

Map of Hankou Military Logistics Base Facilities

94

Newspaper advertisement for the Chinese opera performance.

107

Map of the Three Cities of Wuhan

150

Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 1

The Road to Hankou
Coincidence
In July 1944, more than two and a half years after Japan entered the Pacific War with the attack on
Pearl Harbor, the war was in its crucial phase, and Japan was facing its greatest hardships. The year
before, Japan had retreated from Guadalcanal Island in the South Pacific, Commander-in-Chief of the
Combined Fleet Isoroku Yamamoto had died in the skies above the Solomon Islands, the Attu Island
garrison had chosen to die rather than surrendering, and the garrisons at Makin Atoll and Tarawa
Atoll had been utterly annihilated. In early 1944, the Japanese garrisons at Kwajalein Atoll and RoiNamur Island were completely destroyed. The Japanese Navy lost most of its aircraft carriers in the
Battle of the Philippine Sea, while the U.S. military landed on Saipan, Guam, and other areas of thecentral Pacific, driving a wedge between the Japanese forces. In Japan, the Tojo Cabinet resigned, andthe number of Japanese citizens who felt anxious about the prospects of the war was progressively
increasing.
Despite all these developments, the Japanese Army on the Chinese mainland initiated the Continent
Cross-Through Operation from Beijing to French Indochina. The advance in central China was
generally proceeding smoothly. The Japanese Army occupied Changsha on June 18 and the airport at
Hengyang on June 26. Hankou City, Hubei Province, in central China, which was the most importantmilitary logistics base for these operations, was bustling with military materials and army units on theway to the frontlines. Perhaps because the U.S. air force1 in China was occupied with decisive battles
on the frontlines, in the rear, aside from attacks on transport ships on the Yangtze River and airports,
there were no signs of the Americans near the city of Hankou. The Wuhan Military Logistics Base’s
entertainment facilities, cafeterias, movie theaters, and special comfort facilities2 were filled with
officers and men of stationed troops and soldiers passing by, who had doubled in numbers, going out
day after day.
At that time, I was an adjutant3 at the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters located in Hankou,
Hubei Province.
On July 13, when I returned to my room on the second floor of the headquarters after finishinglunch and was resting, a guard knocked on my door, entered the room, and said “Adjutant, Second
Lieutenant Suzuki wants to see you.” When I heard Suzuki’s name, I could not remember his
face immediately. Suzuki is a name so common that any Japanese person probably knows several
individuals who have the last name Suzuki. While wondering who he was and what he wanted, I justwent downstairs to see him. Then someone suddenly called me, saying “Hey, Yamada!”
When I turned and looked, it was my comrade Katashi Suzuki. 4 We had enlisted together nearly
20 years before, in April 1925, as one-year volunteers in the Sakura 57th Infantry Regiment. At that
1

The United States technically did not have an independent air force in World War II, hence the lower case for “air force.”
The U.S. Army and Navy had their own air corps.
2“Special comfort facilities” was the official designation for brothels.
3
An adjutant is an officer who assists the commander of a military unit by performing administrative duties.
4
In the text, names of Japanese persons are given in the Western format, with the surname following the given
name. In this example, “Suzuki” is the family name.

1

Wuhan military logistics basetime, anyone who had graduated from junior high school could complete his military service, which
normally took two years, in just one year if he paid 240 yen in advance to cover his food expenses.
One-year volunteers could become an Army second lieutenant if they served as a cadet5 for fourmonths and passed a graduation exam.
Also, regular recruits were paired with older soldiers, shined their shoes, did their laundr y, andotherwise took care of their needs, while the older soldiers educated them and looked after them. In
contrast, one-year volunteers were put into pairs and placed in the same team, stood one behind theother when lining up outside, had their beds next to each other inside the barracks, and lived together
like brothers. Suzuki and I felt particularly close as comrades.
Suzuki, who worked at a publishing company when he was back in Japan and edited the magazines
Kagaku gaho (Science pictorial) and Sekai chishiki (World affairs), was called up for service in the72nd Infantry Regiment in Ranam, in northern Korea for special maneuvers by the Kwantung Army.
(This was actually an operation to assemble a large military force at the border between the Soviet
Union and Manchuria in preparation for battle against the Soviet Union). He was discharged once,
and then recalled to serve in the 27th Division’s 3rd Infantry Regiment (nicknamed the “Field 2906
Unit”) stationed in China, and had arrived at Hankou together with his regiment on the way to thefrontlines. He said when he went out that day, he had dropped by the Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 1
Cafeteria on Jianghan Road in the central business district of Hankou, saw a poster for the Soldiers’
Library on the wall of the cafeteria, thought it unusual that there was a library in a war zone, entered
the library, and found plenty of unexpectedly good books.
He had asked the soldier on duty, “Who is supervising this library?”
The soldier replied, “The Military Logistics Base’s adjutant, First Lieutenant Yamada.”“So, that is how I found out that you are at the militar y logistics base and came to visit,” Suzuki
explained.
If his unit had not been stationed at Hankou on the way to the frontlines, and if he had not seen theposter for the Soldiers’ Library when he went out and had gone in, the two of us would have parted
without meeting here.
He said he had not taken a bath for a long time, so I immediately went with him to the officers’
quarters and we took a bath. In the evening, we opened a can of beef we got from the base canteen,
drank beer, and talked late into the night.
Suzuki’s unit was scheduled to remain in Hankou for one week, and then to depart from Wuchang
toward Yueyang. Making the most of our short time together, we went to see Chinese opera at atheater in the new market in the refugee district on the evening of the 15th. At that time, we still had
the leeway to go out to the theater in Hankou, which was a rear echelon base. The performance thatnight was Qinggog yanshi (A pornographic history of the Qinq palaces), with an actress named Dai
Qixia playing the lead role.
A night of Chinese opera!
Dai Qixia with cheeks brushed in scarlet
cries for love.6
By Katashi Suzuki
5
62

Cadets as referred to here were technically “officers on probation” who were learning on the job.
Passages from poetry and songs are set off and italicized in this book.
Wuhan military logistics baseOn the 19th, when Suzuki was to leave for the frontlines, I visited the Wuchang No. 1 Junior HighSchool where his unit, nicknamed the “Field Division,”7 was stationed. There was still some time
before his departure, so we visited Huachung University where the 51st Military Logistics Guard
Unit8 (2nd Company) that I previously belonged to was stationed, and went to the library on theuniversity campus. The library had been closed because it was classified as an enemy asset. Part of
the area downstairs was being used as a warehouse, with books belonging to individuals piled up in
disarray along the edge of the corridor. Suzuki found Kyoshi Takahama’s Haikai saijiki (Glossary ofseasonal terms for haiku) in the pile, tossed it into the map case hanging from his waist, and left for
the front.
When summer passed and the rainy season arrived, a letter came from Suzuki from the frontlines.
He had been stationed in Chaling, Hunan Province for a while, and was about to advance toward
Suichuan, Jiangxi Province. Suichuan is 270 kilometers southeast of Hengyang and is the locationof one of the U.S. air force’s bases in China. At the end of his letter, written with a brush on yellow
bamboo paper, there were several haiku poems including the following.
The bleak rain of Chaling in the autumn evening.
At rainy midnight,
the requisitioned old clock chimes.
Soldiers bustling in the evening mist
The bridge is in danger.
The swiftly flowing muddy stream
swallows the sandbar under the bridge - ah!
The cock crows in the Hunan dialect in the rainy autumn.
I thought about the irony of the fate of war in which two comrades who used to sleep next to eachother and ate from the same pot are separated, with one to the frontlines and the other in a rearechelon unit. I could not help but wish for his continued luck in the fortunes of war.
“The three cities of Wuhan” refers to the metropolitan area made up of Hankou, Wuchang, andHanyang along the banks of the Yangtze River in Hubei Province, central China, 600 nautical miles
up the Yangtze from Shanghai. Their population was around 1.5 million at their peak in the 1920s andremained above 800,000 at the time of the Japanese occupation. They are also a key transportation
hub because they are at the confluence of the Yangtze River and its tributary, the Han River, andnear the mouth of Dongting Lake. This is a vast expanse of fertile land where the Beijing-Hankou
Railway and the Guangdong-Hankou Railway, which run across China north to south, converge with
the Yangtze River. Hankou is a commercial city, Wuchang is an academic center, and Hanyang is anindustrial city. For these reasons, the three cities of Wuhan were important political and economic
centers and were known as “the Chicago of the Orient” and “the Osaka of China.” Because there had
been Japanese, German, British, French, and Russian settlements at one time, Jiangan Street along
Wuhan’s Bund9 was lined with large Western-type buildings. Moreover, in the high-water season fromlate spring, 10,000-ton steamships could freely navigate upriver all the way to Hankou. After the fallof Nanjing, Hankou was the capital of the nationalist government, but after it was occupied by Japan’sCentral China Expeditionary Army in October 1938, the nationalist government relocated its capital to7

The “Field Division” (goku-butai) was the nickname of the 27th Division.
Guard units (keibitai) were units entrusted with the local defense of a facility or area. They should not be
confused with elements of the Imperial Guards Division, which was an elite formation. Kebitai have also beencalled “garrison units,” “defense units,” and “security units.”
9
Waterfront area. While Shanghai’s Bund is the most widely known, Wuhan also had a Bund.
83

Wuhan military logistics baseChongqing, further inland in Sichuan Province.
The 11th Army (nickname: “Backbone Army”), which was the largest Imperial Japanese Army group,
had its headquarters at Hankou and was commanded by Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama.
Under his command were the 3rd Division (“Lucky Division”) with headquarters at Yingshan,
Hubei Province, the 13th Division (“Mirror Division”) with headquarters at Shashi, Hubei Province,the 34th Division (“Camellia Division”) with headquarters at Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, the 39th
Division (“Wisteria Division”) with headquarters at Dangyang, Hubei Province, the 40th Division(“Whale Division”) with headquar ters at Xianning, Hubei Province, the 58th Division (“WideDivision”) with headquarters at Yingcheng, Hubei Province, the 68th Division (“Cypress Division”)
with headquarters at Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, and the 17th Independent Mixed Brigade (“Summit
Brigade”) with headquarters at Yuezhou, Hunan Province. After the Battle of Changde in November
1943, Yokoyama also commanded the 116th Division (“Storm Division”) based in Anqing, Anhui
Province. The Battle of Changde was an operation from November 1943 through Januar y of thefollowing year that aimed to destroy the Nationalist Army in and around Changde. The 11th Army was
deployed as the main force, with reinforcements from the 116th Division of the 13th Army. Changdeis the heart of Hunan Province, and was a key strategic point for the Nationalist Army supply lines as
illustrated by the saying “If the crops bear fruit in Hunan, Sichuan will not starve.” The operation’s
staging area was Anqing (Anhui Province), Xinyang (Henan Province), Yichang (Hubei Province),
and Yuezhou (Hunan Province). The operation to strike Chongqing was a grand plan in which fivedivisions were to advance north through Hankou, Changsha, Hengyang and Guiyang, two divisions
were to advance west from Yichang, and three divisions of Japan’s Northern China Area Army wereto advance south through Luoyang and Xian and coordinate their attack on Chongqing.
For that reason, the Wuhan region was the Imperial Japanese Army’s largest operations base, and the
Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters was extremely busy.

Military Logistics Base
Here, although it is a bit complicated, I will review what a “military logistics base” is. According toPart 3 Section 4 of the Operation Planning and Supervising Procedures Order, the duties of a “military
logistics base” are explained as follows.
(No. 236) The main purposes of a military logistics base are to maintain and increase thebattle strength of the Army so soldiers can exert their full abilities without feeling anxiety
about their homes. Therefore, advanced delivery and supply of munitions and horses requiredfor operations; hospitalization and return of sick and wounded soldiers and horses; processingof items that need to be arranged; examination, acquisition and strengthening of battlefield
resources; lodging, supply, and medical care of personnel and horses in transit; securing rear
communications lines; and administration of occupied territory, etc. are important duties of amilitary logistics base.
Hankou, which was the most important military logistics base in central China, was home to the
Hankou city government, consulate general, the guard unit’s headquarters, and other administrative
agencies as well as all types of supply depots, so army administration and procurement of military
goods were divided among each agency and supply depot. Accordingly, the Militar y Logistics
Headquarters was directly responsible for the following tasks:
Lodging section: Provision of lodging and supplies to units and individuals (officers and the enlisted).

4

Wuhan military logistics baseTransportation section: Provision of passenger and cargo-carr ying vehicles; issuance of militar y
passports; operation of buses for the Army Headquarters along Zhongshan Road.
Enshrined deities section: Management and return of remains and personal effects; holding of
memorial services; administration of the crematorium.
Recreation section: Arrangement of per formances, movies, and enter tainers; management ofrestaurants, cafeterias, and Army special comfort facilities.
Prisoners section: Management of prisoner-of-war camps.
Accounting division: General accounting; management of canteens, supply of fodder, and procurementof goods for units in transit.
Medical division: Medical treatment and prevention of diseases for units in transit, and for sick andwounded soldiers.
There were also the building and repairs section, the farm section, and the signals coding team. The
facilities were the officers’ quarters and the unit barracks (No. 1–No. 5).
Branches of the military logistics base were established near Hankou at Yangtze, Changjianbu, andZaoshi, and sometimes at Xiaogan and Xinyang, and subsequently at Wuchang, Yueyang, and Jiujiang.
In addition to lodging and supply, these branches were responsible for the guidance and supervisionof committees for maintaining public order.
Work that was not assigned to any par ticular unit was handled by the militar y logistics base.
For example, flood control was the responsibility of the militar y logistics base. This included
measurement of the water level of the Yangtze River and arrangement of materials to deal withflooding. The management of all types of recreation facilities not stipulated in the Operation Planningand Supervising Procedures Order and of special comfort facilities were also, of course, among thejobs of the Military Logistics Headquarters. In short, the military logistics base was the backstage forelements of the armed forces that were not on the stage called the battlefield.
I was transferred to the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters in March 1943 and spent two and ahalf years until the war ended there, doing nothing but all sorts of backstage chores. However, I did
not arrive in Hankou without incident.

Chichijima Fortress Infantry Unit
I received a secret mobilization order on September 27, 1941 calling me to the Eastern 62nd Unit in
Akasaka, Tokyo. I joined the unit on October 2. At the time, I was a second lieutenant in the army
reser ves who had been selected from the ranks of one-year volunteers. The special mobilization
order, that is the draft notice, had the following slip attached.
Note the following for counterintelligence purposes.
1. Do not show this order to others except for use as a deferred payment certificate for railways andships.
2. Even if you must wear your military uniform when reporting for duty, carry, but do not wear on
your person your military equipment.
3. Report for duty alone, without people sending you off.
4. Do not speak or behave in any manner whereby others may suspect you are being called up for
5

Wuhan military logistics base

duty (e.g., farewell parties, courtesy calls, etc.).
At that time, I was working at the Tokyo Railway Bureau’s Operations Division in the Inspection
Section. I had entered the office after working in the field for five years auditing transportation
income, and was placed in charge of planning the simplification of passenger-related business forms. I
was 42 years old under the traditional East Asian system of counting age,10 and there were six people
in my family: me, my wife, my eldest son Yasuyoshi (in 4th grade), my eldest daughter Mariko (in2nd grade), my second son Michinari (in kindergarten), and my second daughter Yuriko (1 year, 3months old).11
Because this was a secret mobilization order, there was no cheering or waving of flags. I just called ona few neighbors the day before I left.
I declined any going-away party at work, but I was invited by my former teacher, Cabinet Planning
Board Inspector Tadao Tanabe, to the restaurant Shiobara, in Uguisudani,12 on the afternoon of the
30th. When I asked him to sign my Japanese flag, he immediately took out a brush and wrote a poem
from Manyoshu Volume 6, by Takahashi no Mushimaro:
A man who without lifting up words
Will conquer an enemy
Even ten thousand strong
And then return.
He then signed his name. While we ate broiled sea bream fish heads from Misaki that was served
on a leaf-shaped, Oribe ware plate,13 Tanabe drank French Evian mineral water and I drank KikuMasamune sake. Outside, a soundless light rain was falling.
On the morning of October 1, I went to a barber and had my hair cut, put on the army uniform of asecond lieutenant, dropped by my office, and paid my respects to my superiors and acquaintances at
the Ministry of Railways and the Tokyo Railway Bureau.
That night a modest sendoff party was held for family members only, with my mother, brother andcousins coming from my hometown of Narita, in Chiba Prefecture. I did not know if I would comeback alive, but I thought I must earnestly carry out the work that I had been assigned.
On October 2, I took leave of my family and departed my home. My brother and cousin from myhometown saw me off part of the way. They were carrying my sword wrapped in a cloth, and handed
this over to the soldier who came to meet me 500 meters from the gate of the camp. I entered thecamp by myself.
The 143rd Fortress Infantry Unit, to which I had been assigned, was comprised of five companies.
The unit commander was Major Yoshikichi Mori. I was appointed the commander of the 2nd Platoonof the 1st Company. The company commander was First Lieutenant Saburo Abiru. On the evening of
October 10, each company traveled along back roads so that we would not attract attention, and we
assembled at Shibaura Pier. People passing by curiously watched the troops marching along. The
men just marched silently. The 2,000-ton cargo-passenger ship Shibazono Maru, which we boarded
10

Under this system, a child born on December 31 becomes two years old on January 1.
There are multiple ways of reading the characters for personal names in Japanese. “Yasuyoshi,” “Michinari,” and “Yuriko”
are simply the most common readings.
12
Uguisudani is a neighborhood in Tokyo.
13
Oribe ware is a type of Japanese pottery.
11

6

Wuhan military logistics basefrom the pier, was the ferry to Chichijima Island in the Ogasawara Islands.
We departed early in the morning on the 11th, and after some time, I noticed we had left Tokyo Bay. I
could see Oshima, Miyakejima, and Mikurajima islands of the Izu Islands, and the faint white outlineof Mt. Fuji far away on the northern horizon. Realizing that this might be the last time I would eversee my country, and that I might never return, I felt moved and wrote two tanka poems.
Mt. Fuji is dimly seenon the horizon of the ocean,fainter but higher than the islands of Izu.
This is the famed silhouette of the precious Mt. Fuji
with faint light seen at its peak.
When the ship was entering the Kuroshio current, it began swaying more and more, and Mars shined
red above the mast. It was a dark sea. I felt unwell, perhaps from seasickness.
The next day on the 12th, at around noon, a soldier said that Chichijima Island could be seen, so I
got up, went out on deck, and the shadow of the island was visible in the distance above the sea. The
rocky mountains, bluffs, and bleak outline of the island gradually became more distinct. We weretalking among ourselves, saying that this must be our destination. We soon entered Futami Bay. I
recognized Mt. Funami, Eboshiiwa Rock, and other features of the island from a sketch sent to me bya friend in the Navy a long time ago, and saw Omura and other towns. When night fell, we saw electric
lights reflected on the water, and everyone was happy to learn that there were electric lights on an
island like this one.
We landed in the morning on the 13th and lined up at the edge of Omura for inspection of the troops
by the fortress commander, Mamoru Kawakami. I feinted after becoming dizzy from the hot sun
and seasickness, and was labeled the weakest soldier in the unit. For that reason, I did not hear
the briefing from Fortress Commander Kawakami, and rested in the night watchman’s room at
Chichijima Elementary School.
We returned to the ship that night and came back the following day. The men of the 1st Company
found their way to their quarters, with the 1st Platoon (commanded by Second Lieutenant Teruo Ono)billeted at the Omura Library, the 2nd Platoon (commanded by me) at Horenji Temple in Omura, andthe 3rd Platoon (commanded by Second Lieutenant Takeo Sakuma) and the headquarters section at
an industrial warehouse in Ogiura, across the bay.
Part of the 142nd Fortress Infantry Unit, which had arrived earlier and had its main force at Hahajima
Island, was stationed on the northern half of Chichijima Island, from Omura toward Miyanohama
Beach. The southern half of the island was under the command of the Mori Unit, that is, the 143rd
Fortress Infantr y Unit, with the headquarters, 3rd Company, 4th Company, and 5th Company
stationed at Tatsumi Bay and the 2nd Company at Kominato.
Horenji Temple was a Nichiren sect temple, with calligraphy written by Fleet Admiral Heihachiro
Togo hanging in the main hall. There was a bookshelf called the Futami Library in a corner of themain hall with books for children for the Sunday Buddhist school. Among these, to my surprise, wasa copy of the last issue (large size) of the children’s literary magazine Akai tori (Red bird) founded by
Miekichi Suzuki, so I donated some money, took the magazine, and sent it to my eldest son via thirdclass mail. It arrived without incident, and my eldest son, who was in 4th grade, saw the place names
Omura and Futami on the envelope, took out a map of Ogasawara, and told his mother “Father is on

7

Wuhan military logistics base

Chichijima Island.”The 1st Company was ordered to ser ve as a general reser ve force for the fortress, and the 2nd
Platoon was assigned to assist the engineers in building a road at Mt. Mikazuki. We climbed themountain each day wearing rubber-soled slip-toed shoes and puttees, and a soldier made me a walking
stick from the umbrellata variety of Indian hawthorn which the locals call “Alexander.” The chief
priest of Horenji Temple offered me an eight-tatami-mat room with an alcove, so I decided to sleep
there at night. I was told that the only persons who slept on tatami mats were the unit commander and I.
There was no electricity at Tatsumi Bay, so an automobile battery was used to generate power for alight only in the unit commander’s room, but it was not very bright.
On October 25, a soldier in my platoon complained of abdominal pain, and appendicitis was suspected.
There was no way to send him to the infirmar y at Tatsumi Bay, so I asked the infirmar y at theadjacent Chichijima Heavy Artillery Regiment to treat the soldier. When I came to inquire, I foundthat the army surgeon in charge was Dr. Satoshi Tanami from Togane City, Chiba Prefecture, and hegladly agreed to see the sick soldier. On the top of his desk was a copy of the Manyoshu published by
Iwanami Bunko, so we started to chat, and I subsequently visited Dr. Tanami from time to time andtalked about various matters. This infirmary faced Futami Bay, and the scenery and moonlight werebeautiful beyond words. Mt. Asahi, Mt. Yoake, and Mt. Kuwanoki were visible across the bay, and Dr.
Tanami was pleased with the especially beautiful Mt. Kuwanoki, which he named “the Fuji of Futami.”
Dr. Tanami was a friend of Miekichi Suzuki, and his invitation to Suzuki to visit Kujukurihama Beachnear his home was written about in the final issue of Akai tori. I also became close to Suzuki in his old
age and our conversations were lively. Dr. Tanami said there were many translations of Paul Verlaine’s“Chanson d’Automne” including translations by Homei Iwano, Kafu Nagai, Daigaku Horiguchi, Bin
Ueda, Ryuko Kawaji, and Mitsuhar u
Kaneko, but he thought the translation
Anijima Islandby Suzuki was the best.
The 1st Platoon and the 2nd Platoon
were soon relocated to the remains ofa farm owned by a firm called Toshin
Koshi, in Futago, in the middle of theisland. There was no electricity here,
only kerosene lamps, so we went to
bed early. Futago is located around 10
minutes from Ogiura in the highlands
with a view of Mt. Futago with banana
fields and Alexandrian laurel, which
was called “tamana,” and it was spaciousand pleasant. Between the cliffs on theeastern coast there was one sand beachcalled Hatsune, and it was not defended
against landing by hostile forces. So I
dispatched one squad from my platoon
led by Lance Corporal Miwa to guard it,
and we built a road from Futago to thebeach. There was a place with a beautiful
vista from on top of the pass, and the8

Miyanohama
Beach
Sotogoshi

OkumuraMt. Asahi

Mt. Mikazuki

Omura
Futami Port

Mt. Yoake

Eboshiiwa Rocks
Navy Airfield

Mt. Chuo

HatsuneMt. Kuwanoki

OgiuraHasukidani
ValleyFutagoKominato

TatsumiBay
Tatsumizaki
Minamizaki

Map ofChichijima Island
Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”, Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.
Wuhan military logistics basewhite-eye and nightingale were singing. We named this Abiru Pass, after the name of the company
commander.
I made an effort to talk with my subordinates during short breaks from the road construction workand on other occasions. The men included replacement recruits who had received no training. One
soldier who formerly worked as a carpenter said he had sent his wife and three children back to thehome of his wife’s parents. Another soldier who had operated a dairy farm said that the women could
not take care of the cows by themselves, so he had sold off all his milk cows. Because I had been agovernment official, I received a salary even when I was called up for service, so I was not worried
about my family for the time being. However, those men who had their own businesses or were selfemployed were unable to make a living because they had been called into service, and may havebeen forced to turn their wives and children out into the streets. I felt that the draft system, which
completely ignored the livelihood of individuals and the happiness of their families, seemed just too
cruel. I wanted to do my best to cooperate and create a better environment to complete our assigned
duties through solidarity with my subordinates, based on the standpoint that we were all victims.
The bright red Chinese hibiscus and purple bougainvillea flowers were in bloom. At Hatsune, I taught
the men that the names of the shells we collected on the beach were “limpet” and “cowrie,” and atnight we talked about the stars and the natural beauty of the island, which had completely different
scenery from mainland Japan. My hometown friend Shoto Namekata, who likes ferns, asked me tosend him pressed ferns from Chichijima Island. I collected ferns from around the barn and when I
went walking in the mountains for scouting, and mailed them to him. He later asked me to send him
living samples, so I sent him marattiaceae fern, bird’s nest fern, and bat’s wing fern. I also sent him
the rare fern schizaeaceae, which I collected when I climbed Mt. Chuo, and he was delighted.
On December 7, there was a phone call from the For tress Headquar ters to the Company
Headquarters, with instructions to send one officer to receive orders. I went and I learned that war
had broken out between Japan and the United States. Up until that time, I would go to the Navy Signal
unit, listen to news on the radio at 12:30, and convey the progress of the negotiations between Japanand the United States to the men. Our orders were to shoot down all enemy aircraft that approached
the vicinity of Chichijima Island, and the platoon received live ammunition for the first time. I
gathered my men to tell them of these orders, with illumination provided by a candle. On December
8, when I went to the Navy’s signal unit to listen to the 12 o’clock radio news, the imperial rescripton the proclamation of war was being read. There was a statement by Prime Minister Tojo and anannouncement of the results of the aerial bombing of Hawaii. In the afternoon, the platoon held
combat drills to practice deployment, attack, and other maneuvers.
One platoon from a different company was stationed at Minamizaki, so I paid it a visit while bringing
the soldiers of the 2nd Platoon on a tactical march. Nakayama Pass was beautiful, with white leadtree
spread over the bare rock just like the Siberian dwarf pine at Yarinokama Ridge in the Japan Alps. In
front of the barracks at Minamizaki, there was a grove of ironwood trees which resembled the barelarch trees seen when viewing Mt. Yakedake in the Kamikochi highlands.
On December 15, we completed building the barracks at the entrance to Hasukidani Valley, and theentire company was assembled. These barracks had electric lights. The sole university graduate in
the 2nd Platoon, Private First Class Kozo Hoda, who had graduated from Kokugakuin University, lentme a copy of Umi yama no aida (Between the sea and the mountains) by Shinobu Orikuchi. Soon
after that, Hoda was hospitalized at the Chichijima Army Hospital on suspicion of pleurisy, and while
there he came to know Private First Class Tadashi Ishigure from another company, who wrote for the9

Wuhan military logistics basetanka magazine Kokoro no hana (Flower of the heart). We had more soldiers than required, so both ofthem were sent back to the mainland. Hoda carved a seal for me from the umbrellata variety of Indian
hawthorn. He told me that he carved seals as a hobby.
Dr. Tanami, who also served at the Chichijima Army Hospital, said he was not concerned about Hoda,
but Ishigure required care because his condition was serious. So, I sent that news to his home, andreceived a reply from his wife. The two men were soon released from duty. Ishigure, his wife, andtheir two children, who lived in Fukagawa, perished in the conflagration from a major air raid on
Tokyo in March 1945. In mourning Ishigure, his teacher Nobutsuna Sasaki wrote the following poem.
Taking the hands of my wife and children
to save them from moving into the raging fires.
What a pity.
Entrance into the Hasukidani Valley was prohibited, for conservation purposes, by the Chichijima
Forest Service. There was a monument commemorating a visit by the Emperor. This was a virginforest overgrown with tropical marattiaceae, cyatheaspinulosa, and cyathea mertensiana ferns. There
were also clusters of large bird’s-nest ferns. But engineers were going to build a dam, so the area had
to be flooded.
One evening, when I was the officer of the day, I was in my office until late at night reading a book.
The company commander came back drunk, saw my copy of the Manyoshu on top of my desk, andcursed at me, saying rather than such a book, I should be reading the Tenpanrei military text. I had
heard he had been regularly telling Warrant Officer Ito that he didn’t like the way I carried out myduties.
The night before Empire Day14 in 1942, the company commander suddenly told me to travel to
Hahajima Island alone by the morning ship the next day. He told me I was being transferred to the
Shibuya Unit on Hahajima Island. I was surprised, so I called my predecessor Sergeant Takahashi,
who explained that this was only on paper, and that the formal order would not be issued for sometime. He told me that two officers had been transferred from the Shibuya Unit to the Fortress
Headquarters, so there was an order to replace one of the vacancies from the Mori Unit. The Mori
Unit had been allocating transferees to the 1st Company, which was a reserve force, and the company
commander appointed me from among the officers because I was the least qualified. The soldiersof my platoon heard this and were reluctant to see me go. From that time, I lost interest in military
exercises and operations, so we passed our time gathering in a grassy meadow with a good view andchatting. We were carrying out reconnaissance, which I felt was like going on a hike. I gathered withthe soldiers of the platoon in the shade of the forest. We cooked rice with our mess kits and had agood time.
The formal order came on March 10. When I went to report my departure to unit commander Mori,he said, “It is difficult to hand you over to another unit. I will have you come back if there is an
opportunity.” At the platoon morning meal to send me off, there was a large lobster on my plate only.
My predecessor, Sergeant Takahashi made a heartfelt farewell speech, and when I heard his words
tears came to my eyes. I just said, “Take good care of yourself and do your duty,” and left. All themembers of the platoon had contributed to buy me coral cufflinks, which they gave me as a parting
gift.

14

10

Now called National Foundation Day, celebrated on February 11.
Wuhan military logistics base

Commanding the 3rd Company of the Shibuya Unit, which was at Miyanohama, was First LieutenantSenhiko Tanaka. I was appointed the commander of the 2nd Platoon and placed in the same roomwith Second Lieutenant Masayoshi Kobashiri and Second Lieutenant Hideo Okiyama. They were
responsible for the entire area from Mikazuki to Sotogoshi. I went out with Sergeant Hata, who
had been posted earlier to the unit, and looked over the area that was now my responsibility. There
were the remains of a farm owned by a company called Yokohama Ueki, with trumpet lilies, freesia,
amaryllis and other flowers blooming in the weeds.
The Mori Unit had many soldiers from Tokyo, while the Shibuya Unit had many soldiers from the
Izu Islands. Some of the companies had soldiers who were brothers. Many of them were fishermen.
When they lined up and saluted me when we were headed out to work, I saw a soldier in the rear who
was carrying a harpoon and a can of kerosene. When I asked him why, he explained these were tocatch and cook fish for a side dish for lunch.
Sergeant Hata told me that Private First Class Hayashi in the platoon was the son of an engineeringand building contractor in Yokohama, that he had punched a guard on a ship and been placed in thestockade, and was a delinquent who was out of control. I suggested he be assigned as my orderly,15
but the sergeant said that was out of the question, and that he had already assigned another soldier
to that position. I was casually keeping my eyes on Hayashi, and one day I dropped by the barracks.
He was in a corner of the room alone reading a movie magazine. I told him to show me the magazine
and picked it up, and he asked me, “Unit commander,16 have you seen this movie?” We started talking
about movies, chatted for a while, and I left. Some of the soldiers from the Izu Islands had nevereven seen a train, so Hayashi did not have much in common with the other soldiers. When we wereconducting drills, I ordered him to serve as the platoon commander’s messenger and kept him close
to me, and he worked really hard. I thought I had to keep such soldiers close to me.
From September, there were rumors that the Mori Unit would be relocated, and that soldiers were
to be transferred from the Shibuya Unit to the Mori Unit to replace soldiers who were in the hospital.
Hayashi was among those selected beforehand by the company commander and warrant officer.
This was an old trick to expel undesirables. Since they were concerned about what Hayashi mightdo, the plan was to issue orders in the morning, send the entire company out to their duties, andhave Hayashi leave in a vehicle when he returned. That was to prevent him from contacting theother soldiers. I summoned Hayashi and told him that the Mori Unit was my former unit and wascomprised of men from Tokyo, so he should feel more comfortable there. I told him not to beara grudge against the company commander, and to leave quietly. Hayashi said he understood andsmiled. When the soldiers returned from their work, they were lined up and those being transferred
were notified. After the company commander gave the prescribed instructions, a representative of thesoldiers being transferred gave some parting words, but his speech was rather cold and formal. After
this ended, Hayashi suddenly came forward, grabbed my hand, and said in a trembling voice, “Platoon
commander, I will do my best.” The mood suddenly turned friendly, the men gathered, exchanged
words, and then those being transferred got into the vehicles and left.
The Mori Unit was relocated to Paramushir in the northern Kuril Islands. When I paid my respects
to Unit Commander Mori before they left, he said he had decided not to bring me back to his unit
because it would not be good for me. I later heard that the Mori Unit had remained at Paramushir
until the end of the war, and that all of its members were taken to Siberia and imprisoned. I do not
15
16

11

Orderlies were soldiers assigned to help officers.
Japanese army officers were often addressed by their job responsibilities instead of their rank.
Wuhan military logistics baseknow what became of Hayashi thereafter.
On one occasion, the company commander instructed each platoon leader to plan night exercises. I
gave my men the task of determining the direction by the stars and gave a class in the barracks. We
went outside and I taught them how to find the North Star from the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia, andtold them about the Milky Way, the Northern Cross of Cygnus, and the Great Square of Pegasus. The
men were pleased and said that my nighttime exercise was easy.
In the platoon, there was an old soldier who had enlisted in 1924, Lance Corporal Taketoshi
Mochimaru. Mochimaru had sur veyed and cut a new road in the virgin forest, so it was named
the Mochimaru New Road. For the convenience of operations, we gave names to places within theposition we were responsible for: One Rock, Flat Rock, One Pine, Five Pines, Dog Rock, etc. On
nights with good moonlight, I had Mochimaru sing the “Hachijo shome bushi” (Hachijo love song)and had all the men learn this song.
I wish I were a bonito fish. I want to be caught by you in Wantone and held by you. (Wantonerefers to the strait running between Chichijima Island and Anijima Island.)Mochimaru told me about single-hook fishing of bonito, and said he wanted to take me fishing.
Second Lieutenant Kobashiri was from Ogiura on Chichijima Island, and had run a grocery store.
He had a wife and children, and he would return home to spend the night on Saturdays. The soldiers
drafted from Chichijima Island had to report for duty at 6:00 p.m. even when they went out on
Sundays to visit their families. When I was the officer of the week, I would allow these soldiers toreturn late by 10:00 p.m.
There were three comfort facilities in the valley just before Ogiura, and around 20 comfort women
had arrived, so I went to take a look. The comfort women were loitering in front of the small shacks. I
felt somehow uncomfortable and had no desire to go again. An old warrant officer told me that there
was an officer at the division administration department in charge of dividing the women who camefrom the mainland into those for the officers and those for the non-commissioned officers. It was also
said that when there is no comfort facility, the soldiers who were vigorous become violent and fight
all the time, and the soldiers who were quiet suffer nervous breakdowns, and weep. I did not know if
this was true, but at any rate the comfort facility had been built, giving the soldiers one more place topass the time when they went out, and have fun. A soldier from Chichijima Island who was a farmer
was growing tomatoes, squash and other vegetables and wanted to give some to me. I received thevegetables, put them into packages, and sent them to my home, to relatives who were ill, and to myformer teacher at Senshu University, Professor Tanabe. I received the following reply from Tanabe.
I apologize for not replying to you before, even though you have written many times.
Congratulations on maintaining your health and working diligently at your military duties.
Thank you very much for sending the rare tomatoes, squash and other vegetables. However,as you know, there is nothing much I can send you from Tokyo.
With the highly admirable results of the early stages of the Greater East Asian War, if
Germany secures tens of millions of tons of oil by around this autumn, and if Japan is notwasteful as it has been in the economic administration of Manchuria and North China, Japan
will certainly achieve victory. But if there are setbacks in these two areas, the U.K. and the
U.S. may make a comeback. It must not be easy for the U.K. and the U.S. either, because
they are carrying out operations with unexpectedly weak soldiers. National land planning is
diligently underway, but it is not that welcome at present. That is because clumsy carpenters
12

Wuhan military logistics baseare arrogant and are putting up poor quality buildings. No well-made buildings are being
constructed. Please take good care of yourself.
Tanabe was my teacher when I was enrolled at Senshu University around 1924, and subsequently
taught principles of economics classes as a professor at the University of Tokyo. He retired in the
Hiraga Purge in January 1939, entered the Cabinet Planning Board, and was placed in charge ofnational land planning. In January 1943, he published his paper “Premises for Boosting Production
Capacity” as the opening article in the magazine Chuokoron, and because the article declared that
“if Japan continues with sloppy planning and implementation, it will certainly lose the war,” he waspushed out of the Planning Board as a defeatist. In 1944, he met with Fumimaro Konoe and Seigo
Nakano and planned the overthrow of the Tojo Cabinet. He was arrested by the military police on
suspicion of leaking military secrets. After the war, he had political aspirations, and ran in generalelections four times as a Japan Progressive Party candidate the first time, a Democratic Liberal Party
candidate the second time, a Kaishinto candidate the third time, and as an independent the fourthtime, but he lost each time because he did not spend money and would not bow to others. In April
1957, he became the first president of Takasaki City University of Economics and worked to “train
ambitious youth for the world,” but he retired due to ill health and passed away in March 1967, when
he was 76 years old. When he was running for office, a newspaper asked him, “What is your motto?”
and he replied, “To unite with heaven but not with the people, to coincide with the path, but notwith the times,” and I secretly thought that he would not win with that motto. Tanabe adhered to his
beliefs, without yielding to authority, and did not necessarily dread misfortune. He was a true patriot
who risked his life at a time of national crisis.
I donated the copy of his 682-page (200 characters per page) position paper “New Wartime Economic
System Centered on Expansion of Production Capacity” which he reportedly wrote at the request of
Seigo Nakano—which I received after the war and kept with great care—to the Modern Japanese
Political History Materials Room at the National Diet Library as a Showa Era history document. At
the end of this paper, Tanabe wrote:
Our predicament was useless and futile. They deliberately would not listen to our plain talk.
We did our best to do what we had to do, and we are ashamed of not having had enoughinfluence.
I got off subject. In Ogasawara, in August 1942, after the Mori Unit was relocated, there was arumor that the Tanaka Company was to be disbanded and that a machine gun unit would be formed.
Grenade launchers17 were distributed. The number of new young cadets was increased, and thetroops were scattered here and there. Second Lieutenant Kobashiri remained at Miyanohama, but
Second Lieutenant Okiyama was sent to Hahajima Island, and I was provisionally assigned to the
Yamana Unit at Kominato. At the coast in that area, there were many crinum flowers in bloom. There
were tiny flowers blooming on the century plants, and the brown-eared bulbul birds were singing.
On October 13, I was ordered to transfer to the 51st Militar y Logistics Guard Unit in Hankou,
in central China. Second Lieutenants Kobashiri and Okiyama were to be transferred to the 17th
Independent Mixed Brigade at Yuezhou. Company Commander Abiru had told me that I may besuited for a rear echelon unit such as a military logistics base, and perhaps he wrote in my officer
evaluation record that I was suited for military logistics work. That may be why I was transferred to
the Military Logistics Guard Unit while the other platoon leaders were sent to the Independent Mixed
17

13

These weapons were sometimes called “knee mortars” by the Allies.
Wuhan military logistics base

Brigade.
On October 24, I was invited to dinner by Major General Naoki Kimura, who had replaced Colonel
Kawakami at the Chichijima Fortress Headquarters, and he told me about what had happened in
the invasion of Mariveles. That was nothing like our easy duty of defending the fortress. Holding
our position at Chichijima Island was merely child’s play. Kimura said everything here had to becompletely redone.
Kimura was the detachment commander who played a prominent role in the landing, amid enemy
troops, on Legazpi in the capture of the Philippines. He was the commander of the 16th Infantry
Group, which struggled in the fierce fighting in the Battle of Mariveles on the Bataan Peninsula.
Taking responsibility for the poor performance in the battle, he entered the reser ves, but was
immediately called back to active duty and was appointed commander of the Chichijima Fortress
Headquarters. I do not know why he invited me, an officer being transferred to another unit, todinner.
Before I left the island, I found some free time and visited the Chichijima Forestr y Experiment
Station. There, I was given a leaf from a potted Hymenasplenium cardiophyllum fern, which only grows
on Hahajima Island in the Ogasawara Islands, for a friend from my home town, Shoto Namekata, who
had requested the leaf.
On the 26th, my former subordinates, Corporal Noboru Yamamoto and Lance Corporal Mochimaru,
visited me. Mochimaru cried, saying it was hard to see me go. All I could say was that we would meetagain.
Although I am insignificant and deficient,when I think about the soldiers who look up to me,
I can only cry.
On October 27, I set out from Futami Port on Chichijima Island, and I was told by the crew thatenemy submarines had appeared, and that areas other than Tokyo Bay and the Seto Inland Sea were
all dangerous. I arrived safely at Shibaura Pier on the 30th and reported to the Eastern District Army
Headquarters. In the evening, I returned home with my children, who came to meet me at Koenji
Station, and who were pulling me by the hand. It was an unexpected joy to meet my wife and children,
even though I was about to set off for the Chinese mainland.
I never thought an evening would comeWith children on both sides, pulling my hands.
Walking in town with children with few words,
I am really home.
I spent one week in Tokyo. Then on November 7, I said goodbye to my wife and children on theplatform at Tokyo Station late at night. I was scheduled to travel by ship from Nagasaki to Shanghai.
Stroking the hairof a sleeping child on my wife’s back.
We came to part at the station late at night.
At Nagasaki, I stayed at the Tosaya Inn, where it is said Ryoma Sakamoto18 had stayed. I was to board
the ship on the 9th, but the weather conditions were bad, and my departure was delayed by one day.
18

14

Sakamoto was a samurai who worked to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate.
Wuhan military logistics baseDrifting in the East China Sea
On November 10, I boarded the passenger ship Kobe Maru at Nagasaki Port, headed for Shanghai.
The Kobe Maru was a 7,700-ton passenger ship belonging to Toa Kaiun19 that had been launched inJuly 1940. With a maximum speed of 22 knots, it was a state-of-the-art vessel that had been put into
service just over a year ago.
I traveled together in the same second class cabin with Second Lieutenants Kobashiri and Okiyama,
who were being transferred to the 17th Independent Mixed Brigade (“Summit Brigade”), which was
headquartered at Yuezhou. After leaving port, we were gathered at our assigned locations on theship for inspection of the life jackets, which we put on, and other drills. I remember finally feelingthe tension of going into a war zone, and just a little more than 10 hours later, this ship received its
baptism of fire and sank. At dawn on November 11, the hull of the Kobe Maru suddenly received an
intense shock. The moment I woke from my dreams and jumped out of bed wondering what had
happened, the lights on the ship went out, and we were plunged into darkness.
It was subsequently reported that the sinking of the Kobe Maru was caused by a collision with thefreighter Tenzan Maru, which was accompanying us and also suffered the same fate, but in fact it wascertainly because we were hit by a torpedo.
Following the captain’s instructions, we assembled on the upper deck leaving our swords, boots,
and map cases in the cabins. I felt cold so I put on my gloves. Because the order to evacuation byrope ladders gave priority to women, children, and other regular passengers, we soldiers went to
the rear and waited for our turn. However, because it was still very dark before the break of day, theevacuation did not proceed swiftly. At that time, I felt the deck tilting under my feet. It was already the
moment of truth. We gave up on evacuating using the ship’s rope ladders, and slid down a rope into
Boat No. 8.
But the rope connecting this boat with the Kobe Maru could not be unfastened. One officer who had
his sword took it out of its scabbard and tried frantically to cut the rope, but he couldn’t. If we were
pulled down by the vortex of the sinking ship, it would have been all over. Kobashiri and Okiyama
sensed the danger and jumped into the dark sea, but I could not follow them because I am not a good
swimmer. I had no choice but to cast my fate together with the boat, and just held on tightly to the oar.
The ship sank 17 minutes after the initial shock. Boat No. 2 moved away from the ship first, half filledwith passengers, and was safe. Boat No. 4 capsized from the waves caused by the ship. The rope
connecting Boat No. 6 to the Kobe Maru could not be unfastened, and it vanished into the sea pulled
down by the ship. Blessed by some heavenly destiny, the rope connecting the ship to Boat No. 8,
which we were on, came loose by luck and our boat was able to get away from the Kobe Maru. Duringthat time, I held on for my life. When I realized what was happening, I had let go of the oar and wasclinging to the edge of the boat and being drenched by the splashing water. I later heard that all the
odd-numbered boats on the other side of the ship were safe.
Before I knew it, one of the crew members on the boat shouted, “I will take charge of this boat.”
When I counted the number of people who were still on the boat, there were 34 or 35 people including
women and children. We were told that the boat was carrying water, cigarettes, and food, and each ofus were given one cup of water. Those who smoked got one cigarette.
1915

Also known as the East Asian Shipping Company.
Wuhan military logistics baseWhen our boat rose on the swell of a wave, I could see people in the sea all around us.
A short distance away, I saw one ship with smoke rising from its stern. As I was watching stunned, theship suddenly tilted with the stern up in the air and sank from the bow. This was the freighter Tenzan
Maru, which the later announcement said had collided with the Kobe Maru.
Someone cried, “Save those who are swimming,” and we worked together to save them. It took all
our strength to lift up even one person with the weight of the wet clothing. A girl around three years
old was floating in the sea wearing an adult life jacket. That child was saved by a soldier. She kept
her eyes wide open while being held without crying. Maybe she was too frightened, or perhaps theinnocent little girl did not understand what was happening.
Next to me there was a young woman, 16 or 17 years old. soaked in water. She asked me to cut her
long sleeves, but I had no blade. I tried to pull off the sleeves by force, but the wet kimono would
not rip. I tried in vain two or three times. I thought I was calm, but I must have been panicked. The
sleeves would have interfered with swimming, but there was no need to cut them off now that she wason board. The young woman clung fast to me, closing her eyes from her excessive fear. I was told, “Shewill die if she falls asleep, so wake her up.” I said to her, “Don’t sleep, you cannot sleep!” She replied,with her eyes still closed, “I understand.” I pinched her thighs with all my strength, and she finally
opened her yes. Her wet body was cold like ice, no, like a dead person.
There were also several people on top of Boat No. 4, which had capsized and was drifting. Perhaps
because they could not bear the cold of the dawn, they tore open their life jackets, pulled out thefeathers, and attached them to their bodies. They looked just like white birds perching on a rock.
I later heard from someone who was saved that he and some others had been trapped underneath
this capsized Boat No. 4, and had knocked on the bottom of the boat seeking rescue. Eventually ahole was opened in the boat’s bottom and they were saved. He said that when the cold sea air blew inthrough that hole, he never knew that air could be so sweet.
About two hours after the ship sank, an airplane flew over and began circling above us at a low
altitude. The people on the boat shouted “banzai” and cheered. A while after the airplane passed, adestroyer came, picked up the people who were floating on the water, and left. Those of us on the boat
were left behind. After drifting for around five hours, we were finally rescued by the Tatsuta Maru,
which came to save us.
I climbed the ship ladder by myself, but the girl who had been clinging to me was carried to therescue ship on the back of a crew member. We were given rice gruel and sipped it. Those who were
soaked in water were each given one blanket.
The Tatsuta Maru picked up more than 20 of the dead. I was concerned about Second Lieutenants
Kobashiri and Okiyama who had jumped into the ocean, and I looked around the morgue, but did
not find their bodies. After I landed in Shanghai, I reported the details of the incident to the military
logistics base, and checked into the Yamato Hotel, which was operated by Japanese. I learned thatboth of the second lieutenants had been saved by a freighter called the Unzen Maru, and had arrived
in Shanghai before me. When we met, they told me they had drifted for several hours, that the lower
half of their bodies had gone frigid and numb, and that they repeatedly became drowsy, but they
imagined the faces of their wives and children back in Japan and desperately fought off the sleepiness.
The Unzen Maru had picked up 49 of the dead, and the Tatsuta Maru had saved more than 100 of thevictims. Okiyama’s hands were both covered in bandages. The skin of his fingers was torn off when

16

Wuhan military logistics basehe slid down the rope holding it with his bare hands. We officers were later lodged at the Aster House
Hotel near the Garden Bridge on Huangpu Road No. 17.
I think all the people on Boat No. 8 were rescued, but I do not know who they were or what became ofthem. I also do not know what happened to the innocent little girl with her eyes wide open, or to theyoung woman who clung onto me. The strange thing is that I cannot remember her face at all.
The army gave officers 300 yen as a disaster allowance, and Toa Kaiun gave us 100 yen as a solatium.
I spent 40 yen to buy pajamas and other 100 percent cotton goods which could not be obtained inJapan and some hard candy, and sent these to my children in a small package. There was a drop box
inside the Aster House Hotel from which they would bring the items to Nagasaki and mail them. For
that purpose, they sold Japanese postcards and stamps at the hotel store.
Later, when I was hospitalized at the Hankou 1st Army Hospital because of a war wound, one day,
Lance Corporal Kanda from the headquarters delivered mail to me that had arrived from Japan. This
was the first letter I had received from my wife since I had boarded the Kobe Maru which sank, driftedin Boat No. 8, was rescued by the Tatsuta Maru, and landed in Shanghai. My wife gave a detailed
description of everything that had happened at home since the evening when news of the sinking of
the Kobe Maru was broadcast on the radio. Tears flowed from my eyes as I read my wife’s familiar
handwriting on the white letter paper while lying on my back.
When my eldest son Yasuyoshi, who was now 12 years old, was listening to the radio in the evening,he heard the news about the Kobe Maru disaster. He was shocked and called out to my wife who wasa taking a bath, “Mother, the ship going to Shanghai has sunk.” She was astonished, came over tohear the radio, but the news program was already over. She waited impatiently for the 9 o’clock news
and then heard a simple announcement that the Kobe Maru, which left Nagasaki for Shanghai, hadsunk in the East China Sea.
She wondered if I had been on board. The ship had sailed one day late, but she reasoned there
could not be a vessel leaving every day and thought I must have been on board. She could not sleep
at all that night. She could hardly wait for the morning paper, but when it came there was no more
information than the radio announcement, and there were no details.
She was at a loss, called my parents’ home in Narita, and told my older brother about the sinking of
the vessel on the way to Shanghai. He was shocked and said he would come to Tokyo right away. My
older brother from the countryside had dark thoughts while on the train, thinking about how bad thesituation had become.
When our landlord who lived next door heard about this, he said he would contact an acquaintance
who worked at the head office of Toa Kaiun, and kindly visited the company to make inquiries. He
was told there was only one ship headed for Shanghai, so I must have been on board, and that theofficers were first-class passengers on the upper deck, so I probably had been rescued.
My wife wondered if I really had been saved. Looking at our second oldest daughter Yuriko, who wasthree years old and who was absorbed in play, and thinking about our three other children who werein elementary school, she was numb.
My wife felt that the postcard I had sent from Nagasaki Pier in which I, who had never said a kindword to her, rather formally asked her to look after the children, was a premonition of this disaster.
She took out the postcard and read it once again, and cried at my curiously kind but distant words.

17

Wuhan military logistics base

On November 10, the morning we had left Nagasaki, I was asked by Second Lieutenant Okiyama,
who was traveling with me, to place a postcard in the mailbox. I read it while walking down the street,saw it was addressed to his wife, and thought, “Oh, this is how you write to your wife,” so I bought a
postcard at the post office at the pier and copied his words.
“You must be working hard in Tokyo and ver y tired. Be sure to get enough rest. I am leaving
Nagasaki at 10 o’clock this morning and traveling directly to Shanghai. I am well, so do not worry. It
is getting cold, so take good care of your health and take care of the children.”I realized that the facade of using my friend’s words did not suit me after all, wiped my teary eyes, andsmiled bitterly.
I then continued reading her letter. There was no one with me in the hospital room. The faintafternoon sunlight came at an angle through the glass door on which a paper with a slanted cross waspasted.
The children came home from school one after another and my wife told them, “The ship which
father was on sank, and he may not have been rescued.” It seems our second son Michinari who was
in 1st grade did not really understand, was not so worried, and just became quiet.
Next, she told our eldest daughter Mariko who was in 3rd grade, “The ship which father was on sankand he may not have been rescued.” Mariko stiffened her face, did not say a word, and stared at her
mother’s face silently.
Then my wife told our eldest son Yasuyoshi, who was in 5th grade, “It was the ship that father was onafter all. He may not have been saved.” After a moment, Yasuyoshi replied, “Father must have beensaved. I really think so.’ The letter said because he was the eldest, he bravely said those words to
comfort her.
In the evening my cousin, Sergeant Ogawa, who had just returned from the front in Malaysia, wasconcerned and paid them a visit. My brother and relatives from Narita gathered with my family andtalked about various matters. My cousin spoke about the war and comforted everyone by saying,“Human beings do not die so easily. He must have been saved.” But they could not believe him.
Everyone was anxious and gloomy.
Then a man arrived at the front door and called out, “Telegram.” Ever yone was surprised andgathered at the entry hall. My cousin opened the telegram. It was from Shanghai.
He told them “Oh, he is OK! The telegram says “Safe. Arrived. Yamada.”
My wife suddenly lost all her strength. She realized she had not eaten anything since the morning.
She ate a mandarin orange my mother had sent her from a trip, everyone smiled, and the conversation
turned lively for a while.
While on the way to Shanghai, at 5:40 a.m. on the 11th, the Kobe Maru of Toa Kaiun collided
with the Tenzan Maru of Nippon Yusen 90 nautical miles east of the mouth of the Yangtze
River, and despite assistance from Imperial Navy aircraft, patrol boats, and vessels navigating
nearby, which responded to the SOS and worked to help them, both ships sank. Most of
the passengers on both ships were saved. The bodies of 46 victims were recovered. (Asahi
Shimbun newspaper article dated November 13)
The Nippon Yusen ship Tatsuta Maru, which rescued us, was a 17,000-ton luxury liner launched in

18

Wuhan military logistics base

March 1930, and it was sunk in February 1943 in the seas of east of Mikura-jima Island in the Izu
Islands in a torpedo attack by an American submarine.

Machine Gun Strafing along the Yangtze River
On November 21, 1942, I parted from Second Lieutenants Kobashiri and Okiyama, leaving Shanghai
alone on the way to my new post at Hankou, where the 51st Militar y Logistics Guard Unit was
stationed. The Kohei Maru, which I happened to be on, was attacked by machine gun fire from Curtis
P-40 Warhawks of the U.S. air force in China, and I was shot through my lower left leg. Here is anexcerpt from a letter I wrote at that time. This letter was delivered to my home in Tokyo by registeredofficial airmail thanks to the kindness of a postmaster who was onboard the same ship.
Toa Kaiun’s Kohei Maru, which depar ted from Shanghai on the 21st, was a 3,000-ton
steamship. I was allocated a first-class cabin. We arrived at Nanjing on the 22nd, at Anqing
on the 23rd, and at Jiujiang on the 24th. Hankou was undergoing an air raid, so we did notnavigate at night, and temporarily moored near Echeng between Jiujang and Hankou thatnight. At 4:30 a.m. on the 25th, while it was still dark, we suddenly heard what sounded likefierce bombing. When I got up to put on my uniform, the lights went out, and the sound of
the bombing became more intense. The moment I went downstairs to the lower cabins, theoutside suddenly turned bright red. It seems we were under machine gun fire and I felt aburning sensation in my left calf, as if I had been struck by red-hot tongs. When I touched
my leg, it felt like I was bleeding, and my sock became slimy. I had no bandages, so I tied ittightly with a towel, but the blood seeped through, so I borrowed a puttee from a soldier andwrapped it around my leg. After 20 minutes, the enemy aircraft left, and I was carried back to
my cabin. The other men in the cabin gathered, soaked gauze in mercurochrome and tried
to cut my long underwear so they could bandage the wound. Cadet Ouchi took out his sword
from his waist, but Mr. Mine who was being posted to the Hankou Branch by the Ministry ofRailways laughed, saying he would cut it with his knife. When he cut off my cotton knit longunderwear with his little knife which was about one inch long, there were two wounds eacharound a square inch large swelling up. Mr. Tanaka of the postal service opened a bandage
packet and applied sterilized gauze.
The ship soon got underway and arrived at Hankou at 10:00 am. I was carried to a car ona stretcher and hospitalized at the 1st Army Hospital. I had piercing wounds caused by
13-millimeter machine gun bullets.20
On the 26th, when they took an X-ray, there were no broken bones or other abnormalities,
and I was told I would heal completely in around two months.
Among the passengers on the Kohei Maru, about six Japanese died and 15 were seriously
injured. There must have been a few casualties among the Chinese as well. Fortunately, I am
in no danger of losing my life, and there is no reason to worry at all. The wound hurts lessthan I expected, and I sleep well at night. Lieutenant Colonel Itabashi, the commander of the
51st Military Logistics Guard Unit, where I am being transferred to, kindly paid me a visit.
It seems I will be traveling with the 1st Company, which is being detached to Shayangzhen
on the front around 50 li (195 kilometers) from Hankou. That is on the frontlines, so there
is some danger, but after receiving my baptism by enemy fire, I am less concerned than I
20

19

Presumably .50 caliber bullets.
Wuhan military logistics basethought I would be, and rather calm because it is the luck of the draw at work. I am sorry I
must inform you that I was wounded, but I am letting you know because I thought there is no
reason to hide it. I am not supposed to write about air raids, shipwrecks, or hospitalization,
but a postmaster who happened to be on the same ship says he will kindly mail this for me
as an official letter. Please look after your health in the cold weather. Our children are kindand good children, so there is no need to scold or discipline them. Don’t worry about saving
money, and please live carefree. I have not sent letters to my people in Narita or anywhere
else, so please give them my regards when you meet them. Goodbye. November 28. At
Hankou 1st Army Hospital.
The Kohei Maru had arrived at the pier in Hankou at 10:00 a.m. on November 25, 1942, but we could
not disembark immediately. The time I spent waiting with the pain in my wounded left leg felt very
long.
Cadet Ouchi finally came in saying “Second Lieutenant. Your car has arrived.” A soldier I did notknow was standing behind him. That soldier carried me on his back down the ship gangway. WhenI looked up, there were two seriously wounded soldiers lying wrapped in blankets right there. There
were soldiers next to them who must have been comrades taking care of them.
I was carried away on a stretcher into the Bund, where a hospital car with a red cross mark arrived. I
was placed into the car which drove quietly through the Bund. I saw a line of Western-style buildingsin the shade of some large willow trees. It took 20 minutes to reach the hospital. It seems we had
finally pulled off the paved road, and the car suddenly started to shake. I involuntarily screamed“Ouch!” and the combat medic who was in the car lifted up and held my left ankle.
I heard the sound of a bell when the car passed through the gate of the Hankou 1st Army Hospitaland pulled up along the entrance. The nurses rushed out, and I was carried on the stretcher into
Room No. 2 in the officers’ surger y ward, which was a one-stor y wooden building. The hospitalroom was a private room with an area of around six tatami mats, and the inside of the room had beencleaned well. The nurses worked energetically under the direction of the head nurse. They replaced
my clothes with a white hospital gown, and I was finally able to lie down on a bed.
It took some time until Army Surgeon Major Yonosuke Uematsu, who was the head of the ward,
arrived for my medical treatment. He had been busy caring for the seriously wounded patients.
While I say medical treatment, he just disinfected the affected parts and stuffed rivanol21 gauze into
my two open wounds. He put several sheets of the yellow thin gauze into my wounds, using tweezers.
They soon turned bright red with blood. He put a thin sheet of oil paper on top of them, bandaged thewounds, and gave me an injection to prevent tetanus.
It was already after 12:00 noon. Lieutenant Colonel Tamisuke Itabashi, the commander of the 51st
Militar y Logistics Guard Unit, where I was being transferred, paid me a visit, along with Army
Surgeon First Lieutenant Eiichi Osaki. He left me with words of reassurance and encouragement,saying that piercing bullet wounds in soft tissue should heal in just one month or so, even in the caseof 13-millimeter machine gun bullets.
In the evening the attending nurse came in and let me know that one of the soldiers who had been
hospitalized with me today (probably one of the soldiers I saw when I was carried off the ship) had
died soon after surgery.
21

20

Rivanol is an antiseptic.
Wuhan military logistics baseAt night, the room was dark because of a blackout that was in effect. There was a metal wire hanging
on the side of a five candle-power light covered in black cloth, which you could pull to call the nurse
station. I could not sleep at all that night because my wounds hurt. When I noticed, the door had
opened, and a nurse was standing by my bedside. She asked, “Are you in pain?” and I answered that
I was moaning because it hurt. I had unintentionally replied in an ill-tempered voice, and I drank thecold milk she brought me.

The Nurses
The next day, Superior Private Kobayashi, who was from the unit I was being assigned to, came to
my room. He was a short, honest-looking man. He presented arms in salute with his knapsack on hisback and said, “I am Superior Private Yasuo Kobayashi. I have been assigned to be your orderly as ofNovember 26, so I am respectfully reporting for duty.” As soon as he reported, he put away his own
gear, borrowed a rag and bucket, and began wiping the floor.
In response to my questioning, he explained that the 51st Military Logistics Guard Unit, to which
I was being posted, was assigned to the 11th Army Field Freight Depot, with the 1st Company(commanded by First Lieutenant Keiji Tanaka) on the frontlines in Shayangzhen 200 kilometersfrom Hankou, the 2nd Company with two of its platoons in Wuchang and one platoon in Shashi, theheadquarters, the 3rd Company, and the 4th Company in Hankou, and the 5th Company in Jiujiang.
After my bullet wounds healed, I was to go to the 1st Company in Shayangzhen together with
Kobayashi.
The nurses assigned to the officers’ surgery ward were all young and energetic. It was a mixed group,with some who had been drafted by the Gifu22 Team of the Japanese Red Cross Society, and others
who were army nurses.
A nursed named Sueno Kakitsubo was a young woman with a round face who was a bit playful. She
said, “Second Lieutenant” and placed something into my hand. When I looked it was a caramel served
as flight rations. When I asked her how she got it, she replied that she had received it from Captain
Mori of the Hayabusa Unit in Room 4. I put it in my mouth and the sweet taste of caramel spread over
my tongue for the first time in a long time.
There was a nurse wearing the name tag Michie Yuzuriha on her chest. She was quiet and had afreckled, sad face. Her last name was unusual and difficult to read. I asked her how to read her name,and she replied, “It is read Yuzuriha.” This young woman saw the pocket edition of the Manyoshu at
my bedside, and said “Second Lieutenant, do you enjoy poetry? I will lend you my copy of Shakko (Redlights) by Mokichi Saito,” and she brought me a first edition of the book.
I asked her where she got it, and she said she had brought it from her father’s bookshelf. I imagined
what this young woman’s upbringing was like. I told her, “Shakko is a rare book, so you should takegood care of it.” She replied, “Is that a fact? Then I will try not to lend it out too much to other people.”
A nurse named Kasumi Higashiyama was a beautiful young woman with a lovely voice. From time
to time, the nurses would take turns singing popular songs like “Shina no yoru” (China nights) and“Dare ka kokyo wo omowazaru” (There is no one who doesn’t think of home) on the in-hospitalbroadcasting system. They often sang “Kohan no yado” (The lodge on the lake) by Mieko Takamine:
I came alone with a sad heart to the lonely lake in the mountains.
22

21

Presumably a reference to Gifu prefecture.
Wuhan military logistics base

One day, Nurse Higashiyama asked me “Second Lieutenant, have you learned the words to “TheLodge on the Lake?” I answered, “No, I do not know the lyrics very well.” “But I wrote them out
for you,” she said. “Superior Private Kobayashi said you wanted me to write them, so I wrote themdown for you on letter paper and gave it to him.” It seems Kobayashi had used my name for his own
purposes.
A nurse brought me a bouquet of wild chrysanthemums, placed them into an empty can, and put themby my bedside. When I looked deeply at the wild chrysanthemums, which I had always overlooked ascommon wildflowers, they seemed indescribably beautiful. I wanted to have the heart to humbly feelclose to the wildflowers, amid the busy war zone, and to feel the peace of mind that goes beyond lifeand death.
In the poetry collection Sankyo (Living in the mountains) by Hoan Kosugi, which Nurse Yuzuriha
brought from the hospital library, I discovered the poem “Overcome by the joy of being alive, it should
surely be under these flowers if I were to cry.” I copied it and pinned it to the wall of the hospital room.
I wrote Kosugi, in care of his publisher Chuo Koronsha, and told him about the poem. After aroundthree months, when I went to the Itabashi Unit, a postcard arrived from Kosugi. He wrote that heprayed for my continued luck in the fortunes of war. In late 1946, when I returned home, I let him
know that I had returned safely, and asked him if he would write two of his poems from Sankyo ona small bamboo paper as a memento for me. Inside an envelope with “Kosugi, Nakayama Village”
written on it, there was a paper with the above poem and one more poem written on it.
Overcome by the joy of being alive,
it should surely be under these flowers if I were to cry.
Hometown in spring
Coming back from battle with temporal life.
The two poems above were requested by Mr. Yamada. January, in the Year of the Boar
By Hoan
The nurses said they felt most comfortable in my room, so they gathered there and chatted. I listened
while lying on my back to the young women talking like small birds chirping. I could see the blue sky
through the open high window. A kite was gliding high in the sky.
Sentr y Sergeant Major Ishikawa23 of the 1st Tank Regiment, who was hospitalized in Room No.
1, came to visit me. The soldiers’ ward was full, so he was hospitalized in an open room in theofficers’ ward. He explained that his war wound was almost completely healed and that he would bedischarged from the hospital soon.
That same day, Mr. Tanaka of the military postal service, who was on board the Kohei Maru with me,
happened to visit bringing a box of sweets. He told Ishikawa about the time we came under machinegun fire. Tanaka is the one who bandaged my leg when I was wounded.
Tanaka explained that after bandaging my wounds, he went back to his room to wash his hands,
which were covered in blood. I was calm even after suffering such wounds, and he thought I was atrue soldier. I had simply told him that my leg was wounded, so he had come with a small bandage
thinking it was nothing serious, but my long underwear was red with blood. When my underwear
was finally cut off, he saw the swollen wounds as large as a square inch and my blood gushing out. He
opened the bandage packet, took out the sterilized gauze, applied it to the wounds, and tied them with23

22

The rank “sentry sergeant” indicates that its holder is a member of an elite Imperial Guards unit.
Wuhan military logistics basea triangular bandage. He was surprised to hear me saying “Oh, these must be piercing bullet wounds,
there are two,” as if I were speaking about someone else.
While listening to him talking, I remembered the frantic moment when I was wounded as if it had
happened long ago.
I was soon allowed to walk in the garden with crutches. On a winter afternoon with warm sunlight,
when I was walking in the hospital rear garden where there were still some cosmos flowers, I heard
someone call “Second Lieutenant Yamada” from far away. When I turned around, I saw the nurses
from the officers’ ward. When I smiled and raised my hand in greeting, one of them came runningtoward me and told me “Second Lieutenant, an entertainment troupe from Miyazaki City is coming
tomorrow night.” It was the playful Nurse Kakitsubo. The entertainment troupe was a group of young
women from Miyazaki City. Their performance was the first time I heard the “Hietsugi bushi” (Millet
pounding song).
This is a tragic song about the Minamoto Clan General Nasu Daihachi and the Taira Clan refugee
Princess Tsurutomi, set in nature deep in the mountains in Shiba Village in the distant Hyuga
countryside.
Nasu Daihachi abandoned Princess Tsurutomi
and left Shiba with tears in his eyes.
This melody in a minor key deeply moved not only me while I was nursing my war wounds, but also
the other officers and men hospitalized at the military logistics base at the front.
I anonymously contributed seven tanka poems entitled “Welcoming the Miyazaki City Entertainment
Troupe” to the monthly newspaper Sozen’ei (Vanguard) published by the 11th Army’s Press Section.
The first poem read as follows.
The dance of the Hyuga maidens,
offspring of the Goddess Amaterasu!
I never tire of watching.
First Lieutenant Katsukuma Kurita, a company commander from the Summit Brigade, whose left
hand was shattered by shrapnel from a mortar shell and who had his arm amputated from the elbow,
was hospitalized in Room No. 3. He often came to visit me in my room with his remaining arm ina sling hanging from his neck, and told me various stories about the front. He was a nonchalant,interesting fellow. The day he was to be sent back home was decided, and he offered to deliver aletter to my family. I gave him a letter telling my family that I had been hospitalized, along with a
13-millimeter machine gun bullet and a fragment of the bullet jacket that a cadet had picked up on
the ship, wrapped in a handkerchief stained with blood which had been used to tie my wounds. I had
barely survived the sinking of the Kobe Maru and the machine-gun attack against the Kohei Maru, but
I did not know if I would be safe from now on. I thought that even if I did not make it home alive, thishandkerchief and bullet would serve as a memento to remember me, who had gone to the front.
Shayangzhen, the frontline base that I was headed to, is a town of mud and Chinese mat rush at
the crossroads of the army logistics route to Yichang and the Han River, which is a tributary of the
Yangtze River. According to Superior Private Kobayashi, everyone was waiting and wondering whatsort of person was coming to fill the vacancy as commander of the 3rd Platoon. I thought I must live
up to the trust of my subordinates as a good commander.

23

Wuhan military logistics baseIn 1943, I spent the New Year’s Day of my 44th year in a hospital bed. The New Year’s mochi24 in thezoni soup was completely burned but undercooked. My orderly went to the Unit Headquarters, cameback with some different white mochi, and cooked it on a hibachi in the room. At that time, I was
already free from my crutches and could walk if I moved my leg slowly. When I walked in the garden
behind the hospital, there was a flock of many magpies with black and white stripes flying about.
New Year’s Day was also a holiday for the doctors who made their rounds. I was inside my room,
reading a book on my bed. In the afternoon, Army Surgeon Major Uematsu came by, carr yinghis medicine box. He was accompanied by a nurse. In Room No. 3, where First Lieutenant Kurita
was hospitalized, there was also a soldier whose left leg had been amputated, and who had been
hospitalized since the end of December. Dr. Uematsu had come specially to care for the soldier. I was
surprised, so I followed him and helped change the bandages. The other nurses were off duty in theafternoon, so I hardly saw them.
On January 12, I was permitted to go outside the hospital for the first time. I took my orderly and went
to the Unit Headquarters. Because the hospital was on the outskirts of Hankou, it was four kilometers
to the Unit Headquarters, which is near Pier 18. We took a rickshaw. After paying my respects toUnit Commander Itabashi, I had lunch with the headquarters officers, to whom I was introduced by
Adjutant Saito.
In the afternoon, I dropped by the Shimeido Bookstore on Jianghan Road and the Japanese club on
Yangtze Street, while guided by Army Surgeon Osaki. I parted from him there and decided to take arickshaw back to the hospital.
It was decided that I would be discharged from the hospital on January 15. The nurses came to myroom one after another and said, “We will miss you when you are gone,” kindly expressing theirsorrow at my departure, but for some reason Nurse Yuzuriha was nowhere to be found. I asked what
had happened to Nurse Yuzuriha, and they explained, “She has become sick due to tuberculosis andis confined to bed” I said, “Please give her my regards, and return this book to her,” and I turned overthe copy of Mokichi’s Shakko.
Later, Nurse Higashiyama told me she had delivered the book to Nurse Yuzuriha. The nurses’ ward
was located behind the nurses’ quarters, and visits from regular patients were prohibited. She said
that Nurse Yuzuriha was lying on her bed alone and seemed lonely.
The only patients being discharged from the officers’ ward on the 15th were Captain Mori of the
Hayabusa Unit in Room No. 4 and me. When I went to his hospital room the previous day to pay myrespects, he treated me to a cup of Hazelwood brand coffee. Mori said, “I will file a report saying that
Captain Mori was with one other person, so you only have to pay attention.”
When I took off my white hospital gown and put on my regular army uniform that day, I felt tense.
We reported to Hospital Director Hotta and Army Surgeon Major Uematsu. At 11:00 a.m., there wasa telephone call from the Unit Headquarters, saying that a motorcycle and side car would come topick us up. While I was waiting in the hospital room, Nurse Higashiyama came in and said, “Second
Lieutenant Yamada, would you go and visit Nurse Yuzuriha?” I replied, “But visits are prohibited.” Shesaid, “You have been discharged so there is no problem. I will show you the way.” So, I followed herlead, walked around the garden, and entered the nurses’ ward. While this was called a ward, it wasconnected to the nurses’ quarters by a hallway. Nurse Yuzuriha was alone in the hospital room sitting
24

24

Rice cakes that are traditional served on New Year’s Day.
Wuhan military logistics baseon her bed. She was wearing purple Meisen silk over her white hospital gown, with her hair parted
in two braids. She appeared to be a lovely young woman from the countryside who did not look at all
like her when she wore her hospital whites. Her pale cheeks blushed as she was staring at me in myarmy uniform, as if she were surprised.
I told her, “I was discharged from the hospital today. Thank you for taking care of me. I hope you get
better soon as well.” She replied in a low voice, “Second Lieutenant, take good care of yourself. Pleasetake the copy of Shakko, if you wish.” I told her, “No, I am going to the frontlines, which is not like
Hankou. If I have a chance to see you again, I will borrow it then. Be well.” Nurse Yuzuriha bowed herhead politely, without saying anything more.
I was sent off by Nurse Higashiyama and Nurse Kakitsubo and some other nurses and got into themotorcycle and sidecar that had arrived to pick me up at the entrance. When the sidecar left the gate,
I looked back and the nurses were still at the hospital entrance waving goodbye.
In March 1943, a while after I was transferred from the Military Logistics Guard Unit in Shayangzhen
to the Military Logistics Headquarters in Hankou, I brought an entertainment troupe to this hospitalin my capacity as the officer in charge of entertainment at the military logistics base. At that time,
I learned that Captain Masamiki Mori, who had been discharged from the hospital together withme, had participated in the aerial bombing of Chongqing as a formation leader soon after he wasdischarged. His plane had come under heavy fire, and he crashed his plane onto the enemy. He wasa healthy young officer just 29 years old. I heard he had left behind his wife and three young children
in Omura City, Nagasaki Prefecture.
When I brought the entertainment troupe, Nurse Yuzuriha had recovered from her illness andwas working energetically. From time to time, when I found the word “yuzuriha” (Daphniphyllum
macropodum shrubs) in poetry anthologies that I was reading, I would copy the poems on a military
postcard and send them to her. She said she was always happily looking forward to receiving these
postcards and kept them carefully.
Leaves of yuzuriha
Fall one by one.
Red tree wet with spring rain.
By Takashi Nagatsuka
The buds of yuzuriha are lovely.
Soft green leaves lift the pink sky.
By Rigen Kinoshita
Yuzuriha among quiet winter trees.
Fragrant thick leaves with endearing scarlet.
By Mokichi Saito

HankouMilitary Logistics Base Badge
Gold line

Dark
navy blue

11th Army’s War Wound Badge
Azure

Rain falls on broad green leaves of yuzuriha
Enough for a thriving green garden.
By Sachio Ito
Surrounding vermillion-colored buds
Yuzuriha has new leaves.
Wet and green.
By Yugure Maeda
25

Blue-green

Red

White dove

Yellow

Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”,
Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.
Wuhan military logistics base

If the morning garden is not swept,
Black fruit jewels lie where they fall
Under the yuzuriha tree.
By Fumoto Oka
I heard that Nurse Yuzuriha was from Saga Prefecture, so I wrote the following nostalgic poem for
her.
There was a maiden
who lent me Shakko.
How tasteful!
Yuzuriha is her name.

Shayangzhen Freight Depot Guard Unit
On January 15, I was discharged from the Hankou 1st Army Hospital, arrived at the Itabashi Unit
Headquarters facing the Bund near Pier 18, and reported to the unit commander. He asked me about
the disasters that had occurred until I arrived at my post in Hankou, that is, the Kobe Maru whichsank in the East China Sea, and the time when I was wounded by enemy aircraft machine gun fire
while navigating up the Yangtze River. The unit commander, Lieutenant Colonel Itabashi, was from
Sendai City, and had been an officer attached to the Akita Mining College before he was called up
for duty. He was a cultured man with wide-ranging interests and had Chinese ceramics on top of
his display cabinet. He showed me a celadon pot and an Akae flower vase. He awarded me the 11th
Army’s War Wound Badge when I was hospitalized.
The following day, I went with my orderly, Superior Private Kobayashi, to look at the military logistics
facilities inside the city. I purchased a few paperbacks including Ogai Mori’s translation of the Hans
Christian Andersen book The Improvisatore at the Shimeido Bookstore on Jianghan Road. Superior
Private Oshima, who handled awards and decorations at unit headquarters, took me to see the French
concession, the Chinese section, and the Little Thieves Market. Oshima said he had graduated from
Keio University, had already spent three years in China, and would be returning to Japan soon. He
had received his draft order while he was engaged, held a quick wedding ceremony, and reported for
duty just three days after he was married. Oshima told me that Huachung University in Wuchang,where the 2nd Company was stationed, had a library with 200,000 books.
On the 19th, I heard that Army Surgeon Osaki was going to the 2nd Company in Wuchang toprovide medical treatment, and I asked him if I could travel to Wuchang with him. The 2nd Company
Headquarters was on the Huachung University campus, and they had the key to the library. I entered
the library together with Dr. Osaki after he finished his rounds. Soldiers had previously come toinvestigate reports that encrypted signals were being sent using ultra-shortwave radio equipment
hidden behind the bookcases, and they left random piles of books here and there. There were also
piles of books belonging to professors and students in the hallways. These were almost all English
or Chinese books, and there were only a few Japanese-language books left, perhaps because mostof them had been taken away. I felt regrets because I would have come to the library again if I had
remained in Hankou and were not being transferred to the front. I picked up one round bronze mirror
inside the library. I asked my orderly to sew this mirror, which had a dragon carved in relief, into
my jacket, in front of my heart, as a shield against bullets. The university campus was spacious, withmany large Southern Magnolia trees. The professors’ residences were nailed shut.

26

Wuhan military logistics baseOn the morning of the 20th, I rode on a freight depot truck that was headed to Shayangzhen. I
rode in the cab and my orderly rode in the back, covered with a sheet, along with the soldiers who
were on guard duty. The path was a long, straight military road running across the plains of Hubei
Province, which I was told had been laid down for a future railway line. A cold drizzle soon began tofall. When we arrived on the outskirts of Zaozi, the truck stopped, and several female refugees camefrom nowhere to sell food. They were looking to barter. My orderly exchanged a pack of Kyokkobrand army cigarettes for six boiled eggs. He told me that a woman had been riding with them in theback. As I was wondering who she was, suddenly a skinny 21 or 22-year-old woman wearing mompe25
pants came out from under the sheet, jumped onto the road, and went into the grass thicket along
the riverbank. She looked in my direction with downcast eyes as she returned while pulling her pantsback up, and got back on the truck silently. We traveled 203 kilometers and finally arrived in theevening at the military logistics quarters at Luohan Temple, which is located at a river crossing overthe Han River.
Driven on the fields of Suizao all day long,crossing the Han River in rain after nightfall.
Perchance a doll from a comfort bag
swayed and swayed at the passenger seat window ‘till evening.
When I got up on the levee, I could see dots of light on the other side of the river, and I was told thatwas Shayangzhen. It was a dismal frontline base. Shayangzhen had burned down in the Battle of
Zaoyang-Yichang in June 1940, and I was told there were roughly built barracks there.
In the Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang, in June 1940, the 11th Army mobilized the 3rd Division, 13th
Division and 39th Division. The three divisions crossed the Han River at Dangyang, Jiukouzhen, andShayangzhen, passed through Jingmen and Dangyang, and triumphantly entered Yichang on the 12th.
This was a campaign to wipe out the National Revolutionary Army on the west side of the Han River.
Yichang was strategically important as the entranceway to Chongqing. The 11th Army constructed asolid defensive position to prevent persistent counterattacks by the National Revolutionary Army.
There was a long pontoon bridge across the Han River made of boats linked sideways, with boards
on top of them. We, who had ridden on the freight truck, got off the truck and crossed the bridge on
foot. The woman did not get off the truck. She may have been treated as she were freight. The truck
eventually rattled across the bridge, and we got back on. After a while, we arrived at the quartersof the Tanaka Company. It seems there had been a message from Hankou, and First Lieutenant
Yamamuro, who was the acting company commander, and other officers had prepared dinner andwere waiting for me to eat with them. After reporting, I was introduced to the company officers, First
Lieutenants Yamamuro and Otani, who were both returning to Japan soon, and to Army Surgeon
Cadet Sato and Warrant Officer Ishikawa. We had sukiyaki for dinner. After we finished eating, I was
led down a road in the dark night to the Shayangzhen Hall. This was a military logistics facility and I
heard that there were a few geisha there. On our way back, I also glanced at a roughly built comfort
facility. Shayangzhen was the 11th Army’s most important military logistics base, with the Transport
Headquarters, three motorized regiments, a field hospital, a freight depot, an armory, and a barn totreat sick horses located there. The Tanaka Company was a guard unit entrusted with the security of
the freight depot. The company commander, First Lieutenant Keiji Tanaka, was in Japan on leave. He
was to return around March 10.

25

27

Mompe are loose, baggy work trousers that were worn by Japanese women in World War II.
Wuhan military logistics baseThe company was stationed at a temple called the Zhuntisi Temple, which had been par tiallydestroyed and repaired, and was also staying in shacks covered with bull-rush mats. The soldiers
were using gravestones as stepping stones, which must have been disgusting for the Chinese to see.
There was a large elm tree in the garden, with a magpie nest at the top of the tree. The tree had bulletmarks from the Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang. There were decorative dragon horse tiles on the large
roof.
Cold weather with freezing rain continued day after day. New conscripts soon arrived, led by Second
Lieutenant Karasawa and Cadet Sakakibara. Karasawa and Sakakibara were responsible for training
the conscripts. I was ordered to take charge of the guard attached to the 1st Platoon under First
Lieutenant Otani. As the officer in charge of the guard, I was to appear each morning when theguards departed to stand sentry at each warehouse at the freight depot and give them their orders.
I made the rounds of the sentr y locations led by First Lieutenant Otani, and checked the rules
for sentr y duty. First Lieutenants Yamamuro and Otani were soon ordered to be attached to theheadquarters, and departed for Hankou together with some veteran soldiers, and I was appointed theacting company commander, while also serving as the commander of the 1st Platoon.
One day, I was to give a lecture on morals to the men, in accordance with the company’s training
schedule. I gathered the soldiers inside the barracks and spoke. I was to talk about the harms ofalcohol, and I quoted a poem by Bokusui Wakayama that I wrote on the blackboard: “Sake on an
autumn night should be drunk quietly, slowly sipping through white teeth.” I told them that unlike beer,
Japanese sake, of which we enjoy its sweetness, should be drunk as if to lick it slowly on the tip of the
tongue. This is because the taste buds that sense sweetness are located on the tip of the tongue. On
another day, I was assigned to speak about the proud history of the Japanese people. I drew a mapof Japan on the blackboard, and explained that the Japanese people were formed from the southernrace of Tenson Korin (a descendent of the Sun Goddess) who came on the Kuroshio Current and thenorthern race of (the Shinto divinity) Okuninushi who came from the continent through Korea. The
men said that my talks were interesting, with many anecdotes.
One morning before the guards departed for duty, we synchronized our watches. I walked along
the levee at the Han River carrying my binoculars. From a distance, I monitored the actions of thesentries who were standing guard. One sentry was just standing absentmindedly at the entranceof a warehouse, holding his rifle without inspecting entry and exit permits as required. He was noteven checking people who were taking out goods freely. When the men returned, I asked who had
been standing sentry at a certain time. I scolded the soldier, saying that I had been monitoring his
work from the Han River levee using binoculars. When I went out on inspection at night, I found him
holding his rifle with his eyes closed. He didn’t even notice when I thrust my sword right in front of
his eyes. When I called out “Sentry,” he hurriedly saluted and said there had been nothing abnormal
while he was on duty. I summoned his commander and scolded him, saying the soldier was not fit toserve as a sentry because he had not even noticed when I had approached and drawn my sword rightin front of his eyes.
One day in Februar y, I was suddenly visited by Superior Private Tadayoshi Yamada, who was a
relative from my hometown. I asked him how he came to know I was there. He said he had beendrafted into the Akatsuki Unit, went up the Han River as a guard on a civilian ship, was at anchor aftercargo was unloaded at Shayangzhen, and heard a gunshot in the middle of the night. When he rushed
out onto the riverbank, he saw a coolie who had come to steal from the open yard storage. The coolie
jumped into the Han River and escaped. When he met the sentry who had fired his weapon and spokewith him, the sentry told him that his commander was Second Lieutenant Yamada from Narita, so he
28

Wuhan military logistics baselearned that I was there and rushed to pay a visit. Superior Private Yamada’s father was my cousin.
I served him lunch right away, we spoke for three hours, and he left. I gave him four bars of yokan(sweet red-been confectionary), which I had delivered from the canteen and 10 packs of Ruby Queenbrand cigarettes as gifts to take back. He told me that when I had been wounded at Echeng, he wasin Hankou. He had fired an anti-aircraft gun and received a phone call saying that the enemy aircraft
were P-40 Warhawks, and that one officer on the Kohei Maru had been wounded. I saw him off as far
as the bank of the Han River, and paid my respects to the commander there, who was a sergeant.
At the Shayangzhen freight depot, the officers gathered every Wednesday at noon to eat together andhave a meeting about our duties. I attended in my capacity as the commander of the depot guard unit.
During the operation to annihilate Jiangbei, I deployed one squad from the guard unit, with Sergeant
Ito as the leader, to protect the supplies collection team. When the squad returned, they reported
that when a ship was going upriver late at night during the operation, it came under fire from the
opposite bank, and that Second Lieutenant Hirota from the freight depot, who was the head of the
supplies collection team and happened to have gone out on deck to look over the situation was hit, fell
into the river, and went missing. They searched for his body but could not find it in the dark of night.
However, the truth was that he had been drunk, refused to listen to his orderly, was urinating off theedge of the ship, and fell into the river.
In the operation to annihilate Jiangbei, which took place from February through March 1943, the 11th
Army invaded the so-called triangle region on the north bank of the Yangtze River linking Hankou,
Yueyang, and Shashi, and captured Wang Jingzai, who was the head of the 128th Division of the
National Revolutionary Army. Part of the 11th Army newly occupied key areas of Jiagnan including
the opposite bank of Shashi, as well as Shishou and the area around Huarong.
I summoned a soldier from the 1st platoon each night and chatted with him under the kotatsu. I would
ask the soldiers about their hometowns, their families, and their circumstances when they weredrafted. I did this so I would develop personal ties with my subordinates, which I thought would be
useful for harmony among the ranks. I had received a private room, which made this convenient.
When I had free time, I would walk around Shayangzhen to get to know the area.
The grave of Major Yuzo Fujita, who had piloted a Gasuden Koken long-range aircraft and was killedin action, was located on the bank of the Han River. The grave marker read “This is the location where
Major General Watanabe, Lieutenant Colonel Fujita, and six other officers and men were killed inaction. Erected by the Oda Unit on March 10, 1941.”
In May 1938, a Tokyo Imperial University Aeronautical Research Institute long-range aircraft carrying
Major Yuzo Fujita, Sergeant Major Takahashi, and Flight Engineer Sekine had flown a circuit aroundKisarazu, Choshi, Ota, and Hiratsuka 29 times,26 spending 62 hours 23 minutes in the air, flying a
distance of 11,667 kilometers and setting a new world closed circuit distance record. In February
1939, an army plane carrying Colonel Kotaro Watanabe, Major Fujita, Warrant Officer Takahashi, andthree others on board crashed on the right bank of the Han River on the outskirts of Shayangzhen,
and the men were killed.
There were many willows growing around the Han River. I sent a truck to dig up some willows andhave them planted around the barracks. There were also many sappanwood, oleander, and othertrees in the yard of the motorized regiment, so I had the men take some of these to plant around thebarracks gate. The soldiers were delighted with this assignment because they preferred garden work
26

29

Kisarazu, Choshi, Ota and Hiratsuka are cities in Japan’s Kanto area (Greater Tokyo).
Wuhan military logistics baseto drills.
In the refugee district of Shayangzhen, there were small thatched-roof houses built close together,tucked away in a hollow of the Han River. There was an elementary school at the edge of the town,
and because some of children’s pictures and calligraphy had arrived from Japan, I went to visit theschool, bringing these with me. The elementar y school principal was Ms. Li Huaniang. She had
graduated from Peking University and was 44 years old, the same age as me, and she told me that she
had a 19-year-old daughter. I visited some classes, and the children in the upper grades sang the ‘Songof the Cold Night” and the “Song of the Fishing Lights” for me. They sang standing up while holding
their songbooks, but they were all looking at me and not at their books.
The students in the lower grades were learning arts and crafts and making puzzles which are calledtangrams. These are a single sheet of paper cut into seven pieces with five triangles, one square,and one rhombus which are put together to form various shapes. They made me a tangram person(arranging the shapes into the form a person) and pasted it on paper, and I brought this back to myroom. The Chinese students’ drawings were made with pencils because they had no paints or crayons,
but their drawings were accurate and very good. It seems they drew crosses with red lines insidesquares and used those as guides to copy pictures. Principal Li told me she had lost all her books in
war damage, so I gave her the copy of Hua Ying Si Shu (The four books), which I was carrying, andshe was very pleased.
The Shayangzhen Field Hospital was located two kilometers outside the city. Lance Corporal
Tsukamoto from my company was hospitalized, and when I went to visit him, I met Army Surgeon
Shizuo Fujikura, from my hometown of Narita. We chatted, and I borrowed his copy of Shina shoki(China journal) by Haruo Sato.
Superior Private Tamba, who had graduated from Hosei University, worked at the Tanaka Company
Headquar ters of fice. He was in charge of the camp logbook. He told me he had studied withProfessor Kensaku Aoki while he was at university and had a copy of Aoki’s Wakaki kyoshi no nayami(Troubles of a young teacher). This book was published by Tenyusha and it was a rare book because
the publisher’s presses had burned down in an earthquake. He said he would give it to me when he
was discharged from the army. I had learned English and ethics from Aoki when I was a student at
Narita Junior High School. Aoki later became a professor at Hosei University. Aoki’s Wakaki kyoshi
no nayami was a memoir of his time teaching at Narita Junior High School. I gave Tamba my copy ofthe poetry collection Shina jihen kashu (Second Sino-Japanese war poetry collection) published by
Iwanami Shoten because I heard that he also wrote tanka poems.
There was a message from the headquarters at Hankou that Unit Commander Tanaka had returned
from Japan and would arrive at Shayangzhen on the evening of March 9. I sent a messenger to thebanks of the Han River and had him signal us with a flag to let us know when the unit commander had
arrived. I had all the soldiers line up in the barracks yard and salute the unit commander with theirswords. After hearing my report, Tanaka asked the name of the soldier who was sick-in-quarters.
Without going into the officers’ quarters, he entered the barracks and visited the sick soldier. I
thought his behavior was an exemplary model of a military professional who had been promoted fromthe ranks of non-commissioned officers.
Tanaka liked sake more than anyone else, and sake was always served at the officers’ dinner. The
freight depot processed the sake as “miscellaneous packages.” I had told him right from the startthat I cannot drink alcohol. Thus every evening, I had only one small drink of sake with him and

30

Wuhan military logistics base

immediately put out my rice bowl and told my orderly to serve my meal. Tanaka gave up on me andkept on drinking with Warrant Officer Ishikawa as his companion. One night, after I returned to myroom and pretended to sleep on my bed, Tanaka entered my room with his shoes on and said “Hey,Second Lieutenant Yamada, let’s go to the Shayangzhen Hall.” I reluctantly put on my clothes andwent out with him. Tanaka, who was drunk, grabbed my arm and said, “Yamamuro and Otani escaped
halfway, and went back. They are cowards!” When we arrived at the Shayangzhen Hall, Tanaka’sfavorite geisha came out to the entranceway. I quickly saluted Tanaka, who was taking off his boots,
and said, “Excuse me, but I must leave you now because I have drills tomorrow.” He thanked me formy trouble and went into a room with the geisha in a good mood.
One day when Unit Commander Tanaka was out and I was inside the company office, the commanderof the guard came in and said that a geisha from the Shayangzhen Hall had come to see the unit
commander, but I told him to send her home right away because the unit commander was out.
On March 16, Branch Depot Commander Wada was going to make a round of inspections at the
Shashi Branch Freight Depot. I was ordered to accompany him and brought one squad of armed
soldiers to serve as guards. The branch depot commander was in the truck cab and we were in theback of the truck under a sheet in the rain. We had some difficulty proceeding down the muddy
road. We parted from the branch depot commander in Shashi, visited the detachments in Shilipu andHougang, and returned to Shayangzhen. After reporting to the unit commander at the office, Tanaka
said, “Second Lieutenant Yamada, you are ordered to transfer to the Military Logistics Headquarters
in Hankou.”This was just two months after I arrived at the Tanaka Company in Shayangzhen on January 20. As
it turned out, I had spent just 11 days together with Company Commander Tanaka, or just eight days
excluding the trip to Shashi.

31

Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 2

Hankou Militar y Logistics Headquarters
Transfer
On the morning of March 26, 1943, I arrived at the Hankou Militar y Logistics Headquarters on
Jianghan Road in Hankou City and reported to the commander, Colonel Sadao Horie. Here is theletter which I sent to my family at that time.
On the 16th, I received an order to accompany the Branch Depot commander and travel 25 li
to XX27 (Shashi). We went by truck. It had stopped raining in the morning, but it soon started
raining again, and we became soaking wet. The road was bad, and one wheel of the truck
slipped into a ditch on the way. It took 40 minutes to push the truck back onto the road. We
spent two nights there, and one night on the return trip. I walked around the Chinese districtin Sashi in the rain. It was very calm after the campaign, and there was no need to worry. The
town was lively, with some 5,000 prisoners of war. I unexpectedly ran into Cadet Ouchi, who
had shared my cabin on the Kohei Maru. When I returned to my post on the 19th, an order
had arrived by field telephone the previous day saying I was being transferred to the 4th
Division, 1st Military Logistics Headquarters and was to return to XX (Hankou). As usual,
my soldiers said they would miss me, which was rather troublesome. They said they would
arrange farewell parties for me that night and the following night. I felt awkward since I was
their platoon commander for just two months. Today, I visited Army Surgeon Fujikura at
the field hospital, returned his book, and also visited Principal Li at the Chinese elementary
school, where I was shown the drawing class and the arts and crafts class. Then I returned to
my quarters and spoke with my men for one hour. My next posting is mostly office work andsounds interesting. I am planning to travel 50 li by truck to Hankou the day after tomorrow.
I have spent only two months in Shayangzhen which is said to be a town of trucks, dust,
and Chinese mat rush. I served there as an acting company commander, and I have some
unforgettable memories.
The depot commander hosted a going-away party for me in the evening, and the company isholding another going away party on the 22nd. It started raining again late tonight, and theroad between XX and XX has become muddy, so the truck cannot drive on that road and mydeparture has been delayed. Unless it becomes completely dry, there is no way to tell for twoor three days when the truck will leave. So, I am sitting under the kotatsu and listening to therain alone in my room, which is empty because my luggage has already been packed.
On the 25th, it was cloudy, and I was given permission to ride in Branch Depot Commander
Wada’s automobile. We left at 8:00 a.m. and arrived at XX at noon, where I parted from theBranch Depot commander. I got onto a truck, and because the road was muddy, we planned
to go around XX and force our way through. We had to get off and push the truck three times
on the way. We were helped by some Chinese coolies who were working on road constructionin the cold wind. We finally arrived in XX (Hankou) at 8:00 p.m., after traveling for five hours
on a route that usually takes just one hour, and I reported to Unit Commander Itabashi.

27

32“XX” is in the original text. This may originally be text that was blacked out by the military censor.
Wuhan military logistics base

According to Itabashi, my posting was changed to the Militar y Logistics Headquarters
in an effort to place the right person in the right position. Itabashi said he did not want toinconvenience me by stationing me for a long time on the frontlines, and so he specifically told
Military Logistics Headquarters Commander Horie to place me in the office of the military
logistics base, in charge of rear administration, which I was very happy to hear. Itabashi gave
me a bottle of his precious Kiku-Masamune brand sake. I spoke with Adjutant Saito, who isfrom Koenji,28 and with Army Surgeon Osaki, and went to sleep at midnight. I heard the sweetsound of the clock tower bells of the Hankou Customs House on the Yangtze River for the
first time in a long time.
On the 26th, I went to the Hankou Military Logistics Base in a light rain, met with Adjutant
Otani, and reported to the commander. I decided to move in during the afternoon and met
with my orderly, Private First Class Suzuki. Suzuki told me that he comes from Abiko in
Chiba Prefecture, which is my home prefecture, and while we were talking about this andthat, he mentioned that the owner of the Hasegawa Kimono Shop in Narita had been drafted. I
instructed Suzuki to tell Hasegawa to come and visit me later. In the afternoon, I greeted Unit
Commander Itabashi and had my luggage carried by rickshaw. Private First Class Hasegawa
came to visit, and we chatted for a while. In the evening, I visited the Ministry of Railways’
branch office but Mr. Mine, who was with me on the Kohei Maru, was out. On my way back, Ibought 12 books at a used bookstore to donate to the company. The books cost around 20 yen.
The military logistics base was cold with no heating. The light rain did not stop. The books Ibought were as follows.
Kyoen kashu (Anthology of poems by Kyoen) by Azumao Sakura
Gei to bungaku (Art and literature) by Hanjiro Chatani
Yurin tanka (Stretcher with wheels) by Shoya Yoshida
Rangaku kotohajime (Beginning Dutch studies) by Tomio Ogata
Tatta Hitori no Yama (All alone on the Mountain) by Samitaro Uramatsu
No (Field), a novel by Akatsuki Kanbayashi
Gakusei ni atau (For students) by Shinzo Koizumi
Rokugatsu (June), a poetry collection by Zenmaro Toki
Senyuki (War comrades chronicle) by Sadao Yasuda
Hamayu no uta (Song of the crinum), a novel by Jiro Odakane
Nagamimi koku hyoryuki (Long-ear country castaway story), a novel by Jihei Nakamura
Unnan shubihei (Yunnan guards), a novel by Soju Kimura(At the bottom of the letter I drew a picture of a Chinese drinking cup with a golden dragon
and phoenix pattern, a silver tray, and a tin chirori (metal container for heating sake) that theunit commander had lent me.)Yasuyoshi (my eldest son), this is a tower in XX. It appears to have six stories, but it is built on
the lowland on the other side of the levee and actually has seven stories. XX is located on thebank of the Yangtze River, and up until the recent campaign, the other side of the river was all
enemy territory. There is an enemy pillbox, and the soldiers here told me they could see theChinese soldiers—who shot at them from time to time—and the replacements who relieved
them. I heard that there are 5,000 Chinese prisoners of war here now.

28

33

Koenji is a neighborhood in Tokyo.
Wuhan military logistics base

A willow tree is growing on the top of the pagoda where a bird called the magpie has made its
nest. Before the campaign began, the Japanese army put a loudspeaker on top of this pagoda
and broadcast to the other side of the river. I bought Chinese postal stamps at the post officein XX town. The two characters for pagoda are written by a Chinese monk. During my fourday trip it rained every day and the vehicle had difficulty proceeding. Goodbye. March 23.
Father.”(The two characters for pagoda are written next to a sketch of the pagoda in Shashi drawn incolored pencil).
While I was to learn about this later, it was Unit Commander Itabashi, the head of the 51st Military
Logistics Guard Unit, who had recommended me to the militar y logistics commander as theappropriate person to be in charge of the recreation section. After I left the Hankou 1st Army Hospital,
and before I was posted to the 1st Company at Shayangzhen, I had spoken with Itabashi in his privateroom for a while. That brief chance meeting greatly changed my fate in the war. Itabashi was said tobe a very strict person, but he was kind to me. Beyond that, he judged my character and kindly gaveme an appropriate workplace. I was most thankful.
On March 26, I went to the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters on Jianghan Road in Hankou,
and reported to the commander, Colonel Horie. I was ordered to take charge of the recreation
section, and was instructed to manage artistic performances, movies, and entertainment groups, andto bolster wholesome means of recreation.
The 143rd Fortress Infantr y Unit, which I had belonged to in Chichijima, and the 51st Militar y
Luoyang
Zhengzhou

XuzhouXi’an

Shaanxi

Henan
Zhenjiang

Laohekou

SichuanHanyang

Yuezhou
Nanchang

Zhijiang

Hunan

Zhejiang
JinhuaJiangxi
Chaling

Hengyang

GuiyangPoyang Lake

LishuiChangsha

Guizhou

HangzhouWuchangJiujiang

Dongting Lake

Shanghai

Hankou Anqing

ShashiChongqing

SuzhouAnhui

AnlingYichangNanjing

Xinyang

Hubei

Anren
Lingling

FuzhouSuichuanFujianGuilinLiuzhou

Guangdong

Amoy

Guangxi

Nanning

Guangzhou
Hong Kong

Main Map of China

Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”, Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.

34

Wuhan military logistics base

Logistics Guard Unit in Hankou were both independent battalions made up of five companies. Eachcompany had about 200 men, with a headquarters section of 20 men and three platoons. The platoons
each had about 60 men in six squads. There were two sergeants and four corporals serving as thesquad leaders. Each squad had 10 men, including the leader. So, as a platoon commander, I would
be entrusted with the lives of nearly 60 men. If my tactical control were bad, I would be putting my
subordinates at the risk of death, and this made me very anxious. But I was ordered to transfer to the
Military Logistics Headquarters, which is a rear echelon unit, and this saved me from such a heavy
responsibility. Beyond that, I was assigned the work of arranging entertainment for the officers andmen, primarily wholesome recreation, which was worthwhile work that suited my abilities. I wanted
to do a good job so I would not be ashamed. I felt very grateful that I would not have to kill anyone.
Soldiers are not allowed choose their job. It was also beyond human understanding that I was blessedwith a good superior officer and assigned to work that suited my nature. I did not take a servile
attitude of flattering my superiors and I also was not domineering toward my subordinates or thevendors. I simply dealt with everything in my own way, and I was blessed with a fortunate fate.
Colonel Horie, the Hankou Militar y Logistics Base commander, took over his position from his
predecessor, Colonel Kosaku Matsuda, in November 1942. Under Horie’s command, there were
Lieutenant Colonel Uuemon Araya and Lieutenant Colonel Genji Fujii as field officers, and Major
Tokujiro Kogami as the senior paymaster. The duties of the senior army surgeon were performed at
first by Army Surgeon First Lieutenant Kenichi Nagasawa and later by Army Surgeon Captain Kikuo
Miyazaki and Army Surgeon Captain Yoshio Osawa. The unit’s official name was the 1st Military
Logistics Headquarters of the 4th Division, and its nickname was Backbone Unit 5,364. This was aunit directly under the command of the 11th Army. It had 40 officers, 35 non-commissioned officers,
and 20 soldiers (drivers and combat medics) from Osaka and Wakayama. Backbone Unit 5,584 (theImperial Guard Division’s 10th Land Transport Auxiliary Unit), led by First Lieutenant Shigenori
Kakinuma, was also attached.
Unit 5,584 had many older soldiers with families, mostly from Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama,
and Yamanashi. The unit had one officer, seven non-commissioned officers, and 250 soldiers. During
Operation Togo of 1944, its core belonged to the 6th Area Army in Yuezhou as the Yuezhou Military
Logistics Headquarters, while parts of the unit belonged to the 34th Army in Hankou as the Wuhan
Military Logistics Headquarters.
When I arrived, Commander29 Horie was 57 years old. Before he was called up for duty, he had served
for many years as an officer assigned to schools to provide military training to students, and perhaps
because of that, he was not stern at all and appeared to be friendly. Many of the military logistics baseofficers had started their careers as officer candidates. Adjutant Yasuhiko Otani was 28 years old, andArmy Surgeon First Lieutenant Kenichi Nagasawa was 33 years old. Aside from the officers who had
been promoted from the ranks, the officers were all under 30, and the others were young cadets intheir twenties who had entered the army directly from school. On the other hand, I was 44 years old,
an older soldier who had four children, and my comrades acknowledged my seniority.
Commander Horie was certainly no ordinary military man. I later learned that some people criticized
him for being a soldier who was not militaristic.
Looking at his background, Horie was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in September 1887. He
29“Commander” as used in this book to refer to Colonel Sadao Horie and some other officers is not a naval rank; it is a
shortened form of “commanding officer.”

35

Wuhan military logistics base

graduated in the 19th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in June 1907, the same year as
Generals Hitoshi Imamura, Osamu Tsukada, Masaharu Homma, Masakazu Kawabe, and Shizu’ichi
Tanaka, who were active as commanders in the Pacific War. In November 1916, after graduatingfrom the Army War College, Horie was sent to Vladivostok in the aftermath of the Nikolayevsk
incident during the Siberian Intervention as a member of the Ujina Army Transport Service. After
1920, he taught for five years as an instructor at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He thenserved as a battalion commander with the Oita 72nd Infantry Regiment and as commander of theKokura Regiment District. In August 1935 he was placed on reserve status, and while serving as an
officer attached to Yamagata High School, he was called up for duty in October 1942 and appointed
commander of the Hankou Military Logistics Base.
As a poet, Horie was a member of a group that published the poetry magazine Kanran (Chinese
olive), edited by Shoryo Yoshiue. In religion, he was a follower of the Nichiren sect. He belonged to
the Kokuchukai Nichiren lay Buddhist organization, and studied under Chigaku Tanaka.
Horie did not play go, shogi, mahjong, or other games, and did not smoke. He drank only a little.
He spent almost all his free time reading. Since he wrote poetry, he was interested in nature andespecially in flowers and small birds. He managed his subordinates by indicating general principles
and entrusting them with the details, treated them with compassion, and it was very rare for him toraise his voice or scold them.
Moreover, Horie had the common touch, was not particular about ranks, and would often chat withhis soldiers. So, it is no surprise that he was merciful toward the comfort women who were at thebottom of society. He was truly the ideal person to serve as the commander of the military logistics
base.
Horie passed away in December 1971, and the original manuscript of his 159-page (400 characters perpage) memoir Koenaki sensen–heitan monogatari (The voiceless front–military logistics base story) isstored as a document of military history in the archives of the National Institute for Defense Studies
in Ichigaya Honmuracho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. Here is a passage from the preface of The Voiceless
Front.30 I quote this because it resonates with this memoir of mine.
Today, 13 years after the end of the war, where is the need to bring forth such a story of amilitary logistics base which lacks thrills, when it feels as if almost all the war records havealready been published? This is because in the much-discussed issue of “war and peace,” itis still necessary to examine the war and look squarely at various facets from every angle
in order to grasp the realities of the war. This is nothing but my assertion that the story of
military logistics bases, which has not been addressed very much to date, should come onstage now as we are approaching the end of such story telling.
War is the greatest calamity for human society. Through war, the pros and cons of national
characteristics are clearly shown. I believe that stark reality can conversely be understood
more clearly from the militar y logistics bases in the rear, where things are slightly lessharsh than on the tense frontlines. I also think it is because I was at a military logistics basethat I had the unhurried leisure to grasp the generous nature of the Chinese people and theimmeasurable vastness and ancientness of their natural surroundings. Furthermore, what I
cannot help but tell the world is as follows. While it appears as if the dedicated efforts of my30

Because passages from Koenaki sensen are frequently cited in this book, the English translation of the title, The Voiceless
Front, will be used in future references to Colonel Horie’s work.

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Wuhan military logistics base

comrades—who believing in the holy war, silently continued the fight by sending ammunition
and food supplies and carrying out other thankless tasks at the military logistics base in therear battlefield in central China, where some died in vain—disappeared without a trace as aresult of losing the war, I deeply believe without a doubt that their efforts drove a permanent
wedge in the eternal flow of the life of the Japanese people. At the same time, I believe thatconveying the voiceless acts of my comrades is the task I have been given, including mymeager resistance against exaggerated criticism which claims there were inhuman atrocities
committed wherever our army went here and there in this great war, and that this may also
serve as our eternal repentance and remorse for losing the war.

Appointment as the Recreation Section Chief
On March 28, 1943, when I was posted to the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters, the chief ofthe recreation section was a young officer with a good-natured character, Second Lieutenant Yoshio
Nishiguchi. The duties of the recreation section were the management of restaurants, cafeterias, andcomfort facilities and the organization of artistic performances, movies, and entertainment groups.
The section had a total of eight men with two officers, two non-commissioned officers, and four
soldiers. About one month after I arrived, at the same time the operation to annihilate Jiangnan began,
there was a rotation of personnel in the headquarters. Second Lieutenant Nishiguchi was transferred
to become the head of the Yangtze Military Logistics Branch, and I was appointed the chief of therecreation section. I was placed in charge of all the recreation section’s duties.
The operation to annihilate Jiangnan took place from May through June 1943. To increasetransportation capacity on the Yangtze River, the 11th Army directed more than 10,000 tons ofshipping from near Yichang as part of an effort to annihilate the National Revolutionary Army’s fieldarmy in the area on the right bank of the Yangtze, extending from Dongting Lake to the mountain
district across the river from Yichang. The Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters sent help fromthe Shishou Military Logistics Branch that was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Araya, and they
cooperated in the operation.
Yangtze is a hamlet on the left bank of the Yangtze River six kilometers east of Hankou. The army
confiscated a building that was a spinning mill before the war, and used it as a barracks for military
logistical purposes where a large formation could be stationed. It was also used for training firstyear soldiers. For that reason, a permanent military logistics branch was established there which
supervised the public order maintenance committees in nearby hamlets.
When I was appointed the head of the recreation section, the commander had me sit down on a chairand quietly spoke about its duties.
Among the duties of the recreation section, the most troublesome is the super vision anddirection of the so-called special comfort facilities. There are various opinions about thearmy having special comfort facilities, but at present, these facilities must be accepted asa necessary evil. As a way to minimize their harm, however, it is necessary to improve thefacilities that provide wholesome forms of recreation so that soldiers will stay away frombrothels as much as possible. At the same time, to release the comfort women from their
quagmire as quickly as possible, we want honest management of the comfort facilities, with nocorruption. This is an important issue that I want to somehow resolve, in my capacity as thecommander. So as the officer directly responsible, I want you to make an effort to cooperatewith all the relevant officers toward achieving this goal.
37

Wuhan military logistics baseThat Commander Horie not only wanted to strengthen wholesome forms of recreation but also had
compassion as a human being toward the geisha who were disdained as prostitutes at the bottom ofsociety, or in this case the war, made me think deeply.
My immediate superior officer was Lieutenant Colonel Fujii, but because he entrusted the job
entirely to me, I would receive my instructions directly from Commander Horie. Under me were thenon-commissioned officers Sergeant Jitsuo Ikeshita and Sergeant Tsunaharu Inui; cadet Kenichi
Nakanishi later joined us. During my posting, I was promoted to first lieutenant, and Nakanishi wascommissioned a second lieutenant.
Before telling my story as the head of the recreation section, although it is slightly complicated, here
I would like to quote again from Commander Horie’s The Voiceless Front. This is from the section
entitled “Comfort in the War Zone.”At the Hankou Militar y Logistics Base, cafeterias, restaurants, game parlors, theaters,
libraries, comfort stations and other types of entertainment facilities were operated for thetroops stationed at Hankou and the troops passing through. Among these, the ones that were
the greatest trouble were the comfort stations.
Simply stated, the “comfort stations” were the red-light district, that is, brothels. These were
openly operated by the Army, so they posed a major problem. Humanitarians and Christians
might argue, “How dare the Army make such facilities and have pure unmarried young men
and young and middle-aged men who left their beloved wives back home openly conduct
immoral acts, and send many young women to the war zone and force them to engage in actsof prostitution? This is a sin that cannot be accepted from a humanitarian standpoint.” On theother hand, the Army perspective was, “Having hot-blooded young and middle-aged men who
are not saints spend years cut off from women violates human sexual instinct, so naturally
they become aggressive and eventually turn violent. Past wars prove that this often leads torape and other abominable crimes. Therefore, it is necessary and also thoughtful for the Army
to provide an outlet for such sexual needs.”
When I took up my post and made my initial inspection tour as the commander, I visited thevarious military logistics facilities which, of course, included entering these comfort stations.
Because this was an inspection by the commander, at the entrance of each of the comfort
stations the comfort women were lined up sitting upright, wearing their finest clothes to greet
me, and when the brothel owner gave the command “Salute!” they bowed to me while sitting,placing their hands on the floor in the Japanese fashion. I saluted them with my hand in return
but felt sad, and could not bring myself to directly look at the women. I think this is only
natural for anyone with a sense of morality. I was then shown each room. They explained howeach room was well equipped with furniture, bedding, and sanitary facilities. Because I was
initially shocked, the gaudier the appearance of what I was shown, the more I was overcome
by unpleasant feelings when thinking of the miserable conditions that may have been hiddenin the back.
That night, the two viewpoints expressed earlier alternately came into my mind over andover again. But when I thought more deeply about this, I concluded that the poison naturally
entwined with war itself, which undermines the soul of a people, just happens to appear here.
I keenly felt that among the various phenomena in the world, bringing about a war—even
a holy war—must depend not simply on human discretion—an abundance of caution—but

38

Wuhan military logistics baserather on the judgment of a pure heart, by lying prostrate in front of the Buddha to listen only
to the voice of correct knowledge.
Of the two assertions, as an individual, it was natural that I sympathized with the humanitarian
viewpoint from my belief in Nichiren Buddhism, which respects above all the Buddha naturethat exists at the bottom of every human’s heart. But as a party facing reality, I fell into thedilemma that I must also listen to the assertion that bluntly repressing the sexual needs ofyoung people is at variance with reality. This must be a manifestation of the great poison thatis linked to war itself.
Yet while tentatively accepting the arguments in favor of reality, I wondered if the Army
did not take care of this matter, would the ill effects that resulted really be all that great, orinterfere with the execution of the war? Being blinded by little evils might have inadvertently
resulted in a tendency leading the Army to openly operate showy facilities. That should also
be considered. Suppose that the Army did not provide an outlet for sexual desire. Just as
private prostitution emerges as a result of the abolition of licensed prostitution in society,wouldn’t a solution emerge in the form of the private prostitution that would naturally emerge
from among the local residents in the war zone or by Japanese people residing in China? Now,
if this were to occur, sexual diseases would of course spread because of insufficient sanitation
at the facilities, and that might lead to harmful effects on the activities of the Army, and the
Army would have to intervene.
If the issue could be resolved in that way, I would not have to be troubled in my mind withsuch unpleasant work. But the reality did not allow me such an easy escape. As I was given
the burden of operating these facilities as a commanding officer of the Military Logistics
Base, I was pushed into carrying out this work, whether I liked it or not. So, for the time being
I viewed the comfort stations as an “unavoidable, necessary evil,” resolved to lessen even alittle the harm that was inflicted, and resolved to take a very superficial and lukewarm attitude
toward the fundamental core of this problem.
As the first measure to mitigate harm, I needed to work at reducing oppor tunities forof ficers and men to access the comfor t stations as much as possible. Considering thesituation whereby many young men who were completely chaste before they came to war are
eventually overwhelmed by the force of the environment and come to the comfort stations
simply because these facilities exist in the war zone, I had to find ways to turn their attention
elsewhere. The only option was to make great efforts on expanding so-called wholesome
recreation. Secondly, I had to eliminate what is generally called exploitation by the brothel
owners and increase the wages of the comfort women as much as possible so they could
repay their loans to the brothel owners as quickly as possible, quit the life of shame, andreturn to Japan. Meanwhile, I worked at lowering the entertainment expenses of the officers
and soldiers who were the customers.
I will write about the first item, wholesome recreation, later on. As for the second issue,
while it was clear that this would be opposed by the brothel owners, Captain Y, who was thechief of the recreation section, initiated resolute efforts toward its resolution. Y was a man of
extremely sober behavior. Moreover, he had an excellent character with refined taste, highculture, and broad-ranging common sense, and a rather extensive career. He was a middleaged officer ideal for resolving this problem. The captain prepared various graphs using hisstrong skills and knowledge of statistics and confronted the brothel owners, showing the39

Wuhan military logistics baseincome ratios of the owners versus the comfort women, and also came up with measuresfor lowering entertainment expenses using well-reasoned and clear assertions. The brothel
owners who initially were fiercely opposed were moved by the captain’s enthusiasm andlogical assertions, and reluctantly agreed. With the strong support of Major O, who was
responsible for the Military Logistics Base’s accounting, and Army Surgeon N, who was incharge of the comfort stations’ sanitation, the results of these improvement efforts graduallybegan to show.
Among the jobs I took over from my predecessor, Recreation Section Chief Nishiguchi, were therevision of the rules for managing the Hankou special comfort facilities and the submission of plansregarding the use of 130,000 Japanese yen in funds that had been donated by citizens for the welfare
of soldiers and allocated to the Hankou Military Logistics Base. The drafts for both proposals werealready virtually approved, and I was just waiting for their authorization.
When I informed the commander of my transfer, however, I was ordered to take charge of therecreation section right away and instructed to strengthen wholesome forms of recreation, so I wrote
my own plans and submitted them to the commander. These included the opening of a library at the
military logistics base. Out of the funds donated by citizens for the relief of soldiers which had been
earmarked for cafeteria remodeling, I proposed to use 10,000 yen for the establishment of the library.
So, I reported to the 11th Army Headquarters, met the staff officer for rear operations, and requested
approval for amending the use of the funds. (If approval could not be obtained, Commander Horie’s
intention was to open the library even if the military logistics base had to pay for it.) I requested
10,000 yen to open the library, with the intent of purchasing 3,000 books at an average cost of 3 yen
per book. At that time, the staff officer asked me if 10,000 yen would be sufficient. I replied, “I plan tostart with this and then receive an additional 10,000 yen each year and make it into a superb library.”
The approval for amending the use of funds was immediately granted.

The Hankou Customs House Bells
The officers and men who went up the Yangtze River—which is called the long river of 3,000 li—
and arrived at Hankou, deep in the continent, would be certain to hear the bells that mark time fromthe high tower of the Hankou Customs House (former customs house) that stands near Pier 18. The
sound of these bells, which mark the time every half hour, makes one feel profoundly nostalgic. The
customs house tower and the sound of its bells were like the symbols of Hankou.
In a letter I received more than 20 years after the war from Army Surgeon Kenichi Nagasawa—who
formerly worked as a senior army surgeon at the military logistics base— he speaks about the soundsof the customs house bells as follows.
I still cannot forget the emotions I felt when I arrived and landed at Hankou and heard thesound of bells modeled after Big Ben up above my head, even though I came expecting a
bloodthirsty war zone.
As if I still hear them in my ears
The beautiful bells of the Hankou Customs House.
Also, in the poetry collection Jyusshi (Statement of aspirations) by Paymaster First Lieutenant Akira
Masuda, who died in the war near Shihuiyao, Hubei Province in July 1943, the following words appear
at the end of a poem entitled “Wuchang.”

40

Wuhan military logistics baseAt night when the noise dies out
Across the river from Hankou
I hear the sound of the bells in the bell tower
They make me think of bells played inside a quiet cathedral.
Moreover, in his poetry collection Jyugun yoreki hankou fubutsushi (Seasonal poems of remnants ofmilitary service in Hankou) published by Wuhan Senden Renmei, the poet Soji Momota writes aboutthe Hankou Customs House bells as follows in the passage “Hankou Nichiroku” (Hankou diary).
On July XX, I entered Hankou at 9:00 a.m. There was a clock tower above the customs housebuilding on the riverbank. It began playing mysterious music in the air. I passed through the
Bund in a car, took Jianghan Road, and entered my quarters at the Wuhan Hotel Annex on
Lan Ling Road.
Poem: “Sokai fubutsu”(Scenery at the concession):
In mid-air at the pier
Mysterious music played
I said goodbye to the cocoa-colored water
Oleander flowers were blooming on every wall in town.
At that time, the Hankou Customs House building was occupied by the Akatsuki Unit (2nd Shipping
Transportation Headquarters). The road running straight northwest from the pier was Jianghan
Road. The Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters had confiscated and was using the former Siming
Bank building facing that road on the same side as the Akatsuki Unit. It was a five-story reinforced
concrete building. The first floor was laid out colonnade style, with the accounting department
overseeing the procurement of goods on the left as you enter, and the billeting section and transport
section on the right. The recreation section was in the left-hand corner. The mezzanine floor had thecommander’s office, the adjutant’s office, and the administration section, and the second floor had theprivate rooms of the commander, the adjutant, and offices such as the signals encryption office. The
third floor housed a solemn shrine room for fallen soldiers and private rooms for non-commissioned
officers. The fourth and fifth floors had private rooms for officers.
Commander Horie, who was the head of the independent unit that was the Militar y Logistics
Headquarters, was permitted to have separate lodgings, but he preferred to be billeted together withthe officers and men, so he lived in the commander’s room inside the headquarters. In the morning,
he would chant the lotus sutra alone in the fallen soldiers’ shrine room. This must have been to
console the spirits of the war dead and for the repose of his own soul.
Next, I will quote a passage about Horie’s appointment as commander of the Militar y Logistics
Headquarters from the section “Classmates,” in The Voiceless Front.
When I finally reached Hankou and entered the Militar y Logistics Headquar ters, myclassmate, Lieutenant Colonel Genji Fujii, was the second-in-command field officer. He was afriend who graduated in the same year as I did, and came from the same town as me, so I was
delighted to see him. When he was an officer on active duty in Japan, Fujii spent two years as
an elective course student31 and studied Indian languages at the Tokyo University of Foreign
Studies. Furthermore, he spent a year and a half researching Japanese and Chinese literature
as a retired military officer at Tokyo Higher Normal School. He then taught at a girls’ school
31

41

An “elective course student” (senkasei) audited classes without pursuing an academic degree.
Wuhan military logistics basein Ube City near our hometown until he was called up this time. So, compared with theaverage officer, he had a wealth of common sense and was an ideal person for a senior officerof the military logistics base. He was a real gentleman. In his official duties he assisted mewith true loyalty, and in his private life he was always on close terms with me as a classmate
from the same hometown. By nature, Fujii had an extreme hatred of cold and in winter healways kept coals burning in the hibachi. The two of us would gather around that hibachi(portable brazier) and talk fondly about our times together at the military academy, rumors
about classmates, and our hometown. Drawing from his knowledge of Japanese and Chinese
literature that he had gained in his studies, he also spoke about the scenery of the Yangtze
River and classical Chinese poetry, and sometimes showed me his own Chinese poems.
My predecessor, Major General Kosaku Matsuda, was also a classmate from my hometown.
Even though he had tuberculosis, he served in the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign of 1942 whichcaused his health to greatly deteriorate. He was hospitalized that autumn, and as a result I
took over his position. On the day I arrived at my new post, I rushed to the hospital rightaway. Matsuda, who had a small frame to start with, was emaciated, with his hands as thin
as fire tongs, but his mind was certainly sound. He explained the various duties requiredof the Military Logistics Headquarters commander to me in great detail, and said he wasextremely relieved that he was passing on his position to me, who had been his friend eversince our days at the military academy. On another day, at his hospital room, he handed over
his work portfolio to me. The documents were carefully categorized, covering every item
without omission from A to Z. I became worried that preparing the file may have affected
his health. As shown by the content of these documents, and from what I had heard from
Adjutant F, his performance of duties was strict, meticulous, and truly detailed. In contrast,
my own performance of duties in the past had been uneven, with many omissions becauseof my personality, but since I was taking over from someone who was so precise and had noomissions, I felt relieved. This led to the extremely lazy thought on my part that even withmy rough approach to things, everything would be fine for the time being. While accounting
tends to be practiced in an extremely loose way at military logistics bases in the war zone, I
was particularly thankful that poor accounting practices had been completely eliminated under
the strict management of Matsuda. Unit commanders above field-grade stationed in Hankou
at that time always lived in grand mansions, away from unit barracks. Matsuda refused thefine quarters allocated by the Army as too extravagant for a Military Logistics Headquarters
commander, and resided in one room at the headquarters. This reflected the virtue of ancientJapanese samurai of sharing pain and pleasure with their men. Because I followed theseprinciples shown by Matsuda, I was able to experience what my subordinate officers and men
went through in their daily lives. This made it easier beyond measure to execute my duties asa unit commander. It also made it possible for me to fully serve the spirits of the fallen soldiers
as the Buddhist priest of the military logistics base temple.
The Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign began in April 1942 to destroy the Quzhou airfield, which was where
the U.S. aircraft bombing Japan in the Doolittle Raid were to have landed. The campaign was launchedwith the 13th Army attacking from Hangzhou and the 11th Army from Nanchang, and they destroyed
the airfields at Quzhou, Yushan, and Lishui, among others. The officers and soldiers who participatedare said to have suffered from rain, muddy water, sore thighs, and athlete’s foot because of torrential
rains in the first half of the campaign and intense heat in the second half.
The annex to the left of the headquarters contained the medical section, where Army surgeons

42

Wuhan military logistics basewere treating soldiers who were in transit, as well as the barracks of the Kakinuma Unit, which was
attached to the Military Logistics Headquarters. Unit Commander Kakinuma was also simultaneously
serving as the head of the officers’ quarters, so he lived in the Kakinuma Unit Headquarters locatednear the officers’ quarters.
At the military logistics base, the officers attached to the headquarters all had private rooms. The
cadets and non-commissioned officers were placed two or three to a room. From my private room on
the fifth floor, I could see Western-style buildings along the banks of the Yangtze River. My comrade,First Lieutenant Yoshio Tsuji, lived in the next room and he had a tea ceremony set, so he would often
treat me to matcha tea. From the rooftop, we could clearly see the entire city of Hankou and as far as
the Yellow Crane Tower of Wuchang across the muddy waters of the Yangtze River.
Jianghan Road, which runs in front of the headquarters, intersects with Zhongshan Road ahead.
Around this intersection, on the east side of Jianghan Road toward the former British Concession,
there were various Army facilities including the Military Police Headquarters, Military Police Squad
Station, Military Logistics Hall, and the Guard Unit’s Headquarters. On the west side, toward theChinese sections of the city, there were Soldiers’ Dormitory No.1, Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 2, thesoldiers’ game parlor, the military logistics base canteen, the Army Club, the officers’ quarters, andUnit Barracks No. 1-No. 5. There was also as an amusement quarter where servicemen would gather,with establishments such as the officers’ restaurants Gion and Minazuki, the Chinese Restaurants
Land & Sea, Long River, and Yangtze River, and the movie theater Towa Theater. There was also a
special comfort facility a little distance away in the Jiqingli area, in the city’s Chinese section.
Many of the military logistics base’s facilities were not burned down during the carpet bombing of
Hankou mostly because of their location in the Chinese sections of the city, but the Military Logistics
Hall, which was located in the former British Concession, was destroyed by fire.

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Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 3

Hankou Special Comfort Facilities
Comfort Facilities System
When was the special system of comfort facilities incorporated into the military?
The term “comfort facilities” is believed to have first appeared in an official military document in the
Wartime Duties Summary compiled in July 1938 by the Inspectorate General of Military Training,which was designated as confidential. The paragraph about stamping out sources of infection andstopping the contagion of epidemic diseases states:
Regarding venereal diseases, it is necessary, as a matter of course, to devise active prevention
methods and to also fully provide sanitary facilities at the comfort facilities, and to strictly
eliminate contact with prostitutes, aside from those designated by the military, and contact
with the locals.
The term “comfort facilities” does not appear in the Logistics Working Orders.
According to Okamura Taisho shiryo (Documents of General Okamura), published by Hara Shobo,
the system of comfort facilities in the Army began in 1932, at the time of the Shanghai Incident.
Colonel Yasuji Okamura, who was the deputy chief of staff of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army, asked
the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture to send a group of comfort women, following the example of theNavy. Subsequently, each military unit came to maintain comfort facilities at its military logistics base.
When Okamura, who made these arrangements for the men, later served as commander of the 6th
Area Army stationed at Hankou, he held the commander’s banquet at the Hankou Hotel—which was
the staff quarters—rather than at the restaurant Akebono, which had recruited beautiful women. It issaid that Okamura himself was a thoroughly sober and upright military leader.
In General Hitoshi Imamura’s Shiki: Ichigunjin 60 nen no aikan (Personal diary—Joys and sorrows of
60 years as a soldier), he writes about an occurrence that happened when he was the commander ofthe 5th Division. At a banquet held by the commander of the 22nd Army, Lieutenant General Seiichi
Kuno, in February 1940, 150 comfort women arrived at Nanning, and the head of the administration
division offered for a few of them to be sent to the Imperial Guard Mixed Brigade, which wasstationed in a hamlet eight kilometers away. The head of that brigade, Major General Sakurada, said
this was not necessary and declined. But when the usage of the Nanning comfort facilities was later
surveyed, an Imperial Guard Division camp had the greatest number of soldiers using the facilities.
The soldiers at the camp had walked more than seven kilometers round-trip to Nanning, so Sakurada
then formally requested that comfort women be sent.
In Toshihiko Shimada’s Kantogun (Kwangtung Army), published by Chuko Shinsho, he writes
about when the Kwangtung Army grew to a force of 34 divisions for the Kwangtung Army Special
Maneuvers in 1940:
About 700,000 soldiers, 140,000 horses, and 600 aircraft had been transported to northern
Manchuria. The campaign supplies that had been assembled in Manchuria and Korea toprepare for campaigns were so plentiful that even after some of the supplies had been diverted
south and to Japan on several occasions, nearly half remained at their original locations at
44

Wuhan military logistics basethe end of the war. There was an episode in which Zenshiro Hara—a staff officer who kept
precise accounts regarding the level of the soldiers’ desires, their spending money, and theabilities of the women—traveled to Korea by airplane, recruited about 10,000 Korean women(he had planned to recruit 20,000), sent them to the plains of northern Manchuria, built andran special facilities.
When Military Police Colonel Kameji Fukumoto, of the Hankou Military Police headquarters, cameto the Hankou Military Logistics Facilities for an inspection, he visited the comfort facilities as well. I
asked him, “Do foreign countries also have systems like this?” He explained that in other countries,
soldiers go to cabarets and bars, drink and dance, and then go to bedrooms on the second floor withthe women they like. He said the system of Japan where prostitution is approved in military facilities
with no drinking is unlike any other in the world. He also said that in Europe the frontlines and homefront are nearby, and soldiers are often granted leave and return home, and it is rare to be sent tobattlefields in foreign countries for overseas campaigns thousands of miles away and for years at atime, as in Japan. Regardless of the conditions, such facilities were certainly unique to the Japanesemilitary.
In his book The Voiceless Front, Colonel Horie called these special facilities “a necessar y evil”
from his position as the military logistics base commander, but everyone may have had a different
viewpoint. Also, while mentioning the level of soldiers’ desires, not all the officers and soldiers fell
into sexual starvation, and they must have viewed the comfort women differently, depending on theenvironments they were placed in, their intrinsic personality differences, and their views on life. In
my case—perhaps because I had sublimated my desires for sex since I was in contact with the women
all the time as part of my duties as the officer in charge of the recreation section—I never slept withsuch women while I was in the Army. This was also true of several people I knew.
Let us look at the accounts in a few war memoirs to see how the existence of these women wasviewed. In Kazuo Nagao’s Kantogun guntai nikki (Kwangtung Army diar y), published by Keizai
Oraisha, Nagao writes about the time he was serving with Unit 390 at Dongning as follows.
There were facilities with Korean women at the edge of town in Dongning, in eastern
Manchuria. I did not know how many there were, but there were not only Korean women
but also Japanese women who worked at restaurants for the officers. After I was promoted
to private first class, I looked over these facilities on just one occasion together with one of
my comrades while we were drunk. The facilities were all rough shacks with straw mats.
When I saw a woman lying on her back on top of thin bedding on the wooden floor in a room
about three tatami mats in size, a little humanism burned in my heart. I wondered how many
soldiers she serviced each day. I felt an impulse of righteous indignation and wanted to puncheach one of the soldiers who were lined up outside; I left.
Because these Korean women had been lured by respectable advertisements claiming tobe hiring “war nurses,” they had no idea that they would be working at such facilities. The
women were sent to locations all over Manchuria, and they ended up becoming mere tools
for handling soldiers’ physical needs. I may have been an indulgent sentimentalist, but I felt
deeply disillusioned at how the physical discharges of animals—men who were at war—were
processed.
In Hideo Fujino’s Shi no ikada (Raft of death), published by Ryokuchisha, the author recalls thatwhen he was stationed at Myitkyina in central Burma in the heavy luggage team of the 114th Infantry

45

Wuhan military logistics base

Regiment, the soldiers would go out in groups of three, and had to stay together until they returned.
When it was the day for soldiers to go out, at the comfort facility in a wooden building thatused to be a school, the sounds of soldiers’ boots and swords on both the first and second
floors made the atmosphere so indescribably frantic that it felt somehow threatening. The
girls were given random Japanese names, and the place was a chaotic mixture of the market
and the battlefield, with soldiers calling out the names of their favorite women, men butting
heads over the same women, and the voices of women and soldiers reluctant to part. I waitedin the hallway until the two other soldiers finished their business. Because we were in groupsof three, I could not walk about town by myself as I wished or return to the base alone. This
was truly ridiculous but because those were the orders it could not be helped.
I had firmly sworn to myself that I would absolutely not approach a woman while I was inmilitar y ser vice, so while I would go to the comfort facility accompanying the two othersoldiers, I never touched a woman after I went to war. If the comfort facility had been
more pleasant, I might have changed my mind. Part of my state of mind in not wanting toparticipate, even if this were medicine, was because I had no desire to act like other men
like an aggressive or hurried rooster attacking a hen in such a place with this loud noise
and frenzy, and no mood or atmosphere except for the seeking of an outlet for the male
physiology. I may have also thought this way because I was an older soldier, 33 years old.
In Tadashi Moriya’s Ragunako no kita (North of Laguna de Bay), published by Rironsha, the author
writes as follows, about when a ship he was on called at the port of Keelung in Taiwan in September
1944 while he was serving as an army surgeon in the Philippines Campaign.
Being on land for the first time in a long time was like a dream. I knew that not a few men
visited the brothels on the night we landed, but I did not go to any impure place, fearingthat if I did not keep myself especially pure while heading for the front, I would suffer divine
punishment. I was said to be too serious in Manila as well, but I also felt that my body wasprotected by my parents’ earnest prayers, and I firmly believed that maintaining such a strictly
pure heart and life was the key to returning home alive.
The three men who wrote these war memoirs–Army Surgeon Moriya, who was an officer, Sergeant
Nagano, who was a non-commissioned officer, and Private First Class Fujino, who was a soldier–had
no ties with the comfort facilities whatsoever while serving in the war. If one then asks if the special
comfort facilities were completely unnecessary, I think that this cannot be said as a general rule,because the cases of the three men were special.
In Heitaitachi no rikugunshi (Soldiers’ army history), published by Bancho Shobo and authored by
Keiichi Ito, Ito addresses the issue of “the battlefield and sex” and provides a suitable interpretationthat is most interesting. As he puts it, the comfort women were flowers on the battlefield, andprostitution in the war zone was a type of deliverance in extreme situations, which transcended moral
criticism. Ito writes about this as follows.
Most men who spent some of their youth in the war zone probably have some memories ofdealing with those comfort women. In some cases, the memories may have the most meaning
in their lives. Only those who had experienced it would understand the acute sweetness ofrelations sharing flesh and emotions at the edge of life and death. The prostitution in the war
zone was not only bleak and inhumane sex.

46

Wuhan military logistics base

From the ethical viewpoint of the war zone, the act of prostitution was a virtue, and certainly
could not be called an immoral or obscene act. One might even say it was a type of ritualcarried out by people in the face of death.
Soldiers are simple and common people who are unwillingly thrown into the war zone, and thewomen in the war zone shared that same fate. In other words, both the men and the women
lived in the same dimension, and they felt mutual sympathy and understanding. Because there
were so few women, they became victims who were crushed by harsh labor, in the shadow of
the fires of war.
One can only say that both the soldiers and the women were pitiful. That is also why I did notwant to casually take up the issue of sex in the war zone by treating it as fuzoku,32 a peculiar
custom.
Ito also considers the prostitutes and soldiers in his Kusanoumi–Senryodanso (Sea of grass–Fleeting
impressions of war travels), published by Bunka Shuppansha. His conclusions are as follows.
The comfort women are not mentioned in songs like nurses in war, and do not appear in war
histories or war stories. At most, they
Hankou Special Comfort Facilities Map
remain as ver y power ful impressions
in the hearts of a small percentage of
Zhongshan Road
the soldiers, and perhaps we must be
Private house
Private house
content with that.
Who were the comfor t women of the
war zone? Some would look down onthem as if they were simple creaturesof promiscuity and tragedy. They could
have been like mirrors that reflected
the soldiers. In my opinion, in the
cataclysmic defeat of Japanese Imperial
Army, the only beauty in the war was thepart that had something to do with the
comfort women. I must sincerely salute
those sweet and precious women.
In World War II, on the Wester n Front inEurope, Lale Andersen’s song “Lili Marlene”—
which was said to be sung by both the Axis
and the Allies—is apparently about a fleeting
rendezvous between a soldier and a prostitute33
on the front.
Outside the barracks, by the corner light.
I’ll always stand and wait for you atnight… For you, Lili Marlene. For you,
Lili Marlene.

patrolstation2nd Floor
Hospital
Meeting room

Warehouse
KitchenofficeCoolie/maids’
stationNurse station
Medical supplies warehouse

ClinicWarehouse

Seizankan

ToseiroMatsumotoro Heiwakan

Kiyofujiro

Osaka
Seinanro Matsuuraro

BukankoSenshokan Hananoya

Hada Besso

Taiheikan

Sanseiro

Katsumiro

Miyoshiro

Trees
Stupa

Park
Trees

Grass
Pond
Trees

Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”, Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.

32

Fuzuoku literally means the customs or practices of a certain place or locality.
The author says the song is about a soldier meeting a prostitute. While that is one interpretation of “Lili Marlene” that was
popularized by the Allies, it is certainly not the only one.
33

47

Wuhan military logistics baseThis song speaks of the wistful longing of a soldier who plucked a single pretty flower blooming in thefield, which seems to have pulled at the hearts of soldiers.
I was always in close contact with the comfort women, but I never once felt that they were dirty or
disreputable. They were not all pure-hearted, of course, and some who had a record of petty offenses
in Japan were certainly cunning or greedy, but I felt grateful to the women first for their hard work inreluctantly sacrificing themselves for the needs of the military, and always thought that I wanted tohelp them as much as possible. This was not simply pity or sentiment, but rather my feelings for these
women as human beings. In fact, I felt sorry for the comfort women, but I could not deny that for thesoldiers they were one relief in the bloody war, an oasis in the desert. These were women who lived ina different dimension from those women who flattered war profiteers and merchants of death or highranking officers and had an easy life. I felt that in my position as the recreation section chief, I was the
only one who could convey such gratitude to the women.

Jiqingli
The Hankou special comfort facilities were in the refugee district south of the intersection of Jianghan
Road and Zhongshan Road, on an alley off the major street Zhongshan Road, and were part of Jiqingli.
A high brick fence made it the only place cut off from the outside. Since this was a comfort facility
at a rear echelon military logistics base, its appearance was different from the comfort facilities on
the frontlines or near the battlefield. In Hankou, Jiqingli was another name for the special comfort
facilities.
Entering the compound, there was a patrol station for the Hankou Guard Unit and the brothel owners’
association office (with a clinic and sick ward on the second floor) on the right, and warehouses,
a kitchen, and housing for the maids on the left. Beyond these, the brothels, which each had theirown names, were lined up on both sides of the alley. Some of them were branches of brothels in
Matsushima and Fukuhara that had been established by military order, and these mostly shared
the names of their home establishments in Japan. There were nine of these, including Osaka
Seinanro (Osaka), Toseiro (Kobe), and Hada Besso (Hiroshima), as well as Kiyofujiro, Senshokan,
Matsumotoro, Katsumiro, and Matsuuraro. There were also 11 brothels operated by Koreans,including Miyoshiro, Seizankan, Sanseiro, Taiheikan, Heiwakan, Hananoya, and Bukanro. There were
280 women in all, with 130 Japanese comfort women and 150 Korean comfort women. (It seems there
was no discrimination between the Japanese and the Koreans at Jiqingli.)
The buildings were all two-story brick Chinese houses that had been remodeled. The Osaka Seinanro
and some of the other brothels had remodeled each of the rooms on the second floor in tea ceremonyhouse-style with lattice work under the eaves, making them look like rooms in a Japanese red-light
district. The individual rooms were mainly tatami rooms that were six mats or four and a half matslarge. They had a place to remove one’s shoes before entering, and some of them had a seductive
atmosphere with red long undergarments hanging on racks next to the walls. (Near the end of thewar, however, both the Japanese and the Korean prostitutes wore tight-sleeved kimonos and mompe
pants, but of course they wore nightwear while working.)
Some said that from the outside this place looked like the Sanjusangendo Temple34 in Kyoto, and one
book said there was a unit which called it “P33”(“P” was slang for comfort facilities). I cannot give thename of the book because I paid little attention to the book at that time.
34

48

Sanjusangendo is a temple in Kyoto with a hall having 33 spaces between the columns.
Wuhan military logistics base

Beyond the brothels, there was a park with a dome-shaped commemorative monument in one
corner for comfort women who came to Hankou and died of illness, and a small shrine dedicatedto the Shinto divinity known as Inari. Oleander and canna lilies were planted and there was a small
artificial hill and a pond. The central plaza was grass. The prostitutes would do radio calisthenics
in the mornings, and on their one day off each month, the movie team at the military logistics baseshowed them movies at night. This environment was completely different from the inhumane comfort
facilities on the frontlines with straw mats. If you imagine the facilities here as extensions of brothelsin Japan, you would not be mistaken.
According to Army Surgeon Nagasawa, who had been at the military logistics base for a long time, thefirst commander of the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters when Hankou was conquered by theCentral China Expeditionary Army in October 1938 was Colonel Ryu Ikeda. Colonel Ikeda was a firm
and broad-minded man. Most of his staff were older officers who had been drafted and had extensive
experience outside Japan. They ran the unit skillfully, and smoothly carried out logistical chores
that they had never done before. Work on most of the military logistics facilities was completed by
Adjutant Fujii and Recreation Section Chief Takahashi.
The brothel owners who entered Hankou by following the campaigning Japanese army duped themilitary police, occupied empty houses inside the city near Zhongshan Road, and operated covertly.
These brothels were then all centralized in Jiqingli and placed under the supervision of the Hankou
Military Logistics Base as military logistics facilities. From the perspectives of counterintelligence andof controlling communicable diseases, leaving the facilities as they were would have been a problem,and could not be neglected in the interest of maintaining the fighting power of the military. When theJapanese forces entered, the Korean prostitutes were exploited as slaves, but they were later switchedto the same system of borrowing money used for the Japanese prostitutes.
Colonel Ikeda, who was the first commander, frequently had conflicts with the Army headquarters.
He was relieved by the Army and replaced by Colonel Kosaku Matsuda. Colonel Matsuda had a gentle
personality. He lacked initiative, and members of his staff were gradually replaced. His influence
waned, and all he could do was to carry on the work undertaken by his predecessor. Matsuda became
sick before long and was sent back to Japan, and Commander Horie took up his post at Hankou in
November 1942.
The prostitutes were not lined up behind grilles to attract customers. Rather the women’s professional
names and photos were lined up sometimes with the designation “first timer” or “new,” just like inJapan. Officially the prostitutes were not allowed to go outside the brothels and solicit customers,of course, but one could hear the voices of soldiers calling their regulars and there was a somewhat
sociable mood.
There were many kinds of brothel owners, including mercurial gamblers who thought it best to go
to the war zone and operate brothels (“piya”) to make quick money, and who came to the continent
with a single rucksack on their back, aiming to rake in cash. There were also established houses
from Matsushima and Fukuhara that reluctantly opened branches at the order of the army. Relations
between these two houses were particularly bad, and they fiercely competed even though they
were both Japanese. I think the conditions in Jiqingli were somehow calm on the surface because
a brothel owners’ business association was formed, with Mr. Saito from Japan as the director and
Mr. Kaneda from Korea as the assistant director, and the military logistics base controlled Jiqingli
through the association. Saito was a simple, good-natured old man reminiscent of a village chief in the
countryside. Kaneda was a Korean formerly called Kim Jung Hyun who changed his name to Kaneda
49

Wuhan military logistics basein 1939 when the policy of pressuring Koreans under Japanese rule to adopt Japanese names was
implemented (soshi kaimei). He was tall, talented, and had a good personality, and was the type whotruly wanted to cooperate with the military. At that time, however, the word “Korean” was viewed as
being derogatory, so the term “person from the peninsula” was used exclusively.
Incidentally, the most troublesome work of the recreation section chief was the super vision andguidance of the special comfort facilities (for the comfort women). In the case of the Hankou Military
Logistics Base, it was said that recreation section chiefs did not last for long. That was because theirwork was subject to a lot of slander from the outside, and it was easy to be cajoled by certain brothel
owners, which in turn invited criticism for partiality from other brothel owners, who were then were
liable to tell tall tales. At any rate, the conditions were rife for problems to occur.
When I was appointed recreation section chief, I resolved to refuse any side benefits that went
with my position, and to not abuse my authority. I treated the prostitutes as fellow human beings. I
maintained impartiality and fairness. I made up my mind to follow such a policy right from the start.
As soon as I took office as the section chief, I assembled all the brothel owners in a meeting room at
the comfort facility and began with my greetings. I then presented revised new administrative rules,
explained them point by point, and formally conveyed the military logistics commander’s intentions,as follows.
At this critical period when militar y and civilians should devote themselves to theiroccupations to successfully execute the holy war, the selfish pursuit of profit by people
working with militar y facilities on the frontlines will not be permitted. Also, the comfort
women who dedicate themselves to maintaining and increasing the fighting power of theofficers and men should not be abused or exploited at all.
I clearly presented these two points as the will of the military logistics base commander. The brothel
owners looked at each other with expressions of discomfort in response to my strict attitude.
I also wanted to speak to the comfort women directly, so I assembled all the women in one place andgave them my first lecture after being appointed section chief. That day was a public holiday, so they
had all changed into their going-out clothes, and they were sitting on beautiful cushions which theyeach had chosen as they liked and placed on the wooden floor of the large room on the second floor.
They were all dressed up, but when I thought that these were women who had come far away to theoutback of the continent and had no way to earn their living except by selling their bodies, I felt pity
more than anything.
Once all of them had assembled, Assistant Director Kaneda stood up and said “Attention, salute!”
The women all bowed their heads at the same time while sitting. I returned their salute and said, “I
am Second Lieutenant Yamada of the Hankou Military Logistics Base. I have just been appointed therecreation section chief and now I am going to give a lesson.” I told Kaneda to put them at ease, andhe gave the order “At ease!” in the military fashion. I told them to listen while resting at ease andbegan speaking.
The war has already been going on for a year and a half, and is now finally entering a decisive
stage. To win this war no matter what, the military has sent many Japanese soldiers to thefront in distant central China, and to capture Chongqing they are now being sent from here
to the frontlines in Yichang and Yuezhou. Many of these soldiers have left their parents,
wives, and children at home. Moreover, they are risking their lives in this duty. This is truly a50

Wuhan military logistics base

hardship so the Army must reward them sufficiently. You are the only ones who can comfort
them in place of the wives, children and parents they have left behind in Japan. The military
fully understands your position in this important task and intends to compensate you for that
hard work. We want you to kindly treat the soldiers who visit the comfort facilities seeking
temporary peace of mind.
Jiqingli, where these comfort facilities are located, was named after an old Chinese saying
which means “virtue brings rewards.” People who carry out kind and good deeds are always
rewarded and joyful. This is just like putting your savings in heaven. Even if they cannot beseen, they never disappear. Such people will certainly receive good rewards someday. Yourkind care makes a deeply impression in the hearts of the soldiers who do not know what will
happen tomorrow, and becomes a beautiful memory. When they go to the front, they willremember you who were kind to them, and secretly pray for your happiness. Such prayers
and hopes will certainly reach heaven and bring you happiness someday.
You must also take good care of yourselves. There is no use in doing too much and becoming
ill. Be sure to carefully follow the prescribed procedures so you will not become ill. Help
one another when the work is difficult. Always live a bright life. And absolutely never use
narcotics, gamble, or engage in criminal acts. Thinking about the hardships and austerity
endured by the soldiers at the front, you should drink sake and smoke tobacco in moderation,and not be extravagant or wasteful. You should work to pay off your debts and return homeas quickly as possible so you can enter a happy family life. Prostitution is mistreatment of thebody, and it is definitely not a good thing, but since you receive money for fully satisfying thecustomers, it is fundamentally different from fraud, extortion, or theft. So you should not feel
inferior. The military logistics base intends to take responsibility for taking care of you. If you
have any trouble at all, please feel free to contact me. I plan to be available for consultation at
any time.
That is generally what I said in front of the women.
Most of the comfort women were raised in extremely poor households, and in extreme cases, someof the Koreans had so little education that they could not read. Others had no parents, or wereabandoned by men, and many were in unfortunate circumstances. Some voluntarily sold themselves,
sacrificing themselves for their families to help their parents and siblings. Moreover, the comfort
women were subject to scorn and contempt from society as shameful women, and they even belittled
themselves as women of the red-light district. Such women looked confused when they heard thatprostitution is an important duty that helps enhance fighting power, and when the section chief—with whom they thought they could not speak on equal terms—offered to consult with them directly.
The brothel owners who had regarded the prostitutes as “lice” until that time were also somewhat
regretful on seeing the attitude of the section chief toward the comfort women, and I thought theymight then see the women in a slightly different light.
The amount of money earned by the comfort women each day was calculated according to thenumber of customers served by each woman. The amount was then broken down according to theranks of their customers (officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers), and reported by eachbrothel to the military logistics center every day. Efforts were made at each unit to prevent too many
soldiers going out on Sundays, yet despite that, the brothels were particularly busy on Sundays andholidays.

51

Wuhan military logistics baseI heard that at one time, there was a ratio of one comfort woman per 150 soldiers. Calculating inreverse from the 280 comfort women in the Hankou district, that means there would have been 42,000
soldiers stationed at Hankou. I do not know the exact figures, but there must have normally beenaround 50,000 soldiers there.
The hours of operation were set at 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for soldiers. The brothels were open until
8:00 p.m. for non-commissioned officers, and remained open after 8:00 p.m. for officers. Of course,
civilians were prohibited from entering Jiqingli. There were officers at the patrol station near theentrance who were from the Guard Unit, and they controlled entry and exit as necessary.
The service fees were set reasonably based on the salaries of the soldiers and the working abilities of
the comfort women, the repayment of advances, and the operating expenses of the brothel owners.
I was told that initially the fees were 40 yuan in Central Reserve Bank of China notes (“chobiken”;
non-convertible notes issued by China’s pro-Japanese administration during the war) for officers
for overnight stays, and during the daytime 15 yuan for noncommissioned officers and 10 yuan forsoldiers. Around when I was appointed in April 1943, I recall that the fees had been revised to 100
yuan for officers, 50 yuan for noncommissioned officers, and 30 yuan for soldiers. The banknotes
were paper currency issued by the Central Reserve Bank of China, with 100 yuan of those notes equal
to 18 yen of Japanese currency. The soldiers’ salaries and additional war zone allowances were all paidin those notes.
Some of the comfort women were simple-minded and not good at calculations. They did not evenentertain questions about their financial situation, whereby their debts did not decline no matter
how much they worked under the feudal employment relations in which they sold their freedom formonetary advances. They generally just remained quiet and accepted this meekly. Since I clearlystated that questionable points would be clarified and that the Army would immediately order therectification of any errors on behalf of the comfort women who were in a weak position, the women
seemed relieved, but the brothel owners were somewhat anxious.
Immediately after I took office as the recreation section chief, I launched on-site audits of eachbrothel, together with the noncommissioned officers in my section, based on the daily ledgers
submitted to the military logistics base. These ledgers were based on the written journals (kazancho)
kept at each brothel, but when we compared the two, there were many discrepancies. This waspartially because they falsely inflated the number of customers due to ignorance about how to accountfor the tips received beyond the stipulated fees, but there were also errors in the balances after
deductions. This caused the brothel owners, who were flustered by my audit, to review their accountbooks and reports, and to even begin amending them retrospectively.
The individual sales books (mizuagecho), which were the source documents for repayment of debts,
sometimes showed credits for no understandable reasons, and in extreme cases the prices of sheets
and nightclothes supplied by the militar y logistics base at official prices were recorded in local
market prices. When asked about these points, some brothel owners had no explanation whatsoever,so I decided that from that time all the sales books would have to be approved by the military logistics
base’s accountants. I think the division of earnings between the brothel owners and the comfort
women was stipulated so that all the meals and other operating expenses were the burden of thebrothel owners, and the net proceeds divided 60-40 for those comfort women with debts and 50-50 for
those without.
The brothel owners initially complained behind my back at my way of doing things. But after I had

52

Wuhan military logistics basepointed out improprieties in the sales books and sloppy accounting, and ordered that operations by
noncompliant operators would be shut down, they reluctantly followed the orders of the military
logistics base. I think this preemptive strike on my part turned out to be highly effective.
Ascertaining the number of customers was necessar y for the militar y logistics base to supply
condoms, so I had the brothel owners report the actual number of customers. I had the tips thatthe women inevitably received reported as a surplus, accumulated these as reser ve funds, andused them for the comfort women’s welfare. However, how accurately this was done was highly
questionable, and that had to be overlooked to some extent. The women earned around 400-500 yen
per month in Japanese currency if they were not wasteful, assuming that they serviced an average ofsix soldiers, one noncommissioned officer, and one officer per day while working 27 or 28 days permonth (excluding public holidays). The women generally had borrowed about 6,000-7,000 yen before
they began working. They could generally repay those debts in about one and a half years, and theintention of my instructions was that if they worked beyond that they could return to Japan with somesavings. We could not grasp the small details of their income, and there were some officers who saw
the comfort women for a short time, rather than spending the night. So, the women’s actual income
may have been higher than this. At any rate, we were not following the women all the time so we
could not grasp the exact conditions in detail.
Their daily lives (aside from the time they spent seeing customers) were breakfast at 8:30 a.m., lunchat 1:00 p.m., and dinner at 6:00 p.m., but it seems they would also eat udon or ramen noodles at theirown expense as late-night meals. Officers would sometimes drink sake with the women while eatingsukiyaki as if they had returned to their families at home. (Of course, this was against the rules, but
it was tacitly overlooked.) And I heard that some of the Japanese women said the rice supplied by the
military logistics base was not tasty, so they sold it to coolies and ate rice that they bought themselveson the black market.
The women received miso, soy sauce, salt, sugar, and fuel from the freight depot with accounting
vouchers from the militar y logistics base, and the accounts were settled at the official prices.
Vegetables, meat, tofu, and other items were purchased from a government contractor named Ruanby the military logistics base and distributed at cost. Alcohol and tobacco alone were procured by the
comfort facilities themselves.
The cooking of the comfort women’s meals was supposed to be done by the comfort facilities
together, but in fact side dishes and other items were provided as necessary by each brothel. At any
rate, the comfort women were engaged in physical labor, so a certain amount of extra nutrition wasnecessary. Their bodies would not last with a frugal diet, and we paid attention to nutrition so that the
women would not bear excess expenses or waste money.
Comfort women eating with customers inside the brothels was tacitly accepted for officers late atnight, but prohibited in the daytime for noncommissioned officers and soldiers. Some soldiers would
bring sake in flasks and drink with the women. This was a practice that was prohibited because
customers who got drunk would fail to use condoms to prevent disease and the women would notalways wash themselves properly afterwards.
There was a clinic at the comfort stations, with an army surgeon sent from the military logistics base
every day. Examinations for venereal disease had generally been conducted regularly, once per week.
According to the army surgeon, when venereal disease was discovered and there was fear that it
would spread to others, the women would be ordered to immediately stop working or be hospitalized,

53

Wuhan military logistics baseand their income would suddenly decline. So they came up with ways of evading detection, withmeasures such as having older comfort women first check them on examination days, covering
discolored areas with lipstick, and cleaning sores with hydrogen peroxide. It therefore became
necessary to call the women randomly and conduct examinations on an ad hoc basis.
I maintained an attitude of handling everything fairly and impartially, in line with my initial policy. I
instructed the brothel owners not to discriminate between the Japanese and Korean women, and I
advised the women to free themselves from their straits as quickly as possible.
When the brothel owners heard there was a new section chief, some came to see me right away toflatter me, and brought information from the brothel owners’ association. I refused to deal with theowners in any way, and had them negotiate with the director of the association. I also maintained apolicy of protecting myself, never using the comfort facilities of course, and never privately using theofficers’ restaurants or the military logistics base cafeteria. This is because I thought that maintaining
my integrity was absolutely necessary to enforce the rules.
First Lieutenant Yoshioka, who had been promoted from the ranks, was a very fat person and served
as the head of the unit barracks. He would receive gasoline from a noncommissioned officer in
the air service, secretly store the fuel, get cars from soldiers in the automobile units, and take thevehicles on rides. Yoshioka would brag to the comfort women that the recreation section chief would
be changed after a year at most, and that he was in line to become the next section chief. However,
perhaps because I was considered well suited for the position, I remained the recreation section chieffor nearly three years (excluding three months when I was sent to the frontlines in Hubei as the headof the Shayangzhen Military Logistics Branch at the beginning of Operation Togo).

54

Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 4

The Prostitutes
Profiles of the Prostitutes
When comfort women arrived at Hankou, they would report to the military logistics base recreation
section with the necessary documents, together with the brothel owner.
The noncommissioned officer who was in charge would check each woman’s photograph, family
register, sworn statement, parents’ written approval, police permit, and identification from the mayorof their municipality. He would prepare a personal information form, writing down the woman’s work
history, parents’ address, occupation, family makeup, the amount of any monetary advance, and otherparticulars. He would make a copy of the form and send it to the military police. When a woman was
suspended from work for violations of rules, that would be recorded in the rewards and punishments
column, and when hospitalized for illness, the name of the disease and the hospitalization period
would be recorded in the medical history column. In the reference column, the woman’s habits, suchas drinking or profligacy, would be recorded later.
To keep track of the conditions of the comfort women, the recreation section recorded informationsuch as their place of birth by prefecture (by province for Korea), age, work histor y, academic
history, medical history, family makeup, and amounts of monetary advances. The section also kept
brief resumes of the brothel owners and their employees, and worked to prepare the necessar y
documents that would be useful for administrative purposes.
Most of the women who came from Japan were from 20 to 27 or 28 years old, and had previously
worked as prostitutes, geisha, or waitresses. In contrast, those who came from Korea were mostly
young women, 18 or 19 years old, with no prior work history. When we asked them, “The work is
hard, can you bear it?” they all nodded and replied that they understood about the work, perhaps
because they had been told to do so by the brothel owners beforehand.
The women were of various types. Some were shrewd like a sly old fox, while others were surprisingly
naive amateurs. They had all different types of appearances. Some were ugly, while others were
sophisticated beauties. Of course, what could not be known from the outside was what they thought
about and hoped for while they were living harsh lives. After all, I lived in a different world from these
women. To understand them even a little, I wanted to speak with them individually, face to face. Butthat was simply impossible since there were nearly 300 comfort women and I had many other duties
to attend to as the recreation section chief.
Nevertheless, for some reason, I certainly felt more affinity with the comfort women working at the
comfort facilities than with the hostesses (geisha) at the officers’ club.
Even now, after more than 30 years, there are faces I remember, and events related to them. I will now
try to write down profiles of a few of these comfort women who left an impression on me.

Shizuka
A woman arrived at Hankou owing around 10,000 yen in Japanese currency and came to the military
logistics base, together with the owner of the Osaka Seinanro brothel. Since that was an exceptionally
55

Wuhan military logistics baselarge amount of money at that time, I looked at her with special interest while reviewing her personal
information form. She had a slender and gentle face. She said she was 20 years old, but looked
older. The women would come wearing their best clothing for their first greetings, so they appeared
particularly beautiful. Her name was Shizuka.
After four or five days I asked the brothel owner while smiling, “How is it going? Is Shizuka sellingwell?”He replied proudly, “Yes, she is popular.” It seems the savvy brothel owner thought that the section
chief liked this woman. One day, the private first class who answered the phone said with a smirk, “First
Lieutenant, you have a phone call.”“Who is it from?”“From a woman.”“What?”“It seems to be a woman from the comfort facility.”“Then, have her wait.”
After I finished with my paperwork, I went into the phone room and picked up the receiver. She said
in a cloying voice, “Section chief, I haven’t seen you for a while.”“Who is this?”“Shizuka.”“What do you want?”“I cannot tell you over the phone. There is something I really want to talk about, so I will be waiting
for you tonight.”“Don’t be silly. If you have something to say, then come to the military logistics base.”“But there is no point in my coming because I cannot speak with you there.”“What do you mean? No one at Jiqingli can summon the section chief there by telephone. Even thebusiness association director comes here when he has some business.”
I slammed down the phone. The following day the brothel owner showed up rubbing his hands
together in a servile manner.
I said to him, “What is your problem? You are not educating your women properly. You must havebeen the instigator who had her call me directly on the phone.”He pretended to be apologetic, saying, “No, I did no such thing. I wonder if someone said something
uncalled for.”He later explained what happened by saying a certain first lieutenant at the military logistics base had
prompted her to call, telling her that the section chief was interested in her. But I have no doubt that
this was the scheme of the brothel owner himself.
I subsequently saw Shizuka several times, but she never mentioned anything about the phone call andjust looked at me with a flirtatious glance. I pretended not to notice and disregarded her. Before long,
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Wuhan military logistics basewhenever she saw me, she would put on airs and not even smile, maybe because she thought her
pride had been hurt.

Mitsuko
A phone call came from the 34th Army’s legal depar tment while I was away. When thenoncommissioned of ficer on duty who answered asked why they were calling, he was told toinvestigate a woman working at the comfort facilities who had been kidnapped. This was because
women who were rank amateurs were often deceived by being told they would be working at an army
canteen.
When I called the business association director right away and had him informally investigate this,it seemed that this was about Mitsuko, who worked at the Matsuuraro brothel. I headed out to the
comfort facilities with paymaster First Lieutenant Noguchi from accounting, summoned Mitsuko to
the business association office, and asked some questions. She seemed to be childish, just 18 or 19
years old.
As for Mitsuko’s origins, she was born in Minoo in Osaka, and was a precocious juvenile delinquent.
She became intimate with a militar y police sergeant major in the neighborhood while she wasattending a vocational girls’ school and became pregnant, so she dropped out. She subsequently had
a miscarriage. She did not get along with her stepmother and was therefore uncomfortable at home,
so she left home and went to work at a nearby spinning factory. But she frequently skipped work,
secretly smoked cigarettes, and idled about, and was constantly scolded. When she heard that oneof her friends was going to Hankou as an army hostess, she promised to go together but the police
would not issue a permit for her to travel to China unless she had prior work experience. So she lied,saying that she had previously worked at a cafe and received permission. She was also told she had totake on debt, so she borrowed money even though she did not need it, and entrusted it to her aunt orsome other relative and had it deposited as savings.
However, the woman she was to travel with backed out because her parents would not allow her to go.
Mitsuko came to Hankou without her friend, and accompanied by a brothel owner. I don’t know whatagreement she made with the brothel owner, but she was treated like his daughter or like a family
member, ate together with the brothel owner, and was otherwise treated differently from the other
women.
Mitsuko said to me, “Even the Koreans become exhausted after taking on five customers. The women
told me to think about other things and not think of the customers as men, but it is not that easy. It
may be because I had no experience in Japan, and I’m just not used to it.”
Mitsuko would sometimes refuse customers at night, saying she objected to excessive work andcovertly recorded charges for services not rendered. She had come all the way to Hankou, so she
was certainly something, but she was also meek. When I went into Mitsuko’s room there was asmall mirror stand in one corner. A copy of Part II of the Manyoshuka (Selected poems from the
Manyoshu), published by Iwanami Shinsho, was placed on top of the stand together with her facepowder and cream.
“Do you read this?”“Yes”“Did you bring it from Japan?”
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“No, I received it from a noncommissioned officer who came to see me. If you want to read it, pleasetake it with you.”
Seeing that she read such a book, I thought Mitsuko was a woman who was unexpectedly bookish.
Paymaster First Lieutenant Noguchi had been a one-year volunteer. He returned to Japan at the
beginning of July 1945 without waiting for the end of the war and was transferred to a unit in Japanas a soldier for the final battle in the mainland. Mitsuko came to the military logistics base later andshowed me a letter that Noguchi had sent her. It seems Noguchi had become intimate with Mitsuko
and wrote that if she ever had any problem, she should consult with First Lieutenant Yamada.
When the women were holding an athletic meet in the park in Jiqingli, there was a competition
involving some simple calculations, and I think it was Mitsuko who came in first.

FujikoThere was a woman named Fujiko at the Matsuuraro brothel who was somehow fascinating. She
had a mole on the side of her nose and large watery eyes like those of the women painted by YumejiTakeshita. She was only 21 or 22 years old. According to her personal information form, she had
previously worked as a geisha in Japan.
When I said to her, “Shouldn’t you be working at the officers’ club?” Fujiko just smiled and did not
reply. She was normally quiet and modest, but this may have been a false modesty because thereference column on her form noted that she had a drinking habit.
One evening, when I was in a military logistics base’s private room for adjutants on the second floor of
the headquarters, I was reading Why France Fell by André Maurois under a makeshift kotatsu. I had
arranged the kotatsu by placing a small electric stove under the desk and covering it with a blanket,
and had a lamp covered with a black cloth pulled down low. A guard knocked on the door, came in,and said, “Adjutant, someone is here to see you.”“Who is it? At this time of night.”“It’s a woman. A woman from the comfort facility.”“Then have her wait downstairs.”“Well, she is already here with me.”
When I looked, Fujiko from Matsuuraro came in from behind the guard, wearing a kimono,completely drunk.
She burst out, “Section chief, who do you think you are? You treat people like fools.”“What on earth are you doing here?
“I will go anywhere, even to the frontlines. I cannot bear even one more day in such a horrible place.”
In one corner of this 12-tatami size room there was a platform with three tatami mats on top of it.
Fujiko took off her black crepe overgarment and threw it onto the tatami. I could see the garment’s
seductive pink lining with a pattern of palace dolls (gosho-ningyo).
I told her, “You are drunk. I cannot speak with drunks.”

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She violently pulled a chair that was in front of me toward her with one hand as she said, “How could I
live without drinking?” and put her feet on top of the electric stove while still wearing her geta clogs.
She said with a half-crying voice, “I will stay here tonight. I won’t go back to Jiqingli, even if I am
dead.”
I said laughing, “I will listen to you fully later on,” tr ying to calm her down, but she went oncomplaining insistently.
I refused to deal with her and went back to reading my book. After a while, she suddenly became
quiet, perhaps because she had calmed down. When I looked up, she was staring at a photograph thatwas on top of my desk. It was a picture of my children who I had left behind in Japan wearing mompe
pants and anti-air-raid hoods.
At that moment, probably because the daily roll call had been completed, I heard voices downstairs
reciting the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors in unison:
One. The soldier and sailor should consider loyalty their essential duty...
Fujiko suddenly became meek, and tears began streaming down her cheeks. She may have left ayoung child behind in her hometown and was thinking about the child. She finally became obedientand said she was going back.
That day was a public holiday. The military logistics base movie team was showing the film Caramels
and Soldiers in the evening, in the park behind the comfort facilities. In this film, a draft notice isdelivered to the home of a poor young couple who both work. The couple are speaking about their
future life in detail at the side of their sleeping child while fixing a broken toy in the six-tatami-mat
room on the second floor which they are renting, with the dismal sound of raindrops hitting theglass door in the background. After the husband goes to the front in northern China, his days as arailway guard are monotonous. He collects the exchange tickets that come inside boxes of caramelsthat are supplied by the Army from his comrades and sends them to his child back in Japan. Whenthe child goes to exchange the tickets for a prize, the company president finds out that his father
has been drafted and gives him notebooks and other school supplies along with the prize. It was ahome drama about the joys and sorrows of the common people. I had sent three men, including anoncommissioned officer, and I was supposed to go there at the end of the movie, so I said to Fujiko, “I
will go to the comfort facility with you,” and we stepped out together. The town was completely dark
because of the blackout order. Fujiko followed me without a word firmly holding onto the edge of mycloak as her geta clogs clacked against the cold stone pavement of the red-light district in the wintrywind.
Her colleague Mitsuko who was standing at the entrance of the comfort facility said, “Where have you
been? Section chief, I am very sorry for troubling you.”
Fujiko was later persuaded to accept a promotion and become a hostess (a geisha at the officers’club), and she moved to the officers’ restaurant Gion. When Lieutenant Colonel Araya became thecommander of the Wuhan Military Logistics Base during Operation Togo, he had dinner at Gion
together with the officers from his unit. At that time, Fujiko ser ved us together with Matsutaro,
Hideya, and other geisha. Perhaps because she had been a geisha in Japan, when she was wearing
her fine clothes, she looked lively, like a fish in water. She sat in front of the stern commander andI could see the grace and glamor typical of geisha in her gestures while serving the food in various
ways.
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Wuhan military logistics baseI took charge of the banquet that night as the adjutant, and perhaps because I had not spoken to her,
Fujiko pinched my upper arm without saying a word as I passed her in the hallway on my way home.

KojiroAround noon one day, a woman called Kojiro from the Matsumotoro brothel, who was around 20
years old, came to the military logistics base, saying she wanted to see the section chief. When I met
her, she had a purple cloth wrapped around her forehead and looked just like the chivalrous hero
Hanakawado Sukeroku in the kabuki play, Sukeroku. She had a cut on her lips, with white adhesiveplaster in the shape of a cross on the wound.
When I asked her, “What happened?” she answered, “The brothel owner cut my forehead.” Sheexplained that he hit her on the forehead with an ashtray and she showed me the bloodstained sleeve
she had used to wipe the blood that flowed. From my experience, I knew that half of such women’scomplaints and excuses were lies. I could not be naive and accept whatever she said as truth. To begin
with, there had been an incident where this Kojiro had gotten onto a rickshaw without any money,
gone to another house, and borrowed the fare at that house and paid it. Seeing this rough-and-tumble
tomboy pouring out tears on top of my desk in broad daylight, rather than feeling sorry for her, I felt
this was comical, yet on the other hand it was also oddly sexy. I listened to her going on and on withher complaints inattentively while feeling confused about whether she was really crying or just acting.
Possibly because I scolded her saying, “You should not come to the military logistics base wearing
such a gaudy and flimsy kimono,” the next time Kojiro came, she was wearing a tight-sleeved kimono
and black mompe pants, with a docile expression. A woman who called herself “auntie” who lived near
Rokkakudo said she had negotiated with the brothel owner and wanted to take Kojiro. I summoned
the brothel owner, asked him about the situation, and in the end, I decided to accept Kojiro’s wishes
and send this tomboy of a woman to the frontlines.
After Kojiro left, I heard from someone that she had a peony tattoo on her thigh. I do not know if thisis true, but she was certainly that type of woman.

MiharuOne morning, when it was drizzling and rain was quietly falling on the road, a woman named Miharu
from the Miyoshiro brothel came to the military logistics base carrying a Chinese umbrella.
She said she wanted to donate money to the military logistics base for the war relief fund. When I
asked about this, she said a young officer who was about to go to the front had spent the night with
her two or three nights before. Miharu was a plain and unrefined woman who probably had a kindnature and said she had treated the officer kindly. She had listened to him speak about his hometownand his life story while lying down next to him. When he was about to leave the next morning, he said
he would not come back alive, and that he could not use money on the frontlines, and he gave it all toher. The young officer said he wanted her to use it to pay off her monetary advances, but she told him
not to say such things and to come and see her again. She held onto his knees and broke out crying.
In the end, the officer left the money, said he would visit her if he had a chance to return to Hankou,
smiled at her, and headed off for the front.
The money was around 2,000 yuan in Central Reserve Bank of China notes. But the comfort women
were not allowed to pay off their debt using such a lump sum of money that came from the outside.

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They had to repay all their advances by working with their own bodies.
Miharu said, “I will donate this money to the military logistics base, so please use it for something.”
I suggested, “Why don’t you have the brothel owner hold it for you until that officer returns,” but
Miharu would not change her mind, and she said with a straight face that if the officer came again,
she would entertain him at her own expense.
Under military regulations, laying down conditions on the use of money that had been donated for thewelfare of servicemen was not permitted. What is more, if the donation were received by the military
logistics base, it would be forwarded directly to the Army.
I said, “Well, how about donating this money to the Soldiers’ Librar y (the librar y at the militar ylogistics base). I will take custody of the money, buy appropriate books, and write your name in thebooks as the donor.” I explained this and took custody of the money.
Unusual books would sometimes appear at Marugo, the only secondhand bookstore operated by aJapanese in Hankou, which was located on Liangyi Street. I sometimes wanted to buy such books
right away, but the military logistics base’s accountants did not welcome that because the proceduresfor buying one or two books at a time were too much trouble. I entrusted all the money I had received
from Miharu to Marugo’s proprietor, and when I bought one or two good books, I inscribed herreal name on the books as the donor and placed them in the Soldiers’ Library. The officer from thecommunications unit who had given her the money was named Kitamura, and he never came to visit
Miharu again.
The books I purchased using the donation from Miharu included the following.
Ryoshu (Melancholic journey) by Riichi Yokomitsu
Yukiguni (Snow Country) by Yasunari Kawabata
Shinayuki (China journey report) by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Peking (Beijing) by Tomoji Abe
Men to perusona (Mask and persona) by Tetsuro Watsuji
Shina tenten (Here and there in China) by Shinpei Kusano
Gekidansho (Theater excerpts) by Matsutaro Ishiwari
Tsuru wa yamiki (The dying crane) by Kanoko Okamoto
Soshu nikki (Suzhou diary) by Shozo Takakura
Doino no hika (Duino Elegies) translated by Mayumi Haga
Togakushi no ehon (Picture book of Togakushi) by Nobuo Tsumura
A young cadet who came to the Soldiers’ Library later asked Superior Private Takeuchi, who was on
duty, “What sort of person is the woman who donated these books?”
Takeuchi replied, “She is a militar y comfort woman called Miharu at the Miyoshiro brothel in
Jiqingli.” The cadet was surprised that a woman reading such erudite books was working in a place
like Jiqingli and went out of his way to go and visit Miharu. The cadet must have felt the sorrow of
being disillusioned after meeting her and hearing her situation.

KohanaOnce, when a brothel owner came to report to the military logistics base, I asked about the conditionsof each of the women who had been hospitalized for a long time.
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Wuhan military logistics baseThere was a woman called Kohana from the Korean brothel Hananoya who was suffering from acuteperitonitis and was seriously ill. She could no longer eat. I had two cans of mandarin oranges broughtfrom the base store and had the brothel owner bring them to her. She was told that the recreation
section chief had given them for her. Her co-worker fed her the syrup only using a spoon, and Kohanasipped it happily. But soon she could not take even that and when she was asked “Do you want to eat
an orange?” she only replied “Later…” I heard that her final moments were very painful.
On the evening of Kohana’s wake, the Hananoya brothel closed for business at 10:00 p.m., and I wentby myself because I heard that a monk from Higashi Honganji Temple was coming to recite sutras.
There was a small photograph in front of the mortuary tablet, but I just could not remember thiswoman. There was a red balsam flower in a glass by the photograph, and I offered incense and put myhands together in prayer.
Kohana’s co-workers had all removed their makeup, changed into Korean clothes, and were sittingin the corner. They looked as if they were respectable women. One can of mandarin oranges that had
not been eaten was offered next to the mortuary tablet. They opened this can and each ate a little bit.
According to Assistant Director Kaneda, who went to the hospital to see Kohana two days before shedied, her mother had passed away early, her father was not in touch with her, and she had left one
child behind in her hometown even though she was not yet 20 years old. Kaneda asked me to cremate
Kohana in the military logistics base’s crematorium because the fee at the Korean Residents Union’s
crematorium was too high. Those who died from illness or in battle in the Hankou region werecremated in the military logistics base’s crematorium, and their remains were enshrined in the fallen
soldiers’ shrine room at the military logistics base. After a funeral service held once each month, theremains were returned to Japan on a ship traveling downstream from Hankou. There was already ashortage of wood at that time, so the soldiers’ bodies were placed in the crematorium in pairs, withoutcaskets, in a single furnace with the head of one next to the feet of the other. I approved Kaneda’s
request, but it would not be acceptable to cremate a soldier together with a prostitute, so I decided I
would tell the noncommissioned officer in charge to cremate her body separately.
As the mourners were talking, it became midnight and the lights went out. The women said theywould light candles and watch over the body all night, so I left them and returned to the military
logistics base.
My orderly, the superior private, later told me he heard that when this woman was cremated, a soldier
from the enshrined deities section watched from a peephole and saw that her thin limbs were spreadout into the air.

Kinta
A woman at the Matsumotoro brothel called Kinta brought in the highest earnings. She was a faded
beauty 32 or 33 years old, and her figure was not very attractive. Yet this woman was a moneymakerand she was always the top prostitute. I called her to my office one day, and when I asked her “Kinta,
you must have some good points that are different from the other women,” she obediently replied asfollows.
I have toiled away ever since I was a novice in the Tobita red-light district in Osaka, so I am
different from the rookie whores these days. If the way I filled the tobacco pipes was not justright, the senior prostitute would hit me with a pipe, but she looked after me exceptionallywell. She taught me skills and tricks, how to handle customers, and how to take care of
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Wuhan military logistics basemyself. The greatest reason a woman’s income declines is when she fails a venereal disease
examination and is hospitalized. Most regular customers become afraid and stop coming if
they hear that you have venereal disease. I have been in this business for more than 10 years,
but I have never been hospitalized even once. Moreover, I do not have the customers use
condoms.
When I asked her if she had some secret to this, she said, “Washing thoroughly,” and I wound up
listening to her speaking at length about her extensive knowledge.
Kinta said while she had said “washing,” she did not mean half-hearted washing, which conversely
sometimes pushes germs further inside.
The strict senior prostitute trained me very well. Looking back now, I am most grateful for
her training. The women today have it easy. They are all a bunch of amateurs. To begin with,there is a method to sleeping with customers. To avoid getting injured, it is critical to hold
both of their hands so that they do not touch your private parts. For this, you have to sleepon the left side of the customer, place the customer’s right hand under the pillow and the left
hand beneath your underarm. The other keys are what I call “preemptive strike” and “completeannihilation.” Squaring your elbows to avoid contact to prevent an orgasm, pretending to haveno interest, is an amateur’s trick. Rather than that, the point is to have the customer fully enjoy
himself and wear himself out. If the customer is exhausted, he won’t care where you are. It isbecause they do things halfway that the women are kept awake all night long.
Also, you cannot start snapping and quarreling with a customer who does not keep his
promises. Complaints should be made bit by bit, in bed. And regardless of the pretenses andhow good the bedroom skills, the parting the following morning is the most important. If you
get up before the customer, serve him cooked rice in green tea using delicious vegetables
pickled with miso, shine his shoes and brush his clothing while he is eating, and send him
off in a good mood saying, “See you again soon,” the customer will certainly return. Also,
because you have several regular customers, you must not greet a customer if you happen
to meet him outside. If you smile at him and flatter him, someone may be watching. And if asoldier on duty comes on some sort of business, you should see him for free. If you send him
off with a few peanuts, you will certainly be rewarded later on.
Kinta had been speaking with a serious expression, but then she suddenly said, “If you come and playwith me, I will have you coming to see me every day.”I dodged her by saying, “Don’t be ridiculous. Playing with a professional and what I do at home arecompletely different. No matter how much you brag, what you’re saying won’t fly at home.” As anamateur, I was no match for this crafty old fox who was a professional sex worker.

Michiko
The owner of the Taiheikan brothel brought a girl who appeared to be 17 or 18 years old from Korea.
Her family registry said she was 16 years old, so I could not give permission for her to work. The
brothel owner said poor people in the countryside had the custom of registering births late, and that
she was actually 18 years old.
I rebuffed him saying, “Don’t talk rubbish. I cannot allow an underage girl to work.”
About one month later, that girl came to the military logistics base herself and asked me to let her
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Wuhan military logistics basework.
“Do you know what you will have to do?”
“I do.”“The soldiers are rough, and you won’t be able to bear it. I can’t help you even if you cry.”“I won’t cry. I will endure anything.”“Well then OK, go ask the army surgeon to issue your certificate.”
I thought that her birth registration may have actually been filed late, so I accepted the brothel
owner’s wish and decided to issue a permit after her physical examination by the army surgeon.
I named this woman “Michiko.” She may have had a natural inclination for the job. After just two or
three months she completely adopted a sexy bearing and wound up becoming a competent prostitute.
One night on the way back from seeing the Qinggog yanshi (A pornographic history of the Qinq
Palaces) at a theater in the new market with my comrade Second Lieutenant Suzuki, we entered
Jiqingli late at night. It was dark because of the blackout order and the need to conserve electricity.
Michiko was standing alone in the darkness in front of the Taiheikan brothel apparently waiting for acustomer while holding a fan.
I asked her, “Are you free tonight?” in a quiet voice.
She said she was waiting for an officer who had an appointment. It was dark, so it seems she did notknow it was me. After we peeked into two or three of the brothels, we passed in front of the Taiheikan
again on our way home.
Michiko was talking with a co-worker. Michiko said, “The man who was here earlier may have been
the recreation section chief.”
Her co-worker replied, “That can’t be. He would not come at this time of night.”

Tamaki
The army surgeon told me there was a woman named Tamaki from the Katsumiro brothel who had
become pregnant and wanted to give birth by all means. Using condoms was the official procedure,
so talk of getting pregnant was odd, but condoms were not perfect, and it seems the prostitutes
sometimes slept with the men they liked without having them use condoms.
When I met Tamaki and asked her, “Can you raise the child even though you do not know who thefather is?” she said, “I know who the father is. He is a civilian worker at the freight depot. We areengaged and we never use condoms,” she said happily. I heard that Tamaki had made a new yukata
for this worker and also bought a pair of his-and-her teacups.
When I called the brothel owner, he looked very unhappy and criticized her lack of responsibility.
But at the military logistics base, we respected her intentions and approved the birth. A boy wasborn several months later and blessed by her co-workers. This was unusual so the child was adoredby everyone. Tamaki asked me to name the child, so I think I named him Katsuo (literally “winningman”) for Japan’s victory.
The brothel owner had been in a bad mood at first, but he was now smiling, maybe because he liked
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Wuhan military logistics baseit to be lively and a good-looking baby had been born. One of her co-workers came to the military
logistics base one time holding the baby. The baby was already rather big, with two upper and two
lower teeth, and he was crunching on a biscuit.
The woman said to the baby, “Have the section chief hold you.” She pushed the baby to me, so I held
him. He was smiling and was not shy of strangers.
They say that everyone at the Katsumiro brothel adored the child, but I did not hear much about him
afterwards. He may have been sent off for adoption.

SayuriMany of the women who entered the world of the comfort women had not been blessed with a goodfamily or good circumstances. One of these was Sayuri of the Sanseiro brothel. Sayuri had been bornin Korea. She was a kind woman with a somewhat intelligent face.
Her biological mother had died when she was two years old. Her father had abandoned Sayuri andwent off with another woman, and his whereabouts were unknown. Sayuri was raised by a woman
in her neighborhood. She wanted to become independent one way or another, learned how to typein Japanese, moved to Tokyo, and became a typist at Nakano Bank. But the woman who had raised
Sayuri kept asking her to send money, and when she went home to Seoul, her adopted mother was
half-ill and addicted to morphine. Once, she even had her adopted mother detained by the police
because she wanted to somehow cure her mother. Her home had no savings at all, so Sayuri came to
Hankou to become a comfort woman. The brothel owners often advertised for women in Korea undera different pretext, but they were actually made to work as comfort women. After Sayuri endured thisfor two years, repaid her monetary advance, and returned to Korea, she discovered that her adopted
mother had been someone’s mistress, had been abandoned, and had become a bedridden invalid. So,
Sayuri put her in the hospital and returned to Hankou to repay another monetary advance.
She told me while weeping that she and Mitsuda, who was the head clerk at the Seizankan brothel(another brothel in Jiqingli), wanted to get married, but she thought that might not work out, in whichcase she wanted to return to Korea. Sayuri was born under an unlucky star. She mocked herself,saying that no matter how hard she tried to free herself from her dire situation, in the end it was of nouse. I felt pity for this weak and depressed woman.

SatsukiSatsuki who worked at the Rijo brothel, was 25 or 26 years old. I had received an anonymous reportthat she habitually gambled at hanafuda card games, and I was informally keeping my eyes on her. By
chance it was discovered that she had demanded a fee beyond the prescribed amount, so I issued anorder for her to stop working.
Upon receiving the order, Satsuki came to the military logistics base with the brothel owner.
When I cautioned her saying, “Satsuki, you cannot make the soldiers spend extra money,” she very
meekly replied “I am sorry,” perhaps thinking I suspected that she had been gambling.
Gambling with playing cards was strictly prohibited, but uncovering the practice was difficult because
officers sometimes took part in the gambling at night. I suspected that rather than being her own
idea, Satsuki’s request for a tip had been indirectly encouraged by the brothel owner.

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According to the army surgeon, among the comfort women, in addition to alcoholics, there had
previously been some morphine addicts. The brothel owners may have intentionally left them as they
were. The withdrawal symptoms from morphine addiction are too horrible to see. One woman was
locked for treatment in a cell that had nails sticking out from the bannister, but she still tried to get
out even when she became covered with blood.
I heard that some of the coolies working at the comfort facilities were addicted to opium, so I had
them fired right away and issued an order preventing addicts from entering the comfort facilities.

Ikuyo
The owner of the Heiwakan brothel brought a woman called Ikuyo, who was born in Okinawa, to themilitary logistics base. She was 26 or 27 years old, looked pale, and seemed to be tired out.
When I asked, Ikuyo said she had been working as a special employee (comfort woman) at a comfort
facility of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Landing Forces on some island in the South Pacific. But theconditions there became threatening. All the non-combatants were ordered to leave, and embarked
on two military vessels. They were attacked by enemy aircraft on the way to Japan, and one of themsank. The ship Ikuyo was on could not return to Japan, and it zig-zagged its way to Shanghai.
It seems Ikuyo still had some debt remaining, so she came to Hankou as a comfort woman once
again. She said that on the island, she had worked at a hut built out of nipa palms. She said that whenships would come into port, the men lined up holding tickets and she would see around 50 of them in
one day. She had around 10 co-workers.
I wanted to ask about her circumstances in greater detail, but an air raid siren unexpectedly went off.
The announcement said, “Two enemy aircraft have just entered the airspace above Wuchang.” I
had Ikuyo evacuated to the military logistics base’s air raid shelter for the time being. After that,
I was occupied with reporting the conditions to the commander and answering phone calls fromheadquarters, and did not have time to leisurely hear Ikuyo’s story. I was going to ask about her
circumstances later on, and I sent her back to the comfort facilities when the alert was called off, but I
was still busy with my duties and missed the chance to hear about the conditions on that island in theSouth Pacific in detail.
The comfort facilities I saw on the frontlines in Shayangzhen were roughly built mat rush shacks. The
facilities on the island in the South Pacific must have been far worse.

MiyakoThe army surgeon told me this story he had heard at the comfort facilities.
A woman called Miyako at the Katsumiro brothel said, “I have slept with the recreation section chief.”
Her co-worker said, “That’s absurd,” but Miyako replied with a straight face, “But it is I who slept withhim who is saying this, so there is no mistake.” Miyako was incredibly cheerful but she sometimes
brazenly told obvious lies, so no one really trusted her. Yet her character was frank, she was practical
about her work, and she would have sex in any position without hesitation. She also had a reputation
for being good at fellatio.
Even when I heard this story, I could not immediately remember the woman’s face. The next time I
gave the comfort women a lecture, I asked Assistant Director Kaneda to point out Miyako. She was66

Wuhan military logistics basesitting, with her mouth half open, in the front area of where the women had assembled. When she
saw me looking at her, she grinned and stuck out her tongue. Her gesture was just like a child who
had been caught in some prank. Miyako was a bit like a vagabond, yet somehow lovable.
When things took a turn for the worse, the lawn in the park at the back of Jiqingli was dug up to build
an air raid shelter. While there was a secure air raid shelter at the military logistics headquartersthat had been built by remodeling the basement, Jiqingli could not be left entirely undefended justbecause it was inside the refugee district, so we borrowed prisoners to construct a makeshift shelter.
On one evening in December 1944, there was a rare occurrence. A bomb fell in the refugee district
right behind the Katsumiro brothel and started a fire. Part of the Katsumiro building was destroyedby the blast and caught fire from flying sparks. The women helped put out the fire with a bucket relay.
They say that Miyako was the first to jump out of the air raid shelter and go to work putting out thefire.
At Jiqingli, the laundry and cleaning were all done by the female servants, but Miyako washed her
own underwear, saying that she would take care of her own things by herself. She had such admirable
aspects.

MisakoThe second floor of the clinic was where the patients were hospitalized. Most of the women who were
hospitalized were venereal disease patients. Visitors were prohibited in general, but I went once in
my official capacity and visited the patients. The area had an unusual bad smell from the disinfectant
mixed with the young women’s body odor. That day was a public holiday, so the Korean women were
wearing jeogori, the white traditional Korean clothing. They had gathered around the bed of thechildish Misako from the Hananoya brothel, and were listening to records. One of them said, “Section
chief, why don’t you listen with us,” and I went into the room. A pot of yellow chrysanthemums which
one of the women had bought in town was at Misako’s bedside. One woman who had come to visit
Misako made a cup of precious Lipton tea only for me. She said she had received the tea from an airservice officer.
Then another co-worker entered calling out Misako’s name, but since I was there, she hurriedly
bowed and went to the corner.
The records were all popular songs in Korean. Many of them had a piano accompaniment andsounded like familiar traditional Japanese popular songs. They did not draw my interest much. But
I was attracted by one of them, a record called “Hasawol” (Summer April) by the singer Kim Gapja.
This was a kind of folk song accompanied by a Korean hand drum. It seems it was a sad melody
lamenting the sorrow of the nation’s ruin. It must have belonged to Misako, because she said, “Section
chief I will give this to you if you like it.” I went back with the record.
I later had Assistant Director Kaneda write out the lyrics for me. “Hasawol” was an old folksong sungon Buddha’s birthday on the 8th day of the 4th month of the lunar calendar.
When the war ended, I was suddenly transferred to the 6th Area Army’s public relations office and I
left the “Hasawol” record in my private room at Hankou. I don’t know what happened to the record
after that.

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Wuhan military logistics base

TamamiThere was an incident in which a woman from the Sanseiro brothel called Tamami, who was born inthe city of Daegu in Korea and was only around 18 years old, committed suicide by jumping into the
Yangtze River. Since she had been saying she wanted to die over and over for some time, the brothel
owner was not very worried. But one day she left the house saying she was heading off to die and did
not return even in the evening. Thinking that she may really have died, the brothel owner headed out
to the Bund to look for her. He found Tamami standing aimlessly at the edge of the floating jetty at the18th pier. At that time the Yangtze River was low, 20 meters lower than usual, so one had to walk down
dozens of stone steps to get to the floating jetty.
When he said to her, “I am coming now. Don’t do anything stupid,” Tamami turned toward him andgave a big smile. The brothel owner thought then it was her usual ruse, but when he ran down thesteps and was about to reach her, she quickly turned around and jumped into the muddy waters of
the Yangtze River. She disappeared under the water and there was nothing he could do. The brothel
owner came to the military logistics base to tell me this and he was annoyed at losing a woman towhom he had advanced money.
Tamami’s body was found much later in Yangtze. 35 The bodies of persons who had drowned
were often found in Yangtze because it is located at a place where the river bends, six kilometers
downstream from Hankou.
According to her co-workers, Tamami may have been suffering from tuberculosis. She was gradually
growing thinner and finding it difficult to work. When one of her regulars saw another prostitute,
Tamami became jealous and they quarreled. He never came to see her after that, and she thought she
had been abandoned and was worried.
Yet I wonder if she really wanted to die at that time. I wonder if she would have turned back if a little
more time had passed. But the brothel owner came running, and maybe she jumped in reflexively
with no time to think, afraid she was going to be scolded if the brothel owner caught her. I could not
help but have this thought.

MisuzuIn the late spring of 1945, the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters was relocated from Hankou
to Wuchang. I moved to Wuchang following Commander Horie, and was given the positions ofrecreation section chief and barracks section chief. The women of Jiqingli sometimes visited me,
crossing the Yangtze River. When it grew late and there were no more ferries, I would call the Hankou
Military Logistics Base and ask the Kinjo Inn located nearby to let the women stay overnight.
A woman called Misuzu who was 22 or 23 years old, and who had previously worked at the Toseiro
brothel, had paid off her debt, but there was no ship to take her back to Japan quickly. So she cameto me, saying she wanted to work at a cafeteria or some other job. I introduced her to the military
logistics base cafeteria in Wuchang. But she was a rather urbane woman, and the cafeteria ownersoon became interested in her. A military police sergeant major who came to the cafeteria was also
fond of her, and her situation became complicated.

35

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Presumably the name of a place along the Yangtze River.
Wuhan military logistics base

One night, she was called to the table where the cafeteria owner and the sergeant major were
drinking, and they gave her one or two drinks, but she said she had a headache and left the table.
When she went back to her room and was about to fall asleep, the sergeant major came in, pretending
to be drunk, and asked her if she had a cigarette. When she replied, “Help yourself, they are on top of
the desk,” he lit one up but made no move to leave. Nothing happened that night, but from that time
he stalked her persistently. She couldn’t put up with this anymore and consulted with the cafeteria
owner, saying she wanted to move, and asked him to find her another room, but he laughed at her
saying, “Can I come visit you?” maybe thinking he would take her on as his mistress.
One day, when Misuzu came into the cafeteria to work, the cafeteria owner’s wife was talking to amaid who had worked there for a long time and was making insinuations about Misuzu, saying, “Shehad a bad upbringing, so you have to be on your guard,” and she started looking at Misuzu coldlyfrom that time.
One hot and humid night, on my way back from browsing at the bookstore in town, I passed in frontof the cafeteria and saw Misuzu sitting on a bench in front cooling herself with a fan. She appeared
lonely but when she looked at me, she smiled and bowed to me.
Once I returned to my room, which is a separate building, I took out my English-Chinese bilingual
copy of Toshi sambyakushu (Three hundred Tang poems)and resumed reading it while using a
dictionary. Then a guard entered, saying that someone had come to see me. I took a flashlight andreturned to my office, which was pitch black because of the blackout order, but no one was there.
When I sat down on my chair, thinking to take out another book from my desk drawer and return to
my room, a woman came out from the dark corner of the room howling and crying and she clutched
onto my knees. It was Misuzu. I could smell the captivating smell of the woman’s hair. When I asked
her “What happened?” she sobbed saying, “The child of a frog will always be a frog. (Like mother, likedaughter.) No matter how hard we try, we can never escape from our predicament. This is how weare seen by the society.”
My knees became wet from her tears. All I could do was to pacify her by putting my hand on her
shoulder and saying, “You need to persevere. I will find another position for you before long.” Yet she
continued trembling her shoulders and crying.
Eventually she said, “I cannot return to that house no matter what. Tonight, I will stay at a friend’s
house. Please don’t tell anyone where I have gone,” and she left dejectedly.
Misuzu later moved to the military hospital cafeteria at Wuhan University in Wuchang, on top of themountain. A short letter from her later arrived, written in poor handwriting. It said, “I am sorry for all
the trouble I gave you, but I am doing well. I think I will somehow recover. Section chief, please lookafter your health.”
One woman ran that cafeteria. When I went to report to the military headquarters, I happened tomeet the proprietor. I asked her if Misuzu was all right, and she laughed saying, “There are many
wolves on top of the mountain, but they restrain one another and somehow maintain peace among
them.”In the war zone where men were starving for women, women were rare and precious. But beyond
that. Misuzu had attractive eyes that drew attention. You might say she had Bright Eyes andMisfortune.36
36

69

The title of a work by the novelist Kan Kikuchi, which was also made into a movie.
Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 5

Episodes at the Militar y Logistics BaseFirst Lieutenant Koizumi Seeks Advice
During my posting as the recreation section chief, I had to deal with various incidents that could only
happen at military logistics bases. These included problems involving the comfort women or otherthings that occurred in the course of other duties related to military logistics. Looking back, someof these miserable stories and events seem only comical. Here are a few of these incidents just as I
remember them.
One evening, First Lieutenant Koizumi, who was working as the adjutant of the arms depot, came
to consult with me. He was an innocent young officer who had been a military cadet. He seemed
hesitant to bring up the subject at first, but he finally began speaking as follows.
Rumiko, who works at the Toseiro brothel, is my younger sister’s classmate. I met her hereby chance. She is still very young, and I can’t bear to see her fallen into such circumstances.
Is there any way to send her back to Japan right away? She says she still owes money on
her advance. Is there some way to pay that off in a lump sum? Could you please make somespecial arrangements?
I was moved by his youthful pure heart, but there was a restriction that the women had to pay backtheir advances from earnings with their own bodies. This constraint was utterly irrational, but I did
not have the authority to give any special dispensations. Also, such stories were often fabrications.
When I looked at her personal information form, it seems there were some discrepancies. I told him, “I
understand your request,” and I had him leave for the time being.
When I summoned Rumiko later on, she appeared to be a modest and naive young woman not yet
20 years old. She said First Lieutenant Koizumi had come to the brothel with his colleague on theway back from an arms depot officers’ dinner party, but he was a virgin. His friend, who was a bad
influence, brought him with the odd reasoning that it would be a shame for him to die without ever
sleeping with a woman. But Koizumi said he did not want to have sex because he had left a fiancée
in his hometown, and spent the night talking while lying down next to her. He visited several times
after that, and he kissed her but never desired her body. She said that she and Koizumi came fromthe same hometown, so it was easy for them to talk, but she was ambiguous about his sister who was
supposed to be her classmate.
I advised Rumiko, “You must fully thank the first lieutenant for his kindness,” but she just made an
uncertain disappointed expression. I wondered if Rumiko who was a prostitute would have preferred
if the first lieutenant simply had sex with her like the regular customers. Perhaps, on the contrary,
she was indignant with his attitude.

Death during Sexual Intercourse
This is an incident that occurred in the autumn of 1944. A sergeant major from the 58th Division,
known as the Wide Division, which was stationed at Yingcheng, came to Hankou with a report. He
spent the night at Jiqingli and died during sexual intercourse. Yingcheng is 80 kilometers west of70

Wuhan military logistics baseHankou. It is a strategically important location in Hubei Province along the military route to Yichang,
and the Wide Division’s headquarters is located there.
A prostitute named Teruko at the Senshoro brothel had entertained the sergeant major. When hebecame ill, the brothel called the Wide Division’s office and they sent a car right away and broughtback the sergeant major, who had stopped moving. Because it was against the regulations for anoncommissioned officer to stay overnight, a great effort was made to hide the death from themilitary logistics base. But the incident was leaked by Teruko’s co-workers, and rumors spread that aman had died during sexual intercourse.
When I went to the comfort facility and summoned Teruko, she said, “The sergeant major had cometo visit several times before, but this time he just refused to leave, and it became nighttime. He
seemed a little different than usual.”
According to Teruko, the sergeant major just would not leave, and when she began to work on him
with some seductive techniques, he suddenly made a strange sound like a groan. When she looked
at him carefully, his eyes were dazed and unfocused. She was surprised, and when she got up, he fell
forward onto her with his mouth half open. Saliva was dripping out of his mouth. Teruko carefully
moved him to the side, ran to the counter, and told the head clerk what had happened.
Even though the sergeant major was still young, it seems he had a stroke. The Wide Division officebrought him back right away, so she did not know what happened after that. After this incident,
Teruko kept quiet and refused to ever talk about it. Teruko was a chubby woman who was born inOkayama Prefecture. She was 24 or 25 years old.
One day after a meeting of the division commanders, the Army decided to open a comfort facility inYingcheng at the request of the Wide Division, and each of the brothels in Jiqingli sent one prostitutefor two months at a time. When the prostitutes were being chosen secretly at the business association,
Major Koyama of the freight depot called me on the phone. This was the first time that the major had
telephoned me.
He said that the Matsumotoro brothel was planning to send the prostitute Chidori this time, but that
Chidori was usually weak, and working on the frontlines would be too much for her. He asked if I
could somehow have her excused, or if that were not possible, if I could have her sent much later.
Major Koyama was a very arrogant man who had a reputation for always throwing his weight around.
It was rather comical that he made his request for this woman in a very humble and tearful voice. It
was even more comical because Chidori, whom he said was frail, was short with dark skin and her
features were contrary to her lovely name (which means plover)—she looked obviously robust. At
any rate, he must have come at her request, and it seems they were very close. There are things
between a man and a woman that cannot be understood from the outside.
My policy regarding the women was to never show favoritism regardless of who spoke to me, what
they said, or where. If I were to misuse my authority, I would lose the trust of the brothel owners andcomfort women and become unable to exercise leadership as the section chief.
I told the major that he should speak directly with the business association director about this matterand declined his request. I do not know what became of Chidori because I did not bother to ask thebrothel owner.

71

Wuhan military logistics baseOn-site Inspection
Sergeant Sugano of the recreation section came to me and suggested we conduct a nighttime on-site
inspection, since we had not done this for some time. This was on a hot and humid night.
Only commissioned officers and warrant officers were permitted to stay overnight at Jiqingli, but inrare cases, noncommissioned officers and soldiers who came to Hankou on official business spent thenight against the rules. The military logistics base would occasionally conduct on-site inspections toenforce the rules. Because such inspections could not be carried out just with the noncommissioned
officers in the recreation section, we would request assistance from noncommissioned officers fromother sections. Many of them wanted to come along, saying that it was entertaining.
Our tactics were to go out after midnight and surround the brothels that were suspected ofcommitting violations. We would prevent people from entering or leaving, and then inspect each of
the rooms. The brothel owner or the head clerk would knock on each door and call out, “The military
logistics base is conducting an on-site inspection,” and the comfort women would come into thehallway with their crinkled sleeping wear on their naked bodies, clattering the floor with their sandals
while holding the officers’ jackets. We would confirm their ranks from the insignia on the collars andreturn the clothing, but there were rumors that they kept extra officers’ jackets, so when necessary,
we would have the women bring out the officers’ swords, overcoats, or other evidence. Some officers
would dejectedly yell at us, “Well done,” for being interrupted in their sex acts. When a woman justwouldn’t come out, the brothel owner would continue knocking and the woman might speak in ahoneyed voice saying “Wait a moment. I will come now.”
When we surrounded the Sanseiro brothel, which was pitch black because of the blackout order,
we went up to the second floor shining our flashlights. A woman named Fumiya came out looking
unkempt, wearing only a summer kimono.
I said to her, “What are you doing?”“My customer left.”“Who was the customer?”“He was a cadet.”
I scolded her, saying “Were you sleeping even though your customer was leaving? Why didn’t you see
him off?” and when I turned around Fumiya followed me looking dejected.
When I asked the noncommissioned officer who was on guard, “Did a cadet just pass through here?”
he answered, “No. No one has passed by.”Another noncommissioned officer said this was suspicious and entered Fumiya’s room. He eventuallycame out carrying a soldier’s sword and map case that were inside the bedding in the closet.
When I interrogated Fumiya saying, “That’s strange. Where did the owner of this sword and map case
go? You must have lied to me,” she hung her head saying, “I don’t know.”
I pressed her further asking “How could you not know?” but she remained silent. When I opened
up the map case, I found about 2,000 yuan in Central Reser ve Bank of China notes and official
documents addressed to the veterinary depot. Then another noncommissioned officer brought in a72

Wuhan military logistics baselocal (a civilian) wearing Japanese clothing and the brothel owner turned pale and came in after him.
The noncommissioned officer explained, “The bathroom was pitch black and when I shined my
flashlight this man was standing in the corner.”
I asked the man, “Who are you?”“I am from the Central China Water and Power Company. I came because I had business with thebrothel owner.”“Really?”
The brothel owner nervously butted in, “It’s true. He is Mr. Mizuno from Central China Water andPower. He came because he has business with me.”“That’s strange. Then where did the owner of this sword go?”
The noncommissioned officer who thought this was suspicious suddenly slapped the man on thecheek. He stumbled and then automatically stood at attention.
I said to him, “You bastard, you are a soldier. You must be from the veterinary depot.”
The man was silent, so the noncommissioned officer slapped him again, he stumbled, and once again
snapped to attention.
I said to him “You must be the owner of this map case,” and asked him, “Why are you spending thenight here?”
The soldier answered in a low voice, “I am sorry.” When I inquired, he explained that he had come toreport to the main depot from the Yueyang branch of the veterinary depot, missed the evening ferryback to the office in Wuchang, and decided to spend the night at the comfort facility because he had
no other choice.
Fumiya said she had the soldier spend the night in secret without telling the brothel owner, but thebrothel owner also told me a boldfaced lie, so I issued work suspension orders for both of them.
Later, the brothel owner and the woman received their instructions and came to report at the military
logistics base.
When I cautioned her saying, “Fumiya, you must not let soldiers go astray,” she remained silent andmeekly bowed her head several times.
It was difficult for the on-site inspections to be perfect and catch every offense. I later heard that onthat same night, a noncommissioned officer from the military logistics base was secretly spending
the night at the brothel across the street from the Sanseiro brothel. He was surprised to learn of theinspection, escaped from the second-floor window, and jumped from the roof to the roof of the brothel
next door.
Also, the business association’s assistant director, Kaneda, who was present during the on-site
inspection, had a prior violation. He had hidden a man in a closet during a previous inspection. The
man was a local and was thus prohibited from entering the comfort facilities. There was also an
incident during the time of my predecessor, when a deserter who spent three days secretly in Jiqingli
hidden by a prostitute named Katsuyo without the knowledge of the brothel owner was discovered.
When the soldier was arrested, Katsuyo was also detained for several days by the military police for73

Wuhan military logistics basehaving aided in the desertion.

The Death of Park Kyung Do
A simple Korean named Park Kyung Do who was around 50 years old came from Xiaogan, bought therights to the Bukanro brothel, and began doing business.
For some reason, however, the prostitutes who had been at this brothel from before rebelled against
the new owner. They all went on strike and refused to work. At the military logistics base, we asked
the military police to detain them for three or four days as punishment. But the women’s unity wasstrong, and they all went on a hunger strike. The military police were troubled by this and asked us topick them up quickly, so I went to get them released to the military logistics base. The military police
sergeant told the women, “The military logistics base section chief is worried about you, so he hasgone to the trouble of coming here to get you released. You should do what he says from now on,”but they did not answer. When the brothel owner hired rickshaws to bring them back, the women
unsteadily ran off into the road.
I eventually found out that while Park had bought the rights to the establishment, with the women andfurniture included, they had abandoned him because the previous owner was secretly manipulatingthem. Park had also slept with one of the women, so the others were angry and quarreled, and he lost
control over the brothel. In this business, it was strictly taboo for the brothel owners and head clerks
to sleep with the women.
In the end, I decided to send all these women to the front, in accordance with their requests.
Park said he wanted to return to Korea and bring back new women, so I issued a certificate for official
travel and sent him back to Korea.
The following year, in January 1944, a telegram arrived at the military logistics base saying that Parkwas coming from Nanjing to Hankou by ship with ten other people. But we soon received anotherreport that the ship they were on had been bombed by U.S. planes near Jiujiang and sank, and thateveryone on board was missing. I asked the Akatsuki Unit (the headquarters for the anchorage) toinvestigate, but indeed Park’s group were all lost. Later on, one local, a civilian, who happened to havebeen on that ship and who had been luckily saved, visited the military logistics base with information.
When he told me about the circumstances when the ship was sunk, he said that Park had yelled tohim while clinging to a board that was floating away, saying, “I am from the comfort facility at Hankou.
Please tell the section chief of the military logistics base about what happened,” and that Park soon
sank along with the board.
I also received official notification from the Akatsuki Unit, which said that Park and all the comfort
women had died. The passenger list just said Park Kyung Do and 10 other people, so we never foundout the names of the women he had brought.
The business association erected an altar in the comfort facility hall to mourn Park and the comfort
women on January 29 and held a memorial service. The name Park Kyung Do was written on oneof the plain wood mortuary tablets in the center, but we could only write “name unknown” on the 10
other tablets.
I wrote the eulogy, which was read by Lieutenant Colonel Fujii as the commander’s representative,
and floral wreaths were given by the military logistics base and the business association. Sutras were
74

Wuhan military logistics basechanted by the chief priest of Wuhan Temple and representatives from each of the brothels attended.
Park had a son who was around 10 years old. They said the boy went to Pier 18 at the Hankou
Customs House every day, saying that his father would return. I guess he could not believe that his
father had died. Even after the funeral was held, he would stand on the pier in the Bund in the coldmornings when sleet was falling, waiting for ships to come upstream. I felt gloomy when I heard
about this.
Park’s wife had nowhere to go, so I had her work in the comfort facilities’ kitchen. I had a letter sent
to Park’s hometown to investigate the identities of the young women he had brought. There was no
response, and we never found out who they were.
One day, when I was speaking with the business association director at his office during a daytime
patrol, the owner of the Katsumiro brothel came running in with a pale face.
“A soldier has drawn his sword and is causing a disturbance,” said the brothel owner.
When I went out to see what was happening, a sergeant who was drunk and staggering was holding
his unsheathed sword while yelling in a loud voice.
When I yelled at him saying, “What are doing?” he saw my military logistics patrol armband andquickly sheathed his sword and saluted me.
I said to him, “You cannot come here drunk. Leave!” He said, “Yes” and obediently started to leave,
but then suddenly stopped and complained. “First Lieutenant, I have come from the front lines toreport, but even when I am not drunk the women will not play with me. I am not popular no matter
what. Why is that?”“You are drunk. And the women of Jiqingli are not attracted to boorish men who brandish theirswords. Soldiers only take out their swords when they are charging, or to commit suicide.”
He replied with a sober face, “Yes, I understand,” stiffly saluted once again, and left.
The woman Mieko from the Katsumiro brothel who had received this sergeant repeatedly explained,“That man was drunk and persistent, so I didn’t like him.” He must have acted very vulgarly.

Movie Chastity
I heard there was a movie on the subject of preventing venereal disease called Chastity that was
produced by the Navy, so I borrowed the five reels from the Navy Hospital. When we had goodmovies, the military logistics base’s movie team would show them at the Navy Hospital as well, so the
Hospital had goodwill toward us, and would lend us their movies when something unusual came.
After screening this movie Chastity at the military logistics base, we gathered the women at the parkin Jiqingli and showed it to them at night. This movie showed what could be done to prevent venereal
disease, starting from checking condoms for defects by blowing them full of air, and it showed a large
erect penis that filled the entire screen being covered by hand with a huge condom. This stunnedeven the prostitutes, and they could not stop splitting their sides with laugher for some time.
The last reel presented the miserable end of people who were crippled by cerebral syphilis to let theviewers know the horrors of venereal disease, but we did not show this reel at the request of thearmy surgeon. He must have thought that the fear of the viewers would have been too intense. Also,

75

Wuhan military logistics baseaccording to the army surgeon, there was a shortage of salvarsan for injections for the treatmentof syphilis, and he was limiting its use at the comfort facilities as much as possible. That may be
why there were rumors that the army surgeon’s medicine was not effective. Some of the prostitutes
requested tips because they secretly went to doctors in town for absurdly high-priced injections, andthat required a lot of money.
Women who suffered from venereal disease were allowed to continue working once that disease
regressed and could not be transmitted to others. This was because complete cure was difficult. If
strict tests for bacteria were conducted at the epidemic prevention and water purification department,
gonococci would be detected in almost all the women. Because it was difficult to replenish suppliesof medicine, in practice, women who did not excrete thick pus were allowed to entertain customers
provided that they used condoms and washed thoroughly.
While the use of condoms was mandator y, I later learned that a noncommissioned officer at therecreation section contracted gonorrhea and was secretly treated by the army surgeon. In the
military, a bullet wound was regarded as a first class ailment, internal diseases were second classsicknesses, and venereal diseases were the most dishonorable third class illnesses.
Here is another incident about condoms. This was in the autumn of 1943.
The government-issued condoms used by the prostitutes gradually became scarce, and it was difficult
to replenish them, so we were told to limit their use as much as possible. But condoms still had to be
used to prevent disease, so having no other options, the used condoms were washed and then reused.
The women collected them each time. The condoms were sterilized with disinfectant, dried in theshade, sprinkled with zinc powder, placed into packages, and distributed. A businessman appeared
who wanted to operate this recycling plant, but in the end, it was operated directly by the comfort
facilities business association. Coolies were used for the work. It was a strange sight to see thewashed condoms drying in the shade held with clothespins to a net covering the entire ceiling.
Also, to ensure that all the customers at Jiqingli used condoms, in desperation, we came up with themeasure of asking the women to suggest slogans that could be printed on posters. We required eachof the women to submit at least two slogans, and said they were free to ask the soldiers who visitedthem for their ideas.
We collect 200 or 300 suggestions such as “Wear an iron helmet when you attack.” Military logistics
base officers ser ved as judges and selected the winners, and we awarded prizes for the 10 bestslogans. These were printed on posters which were put up at the entrance of each brothel.
I also thought about seeking suggestions for a Jiqingli ballad and consulted with my superior,
Lieutenant Colonel Fujii, but did not gain his consent. At the time, the following song was being sungat Jiqingli.
You can tell when someone you like is coming.
You can hear the sound of his shoes from three miles away.
You can tell when someone you do not like is coming.
You head hurts from three days before.
There were some songs about Jiqingli as well, but I have already forgotten them.
I later thought about printing a “Jiqingli newsletter” on a mimeograph with contributions fromsoldiers who came to the brothels and unedited comments from the women, but I became busy with
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Wuhan military logistics basemy duties as an adjutant during Operation Togo, so I was not able to do this either.

Foundation Anniversary
The anniversary of the foundation of Jiqingli was November 8, and it was a special holiday. There
was an awards ceremony for outstanding comfort women in the morning, in the park at the back,and in addition to people from the militar y logistics base, officers from the Army General Staff
office, the headquarters of the Guard Unit, and the military police squad were also invited. Army
Surgeon Captain Osawa, who was in charge of medical treatment, presented the greetings as therepresentative of the military logistics base. Boxed lunches were served at noon, and each guest wasgiven one decanter of sake.
This block was surrounded by a brick wall, so by closing the entrance, it became like a sealed-off
compartment. In the autumn of 1944, the aerial bombing of urban districts had not yet begun.
A stage was set up on the second-floor hall of the business association building in the afternoon, andthe comfort women from each brothel put on a variety show. There were many songs and dances led
by women who had worked as geisha in Japan. On the Korean side as well, women who had beenkisaeng (female entertainers) in Korea wore jeogori, which are traditional Korean dress, and one got
down on one knee while the other stood and danced quietly. They looked very neat and clean wearing
pure white jackets with a long wide strap tied on the right side of the chest hanging down. A woman
playing a long hand drum sang the songs “Arirang Pass” and “Doraji Taryeong” in a low voice. The
tunes were in Korean, so I did not understand their meaning, but they sounded very sad.
From around 3:00 p.m., we held something resembling an athletic meet back in the park. There wasa game like watermelon splitting in which the players wore blindfolds, walked five steps forward andstruck a barrel with a bamboo sword. No one else struck the barrel well, but I was able to hit it well,so everyone cheered. We then split into two teams, held relays, rolled balls with sticks, held threelegged races, etc. I was watching with the business association executives in the seats for the guests
when a woman named Sakae from the Sankoro brothel suddenly came up and said, “Section chief,please run with me.” This was a candle run with a woman and a man on each team, and she said thatthe paper she had picked said the section chief was her partner. I reluctantly took this woman’s hand
and ran with her while covering the flame of a candle with my palm to prevent it from going out, andwe won third place. The mischievous person who pulled me into this even took a photograph of me
running while holding the woman’s hand. I still have that time-worn photograph.
The comfort women brought various problems to the militar y logistics base as they sometimes
disagreed, quarreled, and scuffled about competition regarding earnings among coworkers andbecame jealous of each other, and they would ask to be transferred to another brothel or sent to thefront or to quit, but my policy was to not get very involved with the fights among the women. The
women’s complaints were like “the king has donkey ears.”37 It seemed they felt better just by voicing
their complaints, and simply listening to them was practicing charity. To some extent, the women may
have thought I just paid them lip service and could not be counted on, and they may have inwardly
been resigned to this.
Sometimes women became too close, worked hard during the daytime, slept holding each other atnight acting like lesbians, and paid from their own pockets without seeing any customers. The brothel
owners gave up trying to interfere with this homosexuality, and when they threatened to split up
37

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A reference to the Greek fable about a king who tried to hide his big ears.
Wuhan military logistics basecouples and send one of them to the front, the women would cry out, saying they would rather killthemselves, and were out of control. There were also bosses among the comfort women who behaved
like mafia dons, and those who were malicious would bully the newcomers or conversely favor themexcessively. These women were difficult to manage.
Nevertheless, I thought that with some of them, a path would open if I identified their vulnerabilities
and treated them kindly. The women could go out on days other than public holidays with a pass fromthe business association director, but if they stayed out beyond the curfew, they would have to reportto the military logistics base, get their pass stamped by the recreation section chief, and then return.
On such occasions, rather than leaving this to the noncommissioned officers, I made an effort toask how they were doing and otherwise talk with them in a friendly manner and learn the women’snames. These women were made of flesh and blood after all and they were unexpectedly easily
affected by kind words.
However, some of them were whores who had gone broke in Japan and come all the way to Hankou
and thought “to hell with the section chief,” and they were beyond our control. Even when we wanted
to be good neighbors, I think we just could not get through to such women.

Privately Established Comfort Facilities
The comfort facilities of Hankou were viewed as extensions of brothels in Japan to some extent, but
once you took even a step outside of the city of Hankou, or to the front, the conditions of the brothelsalso changed.
Units would advance to Hankou or pass through Hankou, and sometimes, they would temporarily
remain behind, or their luggage could not all be carried with them when they advanced, so theywould leave teams behind to supervise their luggage.
Handling these officers and men was a headache for the militar y logistics base when it came todiscipline and supplying rations, and we had to supervise such units and urge them to move on as
quickly as possible.
In the chapter “Hesitating to Go to the Front” of The Voiceless Front, Colonel Horie wrote about theconditions of such confusion in Yuezhou as follows.
When such conditions occurred, the military logistics base turned into a special command
post that coerced the soldiers to continue fighting, with the threat of severe disciplinar yaction against those who would desert from the front. When I look back on this now, fromthat time the Army was already starting to degenerate… If you realize that the collapse inside
the Army begins not from the front lines but rather from the rear, this observation naturally
emerges.
It was around the summer of 1944. One day, when I was inspecting along the road from Wulipai to
Wuchang on horseback, I saw a Japanese army sentry standing in front of the gate of a large housea bit away from the road about three kilometers from Wulipai. When I entered the gate, a firstlieutenant came out and said that 40 men under him had remained as a luggage supervision teamfor a certain regiment of the Whale Division. When I looked inside the house, two or three rooms
were filled with luggage. I cautioned him saying, “The conditions are very bad in this area so you
must guard the luggage carefully. Also drill the soldiers solidly so they do not become idle.” The firstlieutenant replied, “I have positioned a lookout sentry as a guard on top of the mountain behind this78

Wuhan military logistics base

house, made a vegetable garden next to the house for the health and self-sufficiency of the soldiers,
and I am drilling the soldiers every day.” I was relieved upon hearing this report and left. I made apoint of dropping by from time to time when I patrolled this area thereafter.
One day in the autumn, when I was traveling on narrow paths in the fields and vegetable fields fromaround the Sanyan Bridge of the Wulipai-Changshadao area toward the Wulipai-Wuchang area, I saw
one soldier standing in front of a house in a valley surrounded by hills. When I asked him what he
was doing, he replied “This is a comfort facility.”
I asked him, “Which comfort facility?” He answered, “The comfort facility of the XX Unit.” When I
noticed that it belonged to the luggage supervision team of the Whale Division, I got off my horseand entered the house, and a single Japanese woman came out. She was the kind of woman one often
saw in this sort of business in central China and seemed to be quite shrewd. She was the madam.
She said she was operating the comfort facility for the XX Unit with five or six Chinese prostitutes. I
asked the madam various questions and learned that quite a few officers and men from units staying
at the militar y logistics base came as customers and her business was prospering. As they say,“ignorance is bliss,” and I left feeling as if I had been bewitched by a fox. When I climbed up the hill,
I saw the barracks of the luggage supervision team just below! While thinking they were clever toerect a comfort facility in a hidden valley just a few steps away from their barracks, I was stunned that
I had been completely deceived when I questioned the first lieutenant the first time I came to theirbarracks. The first lieutenant hurriedly came up the hill, perhaps because of a report from the soldier.
I said with disgust, “This luggage supervision team has a fine duty. This is the first time I have heard
about supervising a comfort facility. Now I know why I thought your soldiers are susceptible to female
charms.” The first lieutenant scratched his head and apologized, saying “I am doing this under orders
from the regiment and I have no choice. The men of the supervisory team are not just spending all
their time at the brothel.”“What do you think? It is disreputable for a luggage supervision team to have a comfort facility. Why
don’t you just disband it?”“Without an order from the regiment, that cannot be done at the discretion of the team leader.”“You must be receiving supplies from the freight depot. I trust you are not giving some of these to the
comfort facility.”“No. Absolutely not. The comfort facility is completely self-sufficient.”
Although I harshly reprimanded him saying, “If that is taking place, this supervision team will be
expelled outside the military logistics base,” I could not immediately order the team’s eviction but I
could not officially approve the facility either, so in the end I just showed my indecisiveness by turninga blind eye.
Several days later, when I was riding on a horse near dusk on a country road not very far from there,
I met a single soldier. He had a small frame, appeared to be malnourished, and was wearing a dirty
army uniform. He was unarmed and was wandering aimlessly.
I called out to him, “Hey. What are you doing?”
He answered “Yes,” but then began to mumble.
I questioned him further, “Which unit do you belong to? What are you doing here at this time of day?”79

Wuhan military logistics baseHe unexpectedly replied, “I am from the XX Unit staying near the Sanyan Bridge. I am planning to
go to the comfort facility over there.” The XX Unit had just arrived the day before, and I could only
be amazed at his tremendous instinct in smelling out this comfort facility which was more than
two kilometers away from the Sanyan Bridge, separated by hills and valleys, thickets, and difficult
terrain. I sent him back towards the Sanyan Bridge screaming, “You idiot. You should not be visiting
a comfort facility so close to sunset, hanging around in such a dangerous area without even wearing
your sword. You will be carried away by bandits. Go back.”

Lectures
There was a public holiday once a month at the comfort facilities. I wanted an opportunity to speakwith the comfort women, and I would sometimes have them all gather and speak to them. Since moral
training and serious military lectures would definitely not be favored, I spoke about the kabuki plays
Nozaki Mura no Osome Hisamatsu (The love story of Osome and Hisamatsu of Nozaki Village) in the
Shinpan utazaimon (The balladeer’s new tale) and Hakata kojoro nami makura (The pillow of wavesof Hakata’s daughter).
Hisamatsu is intimate with Osome, but he wants to coolly abandon this relationship and get married
with Omitsu. Hisamatsu is an egoistic man who only thinks about himself. Osome believes in love
for love’s sake and wants to marry Hisamatsu, so she leaves her home, abandoning her parents andsociety. She has pure aspects that gain our empathy but on the other hand, she is also anti-social.
Omitsu is self-sacrificing and gives up Hisamatsu to Osome, for the sake of Hisamatsu, whom sheloves. But was Omitsu really unhappy? Isn’t there true human joy in Omitsu’s curtailing her love for
Hisamatsu? Human joy is not found in just living a long and purposeless life. Humans cannot live
alone. We seek meaning in life from the confidence and satisfaction that our acts are useful for others.
There is some sort of karma among those who meet at the front, far away from our home countries,
and we are certainly linked by some invisible thread. The soldiers are suffering, and I want you to bekind to the soldiers. This is what I said to them, but in the end my talk may have been a crafty way fora supervisory officer to present the logic of self-sacrifice and dedication. Yet it seems that the womenlistened faithfully to this deceptive story, perhaps because it seeped into the hearts of the simple
women like a drug.
I actually wanted to speak in detail about the tragic loves of prostitutes in literature, such as Koharu in
Shinju ten no Amijima (The Love Suicides at Amijima) by Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Marguerite in
Camille by Alexandre Dumas fils, but I could not find the books that were necessary.
Nevertheless, these talks may have just been the product of my self-righteousness. I do not know theextent to which the message reached the women’s hearts. I feel that in the end, I was only dealing
with the women at a distance. Even though I listened to their problems, I just comforted them withwords and did not offer any fundamental solutions. As the war situation grew more intense, thepassenger ships stopped their runs, and even when women had repaid their debts and wanted toreturn to Japan, I could not grant them their wishes. All I could do was to get them new jobs at thefacilities’ cafeteria or persuade them to remain at their work for a while longer.
Relatively few of the women would take the step of visiting me, the section chief at the militar ylogistics base, and that may have been because I was somehow grumpy and difficult to approach. I
would not visit them as a customer because if I did that would have formed an equal relationship andtoo much familiarity. My thought was to remain at an arms’ length and treat all of the women equally.

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Wuhan military logistics baseAfter giving the women a lecture, I would usually chat with the brothel owners. I also wanted to hear
the voices of the women directly, so I once chose a representative from each of the brothels andcalled the 20 women to the military logistics headquarters and listened to them. This is because I
thought it would be easier for them to speak at the headquarters than at the comfort facilities. I did
not invite the director of the business association or the brothel owners. From the military logistics
base, Paymaster First Lieutenant Sakae Noguchi, two noncommissioned officers from the section,and I attended. This took place in the autumn of 1944. The women were reserved and did not speak
much, but they did request that we prepare an air raid shelter for them, and I decided to do that rightaway. I also had accounting make arrangements with the freight depot to arrange the supply of soap,
makeup, and absorbent cotton, which had become difficult to purchase. I proposed creating a reading
room at Jiqingli, but the women said they did not have time to read. Rather than that, they wanted us
to show one movie every month without fail. When the soldier on duty gave the women tea and sweetbuns that we had sent from the canteen, they all began stirring restlessly, perhaps because this madethem uncomfortable.
When I asked them, “What is wrong?” one of them answered, “Is it all right for us to smoke?” Because
I do not smoke, I had not noticed their need.
Since I do not smoke, I do not really understand, but it seems that for people who do smoke, it isunbearable not to smoke for too long. In May 1946, the Army offered to supply one pack of cigarettes
for each passenger on the repatriation ship returning from Shanghai to Hakata. But the prices were in
Japanese yen and were not rounded. No one had Japanese yen, and at the military logistics base, theaccounting office could not collect payments for cigarettes that had prices with fractional amounts andsettle the transactions in the short time before disbanding, so we declined the supply of cigarettes.
When we landed, the officers were paid 500 yen and the noncommissioned officers 300 yen. I
received 200 yen more than the soldiers, so I asked the Army to deduct the required amount frommy payment and purchased cigarettes for everyone in the 3rd company all at once, and had them
distributed to all the soldiers free of charge. I think it was about 100 packs of cigarettes. The soldiersof the company said that I could use extra rice since I was returning to Tokyo, and everyone chippedin some of the rice they had been supplied and brought it to me, saying it was in exchange for thecigarettes. I benefitted from receiving the extra rice, and also from making the soldiers very happy.
I had planned to have another meeting with the women, selecting dif ferent representatives. I
discussed this with First Lieutenant Noguchi and considered selecting the women who earned themost, the youngest women, or the women who always passed their health examinations and nevermissed work, but the aerial bombing intensified, we became busy with other tasks, and this turned
out to be the only meeting. Nevertheless, I feel that this dialogue helped us understand each other’s
feelings and that cheerfulness returned to the women’s faces.
The summer in Hankou was hot and humid, and people would joke that sparrows on the power lines
would get burned and fall off, and that people from India would return to India to escape the summer
heat. When I would go back to my room at night, touching the chair was like touching a heated stone,
and I could not sleep at all on nights when there was no breeze. Because the comfort women had
to work in closed rooms on these nights when it was difficult to sleep, despite the severe rationingof electric power, we tacitly permitted the use of one electric fan for each of them on the pretense of
preventing prickly heat. This was the same level of treatment that was given to generals.
The comfort women were enrolled as a group in the Hankou National Defense Women’s Associationfrom the start, but that was only in name. In truth, they were looked down on as ladies of pleasure or
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Wuhan military logistics baseprostitutes, and almost never sat together with the other women. The military logistics base arranged
separate seating, selected representatives, and had the comfort women wear mompe and kimono withcords to tuck up their sleeves when they attended memorial services and ceremonies for returning
the war dead.
Around Februar y 1945, the Hankou National Defense Women’s Association announced a plan toassemble young Japanese women in the plaza and have them drill using bamboo spears, and there
were negotiations for the comfort women of Jiqingli to also form a team. I contacted the Army General
Staff office and decided to have the comfort women managed as civilian quasi-employees of the Army.
In place of the bamboo spear drills, I had the army surgeon teach them skills such as how to wrap
bandages, use slings, and stop bleeding, so that they would be useful as assistant nurses. I met with
Chiyo Shindo, the chair of the Hankou National Defense Women’s Association, to discuss and explain
the Army’s policy. The Chinese laughed scornfully at the National Defense Women’s Associationbamboo spear drills, which were held in broad daylight in the plaza.

The Prostitutes of Liuheli
There were comfort facilities (brothels) in Hankou aside from the military comfort facilities, andthere were also streetwalkers.
Old Chinese financial cliques still had a presence in the French Quarter, and there were dance halls
and other establishments for the wealthy, with high-class prostitutes wearing luxurious fur coats who
were called “prostitutes for Westerners” loitering at the entrance of a hotel called the Zhina Fandian.
Ordinary officers and soldiers had nothing to with such facilities.
At night in the refugee quarter, which was dark because of the blackout order, young women with red
lipstick would stand on the street corners calling out, “Come to my place,” speaking Japanese with aChinese accent. These were local streetwalkers called yeji. When the soldiers told them buyao (notinterested), the streetwalkers would come over and hold on to their hands. There was a story about
a soldier who contacted a virulent case of syphilis from a streetwalker and eventually had to have his
penis cut off, so the soldiers were informed of such horrible cases and were strictly forbidden fromapproaching streetwalkers.
In addition to Jiqingli, there was a comfort facility with local prostitutes in Liuheli, a little further
away from Jiqingli. There was also a navy comfor t facility for naval personnel. I visited these
comfort facilities as part of my work, and had discussions with the brothel owners about controlling
communicable diseases.
The use of the comfort facility at Liuheli by soldiers was not officially approved, but the service wassaid to be good, so some soldiers apparently went there secretly. These were local prostitutes so there
were beds in their rooms.
One day I went to Liuheli for some business and was speaking with the brothel owner, when alocal prostitute who had some request for the brothel owner came out wearing a white jade orchid
flower in her hair and silver earrings. I do not understand Chinese, so I just listened nearby without
understanding what they were saying. She was a small beautiful woman with dark eyebrows, and she
kept smiling. She seemed to be refined and gave a good impression. It was strange that such a woman
was working at such a place.
I asked about her after she left, and the brothel owner explained that she had come from a wealthy82

Wuhan military logistics basefamily but that the father had died suddenly, the family was ruined, her mother took ill, and her
siblings were still young. She went out to work, but the income was not sufficient for the family, so
she came to work here because she had no other choice.
I usually was not attracted to the feminine qualities of the women at Jiqingli, but for some reason, I
felt attracted to this woman at Liuheli and thought about her from time to time. When I went to themunicipal library to look up ancient Chinese documents regarding the stars, I saw two young maidens
wearing black Chinese clothing looking at books about movies. When I wrote the names of Chinese
movie actresses including Li Lihua, Wang Danfeng, and Chen Juanjuan on a piece of paper they were
surprised and looked at me with wide sparkling eyes. I communicated with them about this and thatin writing for a while and then left.
It seems that these maidens were still students. When I saw them, I thought about the young woman
I had met at Liuheli. If her family circumstances had not suddenly changed, she might have been likethese maidens. Perhaps her father’s sudden death was also caused by the war.
Shen Fu’s Six Records of a Floating Life was translated into Japanese by Haruo Sato and Shigeo
Matsueda and published in the Iwanami Bunko series. This book depicts the author’s yearning for his
beloved dead wife, and the heart-rending emotions that are depicted are deeply moving. I bought theoriginal Chinese version of this book published by Guangyi Publishing House at the used bookstore
on Yangtze Street and read the Japanese and Chinese versions together, but that was difficult, so I
soon gave up.
I have been happy as your wife these twenty-three years. You have loved me and sympathizedwith me in everything, and never rejected me despite my faults. Having had for my husband an
intimate friend like you, I have no regrets over this life. I have had warm cotton clothes, enoughto eat, and a pleasant home. I have strolled among streams and rocks, at places like the Pavilionof the Waves and the Villa of Serenity. In the midst of life, I have been just like an Immortal. But
a true Immortal must go through many incarnations before reaching enlightenment. Who could
dare hope to become an Immortal in only one lifetime? In our eagerness for immortality, we have
only incurred the wrath of the Creator, and brought on our troubles with our passion. Because you
have loved me too much, I have had a short life!’ Later she sobbed and spoke again.
(The above passage is then repeated in the original Chinese).
I remembered the woman I had met at Liuheli several times and imagined what she would say if I
met her again and gave her Six Records of a Floating Life. But I wondered what use it is to give a bookto someone who is short of money, and about the sorrow of a woman who has no choice but to sellher body to men of the enemy country in order to live. Even if she smiled on the surface when facing
Japanese, there must have been intense hostility deep in her heart. Hatred and regret that could not
be soothed by a single book. And the miserable damage inflicted by war on the local residents.
I had the feeling that the gears of histor y had somehow gone off track, and were advancing thedisaster of war all the way to this back region of China and wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent
people, who hatefully called the Japanese “oriental devils.” It made me think deeply about the coldhearted cruelty of war itself, as the Japanese spread the disaster of war from one place to anotherwhile calling this a holy war for the peace of the East.
Yet I could not help but smile wryly at my own indulgence in secretly thinking I could be forgiven
with such phony repentance. I spent busy days participating in Operation Togo and serving as an

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Wuhan military logistics baseadjutant at the Wuhan Military Logistics Base, among other things. I never had the opportunity tovisit Liuheli again, but each time I looked at the Chinese original of Six Records of a Floating Life theimage of this beautiful woman of Liuheli emerged in my mind.
I found Takeshiro Kuraishi’s work, To Young Readers, at the Marugo used bookstore and bought it.
This is a translation of Bing Xin’s Ji Xiao Du Zhe. I then went to the Chinese used bookstore on Han
Yi Street, purchased the original Chinese version, and began to read the two versions together. But
Six Records of a Floating Life was a more appropriate book to give to the young woman from Liuheli.

Officers and Restaurants
Campaigning led to more active movements of military units, and the military logistics base had tobe reorganized. While these campaigns were active offensives, at the same time they may have been
a desperate struggle to escape from a bleak stalemate on the continent. At that time, the generalsituation of the war had already greatly turned against Japan.
The situation was that officers and soldiers could not anticipate those overall conditions, were throwninto the vortex of the campaigns, and were completely confused. At any rate, the war went on for too
long, and as Commander Horie wrote, “the collapse inside the Army begins from the rear.” One might
say that as the human vice of war becomes chronic, the loosening of morale grows rampant inside theArmy. Horie deplored officers’ restaurants and the behavior of high-ranking officers at rear echelon
military logistics bases, and he wrote about his concerns in his The Voiceless Front, as follows.
After the comfort facilities, the next problem was the restaurants. At the military logistics
base, there was one officers’ restaurant that was quite fine, which even had a few geisha.
There were originally four officers’ cafeterias at Hankou (including one ser ving Chinese
cuisine), and I think that really should have been satisfactor y for a war zone, but thisrestaurant was established at some point for the reason that these cafeterias were not enoughfor high-ranking officers, especially for the army division commanders who came to Hankou
from the countryside.
While I knew it would be correct to throw the geisha out from this restaurant and turn it into
an ordinary officers’ cafeteria, I did not have the courage or the authority to do this, and when
I think of this now, it was cowardly that all I could do was to open this restaurant to ordinary
officers, instead of reserving it just for high-ranking officers. There were also two so-called
luxury restaurants near the military headquarters, and these were used almost exclusively
for personnel at the military headquarters. I was disgusted with how they received special
treatment which was outrageous, with food supply and hygiene inspections of the female
attendants that were different from those at the regular military logistics facilities. But there
was nothing I could do because this was outside my jurisdiction.
Incidentally, these restaurants became a target of discontent for the regular officers, werealways the source of discontent, and some army staff called for their closure. So the military
headquarters finally let go of them and relocated them onto the military logistics base. While
I did not refuse this, I accepted it under the conditions that they would not receive special
treatment as in the past, and that they be opened to regular officers.
From time to time, I even took the senseless act of stopping by and inspecting the conditions
at these restaurants when I rode on horseback through the suburbs. Before long, theserestaurants were placed back under the military headquarters, perhaps because the military
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Wuhan military logistics baseheadquarters felt inconvenienced, or because the restaurant owners cried and begged theheadquarters for mercy. Just from looking at this one incident, one can infer the depravity ofsome of the high-ranking officers at that time.
Seeing the decadent behavior of such high-ranking officers, I could not help but lament thedeath in war of the former army commander General Osamu Tsukada, who carried on thegraceful dignity of the warriors of old. Even with my lack of courage and authority, if thegeneral, who was my classmate, were still alive, I would have been able to resolutely purgesuch behavior with his support.
In the chapter “Classmates” in his The Voiceless Front, Commander Horie wrote as follows about
his encounters with 11th Army Commander Tsukada and his mournful feelings upon learning ofTsukada’s death during the war.
Classmates who ate the same food and lived together at Ichigaya-dai38 for a year and a halfnear the end of the Russo-Japanese war, when we were so busy we barely had time to breathe,
still associated without formality, addressing one another as close friends even after several
years, with some promoted to general while others remained a captain or a major without any
promotions. I think such closeness cannot be understood by an outsider.
Incidentally, in November 1942, on my way to taking up my post at Hankou, I stopped at
Nanjing, and the first classmate I met was Lieutenant General Masakazu Kawabe, who waschief of the General Staff office of the Expeditionary Army. When I greeted him saying, “Icame here with the intention that this will be my final tour of duty,” Kawabe replied withthe rather instructive comment, “For us our final tour of duty is whenever and wherever.” I
suppose his words were expressing the samurai spirit of being prepared to die at any place
and any time, but what had come out of my mouth was very light-hearted. What I meant wasthat after once having entered the reserves, I had returned to the army with the outbreak ofwar, after fretting about forced idleness during peacetime while I served at a school in Japanfor five years. I had then finally managed to serve in the war zone and had come all the way
here for what I thought was my final tour of duty for the army. This difference in meaning
created an odd atmosphere, and when we finished talking and I went to leave, Kawabe added,“Tsukada is in Hankou.”
The Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters was a unit directly under the command of theArmy, and the day after I took up my post, I went to the military headquarters of the 11th
Army (nicknamed the “Backbone Army”) to report to its commander, Lieutenant General
Osamu Tsukada. Because I was in the formation next to Tsukada’s while we were at the
military academy, I often saw his outspoken nature, and would laugh saying “Oh, it’s Tsukada
yelping and squealing again.” I heard that thereafter he worked hard at building his characteras he gained rank and gradually realized the dignity of a fine general, but this was the firsttime I had stood before him in many years. After he finished receiving my report in a sternand dignified manner he smiled and said, “Come over here,” and carried a chair to thewindow, so I followed him. Outside the window, the autumn sunlight was gently shining on
the high treetops with leaves that had not yet fallen.
Tsukada said, “I came here with my mask on.”38

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Ichigaya-dai was where the Japanese Army’s military academy was located.
Wuhan military logistics baseThat is the first thing he said. Thinking of how he had served in important headquarters posts
since the war broke out as the chief of staff of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army, the deputy
chief of staff, and the chief of staff of the Southern Expeditionary Army, and was finally facing
Chongqing as the vanguard on the frontlines of the continent, I said, “You have been tasked
with a heavy duty here as well! I have you covered in the rear, so do your best!”
Tsukada replied, “Yes. I am counting on you.”
I told him, “Last year we had a reunion of classmates in Tokyo. N, H, and S were there. It was
really fun.”“I have been away from Tokyo ever since the war began, so I have not been able to attend thereunions in recent years. A few years ago, I often saw S from your unit at the military officers’
club.”In this way, the two of us went back to being classmates and spoke freely about our teachersat the military academy and rumors of old friends for a while. When we parted, he said in avery friendly tone, “Come to the officers’ quarters when you have a chance. We can speak at
length.”Several days later I received an order to concurrently take up the duty of providing security
for Hankou, and went to the military headquarters to report to the commander. But this time,
my predecessor, Major General K, was with me, so I listened to Tsukada solemnly receive myreport, thank K for his service as head of security, and give encouraging instructions to me as
K’s successor, and we left.
But I never imagined this would be the last time we would ever meet! Two or three days laterin December 1942, Tsukada went to the general headquarters in Nanjing to discuss the next
campaign, and on his way back he went missing while flying over the Dabie Mountains. The
Army began a search for the commander while pushing forward with the Dabie Mountains
campaign. I also sent an infantry company under my command that participated in the search.
A few days later, elements of a Japanese army unit discovered an aircraft and the corpses of allits passengers, which were tragically burned completely black, near a small hamlet in a valleyof the Dabie Mountains near Hankou. According to the villagers, a Chinese army platoon shotat the aircraft carrying the army commander, which was flying at a low altitude. The aircraft
was unfortunately hit, immediately caught fire, and tragically crashed. Because of the intense
flames, the Chinese soldiers could not approach the plane and just let it burn.
The remains of Commander Tsukada, Campaign Operations Chief Takeshi Fujiwara, andan adjutant accompanying Tsukada were carried to Hankou. A few days later the remainsof these three were enshrined at the plaza inside the military headquarters, and a somber
memorial service was held. Each division chief, representatives of the army staff, and theunits stationed in Hankou lined up in front of where the remains were enshrined. Supreme
Commander Hata39 also attended this ceremony, and I still clearly remember his sad face atthat time. I think he must have been filled with the sense of having lost an important righthand man.
I took command of the units, attending as the most senior unit commander in Hankou, and39“Supreme Commander” is used here in the sense of the highest-ranking field commander of the Japanese Army in China,
Field Marshal Shunroku Hata.

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Wuhan military logistics base

after the Supreme Commander offered incense and prayers, I gave the order “Present arms,”
and I saluted with my sword three times. While giving this salute I prayed deep in my heart,“May the spirit of the general rest in peace forever, and may he grant divine protection to ourholy war.”
When I entered the shrine room for the general’s remains inside the military headquarters
two or three days after the ceremony and prayed, I saw a mourning poem from chief of theGeneral Staff office Kawabe on the wall next to the remains. I presume Kawabe dearly wanted
to attend the memorial service for his classmate Tsukada, but he was placed in charge inNanjing to fill in for the Supreme Commander, who was attending the ceremony, so it seems
Kawabe wrote and sent this poem. In this poem there was a phrase about the “death of a greatstar,” and I do not know what the author’s intention was, but it reminded me of the poem “Stars
Fall in the Autumn Wind on Wuzhang Plain.” Of course, even seeing him in the most favorable
light, I did not think that General Tsukada was such a great man as to be compared to Zhuge
Liang. Yet one could imagine there was some sort of historical connection between General
Tsukada and Zhuge Liang. General Tsukada, who as our vanguard, conquered the land of
Jingzhou, which was the setting of the struggle for supremacy among the Three Kingdoms,
and loftily looked with contempt at the nearby enemy capital of Chongqing, which is part ofSichuan. Zhuge Liang advanced up the Han River to a corner of Zhongyuan from his base in
Sichuan several times and covertly watched over Luoyang, the capital of Wei in South Central
China in the 3rd century. Even though the scale of events is smaller, it is not inappropriate tocompare General Tsukada to Zhuge Liang in the way he was spiritually committed to carryout the holy war and his faithfulness in dying for his country. Zhuge Liang called himself
self-restrained and General Tsukada was famous for being restrained in the field. It goes
without saying that the meaning of self-restrained as used by Zhuge Liang was much broader,compared with General Tsukada.
It is generally acknowledged that compared with the generals during the First Sino-Japanese
War and the Russo-Japanese War, the dignity of high-ranking military officers as commanders
in this war had markedly declined, but General Tsukada was acutely aware of this point andceaselessly worked to improve behavior and fight corrupt practices. Therefore, even at thefront, the general never attended a banquet serviced by female attendants. When Tsukada
was the chief of staff of the Southern Expeditionary Army, a division commander asked him,
“Sir, why don’t you attend such functions once in a while.” Tsukada defiantly replied, “This is aholy war” and the division commander left silently, at a loss for words. Similarly, at Hankou as
well, I heard that when a geisha unexpectedly was at a banquet that Tsukada happened to beattending, he refused to let her pour his sake. This sounds rather extreme, but the general’s
real intention was just an expression of his dearest wish to put down existing abuses as I
mentioned before. After the general passed away, whenever I saw the unpardonable depravity
of some high-ranking officers, I was always hit with the feeling, “I wish the general was stillwith us.”The officers’ restaurants that were run as Hankou Militar y Logistics Base facilities were Gion,
Suigetsu, and Ginyoku, and the Chinese restaurant Fusokaku, and these were all located near or
around the intersection of Jianghan Road and Zhongshan Road. Gion, Suigetsu, and Ginyoku eachhad female attendants (there were both geisha and prostitutes), and there were 24 or 25 of them.
More than half of them were at Gion. Because Fusokaku was configured exclusively as a restaurant, it
had no female attendants, and it was open to noncommissioned officers during the day.

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Wuhan military logistics baseThe female attendants earned less money than the comfort women, so there were few applicantsfor their posts. It was always difficult to replace them, and we persuaded Fujiko, Hideya, and other
women from the comfort facilities who had experience as geisha in Japan to change their positions
and become female attendants.
The female attendants were considered to have higher status than the comfort women, and the phrase“comfort women” had a dishonorable sound to it, so I asked the military headquarters to change thedesignations to “Type A female attendant” and “Type B female attendant,” but this was not approved.
Gion was near the main street, Zhongshan Road, and it had been remodeled to resemble a restaurant
in Japan. If the sliding doors were removed on the second floor, it became a large hall, and thiswas often used for banquets and other gatherings. There were more than 10 geisha ranging fromolder matrons to young geisha girls. The geisha from this establishment would go to the hospital toentertain the soldiers and perform the Gion dance song and other songs, but the owner must havebeen close with someone high up in the military, and he was somewhat arrogant and bossy.
Suigetsu was on a back alley accessed by going down Hualou Street from Jianghan Road. It was a
cozy Japanese-style tea house restaurant, and had a small Japanese garden. There were steppingstones leading up to the entrance; the area was covered by gravel and black bamboo. The owner wasapparently a politician type and one of a group of Japanese nationals who had lived in Hankou frombefore the Second Sino-Japanese War. A drunk officer once took out his sword and cut the black
bamboo, and a member of the group cursed the young officer’s violent behavior.
The young cadets and first and second lieutenants would go to Gion, where there were many young
geisha, while the higher-ranking officers would shack up at Suigetsu.
Ginyoku was an officers’ restaurant that was formerly called Seifuso, but it was not profitable andbecame hard up, perhaps because there were no decent geisha there. The 5th Air Army’s Hayabusa
Unit wanted to have its own officers’ restaurant, and we were told by the Army General Staff office
to build another restaurant in Hankou. I opposed increasing the number of officers’ restaurants
and submitted my opinion that if they wanted a new restaurant, they should purchase an existing
establishment and remodel it. As a result, they bought the struggling Seifuso and renamed it Ginyoku(silver wings), which was suitable for aviators. The owner went to Japan to bring back geisha, butwhen he returned, the 5th Air Army’s headquarters, under the command of Lieutenant General
Takuma Shimoyama, had moved out of Hankou to Nanjing, so this did not work out.
Aside from the restaurants that were militar y logistics base facilities, the militar y headquarters
had the luxury restaurants Akebono and Kiraku in the Japanese quarter under the direct controlof the adjutant’s office. These were exclusively for field-grade officers and had excellent facilities.
Akebono had a red carpet at its entrance with gold-leafed folding screens, and was so luxurious that
one wondered how there was such a fine restaurant in the war zone. As one would expect, there
was criticism about the existence of this restaurant, and there was once a request to transfer it to
the military logistics base, possibly because it was difficult to maintain and operate. At that time, I
visited Akebono in my role as the recreation section chief and held discussions with the owner, but
the restaurant was returned to the direct control of the adjutant’s office, perhaps because the military
logistics base maintained strict control over it; the owner was vexed and went crying to the military
headquarters. The geisha here also received little income and the adjutant’s office had difficulty
replacing them. The parties involved came to me for consultations. I said that without a way of
supplementing their income, such as paying fixed salaries, it would be difficult to replace the geisha.

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Wuhan military logistics baseThe geisha at Akebono and Kiraku worked as attendants who catered to high-ranking officers at the
military headquarters and division commanders, and there were rumors that if other officers were
found to have been entertained by them, those officers would be sent off to the front, so run-of-themill officers did not come by at all. The madam was also proud and would not associate with ordinary
officers. It cannot be denied that the upper echelons of the Army had cozy relations with such
restaurants.
In the Japanese quarter, near the militar y headquarters, there was an officers’ cafeteria called
Taikoen. This was a military logistics facility, but the female owner would constantly visit the military
headquarters, and in practice, it was only used by people from the military headquarters. Before thewar ended, this female owner transferred the rights to this restaurant to an employee and promptly
returned to Japan. She must have obtained military information from the top ranks, judged that Japan
would lose, and made her getaway.
At the beginning of the summer of 1944, Staff Officer Masanobu Tsuji from Section 3 of the General
Headquarters came to inspect the facilities at the Hankou Military Logistics Base. He was eccentric asrumored. He did not enter the comfort facilities even once. He carefully looked around the kitchensand bathrooms of the unit barracks and officers’ quarters and told us to keep them cleaner. We hadarranged for him to have dinner at Gion after his inspection, but he went back without stopping there.
We then worked to improve how the barracks were cleaned, and arranged a fly-catching competition
among the soldiers who lived there, offering a leave pass as bait. They said that there were a large
number of flies in cool places, contrary to what they had initially expected. It was easy to catch 50 or
60 flies. Some soldiers were shrewd and had the flies caught by coolies.
The Army soon issued instructions telling people to refrain from indulging in excessive entertainment.
The instructions said to “limit pleasure in order to reinforce fighting power,” so at the Soldier’s
Cafeteria, sake was limited to one serving per soldier in the daytime, and at the officer’s restaurants,sake was restricted to two servings per officer at nighttime. The geisha were prohibited from playing
shamisen,40 drums and other musical instruments. The boisterous merrymaking disappeared, and it
was as if the restaurants had temporarily turned off their lights.
The women came to the military logistics base and complained, “What are geisha to do if we areprohibited from playing the shamisen and the drums?”
At one point, the young geisha from Gion learned to play the harmonica and played songs such as “Roeino uta” (Field encampment song) and “Gunkan koshinkyoku” (Battleship march). But that did notlast for long. The merrymaking at the restaurants returned, perhaps because Staff Officer Tsuji wastransferred to 33rd Army on the frontlines of the Burma campaign.
The Hankou Military Logistics Base had the reputation of having the best military logistics facilities
among the important militar y logistics bases that belonged to the China Expeditionar y Army,
including those at Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Possibly for that reason, an endless stream of military observers came to visit us, while I do not know
how much of an effect the visits had, or if they were necessary. The Hankou Military Logistics Base
was attached to the 11th Army; during campaigns, part of the Base was attached to the 34th Armyas the Wuhan Military Logistics Base. Above the 11th Army was the 6th Area Army, and the China
Expeditionary Army was at the top, serving as the General Headquarters.
40

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A stringed musical instrument that is plucked.
Wuhan military logistics base

Incidentally, militar y logistics bases were directly super vised by the Army General Staff office,with the adjutant’s office being the most frequent user of the facilities. The accounting office was
responsible for the supply of goods, the army surgeons’ office was in charge of maintaining hygiene
and the prevention of epidemics, and the legal office worked to deter crimes. So inspectors came
one after another; one day, it would be the Army General Staff office army surgeons’ office, whileon another day, it would be the turn of the Area Army accounting office. Moreover, before theinspections by general officers, such as the head of the army surgeons’ office or the deputy chief ofstaff, there would be prior inspections by field-grade officers, and we had to deal with them as well.
There was also a custom of providing entertainment at an officers’ restaurant each time an inspection
ended. This was troublesome work. I avoided attending these banquets as much as possible, but I
often had to attend in my positions as the adjutant and the section chief.
Also, once or twice each month, there was a custom of holding a banquet at the Chinese restaurant
Fusokaku to thank entertainment groups for their service prior to their return to Japan. Officers fromthe adjutant’s office and the General Staff office with the ranks of second lieutenant, first lieutenantand captain were invited. The military headquarters had a large number of high-ranking officers, andthe salaries of the lower ranking officers were surprisingly low in comparison, and it seems that thejunior officers very much looked forward to these banquets.

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Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 6

Recreation
Wholesome Recreation
In the chapter “Recreation in the War Zone,” in his The Voiceless Front, Commander Horie wrote
about wholesome forms of recreation as follows.
Next comes the subject of wholesome recreation. I will mostly write about the new facilities
that were established after I took up my post. It goes without saying that those who weredirectly in charge of this were Lieutenant Colonel F, Captain M, Second Lieutenant N, and thesoldiers under them.
The first facility we worked on was the Soldiers’ Amusement Park. Fortunately, there was an
appropriate open plot of land in the middle of the city of Hankou near the Soldiers’ Cafeteria.
We obtained this land, dug out a pond, built an artificial hill, planted plums, peaches, cherries,
forsythia and other flowering trees and shrubs to make a small garden, and created anamusement park with a tea house and pachinko, stacked daruma dolls, and other amusements
in buildings nearby. When I visited after it opened, the Amusement Park was bustling withsoldiers, who were the customers. On the veranda overlooking the garden, there were several
pairs of soldiers playing go and shogi while sipping coffee. In the garden, there were a few
flowers blooming since we had planted trees that were already budding. I thought we had
made a fine facility and I felt very cheerful. I wanted to eventually release fish in the pond forfishing and make use of an adjacent empty five-story concrete building for roller skating andarchery, but the campaigns began, and additional construction was cancelled.
The next facility was the theater. We initially had the Military Logistics Theater, which could
hold about 1,000 people. It was on the fifth floor of the Militar y Logistics Headquarters
building, but we lost that theater because the building was transferred to the newly
established Hankou Kaikosha Army Club, and the Militar y Logistics Headquarters was
relocated. Following a difficult search for a building, we were finally able to obtain theconfiscated building that formerly housed the British Club. We remodeled this as theMilitary Logistics Theater, capable of holding about 1,000 people, and used it every month formemorial services for fallen heroes, and for plays, movies, performances by entertainment
groups from Japan, and other events. It had all the required equipment including a stage,elevated walkway, lighting equipment, and audience seats, and was fit to be the best theater inall of Hankou. Every time we obtained a good film, we showed it to the officers and soldiers,and on summer nights, the big lawn area served as a convenient outdoor movie theater where
we showed movies to large numbers of men in the cool of the evening. I still remember one
evening, when Second Lieutenant N—who had graduated from the university and was serving
as the presenter—was giving an explanation, he suddenly began speaking on and on in fluent
German, mystifying soldiers who had been assembled from the countryside.
Around this time, we also established the Soldiers’ Library. This was an excellent library withover 5,000 books which occupied part of the third floor adjacent to the Soldiers’ Cafeteria forwhich Major O, who was in charge of accounting, agreed to disburse a large sum of money,

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Wuhan military logistics basemoved by the zeal of Captain Y. Along with books for general readers, this library had somerather unusual books for Hankou, including a substantial number of specialized academic
texts as well as rare books from the Huachung University collection, and also books donatedby Japanese. I dropped by this library from time to time, but there were never more than
10 men reading the books, which was entirely unsatisfactor y. When I asked some of themen reading at the library for their opinions about why so few soldiers used it, one of themsaid, “The books are a bit too highbrow.” Another replied, “I would like to see a few morehumorous novels.” But I also heard there were one or two officers who would come to thelibrary and arduously study technical books on industry and economics every time they wentout, so I thought the library was good after all. I consulted with Captain Y about how we could
somehow draw a large number of officers and soldiers to the library, but the war ended withthis situation unchanged.
We also focused on organizing events and the military logistics center frequently organized
kendo, sumo, baseball, and variety show competitions. We worked to provide entertainment
for a large number of officers and soldiers. Among these, the most popular were baseballand variety shows. The baseball games were played with hard rubber balls. We built fourbaseball fields at Zhongshan Park and held a tournament over two days. Twenty-eightteams participated, and the competitions were lively, with many local Japanese residents andChinese watching along with officers and soldiers.
There were a substantial number of former university players including pitcher M, who had
attended Keio University, and many of the games were worth watching. In particular, theMilitary Headquarters Team had three or four university players, and they had bodies thatwere far better developed than those of the players on the other teams. Everyone thought
they would win, but in the final game, the players of the Auxiliary Transport Unit’s team, whowere all short, skillfully beat them and received thunderous applause. The awards ceremony
was just like that for a regular game, but large 1.8-liter bottles of sake were given as prizes
for hitting home runs. While the Military Headquarters Team lost, one of their big university
players walked off carrying two bottles of sake, a rare sight one could only see at a baseballgame in the war zone.
The variety show competition was splendid, and was held on the occasion of the completionof the Military Logistics Hall. The number of performers was greater than when the variety
shows were held at the former Militar y Logistics Theater, and things were held on a
grand scale. The competition was really impressive, with dozens of performances ranging
from individual presentations of popular songs, folk songs, narrative songs, and magic
performances, to unit theater groups. The excitement of the audience of officers and soldiers,
who were so numerous that they spilled outside the hall, was really amazing. The competition
was scheduled to run from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., but it ran past midnight into the earlymorning hours. The audience showed no signs of retiring. They cheered enthusiastically, andthe show finally ended after 1:00 a.m. The performances were soldiers’ plays so they were
mostly popular stories such as Nanbuzaka yuki no wakare (Parting in the snow at Nanbuzaka),
Shiranami gonin otoko (Five men of the white waves), and Yaji Kita dochu (Travel chroniclesof Yaji and Kita), and there were some professional actors, so many of the plays were notamateur productions. When a beautiful woman who was being carried along the elevatedwalkway swaying in a palanquin happened to fall out of the palanquin into the audienceseats below because the bearers were careless, the woman kept both of her hands placed in

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Wuhan military logistics base

between her thighs without losing her composure, and the audience applauded loudly. One
simple man was terribly impressed and cried out, “He is really a professional kabuki actor
who plays female roles.” In the end, the performers from the automobile depot, which had
two professional actors from the Shinkokugeki Theater Troupe, won the competition.
When I saw the leader of the winning group after the show ended to present their award, thebeautiful actor who played Asano Naganori’s dowager in the show had become a disheveled
man with thinning hair as his wig was slipping, and his face blotched with left-over white
makeup. He snapped to attention and sternly gave me a military salute. I gave him the award,
just barely managing to keep myself from bursting into laughter.
One year, in the spring, an exhibition of paintings by officers and soldiers of the Backbone
Army was held at the Hankou Art Galler y. It was organized by an arts association of theJapanese residents of Hankou, with sponsorship from the militar y headquarters and themilitary logistics base. This exhibition was for the entire army there, which had nearly 200,000
officers and soldiers, so it was a grand show with over 100 works of art. Professional artists
had also been drafted, so there was no shortage of great art works. I can still remember
paintings of a horse falling on some battlefield and of the view from the opposite side of the
Yangtze River looking towards Yichang. It seems there were also two special landscapepaintings by Taro Okamoto, who served on the jury for the exhibition, and had been drafted
into the military headquarters. After the exhibition ended, aside from those works that werehung at the military headquarters and the Kaikosha Army Club, more than 20 of the best
works of art were given to the Military Logistics Headquarters. The pictures were hung in aroom on the second floor of the Military Logistics Hall that became a simple art gallery, anddisplayed for regular officers and soldiers. When Supreme Commander Hata subsequently
visited Hankou, he heard about this and asked to see these works, so I brought him to thisroom and the field marshal looked over each of the works with great interest. When he stoodin front of the largest painting in the room, which was a work by the master artist Murota
showing the China Expeditionary Army entering Hankou, he was deeply moved when he saw
himself in the picture majestically taking the first steps into the Bund at that time, followed by
Chief of the General Staff Office Kawabe with his rough Kaiser mustache. The field marshal
remarked, “Oh, there’s Kawabe,” and was in such good spirits that he made a gesture oftightly twisting his own mustache. Upon leaving, he said, “Thank you very much” and I felt
very humble at being thanked by the field marshal.
As I have just explained in detail, we went to great efforts to arrange recreation for theofficers and soldiers. I am proud to say we stood out among the many Imperial Army military
logistics bases. But if someone were to ask me if I were proud at having come all the way to
Hankou to devote myself to such work at my advanced age, I wouldn’t know what to say.
It is not unreasonable that I, who had spent most of my time at the military academies in
Ichigaya-dai and Aoyama-gahara researching military tactics such as “offense or defense,”“envelopment or breakthrough,” and “attack from the right or from the left,” and who had
been an instructor overseeing such research at Ichigaya-dai, felt deeply sentimental whenserving as the military logistics commander for Yuezhou.
Ah, I spend my entire days transporting food supplies and ammunition. Without evendrawing my sword. On the road, warriors are said to go down.

93

Wuhan military logistics baseHowever, transporting food supplies and ammunition was directly linked to the movement of
the Army, so I still managed to make myself content with this task. But the management of
the recreational facilities was an activity that was so distant from the movement of the Armythat my disappointment was understandable. Yet, when the Army was engaged in large-scale,
long-term campaigns, failing to carefully manage even activities in these areas could result in
unforeseen failures in the movement of the Army. Here lie the complexities and difficulties ofmodern long-term campaigning. That is also precisely the reason why I devoted my earnest
efforts with a bit of pride to this thankless task, which warriors do not consider manly.

Soldiers’ Amusement ParkThe Soldiers’ Amusement Park, which I worked on as part of my efforts to promote wholesome formsof recreation, was at the intersection of Zhongshan Road and Jianghan Road. The Soldiers’ Library
was on the third floor of Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 1, which was on the same block. (The Military
Logistics Theater was started a little later.) Of course, all of these facilities and military logistics
events were made possible with cooperation from the military construction team and officers at therelevant military logistics sections.
The Soldiers’ Amusement Park was built on a plot of land measuring about 1,650 square meters.
We dug a pond, created a circuit-style garden around the pond, built a tearoom, and arranged astacked daruma doll game, a shooting gallery, a ring toss, and other games. The prizes were all foodvouchers, but the extra prizes for the stacked daruma doll game and shooting gallery were toys suchas Chinese earthenware children’s dolls, and figures shaped like cocks and dogs. While these werechildish prizes, they had an innocence to them and were surprisingly well liked by the soldiers.
Kakinuma Unit
Headquarters

Unit Barracks No. 3
Unit Barracks No. 2
Statue of
Sun Yat-sen

Movie Theater/
Towa Theater
Zhongshan Road

Minsheng
Road
Officers’
club
Gion

Jiqingli

Chinese opera/
New Market
Hankouspecialcomfort facilities

Liuheli

Military Logistics
Base Warehouse

Prisoner of
War Camp
Soldiers’ Amusement Park

Kaikosha
Army Club
Nadeshiko Dormitory

Kairiku Hotel
Unit Barracks No. 1

Military Logistics
Base Canteen

Choko Hotel

Soldiers’ Dormitory
No. 1
Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 2
Freight Depot
Officers’Noncommissioned
CanteenQuarters
Officers’ Quarters
Military Police Headquarters
Chinese restaurant Fusokaku
Ginyoku
Hankou Military
Officers’
Police Unit
club
Hualou Street(former Seifuso)
Japanese Club
Yosuko Hotel
Officers’ club
Suigetsu

Hankou Military
Logistics Base
Headquarters
Shipping Berth
Headquarters

JianghanRoad

HankouCustoms
House

Military
Logistics Hall
51st Military Logistics
Guard Unit

Pier 18

Map of Hankou
Military Logistics Base Facilities

Yangtze River

Wuchang ferry wharf

Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”, Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.

94

Wuhan military logistics baseThe tearoom served rice crackers, sweet buns, deep-fried cookies and sometimes sweet red bean
soup with rice cake or red bean soup, but the servings of rice cake had only two or three rice flour
dumplings, and the bean soup had only 10 or so adzuki beans.
The tea was free, and simple reading material such as the Wuhan Continental News and weekly
magazines were available. There were also games such as go and shogi, but mahjong sets were notprovided.
The garden (recreation grounds) was planted with trees in blossom and shrubs such as plum, peach,
forsythia, sappanwood, southern magnolia, crepe myrtle and oleander, as well as seasonal flowers.
Pigeons came to make their homes near the stone path, and pecked at breadcrumbs thrown by thesoldiers.
There were also Korean birds called magpies with white at the base of their wings. The birds had
been caught and were being kept there. I thought about keeping a monkey and had my interpreter try
to locate one, but there were no monkeys to be found. The pond that was dug in the garden did not
become a fishing pond, but it did have carp and Crucian carp that had been released there. We hadplans to make an archery range and a skating rink in the future, but those plans were all abandoned
as campaigns began and the situation worsened.
I think Commander Horie instructed us to keep birds and to plant flowering trees and plants in the
Soldiers’ Amusement Park because he liked small birds and flowers. His The Voiceless Front has
two chapters entitled “Small Birds and the Military Logistics Base” and “Flowers and the Military
Logistics Base.” Horie was interested in the small birds and flowers of Hankou. After Operation Togo
ended, the main force of the Hankou Military Logistics Base was withdrawn from Yueyang, and the
Wuhan Militar y Logistics Headquarters was relocated from Hankou to Wuchang. I then went toWuchang, as part of the headquarters. I borrowed illustrated reference books about birds and plants
to learn their proper names. The following quotation is from “Small Birds and the Military Logistics
Base” in Horie’s The Voiceless Front.
Birds seek trees to live in, and flocks of birds move from forest to forest. Our Wuchangbarracks were at the base of Yanzhi Mountain, and there were many trees growing denselyfrom the slope of that mountain to its peak. Birds would constantly pass, coming from a forest
around Huachung University to the north and from a small thicket remaining at Sheshan
Mountain to the south. They played in our forest and entertained us beyond measure. When
I woke up in the morning, I could hear small birds chirping above my head. While I listenedwith rapt attention while lying in my bed and hearing the beautiful sounds, a few small birds
would come to the window frame and play. Every day after dinner, I would walk through theforest following small birds and their songs, and the number of different kinds of birds wascountless. Just among those I still remember, I identified shrikes, Japanese blue magpies,
crested myna, flycatchers, chickadees, long-tailed tits, wrens, thrushes, bulbuls, sparrow, andbuntings. However, I have some doubts as to whether these birds correctly correspond totheir Japanese names.
In relating his memories about birds, Commander Horie writes about an incident when he spentseven months stationed at the Yuezhou Military Logistics Base during Operation Togo. They werein need of fuel for cooking, and a logging squad went out every day to the base of the mountain at
the shore of Dongting Lake. When they went to cut trees in a forest near a farmhouse and negotiatedwith the head of the farm, the man said he understood how they needed to cut trees, but added that95

Wuhan military logistics basehe would be sad to no longer hear the calls of the small birds. The commander was moved by the old
man’s regrets, stopped the cutting, and instructed the squad to fell trees deeper inside the forest. Thisepisode was typical of the commander.
Also, in the chapter “Flowers and the Military Logistics Base,” Horie describes the seasonal flowers
around Hankou. He mentions plums, cherries, peaches, rape blossoms, willows, southern magnolias,
lilacs, crepe myrtles, oleanders, and chrysanthemums. He also writes about creating the flower beds
at the barracks as follows.
When our unit, the main force of the headquarters, moved to Yanzhi Mountain in Wuchang,
there was a 660-square-meter vegetable field right there, and I had this divided into sections
for each team to grow as many flowers as they liked. During their free time, the soldiers fromeach team planted seeds distributed by the unit, as well as seeds that they sought here andthere, and they carefully cultivated and grew the flowers. From early summer this alreadybecame a wonderful flower field, with flowers of all different colors blooming including
poppies, corn flowers, morning glories, canna lilies, and cosmos. The soldiers went out totheir respective allotments in the mornings, evenings, and at lunch break. They gave theplants water and fertilizer, compared their flowers with those of the other teams, and enjoyedwatching them grow.
As I looked over the soldiers who were enchanted by the beauty of the flowers, standing still,and forgetting that they were at war, I thought that the mental state (described in the Lotus
Sutra) where “jeweled trees abound in flowers and fruit where living beings enjoy themselvesat ease” must be like this. I secretly expected that if the men could diligently devote
themselves to their militar y duties and interact with the Japanese residents and Chinese
people with this pure beautiful heart—my unit had many opportunities to come into contact
with Japanese residents and Chinese people—then the true meaning of the holy war that wehave been calling for might finally be realized.
There was a flower shop near the military logistics base with red heart lilies, cluster amaryllis, andother wildflowers not carried by Japanese florists being sold in pots. I often visited this shop to sketch
these wildflowers, using colored pencils on the postcards I sent to my children. The owner of theflower shop wrote out the Chinese names of flowers such as Hosta and red garlic on my sketches forme. There were cute twin girls at this house, around three years old. I said how cute they were, which
made their mother happy, and often joked that “Both adults and children are the same.” Chinese
women are usually not sociable, but if you praise their children, they are very happy.

The Military Logistics Hall
The Hankou Military Logistics Base formerly had a theater with seating for around 1,000 people on
the fifth floor of a building. The building was later transferred to the Kaikosha Army Club. Goingup and down the stairs was inconvenient after all, and the theater was extremely dangerous, when
you considering the possible damage from air raids. So the military logistics base thought about
constructing a new theater. After looking at a variety of buildings, the decision was made to renovate
the dance hall at the British Hankou Club in the British Concession as the theater for the Military
Logistics Base. There was a large lawn next to this building, which was very convenient since it could
be used as a place to assemble during air raids. Commander Horie writes about this in the chapter “My
Students,” in his The Voiceless Front.

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Wuhan military logistics baseDuring my long military career, I taught for four years at the military academy and for eight
years at eight schools outside the military, so I had a very large number of students. I met
several of them in the war zone in central China and felt nostalgic.
Various commanders, staff officers, lower ranking officers and soldiers. Many of the students
served as Imperial shields.
I will write first about my former students from the military academy. These were from the33rd to the 37th graduating classes, and were already active as unit commanders and division
staff officers. Major H from the 33rd graduating class was a deputy adjutant at the Hankou
Militar y Headquarters. He was an interesting officer who was rather intelligent and hadsome unconventional and sophisticated aspects to his personality. He also wholeheartedly
agreed with the military logistic base’s effort to promote wholesome forms of recreation, andspared no effort in mobilizing each office within the military headquarters to help the military
logistics base. When we were constructing the Military Logistics Hall to provide recreation
to the officers and soldiers, we greatly depended on H’s efforts in the decision that led theformer British Club building, which others also wanted, to be provided for use by the Military
Logistics Headquarters. He always made arrangements to support me, an old commander,
both behind the scenes and openly, and to make me look good when there were gatheringsand ceremonies.
I consulted several books on the construction of theaters and also consulted with the Army
Construction Team. An ideal hall with a capacity of 1,000 people was completed at the end of 1943.
The renovation expenses were 40,000 yen in Japanese currency. Engineer Nagase from the military
headquarters’ construction team was in charge of the renovation plans, and it was a shame that hedied in the war before the Military Logistics Hall was completed.
The first show took place on November 26, 1943. It featured an entertainment group from Gifu
Prefecture. Shortly after that, the 11th Army Marching Band gave a performance to celebrate theopening of the hall. The marching band played the “Yangtze River Song.” This was a song with lyrics
by the “Yangtze General” played over the music of a Chinese folk song. The lyrics appeared in thepaper Sozen’ei (Vanguard) published by the 11th Army Journalism Team.
Vast and long, gentle light fills the Yangtze River. /On my green field, pleasant fragrance of rice
flowers. /Since the war of Asian development was launched, lights in happy homes returned. /Comrades and my wife, flow through spring of a thousand miles.
The “Yangtze General” was a pseudonym for the 11th Army’s commander, Lieutenant General Isamu
Yokoyama.
The lyrics to “Yangtze River Melody,” which were also written by the “Yangtze General,” were printed
in Sozen’ei in the spring of 1943 after a campaign in Jiangbei had ended. The music was composed andperformed by the 11th Army Marching Band. Since this was also attributed to the “Yangtze General,”it must have been written by Yokoyama.
We won, we won, on the north of the Yangtze River. / The time was February, rain and snow. /Stepping across muddy roads and creeks. / We annihilated the raiding army. / We won, we won,on the north of the Yangtze River. /Quick, quick, go, go, vanguard.
The 11th Army Marching Band was said to have been formed in the middle of the Second SinoJapanese War. They performed about once a month, and played wind instrument music. Their
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Wuhan military logistics baserepertoire included “Aikoku koshinkyoku” (Patriotic march), the Chinese songs “He ri jun zai lai”
(When Will You Return?) and “Yu guang qu” (Song of the Fishermen), songs expressing nostalgia
for Japan such as “Echigo jishi” (Echigo lion’s song), “Rokudan” (Six-column tune), and “Chidori
no kyoku” (Song of the plover), and sometimes “Shinnai no nagashi” (Strolling musician theatricalmusic), as well as Bizet’s L’Arlésienne, Verdi’s La Traviata, and Chopin’s Polonaise No. 3.
The author of Rikugun gungakutaishi (History of the army marching band), Tsunemitsu Yamaguchi,died in May 1977. In response to my inquiries, Mr. Yamaguchi’s wife asked Yushiro Isoda, who was
the leader of the 11th Army Marching Band featured in this book, and who still resides in Kyushu,
about the band’s repertoire. Isoda was transferred to serve as the leader of the 16th Army MarchingBand in Java in July 1942. His successor, Yosoharu Okada, died seven years ago. Isoda let me knowthat my passages about the band’s songs were correct and also that the song “He ri jun zai lai”
(When will you return?) had not been banned. In addition to the regular performances by the Army
Marching Band, there was a memorial service at the Military Logistics Theater prior to the return of
the remains of fallen heroes on the 15th of each month. These services were led in turn by the chief
priests of Japanese temples in Hankou. They came from the Higashi and Nishi Honganji temples,
the Rinzai Sect, the Shingon Sect, and the Nichiren Sect, and recited sutras. The ceremonies wereconducted in an impressive manner and were attended by many people from units stationed in
Hankou and by Japanese officials and people who lived there. The 11th Army Marching Band would
sometimes appear and perform funeral marches.
The Reverend Usaburo Shimura, a pastor at the Hankou Church of the United Church of Christ
in Japan, also attended these memorial services every time. As the recreation section chief, I was
invited to the Christmas service at his church in December 1943. I asked Commander Horie for his
permission and attended. When I was sitting in the guest seats with Navy Lieutenant Masakatsu
Okada, who was a Christian, an announcement was made to the assembled children that there would
later be a talk by First Lieutenant Yamada of the military logistics base late. So I had to present aversion of the story in which the qin player Bo Ya, of Lute Platform, stops playing his instrument.41
This was a tale that has nothing to do with Christianity. I was given red and white mochi cakes and I
left. Because this service was held at a church during the war, it included the ceremonial bow toward
the Imperial Palace and prayers for victory in the war.
Films were frequently shown at the Military Logistics Theater by the military logistics movie team.
We also sometimes rented out the theater when it was not in use so that other units could host events.
The Military Logistics Theater had a splendid dark red curtain. This curtain was made by the local
Matsukawaya Kimono Shop. There was a large Hankou Military Logistics Base emblem, which was achrysanthemum and water pattern on an equilateral triangle, embroidered in gold and silver thread in
the center of the curtain, which was really elegant. The Matsukawaya Kimono Shop apparently asked
the commander for permission to include their name on the curtain as the maker, and the commander
casually asked me about this, but in the end, I refused.
There was a hallway on the outside of the audience seats, which was arranged so it could also be
used as a stage for performances. On hot humid summer nights, we showed movies outdoors so thatpeople could enjoy the cool of the evening. The screen was hung from the veranda, and the lawn in
the garden was used as an outside seating area. Second Lieutenant N, who served as the presenterand appears in the commander’s memoirs, was Second Lieutenant Nakanishi from the recreation
41

The story about Bo Ya, a musician who played a zither-like instrument called the qin, dates from the Warring States
Period in China. Bo Ya played his instrument in a place called Lute Platform.

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Wuhan military logistics basesection, who was in charge of the events. Nakanishi later told me it was an exaggeration that he spoke
fluent German.
The oil painting Military Commander Hata Triumphantly Entering Wuhan, by the great painterToyoshiro Murota, which measured 162 cm x 112 cm, hung prominently on the second floor of theMilitary Logistics Hall. There were many other works displayed as well, including some shown at the
Backbone Army’s Painting Exhibition, so it was like a small art museum. The area was opened to the
public only on Sundays.

The Military Logistics Base’s Movie TeamThe military logistics base’s movie team was under the command of the recreation section chief andwent to each of the units stationed at Hankou. The team had two portable movie projectors made inJapan. Private First-Class Oda, who was a movie projectionist before he was drafted, was in charge.
The team showed movies at least 10 times per month, following orders from the military.
In addition to visiting the units stationed at Hankou, the team also went out to show movies at thethree Army hospitals in Hankou, the barracks for units in transit, the special comfort facilities, theprisoner of war camp, and sometimes the military police squad and the Navy hospital.
They usually showed movies about once every two months to the main units stationed at Hankou. The
team showed a six-reel modern drama, a six-reel historical drama, a one-reel cultural film, and tworeels of news as requested by each unit. They would generally finish around 11:30 p.m. and after theycleaned up, it would be nearly 1:00 a.m. The movie projectors were then loaded into a small truck. It
felt somehow empty and eerie in the middle of the night, under the bright moonlight, to drive backthrough town. The municipality looked like a ruined ghost town because of the blackout order. So,
sometimes, when the shows took too long, they would secretly skip one of the reels and the audiencewould not notice.
The movies were distributed by China Film Company. These included Daibosatsu toge (Daibosatsupass), Tasogare no machi (Town at twilight), Tsubasa no gaika (The triumphant song of the wings),
Otoko no hanamichi (A man’s flower road), Yuki no jyohenge (An actor’s revenge), Aiki minami e
tobu (Our planes fly south), Muhomatsu no issho (The Life of Matsu the Untamed), Sugata Sanshiro(Sanshiro Sugata), and Jiro monogatari (The tale of Jiro). Particularly popular were the handsome
Kazuo Hasegawa in A Man’s Flower Road, the young man who excelled at judo in Sanshiro Sugata,and the deep passion demonstrated by the earnest rickshaw driver played by Tsumasaburo Bando in
The Life of Matsu the Untamed. These films for general audiences, which were very entertaining, were
especially popular among the soldiers.
When the branch for the Shayangzhen campaign withdrew, I became the Wuhan Military Logistics
Base adjutant. The movie team showed The Life of Matsu the Untamed day after day, in the open spaceat the barracks compound for the soldiers headed to the front, to the units that were in transit. Somesoldiers said they saw the same movie three times and that they were very happy because now they
could die without any regrets.
Near the end of 1944, the “Japan News” newsreel showed images of a train station where children
were leaving for evacuation to the countryside. There were mothers saying goodbye to their smallchildren, fathers waving small Japanese flags, and the faces of children who looked like they wereabout to cry. A letter which happened to arrive from my wife said that my own two young children—
my daughter in fifth grade and my son in third grade—were being evacuated to Shimosuwa in
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Wuhan military logistics baseNagano Prefecture. I wondered what sort of place they were going to. So, I watched this news filmwith a feeling of deep sympathy.
At the next Wuhan poetry circle, I wrote the following poems about the evacuated school children.
I heard that two of my children, went off to far away Shinano.42
I wonder if it is lonely at my old home.
May the grass and trees of the fields of Shinano, console my children who live away from home.
However, my children did not go to Shimosuwa as originally planned. They went to Yumoto Onsenon the east coast of Fukushima Prefecture at the end of August. I received a letter from my daughter,
who was settled at an inn called Yamagataya, which arrived wet in the autumn rain.
Cold autumn, I long for Yumoto in Iwaki, where my children live away from home.
I long for Yumoto in a place called Iwaki, where my young children whom I have not seen forthree years live.
Later a letter arrived from my home in Tokyo which included a letter from my second son at his
evacuation destination. Visits by parents were permitted sequentially, and the order of visits wasdetermined by having the children draw lots.
He wrote:
Mother, how are you? I am fine, so do not worry. This is the order for the visits. I had bad luckin the drawing, so the order turned out this way. I am sorry. But auntie is sick, so a late visit
is probably better. I hear that she is very sick. I am always praying to God that she will getbetter soon. Please come to visit right away after she gets better because I am eagerly looking
forward to your visit. Take care of yourself. Goodbye.
The sick aunt was my wife’s older sister, who lived together with us. She passed away in January 1945.
When spring came my wife went to visit our children at Yumoto where they were evacuated together
with our youngest daughter, who was five years old. They stayed at the Yamagataya Inn, where mydaughter was staying, and met the children. It was early July when I received a letter that the four ofthem wrote together that night. In response, I wrote and sent them the following poems.
My wife and children wrote me, saying they met for the first time in a while, at an inn at a hot
springs in Tohoku.
The joy of my wife seeing her children, and of my children seeing their mother, is completely
seeped into their letter.
The katakana letters by my youngest are misshapen. She was said to be asleep, being held by her
big sister.
My oldest son, who was in the first year of junior high school, was a student mobilized for work at the
Nakajima Aircraft Factory in Ogikubo,43 but he had caught a cold and his fever would not subside, so
he was staying at home in bed. My wife was suffering in Japan, where there was a shortage of goods,
with a sick child, fearing the air raids day after day, and our younger children had been evacuatedaway from their home. I was so far away and could not do anything to help them. The six members of
my family were living far apart, and I did not know if the day would ever come when we would meet
42
43

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Shinano is the old name for Nagano prefecture.
Ogikubo is a neighborhood in western Tokyo.
Wuhan military logistics baseagain. All I could do was to pray for my family’s safety.
We once showed a movie at the Army hospital, which was at Wuhan University. It was a hot summer
evening. When we set up the screen at an open space on campus and began playing the film, theair raid siren sounded. The patients who could walk went to the designated air raid shelter, and thepatients who could not walk were carried to the shelter on stretchers by nurses. I remained outside,
listening to the alerts, together with the officers from the General Affairs Section. It seems enemy
aircraft were circling above the Yangtze River, and the alert was not called off for a long time. As aresult, we eventually cancelled the movie showing. I felt very sorry for the patients who were looking
forward to the movies, but such things are normal in the war zone. No one complained, perhaps
because they were resigned to this.
Another time, when we went to the Hankou 1st Army Hospital to show a movie, I met Hospital
Director Hotta and Army Surgeon Major Uematsu, who had taken care of me when I was hospitalized.
When we met, they specially requested that we arrange a place inside the city for the nurses to dropby and rest when they went out. I spoke with Commander Horie as soon as I returned, received
permission from the Army General Staff Office, and planned the opening of a rest station for Armynurses.
We were given a room on a lower floor of the Kairiku Hotel, which was the military logistics baseofficers’ quarters, and named it the Nadeshiko44 (Carnations) Dormitory. We equipped this room withnewspapers, magazines, paperback books, and confiscated old records, and later placed a small organ
in one corner, and we had a sofa for the drawing room, so nurses could relax at leisure here when
they went out. Mr. Shichiji of the Kairiku Hotel actively cooperated. He provided coffee, black tea,cake and sometimes sweet bean soup with rice cake. When I went to look one Sunday, I saw red andwhite cosmos flowers in a vase. I asked the nurses who were there, and they said these were flowersthat had been blooming in the rear garden of the hospital. A nurse was also using the organ to playhymns and the song “Sakura, sakura” and other children’s songs. I later placed paperback books on
the small bookshelf. These included:
Manji (Quicksand) by Junichiro Tanizaki
Kuwa no mi (Mulberries) by Miekichi Suzuki
Nakamura Kenkichi kashu (Collected poems of Kenkichi Nakamura)
Rojin senshu (Selected works of Lu Xun)
Mugen hoyo (The infinite embrace) by Kosaku Takii
Nogiku no haka (Grave of the wild chrysanthemum) by Sachiyo Ito
Gan (The Wild Geese) by Ogai Mori
Rumania nikki (A Roumanian Diary) by Hans Carossa
Anderusen dowashu (Collection of Andersen’s children’s stories)
Kurisuchina Rozecchi shisho (Christina Rossetti anthology)

Hankou Prisoner of War CampThe Hankou Prisoner of War Camp, which was under the jurisdiction of the military logistics base,
was located at the end of Jianghan Road. It had six two-story brick buildings, and there was a sign that
read “Hankou Public Security Reserve Unit” at the gate. The term “prisoner of war” was not officiallyused, probably from the stance that the Second Sino-Japanese War was an undeclared war. Some
44

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Nadeshiko, also known as carnations or pinks, is a symbolic reference to Japanese women.
Wuhan military logistics baseof the prisoners were very young because when prisoners were being escorted from the front after
campaigns ended, a few would escape, and farmers and homeless children who were not soldiers
would be caught to make the numbers match. The prisoners included field-grade officers who weremore than 50 years old, as well as women who were officers’ wives rather than female soldiers, andeven some children. They were organized into companies to form Public Security Reserve Units,
given identification numbers in Japanese, and roll calls were taken. The prisoners were neatly dressed
and lined up in order. They mostly went out to perform labor for the units stationed at Hankou andwere used for various other tasks, such as working at the military logistics farm and making ropeand chairs inside the camp. There were usually around 800 prisoners. The prisoner headcount would
double immediately after campaigns, and a platoon from the 51st Military Logistics Guard Unit was
assigned to watch over them.
After the Jiangbei Campaign was over, we temporarily kept Division Commander Wang Jingzai, who
had been captured, in a separate building. Also, after the Battle of Changde, the number of prisoners
rose to over 2,000. Cases of salmonella infections appeared one after another, and seven or eight ofthe prisoners died. There were signs that salmonella was becoming rampant, so many of the patientswere segregated in the Yangtze district, and efforts were made to prevent an epidemic, which was
avoided. Some of the prisoners sent to the Yangtze district were released there.
I was asked by the head of the prisoner of war camp, Captain Horie,45 to send the military logistics
base movie team from time to time to pacify the prisoners. We borrowed Chunjian yihen (Springtime
remorse), Eikoku Kuzururu no Hi (The day England collapsed), Hawai Maree oki kaisen (The war atsea from Hawaii to Malaya) and other movies from the China Film Company. Springtime Remorse wasa Chinese version of Noroshi wa Shanghai ni agaru (Signal fires of Shanghai). This was a JapaneseChinese production with Tsumasaburo Bando and the Chinese actors Xi Mei, Li Lihua and Danfeng
Wong. It was an unusual film about Shinsaku Takasugi’s trip to Shanghai. The Day England Collapsed
was about the Battle of Hong Kong and was produced by Daiei Film Company. The War at Sea from
Hawaii to Malaya was produced by Toho Company. When we showed this film, one Chinese prisoner,
who was an officer captured in the Battle of Changde, told me he was amazed again at the power of
the Japanese Army that he saw with his own eyes in this documentary. He did not understand thatwhat he saw were tricks that were made possible by the director Eiji Tsuburaya using special effects.
We also borrowed Chinese films including Mulan Enlisted, New Spider Cave, The Famous Star, The
Fisher Maiden, Autumn Song, and Narcissus Beauty from the China Film Company and showed thesefilms. New Spider Cave is a movie version of part of the story Saiyuki (Journey to the West). Thereis a scene where Son Goku (Sun Wukong) turns himself into a dove and peeps at witches who arebathing, which is very erotic. This was like a striptease as the witches remove their clothes one after
another, become naked, and soak in the water, with a closeup of their backs. Captain Horie later told
me “You should select more subdued movies because it is troublesome if the prisoners get excitedand cannot sleep after the movies. The Famous Star and Narcissus Beauty were domestic tragedies
like the old Shochiku films in which a maid becomes pregnant and is abandoned by her young master,
falls into prostitution, and then meets the young master once again. Many of the movies were tearjerkers. These films for the masses were particularly popular among the prisoners.
We put up pillars in the middle of the 100 square meter open space inside the compound, hung themovie screen, and had the prisoners watch the films from both sides of the screen, so half of theprisoners were watching mirror images of the films. On movie days, the prisoners were released
45

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Presumably no relation to Colonel Horie.
Wuhan military logistics basefrom work early, spread straw mats, crouched, and waited for the military logistics truck to arrive,
smiling like children. When the night wind blew, the screen would waver, and the picture would
ripple. Looking up on some nights, the sky was filled with shining bright stars, and sometimes five
searchlights cut across the sky.
The prisoners were made to play basketball and other sports, and on the national day of the Republicof China, October 10, the prisoners held a variety show. We sometimes invited Chinese opera actors
from the New Market and had them perform.
To pacify the prisoners, we lent out local records and Chinese novels such as Romance of the Three
Kingdoms, Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Journey to the West, and allowed theprisoners to read the pro-Japanese daily Chinese newspaper Dachubao. Because China is a literate
country, some of the educated prisoners greatly enjoyed borrowing these books and reading thenewspaper. The Catalog of Beijing Opera Stars included color illustrations of Chinese opera makeup,
and when I picked it up after it was lent to a prisoner, I was surprised to see that the prisoner had
made a cover for the book and handled it with great care. This was in stark contrast to how books
from the Soldiers’ Library were sometimes lost or returned badly damaged when we lent them torural branch organizations.
When we assigned prisoners to work for units stationed at Hankou, they often escaped. Because thelookouts and the guards were responsible for the escaped prisoners, the missing prisoners weregenerally reported as having died from illness. However, the number of prisoners escaping gradually
declined as we improved their wages, showed movies, provided other entertainment, and came up
with other diversions.
The prisoners were used to prepare the site for the Soldiers’ Amusement Park, dig ponds, plant treesthat would blossom, and to build the air raid shelter at the back of the comfort facilities. As often as
possible, I went out for inspections when they finished their work. When they worked for the military
logistics base, I would have one cigarette distributed to each of the prisoners, and the prisoners werevery happy.
In September 1945, officers from the occupying Chinese army carried out an on-site inspection of
the prisoner of war camp. They pointed out no illegalities, and conversely were almost thankful forthe good management. The efforts by Captain Horie, First Lieutenant Higoshi, and the successive
heads of the camp to improve the treatment of the prisoners were recognized. At the Hankou Military
Logistics Base, there were no incidents of abuse of prisoners or other war crimes whatsoever.
After the war, when the tables turned and we became prisoners of war, and were held in the Yangtze
district, I once walked through the city of Hankou together with my orderly to report to the military
headquarters. I was instructed to salute Chinese officers of my rank or above, but I saluted sentriesof course, and every Chinese soldier I met. One Chinese man on a street corner called out to me, but
I did not understand Chinese, so I just smiled. That man called out to people passing by and a crowd
immediately surrounded me, and I thought I was in trouble, but it would not be correct to run away
either, so I just stood there. The Chinese man seemed to be making some appeal to the crowd. It
seems he had no ulterior motives and I was eventually let go. I said “thank you” in Chinese and left.
My orderly later said that man may have been one of the prisoners at the camp. He appeared to befriendly, and the people who were listening to him did not show me any hostility. Perhaps he wassaying that this Japanese soldier was a good man.

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Wuhan military logistics baseThe Towa Theater
At the Towa Theater, which was the only Japanese movie theater in Hankou, 90 percent of thecustomers were soldiers. After the Military Logistics Theater was completed, however, movies weresometimes shown there, so to avoid competition, the Towa Theater subsequently became a facility
that was under the management of the military logistics base. On January 10, 1945, from the morning,
the sky was covered with clouds. The sky was like lead, and fine snow soon started to fall. There waslittle concern about an air raid, so we decided to show all six reels of Japan News No. 230 to No. 235,
which had just arrived together. We showed repeatedly images of the nighttime attack on Surigao
Strait in the Philippines, a kamikaze special attack unit beginning a mission from a base in Kyushu,
the activities of women on the home front drafted to the Navy Uniform Production Depot in Hiratsuka,
the ceremony marking the departure of students to the front in the rain at Meiji Jingu Stadium on
October 21, and kamikaze pilots crashing into the enemy warship Hornet. We invited 3,000 officers
and soldiers from all the units stationed at Hankou, as well as those that were in transit, to watch thereels free of charge. The fixed projectors at the Towa Theater unquestionably had better images thanthe portable projectors at the Military Logistics Hall.
When entertainment groups would come to the militar y logistics base in Hankou, they would
also perform at the Militar y Logistics Theater and subsequently at the Militar y Logistics Hall.
The audience for each performance was announced in the military logistics base bulletin and themembers of each unit would come, led by the person in charge. The entertainment groups would
also go directly to the hospitals and perform there. On average, two entertainment groups would
come to Hankou from the various prefectures each month, and they usually had 12 or 13 performers.
Furthermore, aside from the entertainment groups from each prefecture, performers such as Torazo
Hirosawa, Hamako Watanabe, and Shimeka Asakusa were sent by the Military Relief Department.
They performed numbers such as the ballad “Mori no Ishimatsu” (Ishimatsu of the Forest) and the
popular song “Shina no yoru” (China night) and entertained the officers and soldiers. The original
Military Logistics Theater had broadcasting facilities, so the performances were broadcast to thefront.
The Hankou Women’s Association of fered to invite the soldiers to a koto-and-dance recital asentertainment, although this was not by an entertainment group from Japan. We invited those who
were interested from each unit. We used the Military Logistics Theater, which had broadcasting
facilities, and broadcast a 30-minute koto performance to the front. They played the three songs“Chidori no kyoku” (Song of the plover), “Tsuru no koe” (Voice of the crane), and “Roei no uta” (Field
encampment song). The rest of the show was mostly a performance of the koto songs “Kurokami”(Black hair) and “Rokudan” (Six-column tune) and children dancing. The dressing room was full ofyoung women with their hair put up in the Shimada style and children wearing long-sleeved kimono,and I was surprised there were such people in Hankou. This gathering took place on the night of April3, 1943.
Kikuyo Kajimoto, the head of the Kiku School of Japanese Dance, came to Hankou together with the
Osaka City entertainment group. Kajimoto danced like a puppet to a recording of the puppet theater
piece “Shirokiya no dan” (Scene of Shirokiya) in Koi musume mukashi hachijo (The love-inspired
murder), and one of her students played the role of the puppeteer for Okoma dressed in black.
Another one of her students performed the country song dance “Yuki” (Snow). All the performances
gave a taste of the beauty of Japanese dance. After the show, Kajimoto asked us to write something in

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Wuhan military logistics baseher autograph book. I think Commander Horie wrote a passage from the Lotus Sutra, and I wrote thefollowing poem.
Dancing like a puppet, wearing a dapple-patterned dyed kimono with long sleeves, the beautiful
thin fingers of Kikuyo.
Kajimoto said she wanted a red Chinese umbrella to use in her performances. The next day I went out
with Kajimoto, brought an interpreter, and looked for a Chinese umbrella while walking from Hualou
Street to Ma Li Road in the refugee district.
Going together through morning crowds on Hualou Street, trying to buy a red Chinese umbrella.
The entertainment groups often asked us to help them shop for shoes and bags because the leather
goods in Hankou were said to be inexpensive, but we refused all those requests because theperformers were shameless in coming to buy items in large quantities. I accompanied Kajimoto,
however, because I thought it was interesting that she wanted a Chinese umbrella.
After she returned to Osaka, Kajimoto sent me a long letter written on rolled letter paper withJapanese ink. She wrote in a beautiful hand. According to her letter, Kajimoto had created a dance
based on Princess Nukata, who appears in the Manyoshu, under the direction of Nobutsuna Sasaki.
Kajimoto had danced the piece Yagura no Oshichi (Greengrocer Oshichi) under the direction of
Bungoro Yoshida. She was an unusual and cultured woman who had included the country dance song
“Snow” and dance from the puppet theater, which were rare for a performance group.
The entertainment group from Chiba Prefecture was led by a civil ser vant from the prefectural
government of fice and was comprised of five young dancers and three persons in suppor t toaccompany them. These were mostly geisha from Hasuike in Chiba City. They entertained theSummit Brigade (the 17th Independent Mixed Brigade), which was from their home prefecture, andhad a difficult time as they were bombed several times at the front during their tour before returning
to Hankou. A geisha named Tamayu was injured when the truck in which she was riding had an
accident and rolled over, and she was struck on the forehead by the stock of a light machine gun andrequired three stitches. She danced the Kuroda bushi (Song of Kuroda) wearing a headband. This was
not a handkerchief, but rather a bandage. Also, at one frontline unit, the platoon leader had died in
an attack to subjugate bandits two nights before, and they danced the Tairyobushi (Fishermen’s folksong) while drumming on oil cans in front of his remains.
Near the end of 1943, I recommended that this troupe spend the New Year’s in Hankou, but theywanted to return to Nanjing, where it was safe, as soon as possible. So, they took a ship down the
Yangtze River two days after performing at the Military Logistics Hall. They were bombed by the
U.S. air force while in transit, their ship sank, and all the members of the troupe went missing andwere presumed dead. I expressed my condolences by submitting the following poems to the Wuhan
Continental News:The arrow-patterned sleeves of dancers, are still in my eyes, every one of them has died.
How could I have thought, that this was the last night, for them to dance under the bright lights?
Toyoshiro Murota, who was a member of the artists’ group Shinseisakuha Kyokai (New Works
Association), painted a picture of the Hankou night per formance by the Chiba Prefecture
entertainment group, as seen from the mezzanine of the Military Logistics Hall, on a 33 cm x 21 cm
canvas. It showed the green glass of the footlights and the geisha from Hasuike, Chiba City dancing.
This oil painting ended up being burned at the end of the war. If it had remained intact, it would have
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been a rare work showing the final performance by the members of this entertainment group, who all
perished.
The Okinawa Prefecture entertainment group was a group of young women. The Amakawa dance
they performed to the music of the sanshin46 is a dance of a young man and a young woman who arein love. The gesture of the man pouring water on the woman washing her hair was so artless that it
was heartwarming. Commander Horie had previously served in the Okinawa Regimental District
Headquarters, and told me that Okinawan dance incorporated karate moves.
The members of the Ehime Prefecture entertainment group were all dashing, wearing military-styleuniforms with rucksacks. I thought they were a young women’s group, but they were a combinedgroup of geisha from Iyo Matsuyama and Uwajima. They performed the Iyo Manzai and Uwajima
Sansa dances.
The Saga Prefecture entertainment group was a young women’s group that came all the way to
Hankou after performing in northern China. The young woman who danced the Suehirogari epic
song was from Karatsu City. First Lieutenant Shizuo Hirata, my instructor when I entered the Sakura
57th Infantr y Regiment as a one-year volunteer, was from Karatsu. He died during the battle atYangwushan in Daye County in central China while commanding a unit in October 1938. This woman
knew Hirata’s wife, so I asked her to deliver a letter from me when she returned home.
According to Shohei Ooka’s Reite senki (A record of the Battle of Leyte), Colonel Tatsunosuke Suzuki,
the commander of the 33rd Regiment serving with the 16th Division, died in the Tacloban area of
Leyte Island in October 1944. Some say he committed suicide with his handgun, but others say hedied while on a raid. Colonel Suzuki had been the leader of the 3rd Company of the Sakura 57th
Infantry Regiment, which I had belonged to. He was an intellectual and cultured officer who was soontransferred to the inspectorate general of military training.
His successor, Captain Takeshi Miyazaki, who was later promoted to major general, was transferredfrom his post as the head of the Army school in Toyohashi to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa to serve as
the commander of the 45th Independent Mixed Brigade. The enemy never landed, so the brigade
must have been unscathed through to the end of the war. Also, First Lieutenant Kiyonao Kato,
who instructed noncommissioned officer candidates attached to the 3rd company, became Colonel
Kiyonao Ichiki, the commander of the Ichiki Detachment, who committed suicide at Guadalcanal after
ritually burning the unit’s colors. When I think about it, many men who looked after me when I wasa one-year volunteer died in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, and I cannot help but
think of these as great scars from the war, which was like a nightmare.
The highlight of the entertainment groups was certainly the Toho Dance Troupe, which came to
Hankou on December 4, 1944. It was comprised of members from the Nichigeki Dancing Team. This
group had 20 members under their leader Hiratsuka, with 14 dancers and singers, three musicians,
and one director. When they came to Hankou, they were surprised at the luxurious Military Logistics
Hall and said it was just as if they had returned home to the Toho Theater. All the members were
enthusiastic. When I asked Director Hiranobu for his opinion regarding the Militar y Logistics
Theater, he gave us professional advice to the effect that the theater should have a black split curtain,that the number of footlights should be increased, that there should be seven hanging lights in front
and five in back, and that there should be a white backdrop with red and blue lighting.

46

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An Okinawan shamisen, also known as a jabisen.
Wuhan military logistics baseThe Toho Dance Troupe performed three times at the Military Logistics Base Hall. The show beganwith Sannin sanbaso (Traditional prelude by three dancers) and included Maiko (Apprentice geisha),
Echigo jishi (Echigo lion), Kuroda bushi (Song of Kuroda), Mansaku odori (Bumper crop dance),
Otemoyan, Yuki (Snow), Boshibari (Tied to a pole), as well as Jawa no mango uri (Javanese mango
sellers), Indo no genso (India fantasy), Toyo no maihime (Oriental dancer), Mitsumen komori (Threemasked nursemaid), and Sora no shinpei (Divine soldiers of the sky), in addition to the vocal solos “Aoibokujo” (Blue pasture) and “Sayon no uta” (Sayon’s song). The dancer Takashi Masuda who joined
the troupe as the assistant leader danced the Argentine tango La Cumparsita and the Spanish dance
España Cañi, which had been banned in Japan.
Masuda entered the Takata Dance Troupe in 1925 and studied under Masao Takata. He entered the
Toho Company in 1935 and trained the Nichigeki Dancing Team under the direction of Toyokichi
Hata. For that reason, as the assistant leader of the Toho Dance Troupe, Masuda participated inperformances to entertain Japanese Imperial Army troops stationed all over Manchuria and China.
The Hankou Japanese Residents Association also wanted them to give one performance for theJapanese residents, so we consulted with the militar y headquarters and specially arranged two
performances for civilians. The Association donated 35,000 yen to defray the costs for maintaining
the Military Logistics Hall. The Association also invited the Toho Dance Troupe to a meal of Chinese
cuisine at the Shinjinkai Society. There was some discussion about Chinese opera at the table there.
Before the war, I had seen a performance of Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Toshishun (Tu Tze-Chun),with the title changed to Tokashun (Peach flower spring), at the Toho Theater. This was the final
appearance by Kuniko Ashihara. Reiko Hatsune skillfully played the comic role, but the show did not
feel Chinese at all. When I said it would definitely be interestingfor the dance troupe to incorporate some more Chinese opera
techniques, they said that they would really like to go seesome Chinese opera. The first opera I wanted to show themwas staged at the New Market theater on December 8, 1944.
It was a performance of “Farewell My Concubine” from War
Stories of Han-Chu. The Army was opposed to this plan andit was postponed by one day, but permission was granted on
the following day, December 9. I wanted them to see Xiang
Yu played by Pan Dingxin and Consort Yu played by Dong
Mingyan but the performance on the 9th was a different show,with Stealing the Royal Horse and Chained Traps.
On the 9th, after a per formance at the 2nd Army Hospital,
before the Chinese Opera began in the evening, at the Kairiku
Hotel, I gave a simple explanation of our schedule for the
Chinese Opera and the evening’s performance. It was pitch
black because of the blackout order. Since it would be a great
problem if anyone got lost, we all went there holding hands.
Kimiko Minowa, who danced Mitsumen komori (Three masked
nursemaid), Momoko Tani, who danced Toyo no maihime(Oriental dancer) and Chizuko Sanada, who sang solo with abeautiful voice like a bell, gathered around me.
On the stage at the New Market theater, the fighting scenes
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Newspaper adver tisement for
the Chinese opera performance.
Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”,
Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.
Wuhan military logistics baseof the youth Huang Tianba that were energetically performed by the actress Dong Mingya weresplendid. After the performance, we were shown into the dressing room. The actresses from Japanand China all shook hands one after another and parted.
On the next day, December 10, after finishing their afternoon performance at the Navy Guard Unit,
the Toho Dance Troupe left on a Navy ship to Jiujiang downriver at 6:00 p.m. I visited the troupe’s
leader Hiratsuka at the Kairiku Hotel and gave him a copy of the Yuan Qu Opera Qu play The Young
Lady Died for Love in memory of their visit. Incidentally, later that night, bombs fell near the Japanese
Club, a fire broke out, and at the same time some of the windows at the Militar y Logistics Hall
Theater were shattered by the blast.
On January 15, 1978, I visited Takashi Masuda in Kitazawa, Tokyo. I listened to him speak about thetime he came to Hankou as the assistant leader of the Imperial Army Entertainment Troupe. Then hetook out a rare photograph from an album and lent it to me. This photograph showed dancers dressed
as Javanese mango sellers holding parrots in their hands. He said that after the Toho Dance Troupe
had finished their performance for the Navy Guard Unit and boarded their ship at 6:00 p.m., they
were filled with emotion when they saw Hankou—where they had just performed—catch fire as they
traveled down the Yangtze River. On January 31, I visited the former leader of the dance troupe, Hiroo
Hiratsuka, in Kugenuma and asked him about the members of the Toho Dance Troupe and theirperformance record. At that time, we talked about the bombing of Hankou, and he explained that
because the enemy aircraft were circling overhead, the captain had anchored their ship in shallow
waters near the bank of the river so that it would only be grounded and not sink if it were bombed.
They were told that if they jumped into the river and swam to the riverbank, they might encounter
guerillas, and that would be more dangerous.
After the splendid performance by the Toho Dance Troupe, the Chiba Prefecture entertainment
group was the last one to perform at the Military Logistics Theater. The Theater burned down in alarge daytime air raid the next day, January 14, 1945. I received a report from Private First-Class Oda,
who was the lookout, that the Military Logistics Theater was in danger, so I sent 20 soldiers to preventthe fire from spreading. There was a shortage of fire extinguishers, and the fire eventually spread tothe ceiling and there was nothing they could do. Everything burned to ashes, including the luxurious
dark red curtain, the altar, and the ritual utensils prepared for the memorial ceremony scheduled forthe next day, which was the 15th.

Chinese Opera
I liked Chinese opera, so I read Shinageki gohyakuban (500 Chinese operas) by Kenichi Hatano andShina Shibai no Hanashi (Stories of Chinese plays) by Kazue Hama, and went to see performances atthe Hankou Daibutai, Tensei, and New Market theaters from time to time. The commander told me toalways take someone with me when I went to performances at the New Market theater because it was
located in the refugee district, and going there alone would be dangerous. But most of the soldiers I
took gave up after seeing just one performance. The Hankou radio station broadcast performances
twice a week on Wednesdays and Sundays, so I later decided to go together with someone working
for the broadcasting station. I once invited the writer Einosuke Ito, who wrote for the army and was
visiting Hankou, and we went together. It was a performance of Chain Stratagems, with Lu Bu playedby the actor Pan Dingxin and Diao Chan played by Dong Mingyan.
I came to know the actors Pan Dingxin, Zhang Mingsheng, and Zhu Genshou, and the actresses
Dong Mingyan, Dai Qixia, and Xue Yanxiang employed by the New Market theater. That is because I
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Wuhan military logistics basewould enter the dressing room, meet the actors, show them the colored pencil sketches of the stage
which I had drawn, ask for their autographs, and offer each of them one imported cigarette that we
had confiscated. The actress Dong Mingyan skillfully signed her name in a mirror image using apencil (see the illustration). The makeup for the white rabbit who appears in the mid-autumn festival
play was very interesting, so I asked the actor Zhu Genshou if I could draw his picture in the dressing
room, and he posed, holding up his rabbit ears with both hands.
When I asked the son of Wen Ming Wong, who was the proprietor of the New Market theater, to allow
the Toho Dance Troupe to attend a Chinese opera, he agreed right away, but he said that in exchange
they would like to see the Toho Dance Troupe perform. So, I invited a few of the main actors to attend
the performance at the 2nd Army Hospital. Wen Ming Wong’s son exhibited filial piety, saying thatrather than inviting him, I should invite his father. When we drove to pick him up on the day of theshow, Wen Ming Wong had two of his young granddaughters with him. The actress Dong Mingyang
could not come because she was not available, so Xue Yanxiang came in her place. The actors who
attended were Pan Dignxin and Zhang Mingsheng. They were delighted to see an excellent traditional
Japanese kyogen boshibari comic theater, and said that the fighting scenes and action scenes weresimilar to those which they performed, and praised them.
The stage for Chinese opera at the New Market theater was dim, with just three gas lamps hanging
from the ceiling. The stage scenery was never changed, and the props were simple. The performance
had certain conventions, such as running around swinging a whip with tassels to show horse riding.
Also, it was noisy, with accompaniment by gongs and Chinese fiddles, and vendors would come bywith tea and watermelon seeds. They also brought wet hand towels, but these seemed to be a bit
dirty, so I did not touch them. The renpu makeup which turned the human face into a mask wasvery striking with vivid red and black. The expression of the leading actress playing the role of thebeautiful coquettish woman had points in common with Japanese drama, noh, kabuki, and bunraku.
I became acquainted with the Chinese opera researcher Hekisui Ito, the owner of the Sanki Company,
who showed me around and let me listen to his prized Chinese opera records.
The New Market was an amusement park like the Korakuen in Tokyo. In addition to the theater for
Chinese opera, there were also small theaters for Han opera and Chu opera. The New Market was
confiscated by the Army and used as a prisoner of war camp under the management of the military
logistics base at one time, but it was returned to the proprietor at the request of the Chinese. The
proprietor, Wen Ming Wong, appreciated this and invited key personnel at the military logistics baseto events such as the chrysanthemum festival. We saw a performance after dinner. The show thatnight was Emperor Ming of Tang Visits the Moon Palace. Emperor Xuanzong (commonly known as
Emperor Ming) furtively glanced at the silhouette of Yang Guifei who was played by Dong Mingyan
while she was taking off her clothes one layer at a time in the bathroom, which was a bit erotic, andthe audience enthusiastically stamped their feet.
In March 1945, at the recommendation of Mr. Ito, I submitted an article “Chinese Plays and Bunraku”
to the Wuhan Continental News using the pseudonym Yoshiya Oka. I thought that there were somecommonalities between Chinese opera and Japanese bunraku puppet theater as oriental theater. This
is what I wrote.
While watching Chinese plays, I am always reminded of the bunraku puppet theater plays
in Osaka. Chinese plays are to be heard with the ears more than seen, as evidenced by theterm ting xi (literally “listen play”), and long ago, the bunraku of Osaka was supposed to be

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Wuhan military logistics basesomething to listen to rather than to watch. The intense sounds of Chinese plays may besimilar to the shamisen, which continuously accompanies the subtle intonations of recitationsof bunraku chanters, but while the shamisen has a sorrowful, mournful melody which tears
at the heart, we find it difficult to grasp the pathos in the sounds of the gong and Chinese
fiddles, which we are not accustomed to hearing. This must be because of the differences inlong traditions with different customs.
The other day, I went to see Chinese opera at the New Market theater, but it was extremely
dark, with just three gas lamps hanging from the ceiling, and it felt like there was some classic
shadow cast over the entire stage. The vivid makeup called renpu transforms the human face
into a mask, and this was very symbolic and not realistic. Kunio Kishida wrote in a book thatthe sexual appeal of young men and women who appear in Chinese opera is successfully
expressed ver y directly and subtly, and closely resembles the methods used in Japanese
kabuki. The movement of the lines forming an actor’s silhouette that are part of the behaviorof a flirting young woman oddly matches the traditional standards of Japanese female beauty,
and the movements of men and women in love in Yu tang chun (Spring in the Jade Chamber)and other works is just like those of bunraku puppets. However, deep sadness cannot be felt
as much as in bunraku because the pace is faster, and the plot proceeds rather dispassionately.
At any rate, just as the bunraku puppets for a beautiful woman, a princess, a young warrior, anelder civil servant, a good guy, a bad guy, a clown, or whatever role appears as stereotypicaltypes, the characters in Chinese plays are also categorized according to set roles.
Therefore, just as the dolls for minor roles seen in bunraku are crude, in Chinese opera theminor characters are very crude and simple. Just as the dolls for minor roles in bunraku
have a blank look regardless of the action on the stage, the child actors in the Chinese plays
who hold flags look away carelessly with open mouths. Also, the beauty of the so-called“conventions” in opera is completely the same as in bunraku puppets.
Whenever I see Chinese plays, I remember the puppets of Bungoro Yoshida and Eiza Yoshida
which are now sadly in the past. The other evening, they performed “Chained Traps” at the
New Market theater with Huang Tianba played by Dong Mingyan and Dou Erdun played byZhang Mingsheng. They performed Bai-shang (Worship the mountain) and the scary makeup
made the character played by Zhang Mingsheng seem even larger, just as when the puppet of
Mitsuhide handled by Eiza in Act 10 of the play Taikoki confidently overpowers the stage.
Huang Tianba, played by Hankou’s superb actress Dong Mingyan, was young, flamboyant
and also beautiful. The elegant exchange of lines, which unfortunately I could not understand,were beautiful to see just through the performers’ movements alone. The vivid shine of Dong
Mingyan’s eyes in the blueish-white gas light and her somehow oriental movements and lines
may be linked in some way to bunraku puppets. Yet, what about the indifference and noise of
the audience? They are just like the audience watching Awaji puppet theater in the book Tadekuu mushi (Some Prefer Nettles) by Junichiro Tanizaki.
I heard that in a corner of the bunraku dressing room, puppets not being used sit with theirnecks bent and their hollow eyes open. They look like faces of the dead and give a weird
feeling. The dressing room for a Chinese opera troupe is entirely peaceful. The room israther lively, with people putting on makeup with oil lamps in one dark corner, others putting
on wigs, and others arranging costumes. Even the lead actors Zhang Mingsheng and Dong
Mingyan are just given corners in the split room. The makeup I saw there was vivid and110

Wuhan military logistics baseshining with sweat. While Zhang Mingsheng was putting on his wig, the person who was
helping him wrap his head with pieces of cloth one after another was his 12-year-old daughter.
And when the father finished dressing, she fanned him with a folding fan and had him
drink warm water from a teapot. It was a poignant scene of care between the father and thedaughter.
Also, his six-year-old son was just walking around playing, sometimes touching face powder
and the dish for blush, and he was not scolded. I wondered if these children would also
perform Chinese plays on stage someday.
The other day, I borrowed Hekisui Ito’s prized record of the Chinese play “Farewell My
Concubine” and listened to it. Consort Yu who is leaving Xiang Yu, who is prepared to die,dances a sword dance to a passionate melody. This melody had such a brilliant harmony tothe point that I could not help but be ashamed because I had previously perceived it as simply
noise as the result of complete ignorance. Similar to the Chinese opera song “Susan Under
Police Escort,” from beginning to end, this is a sad song in a minor key accompanied by agong and Chinese fiddle, which tears at the heart, and which is a lament about the forlorn
fate of an unhappy woman falsely accused of things who is leaving the man she loves andbecoming the wife of a man who has deceived her.
The fact that Chinese plays are entertainment that has entered the lives of the common peopleof China lies in the traditional oriental beauty that charms people and completely forget thefate of the nation where an air raid is occurring, or that there is a war going on. They saythat the bunraku theater in Osaka burned down in the war, and the heads of the puppetsand costumes were all lost. However, the spirit of the people of Osaka to protect their folk
entertainment, which is said to be a national treasure, did not succumb to the war damage,and they are working to immediately begin new performances of bunraku using the few
puppets that remain with collectors. Osaka is rising up, and this must be greatly raising thespirits of the people of Osaka who are working for recovery. Perhaps I find myself yearningfor bunraku, which is trying to rise again amid the devastation of war, because of the Chinese
plays, and I visit the stage in the New Market.
Sawakichi Uchida, a member of a senior group of Japanese in Wuhan who served as the editorialadvisor of the Wuhan Continental News, heard from Mr. Ito that the article contributed under apseudonym was written by the military logistics base’s Adjutant Yamada, so he came to see me at thebase. Uchida had lived in Hankou for 20 years and was said to be a living dictionary of the Yangtze.
He wrote Shin Bukan fubutsushi (New introduction to Wuhan), published by Shinbukansha, inFebruary 1941. He wrote in detail about the customs, practices, festivals, and annual events in the
Wuhan district.
In April 1945, I went to see Chinese drama at the recommendation of someone from the Wuhan
Broadcasting Station. It was an evening performance at the Chinese Grand Theater which was an
adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. The young actors spoke quickly so I did notunderstand their words, but it reminded me of a performance at the Tsukiji Little Theater. But when
the curtain opened, there were none of the gongs or other types of stage effects that one sees at
Tsukiji. I saw Chinese drama just this one time and never went again.

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Sumo, Kendo, Variety Shows, and Baseball Tournaments
Events organized by the militar y logistics base took place one after another from the autumn of1943 through the spring of 1944. Around this time, in the Pacific, the U.S. military’s island-hopping
campaign had already begun, and U.S. forces landed on Bougainville Island in October 1943. In
November, there were reports that the garrisons at Makin Island and Tarawa Island had fought tothe death rather than surrender. But on the Chinese mainland, the China Expeditionary Army wasordered to prepare for Operation Togo in January 1944, and the 11th Army Headquarters was busy
making preparations. The War History Series at the Japanese Defense Agency’s Office of War History
notes that events by the military logistics base were especially encouraged as camouflage to hidepreparations for the campaign, but that was not known at all at the time.
A sumo tournament took place in September 1943 at a sumo ring prepared on the grounds of thebarracks for units in transit. Twenty groups of three men from each unit competed as representatives,
and there was also a tournament for individuals. The unit competition was won by men from the
Yangtze River Area Naval Base Force,47 which happened to be invited. The referees came from theNavy and the Japanese Residents Association. A soldier from the military logistics base who wasformerly a scaffolding worker lost in the second round of the individual tournament.
A kendo tournament was held in February 1944 on the Empire Day holiday on the same grounds ofthe barracks for the units in transit. Two hundred men participated. There were two-handed fencing
competitions for officers and warrant officers, and competitions using bayonets for noncommissioned
officers organized in a tournament fashion. The winner of the two-handed fencing matches was given
a Japanese sword by the Military Logistics Headquarters commander. From the military logistics
base, Sergeant Numata of the Kakinuma Unit participated in the bayonet competitions. He put
shoulder pads on his kendo protective gear, saying that they were light, but he did not win.
On March 10, which was Army Anniversary Day, we held a long-distance relay race with one officer,
one noncommissioned officer, and three soldiers on each team. The course was four kilometers, andstretched from the 18th Pier along Zhongshan Road through the Japanese Concession to the 11th
Army Headquarters. In this race, the runners had to carry their weapons when running. A unit fromthe Navy base participated again, and ironically, it came in first, beating all the Army teams. The
Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters came in second, and saved some face.
A variety show was held at the Military Logistics Hall on January 10, 1944, after the end of the Battleof Changde, to wish for a victorious new year. The master of ceremonies was Cadet Nakanishi, who
was in charge of variety shows. The presentations were divided into individual performances andgroup performances. The individual performances included rokyoku narrative singing, rakugo comic
storytelling, manzai comedy, shigin poetry recital, magic acts, dancing, singing popular songs, andplaying the harmonica. The group performances were plays for the stage. There were a large numberof entries, and we had difficulties arranging the schedule. Accordingly, we decided not to allow
anyone to go over their time limit, and deducted points for those who did.
The daytime performance ran from 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A different audience was then invited, andthe evening performance ran from 5:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. The awards ceremony was from 11:00 p.m.,but it took a long time to change the stage sets, so the show finally ended after 1:00 a.m.
47112Naval base forces (konkyochitai) were forward bases for overseas elements of Japan’s navy.
Wuhan military logistics base

From the military logistics base, Sergeant Major Senda, from the General Affairs Section, performedrokyoku narrative singing in the individual competition. He recited “Chichi kaeru” (Father returns)
by Kan Kikuchi. He wore a formal kimono with a family crest and a hakama skirt which he must haveborrowed somewhere, and was accompanied by a civilian professional shamisen player. He narrated
normally, but at the end he said, “wan le” (“the end” in Chinese), which made everyone laugh, andhe won a prize. Paymaster First Lieutenant Takagi from accounting performed “Kojono tsuki” (Themoon over the ruined castle) and the tango “Ame ni saku hana” (Flowers blooming in the rain) on
the harmonica, and received thunderous applause calling for an encore, which he could not perform
because of the time limit. A soldier from one unit who was said to have been an enka singer in Japan
played the accordion and sang “Beatori neechan” (Beatrice), “Koi wa yasashii nobe no hana yo” (Loveis a kind wildflower) and other songs from the Asakusa Opera when it was at its peak, mimicking theopera singers Kenichi Enomoto and Rikizo Taya. He was applauded for being a versatile entertainer.
In the group performances, the stage play competition was won by the 11th Army’s Field Motorized
Depot performing Nanbuzaka yuki no wakare (Parting in the snow at Nanbuzaka). Before entering
the army, the men who played the roles of the dowager Yosen’in and Kuranosuke Oishi were
professional kabuki actors, even though they may have been utility actors. The exchange of lines
between these two had some tense scenes. The ladies’ maids of the lord were poor amateur actresses
who were just leisurely sitting. Yet the stage setting was exciting, with snow scenery painted on theseats of a large automobile. When it was delivered the day before, I was surprised to see this imposing
scenery. I asked who had painted the stage setting, and I was told the painter was Private First Class
Iwami Furusawa, from our unit. Furusawa was a famous Western surrealist painter who belonged to
the Bijutsu Bunka Kyokai school and he excelled at painting large murals. I had heard of him before,
so I later had him come to the military logistics base regarding the administration of the military
logistics gallery, and we spoke about various matters.
This play probably won first prize because of the professional performances by the two lead actors
and the splendid stage setting by Private First Class Furusawa. The scener y and lighting werearranged by Private First Class Furusawa and the music by Superior Private Nagashima.
One act of the play Ishin yawa (Meiji Restoration evening stories) performed by the Tone Unit
from the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department won second place. This was arather novel skit-type play. The beautiful lady who was thrown out of the palanquin mentioned inCommander Horie’s memoirs was the soldier who played the geisha Hinagiku of Gion, who tries toshield the character Hanpeita Tsukigata with an umbrella from behind.
Tsukigata, it is raining.
It’s only a gentle spring rain. Let’s go on and get wet.
When he fell out of the palanquin, he held the bottom of his kimono with both hands, smiled and got
back up, and the house roared with laughter.
The third prize was awarded for two scenes from the first act of Tenpo suikoden, Otone tsukiya (Thewater margin of the Tenpo Era, Moon night at Otone), performed by the Hankou 2nd Army Hospital’s
Fukami Unit. The master swordsman Miki Hirate was performed by an actor from the Shinkokugeki
Theater Troupe, and included a dreadful scene where he hears about an emergency, suddenly gets up
from his sick bed using his sword as a staff, coughs up blood, and red blood flows, staining his white
underwear. The second scene was an energetic sword fight on the dry riverbed of the Tone River,with white pampas grass under the bright full moon, with a picture of a bridge with a handrail in the
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Wuhan military logistics basedistance. It was very impressive.
The 51st Military Logistics Guard Unit, where I used to be stationed, performed a modern drama ofsome sort with a passionate love scene acted out enthusiastically, but the lights went out at a critical
moment, probably because a fuse was blown. The audience jeered in the dark saying, the light had“popped like a poppy.” I thought this was part of the performance, but Cadet Nakanishi announced
from under the stage, “A fuse has blown, and it is being fixed so please wait a moment.” When thefuse was replaced, and the bright lights went on, the actors were all in the corner of the stage and notin their positions. Things did not proceed smoothly as the actors lost their sense of timing and missed
their lines, and so unfortunately this play was not selected and was eliminated.
A baseball tournament was held on April 2 and 3, with seven-inning games played with hard rubberballs. There were 28 teams participating, including the units that were stationed, and also a unit fromthe Navy base. The 300 players all wore their service caps, white shirts, rubber-soled socks, andputtees. It took place at Zhongshan Park in the northwest outskirts of Hankou, where we arranged
four baseball fields.
When the events at the military logistics base had come to an end, I went to the Army General Staff
Office to deliver a report. A lieutenant colonel who was a rear echelon staff official asked me, “Whatwill the military logistics base do next?” I told him, “We plan to hold a baseball tournament,” and left. I
then met with Adjutant Otani and we decided to examine the specifics for holding the tournament.
Army Surgeon Captain Osawa and First Lieutenant Paymaster Noguchi, who loved baseball, agreed
right away and they immediately prepared a plan. We received approval from the commander andnotified each unit through the military logistics base bulletin. We held a preparation meeting withrepresentatives from all the units attending. At the time, using the words “strike,” “safe,” and otherwords from the enemy language was prohibited in Japan, but we decided to openly use words suchas “strike” and “ball” without concern here on the front, after someone suggested that the men would
not be enthusiastic without the use of such terms.
The umpires from the second round of the games were chosen from the losing teams, and no extra
innings were allowed because of time constraints. The winners of tied games were decided by lot.
On the first day, all the players assembled at Baseball Field No.1 at 8:00 a.m., and the tournament
began with greetings from tournament committee chairman Fujii and with the opening pitch thrownby Hankou Militar y Logistics Base Commander Horie. Twenty games were played on the fourbaseball fields. On the second day, the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and finals were played on two
baseball fields. We were blessed with fine weather with blue skies on both days, and Zhongshan
Park was lively all day long with the men from the participating units, Japanese civilian residents, andChinese cheering.
First Lieutenant Keiichi Teru’uchi, the small-built leader of the 2nd Company at the 51st Military
Logistics Guard Unit where I was formerly stationed, took the mound in their game against the Abura
Unit from the Shipping Transportation Headquarters in the semifinals, and skillfully kept the battersin check with his curve balls. But the score was tied 3-3 at the end of the seventh inning. So, the gamewas decided by lottery, in accordance with the rules, and they unfortunately lost with the lot I was
holding. Their commander, Itabashi, who had come to support them, said to me, “Yamada, you ruinedit.”
The final was held between the 11th Army Headquarters and the Abura Unit, which is a marine

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Wuhan military logistics basetransportation auxiliary unit. The Army Headquarters team, which had the college baseball player
Ogawa from Nihon University and had a reputation for winning, went to bat first. Their team captain
Asahina hit a home run at the start, raising their spirits, but this was not followed up. The Abura Unit
players were all short, but their batters kept hitting the fastballs thrown by the Army Headquarters’
pitcher and scored four runs. In the second inning, Hiroe from the Army Headquarters hit a homer,
but that was their only run that inning. The Abura Unit scored another run in the third inning and two
more in the fifth. The Army Headquarters scored their final run in the top of the seventh inning, andso the Abura Unit won the game with a score of 7 to 3 (according to the Wuhan Continental News, acopy of which First Lieutenant Teru’uchi sent to his home).
The Abura Unit belonged to the Anchorage’s Headquarters, and was in charge of the regularlyscheduled ferry service between Hankou and Wuchang. The Abura Unit was awarded a pennant as
the winner. This pennant was a confiscated Freemasonry ritual flag that had been remade with thechrysanthemum and water emblem of the military logistics base embroidered onto it. I rememberthat the original Freemasonry flag had the horrible pattern of a skull and crossbones. Twenty casesof sake were awarded as supplementary prizes. Each case had six 1.8-liter bottles of sake.
The same prizes were awarded to the Army Headquarters and the 51st Military Logistics Guard
Unit as second place prizes. In addition, as prizes for individuals, home run prizes were awarded toseveral players including First Lieutenant Otsuka, and these were bottles of sake. The strong player
who went home carrying two bottles was First Lieutenant Ogawa from the military headquarters. For
the final game, the head umpire was First Lieutenant Paymaster Noguchi from the Military Logistics
Headquarters, and the base umpires were selected from the units that had participated in the semifinals.
At the military logistics base, a mixed team was formed together with the Kakinuma Unit, which was
attached to the military logistics base, with Army Surgeon Captain Osawa as the manager. In the first
game, we played against a team fielded by the 11th Army Field Freight Depot. At the start, PaymasterSergeant Shoji from accounting got on the mound. First Lieutenant Otsuka, who had played baseballin college, hit a home run, and Shoji was taken out of the game. His relief pitcher, Lance Corporal
Hasegawa of the Kakinuma Unit, held on, together with the catcher Superior Private Aihara andheaded into the final inning leading by a run. Unfortunately, the Army Field Freight Depot team got a
hit with a runner on second base and we lost the game, with the score 6 to 5. The commander of the
Kakinuma Unit, First Lieutenant Kakinuma, played first base.
Army Surgeon Captain Osawa said that he had played in the national junior high school baseball
tournament at Koshien Stadium when he attended Toyonaka Junior High School in Osaka, and thatthey had played against Hokkai Junior High School and lost.
The militar y logistics base operated a canteen for units in transit. This canteen had substantial
reser ves because of the sound policies of Paymaster Major Ogami. Ogami was subsequently
transferred to Japan and Paymaster First Lieutenant Takagi became the senior paymaster. As inflation
gradually increased, however, we thought it was foolish to pointlessly accumulate reser ves, andthat it was more appropriate at this time to give goods to the regular officers and soldiers, so withthe approval of the commander, we decided to give expensive prizes at these events. That was also
another reason why these events organized by military logistics were overwhelmingly popular. For
that reason, Paymaster First Lieutenant Takagi was summoned to the military headquarters and wassarcastically told that things at the military logistics base were too gaudy.

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Wuhan military logistics baseThe Backbone Army’s Painting Exhibition
The Backbone Army’s Painting Exhibition was organized by the Wuhan Arts Federation, a civilian
organization, to celebrate the anniversary of the army on March 10, 1944, with support from the 11th
Army Headquarters and the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters. The exhibition took place atthe Hankou Gallery on 9 Luqinshi Street in the French Concession for one week with more than 90
works of art. I submitted two pastel paintings, including a scene of the pier.
The Wuhan Arts Federation was led by Toyoshiro Murota of the artists’ group known as the New
Works Association. After completing his militar y ser vice and being discharged from the Army,
Murota taught oil painting to local young women. The judges included Murota, as well as Sergeant
Taro Okamoto from the 11th Army Headquarters Adjutant’s Office and Private First Class Iwami
Furusawa of the 11th Army’s Motorized Field Depot. Paintings judged to be superior were awarded
the Hanko Japanese Residents Association Prize, the Wuhan Arts Federation Prize, the Wuhan
Continental News Company Prize, and the Hankou Consulate General Prize, in addition to prizes fromthe Army Headquarters and the Hankou Military Logistics Base.
The works included paintings made with oils, watercolors, and sketches made with pastels, crayons,conté sticks, and charcoal, as well as paintings in India ink on Chinese paper or Xuan paper sent fromthe front. There were also works from guest artists including the local artists Toyoshiro Murota,
Wataru Suzuki, Shoun Komata, and Hiroshi Natsushima. Sergeant Okamoto submitted two works:a size 30 oil painting of the Battle of Chongde and a size 4 oil painting of the 11th Army Combat
Headquarters. Private First Class Furusawa submitted three works: one war painting entitled “Charge”
and two landscape oil paintings showing the Yangtze River and Hanyang. Many of the submitted
works were later used to decorate military related government offices, and the others were handed
over to the Military Logistics Headquarters and kept in the art exhibition room on the second floor of
the Military Logistics Hall.
Superior Private Kiyoshi Tajima of the 3rd Division’s (“Lucky Division”) 3rd Field Artillery Regimentstationed at Yingshan, heard that the Backbone Army’s Painting Exhibition was being held in Hankou
and submitted a watercolor entitled Receiving Ammunition. Because he was far away, he could
not come to see the exhibition, but he read a review in the Wuhan Continental News which called
his painting a great work, and I hear that he received an 11th Army Painting Exhibition memorial
notebook as a prize for participating. In August 1977, I met Tajima at his exhibition “Notes from theBattlefield” at the Habataki Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, and heard this story about his painting.
The size 100 oil painting Military Commander Hata Triumphantly Entering Wuhan by master painterToyoshiro Murota was displayed in the art exhibition room at the Militar y Logistics Hall. This
painting was planned by the military logistics base and depicted the scene of Hata first landing at thepier in Hankou and inspecting the troops of the 6th Division to celebrate the occupation of the threecities of Wuhan in October 1938, as well as the commemoration of the Meiji Emperor’s birthday on
November 3. The draft was drawn from a photograph and reviewed by Field Marshal Hata who was inNanjing, and to make clear that this was at the Hankou pier, the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuchang on
the opposite bank that was not in the photograph was added in the distance. Murota traveled to Tokyo
to purchase paints for this painting. The military logistics base issued a war supplies certificate for theoil paints.
The original picture was a photograph entitled Supreme Commander Hata Landing at Hankou

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Wuhan military logistics basein Volume 4 of the Second Sino-Japanese War Photograph Collection, “Invasion of Wuhan andGuangdong,” published by Asahi Shimbun.
A meeting of division commanders was held in Hankou with the launch of Operation Togo. On
April 9, 1944, Field Marshal Hata, accompanied by Generals Okamura and Okabe, came to visit the
Military Logistics art exhibition room to see the paintings displayed there. Hata looked somewhat
exhausted at that time, and that may have been because he was working night and day not only for abreakthrough at the Chinese front, which had turned into a stalemate, but to also resolve the criticalstate of the war.
When I went to the 11th Army General Staff Office to explain the plan for this painting, I spoke with alieutenant colonel who was a rear-echelon staff officer. I told him that we should leave a portrait at the
military headquarters of former Army Commander Tsukada, who died when his plane crashed in the
Dabie Mountains in December 1942. The lieutenant colonel agreed and said this should be painted
by Okamoto, and with that I found out that Taro Okamoto was assigned to the Military Headquarters
Adjutant’s Office. However, it seems that Okamoto declined, so a portrait of Tsukada was neverpainted.
I wanted to collect rough sketches and documents of the various campaigns and create a type of
military museum in the art exhibition room on the second floor of the Military Logistics Hall in the
future. For that purpose, I was slowly collecting sketch maps and other items from the topography
team of the militar y headquarters and other sources, and I displayed them together with works
exhibited in the painting exhibition, size 20 oil paintings by members of the Wuhan Arts Federation,
landscapes of ships landing at the pier, a painting of the Hankou Army Office, and the oil painting
Military Commander Hata Triumphantly Entering Wuhan by Toyoshiro Murota. The bombing
became intense at the end of 1944, so these were all placed in a warehouse at the Military Logistics
Headquarters and they were fortunately saved from fire.
With the end of the war, however, these works of art and documentation were all set on fire, out ofconcern that they would be confiscated by the Chinese. Incidentally, the military logistics base paid
1,000 yen in Japanese currency for the size-100 oil painting by master artist Murota and the frames
were made by the Building and Repairs Section at the military logistics base.

The Wuhan Poetry Circle
Before I was drafted, I joined a gathering of poets hosted by Yoshu Mizuno and sometimes composedtanka poems and contributed them to the bi-monthly members’ magazine Sasori (Scorpion). Mizuno
was active in literary circles in the late Meiji era as a rising author, and he published various works
including the long works Omiyo and Bion (Lukewarm) and the collections of literary sketches Hibiki(Echo) and Mori (Forest). Mizuno also published works as a naturalist author in the magazine
Chuokoron (Central review). After the Great Kanto Earthquake, he moved to reclaimed land in
Komaino near Sanrizuka, Chiba Prefecture and conducted surveys of folklore with local youth. He led
a life of working in the fields in good weather and reading at home when it rained, and taught young
people poetry, tanka, and literary composition. The poems that I composed that are quoted in thisbook are poems I wrote on various occasions and jotted down.
While I was posted to Chichijima Island, I appended tanka poems that I wrote on the island to theletters I sent to Mizuno. It seems he selected some of these and contributed them to the Daitoa
senso kashu (Great East Asia War poetry collection) by Nihon Bungaku Hokokukai (Japan Literary

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Wuhan military logistics basePatriotic Association), and one of my tanka poems was included. Daitoa senso kashu was published in
September 1943 by Kyoei Shuppansha and included 3,400 poems by over 2,000 officers and soldiers.
These included poems by me and by Takashi Oshio, who were members from the Sasori group.
Oshio took part in battles in Thailand and Malaysia.
Out of duty as one of the Emperor’s subjects, I crossed an ocean to be posted as a guard for island
mountains. By Seikichi Yamada
The eyes of a strong man trying not to cry are hot. My wife’s letter written in blood to encourageme. By Takashi Oshio
My wife’s letter in blood which she stashed casually in my soldier’s good luck belt stitched by athousand women makes me cry. By Takashi Oshio
I was merely a contributor of tanka poems to the magazine Sasori, and was not a member of theorganization. I never had had poems published. Also, as for Mizuno providing guidance on tanka,
he advocated “tanka with no schools and no leaders,” so he just gave critiques but did not make any
revisions to poems. Within our group, there were some who belonged to Yugure Maeda’s poetrysociety Shiika, and some who composed poems in the style of Akiko Yosano. I mostly preferred andread poems by Mokichi Saito and Kenkichi Nakamura of the Araragi school. Mizuno died of illness in
February 1947 when he was 65 years old. To honor his memory, we formed a group named after him
and published the posthumous poetry collection Tekireki (Teardrops) and the collection of literarysketches Kusa to hito (Grass and people).
I also talked about poetry with Sergeant Major Senda from the General Affairs Section. We both
agreed that in the end poems must be devoted to expressing feelings, and we loved reading Momoko
Nishikawa’s Fujoshin (Women) and Katsuhiko Nakai’s Chijitsu (Long spring day).
Hearing the dialect of Izumo after a long time makes me cry, thinking my dead wife spoke thisdialect. By Momoko Nishikawa
Late night train going over slopes and valleys, the red half-moon falls over it.
By Katsuhiko Nakai
The Japanese residents of Hankou who enjoyed tanka poetry gathered once a month at the Tokyoya tea house on Sanjiao Street and at the Japanese club in the former British Concession and met
in a tanka circle. The members included Yoshio Shiki, Kazu Hayashi, and Masafumi Seko from the
Hankou Japanese Residents Association, Lieutenant Tashichi Mishima from the Naval Base Force,and Nurses Irisawa and Sekiguchi from the Dojinkai Hospital. I sometimes attended with Commander
Horie, together with Army Surgeon First Lieutenant Nagasawa and Sergeant Major Senda. After joint
critiques and mutual selections of works at the meetings, the poems were published in the Wuhan
Continental News or the poetry magazine Bukan kajin (Wuhan poets).
In June 1943, when the Araragi school poet Furumi Fujisawa came to Hankou, a welcoming tanka
party was held at the Tokyo-ya tea house sponsored by the Wuhan Poetry Circle. Fujisawa composed
the following poem at the table.
In the middle of the night, the sound of troops leaving from this base at the front does not stop.
Fujisawa said he wanted to visit the Army hospital at Wuhan University in Wuchang the following
day, so I took him there using a car from the military logistics base. On the way back, we visited the
Baotong Zen Temple at Mount Hong and rested briefly in a forest. A turtle dove was cooing in the118

Wuhan military logistics baseforest. We could see the clear water of Shahu Lake under the eight-story stupa. Afterwards, Fujisawa
wrote the following poem for me on Chinese paper as a memento.
I land by the great Yangtze River with its abundant muddy flow in a whirl.
The grand flow of the Yangtze River runs east toward the waters of Japan my country.
In April 1943, when I went to the front in Hubei as the commander of the Shayangzhen Military
Logistics Branch, Commander Horie wrote the following poem to mourn his subordinate, Superior
Private Kawaguchi, who died in battle.
I said look after yourself. He said he would. A soldier left and bravely fought and died.
A soldier cried “light machine gun, light machine gun” and died. I remember his features when
he left like a man.
Commander Horie was a member of the poetr y circle Kanran led by Shor yo Yoshiue. At therecommendation of Kanran, the following three poems by Horie were printed in the July 1944 edition
of Bungei shunju (Literary arts spring and autumn).
Sitting hard on the cargo of a freight car. Thrusting my sword. Regrettably leaving my fate up to
the enemy’s bullets.
The train slows down. The roar of guns stops. Slipped through under enemy fire.
Imperial soldiers’ blood stains garden soil red outside the stretcher.
In May 1943, during the Battle of West Hubei, the Hankou Militar y Logistics Headquar ters
established a military logistics branch led by Lieutenant Colonel Araya at Shishou, downstream from
Shashi on the Yangtze River. When Commander Horie went to inspect this branch, accompanied by
Adjutant Otani, they made their way through heavy fire from the advancing army of Xue Yue in themountainous area between the train stations at Chang’an and Yangousi on the Yuehan railway line,
and lost three men to shelling by mortars while they stopped at the Yangousi train station. This is
the poem that he wrote about the attack. He said that during the shelling, there was a bird called thecrested myna that was chirping on top of the roof of the railway station.
The crested myna is a sad bird that does not stop chirping on top of the roof of the railway station
where soldiers’ blood flows.
In March 1945, when I went to the Wuchang Branch’s office for liaison purposes, the mail forthe units in transit was piled up on top of Lieutenant Colonel Tokuyama’s desk to be censored. I
inadvertently picked up a postcard, and saw it was addressed from Major General Jitsuo Tani, who
was the commander of the 17th Independent Mixed Brigade (Summit Brigade), to his wife Kimi, who
lived in Yoyogi Nishihara,48 and included the following poems.
March 24, Mourning the land where Hayao died in war.
Today I mourn the site where he perished with eternal feelings lingering from last autumn.
I wonder if the Emperor sends this old body to mourn the site of my late child.
The place where he perished in the middle of a lake is covered with green spring grass, and fog
hovers over it.
48

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Yoyogi Nishihara is a neighborhood in Tokyo.
Wuhan military logistics base

A collar cloth is left behind to show father the place where the body has been buried in a makeshift
grave.
Staff Officer Hayao Tani died in the war in an airplane accident together with Staff Officer Yajima.
It was reported that their plane crashed in a nearby lake just after taking off from Hankou Airfield.
When his father, Major General Tani, visited the site of the crash, the lake had dried up, and the area
had become a field of grass. Hayao Tani was a young major on the general staff who had graduatedfrom the Army War College, and was only around 30 years old when he died.
According to Commander Horie, the head of the 11th Army, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama,
also wrote tanka poetry. Here are two poems from Yokoyama’s Choko Bunso (Yangtze River Literary
Talent).
Famous view from ancient time—snowy daybreak of the Yellow Crane Tower.
The dawn after victory, stepping into the garden to find large southern magnolia flowers
blooming.
In June 1945, a soldier who had escorted the remains of fallen heroes that were being sent homecame back from Japan. This soldier was from Koto Ward in Tokyo, and his entire family had perishedin an air raid on March 10. Horie tersely described the pitiful conditions in Japan.
A soldier who escorted the remains come back. He said his entire family died in his hometown.
The austere soldier, thinking someday to take revenge, remains silent.
Starting in August and through the end of 1944, Jun Takami, Kazuo Dan, Einosuke Ito, Hiroshi Ueda,
Soji Momota, and Shin Kurihara came to Hankou as writers for the army. They made things lively.
Momota wrote the following poem at the welcoming poetry gathering held at the Japanese Club, withthe “coolness of autumn” as the subject for impromptu poems.
Autumn cicadas, red bricks wet in the sunset.
After Momota returned from Yuezhou, a small collection of his poems entitled Jyugun yoteki Hanko
fubutsushi (Remnants of militar y ser vice; Hankou natural scener y poems) was published by the
Wuhan Publicity Federation.
Elementary school. / Hankou Municipal No. 1 Elementary School. / Echoing on the sunny
cobblestones of Sanjiao Street. / Coming from several windows this morning as well. / Spirited
voices of children reading aloud.
Next, I quote a passage from the chapter “Wuhan Poetry Circle” in Commander Horie’s The Voiceless
Front. He describes the scene of this poetry circle in Hankou very well.
I have written poor poetry for over 20 years. I am a member of the Kanran poetry circle led by
Shoryo Yoshiue, but I have never attended any of their gatherings for poets. However, when
I came to Hankou, I found that there was a group called the Wuhan Poetry Circle among
the Japanese residents, and even though I was encouraged by Army Surgeon N who was amember of this group from time to time, I never participated because I believed that “poetry
is a path to be walked alone.”
Early in the summer of 1943, however, I finally agreed to go out and attend when I was urged
to attend the gathering for poets, which was preparing to welcome the poet Furumi Fujisawa

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Wuhan military logistics baseof the Araragi school when he came to Hankou. When I did, I greatly enjoyed the genial
atmosphere of the gathering and soon joined the group. From that time, I attended theirmonthly gatherings every time whenever possible. There were more than 10 members who
were local Japanese residents, five or six members from the Army, and one or two members
from the Navy, and we used the Tokyo-ya tea house as a meeting place. Mr. S, who is a
student of Bokusui Wakayama,49 made arrangements for the meeting place, the membershipfees, and anything else that was necessary, and we sometimes met at his home in the former
Japanese Concession. Each member prepared two draft poems which were critiqued in order,
starting from those with the highest ratings, just like at a regular poetry party. The criticisms
were extremely harsh, but there was an indescribably genial atmosphere running through thegroup, and I still fondly remember the unparalleled feeling of intimacy among the members.
Eventually attacks by enemy aircraft became frequent, and on one evening, for example, we
continued our gathering intermittently in the blackout while hearing explosions from enemy
planes. Tokyo-ya became dangerous, so we decided to hold our meetings at the Militar y
Logistics Headquarters, which had comparatively better air raid facilities. With that, thenumber of members from the military logistics base, which was already the largest group,
increased further, and three or four soldiers also joined the circle.
In the summer of 1944, after the Hankou Militar y Logistics Base moved to Yuezhou, thepoetry circle was suspended for a time, as the most enthusiastic members from the military
logistics base were absent. At that time, the number of officers and soldiers within the
military logistics base who were writing poetry had reached more than 10, and while they
all wanted to continue with poetry even after the relocation to Yuezhou, it was not possible
to have a poetry circle at the headquarters on the desolate plain of Wulipai, where we werebusily engaged in military logistics work. We ended up collecting everyone’s draft poems
once each week, added my clumsy criticism, and had Sergeant Major S, who was the seniorclerk of the General Affairs Section at the military headquarters, print them on a mimeographand distribute them to each member, and this continued until we retreated to Wuchang. These
included many poems that described the feelings at the front very well, including a poem
about a soldier in his cot in a thatched barracks with many cracks dreaming of his motherback home, one about a soldier running to roll call exhaling white breath on a morning withsevere frost, and another about sending off a file of men marching to the front lines through avalley in a hurry on a morning with unusually heavy snow. But it is most regrettable that theprinted copies were all lost, so I cannot present them here.
The poetry circle gatherings resumed after the military logistics base withdrew to Wuchang,and I continued to schedule my weekly trips to Hankou on the days when the circle met.
The circle once met at the officers’ quarters at the Wuchang Headquarters. A few members
crossed the Yangtze River to participate, and they all enjoyed seeing the nice view of thegreen Sheshan Mountain and the white and blue Wuhan University buildings that I liked tobrag about.
The poetry circle that painstakingly continued ended with the conclusion of the war, but eventoday, I am deeply grateful at how this poetry circle gave great richness to my life and to thelives of my subordinate officers and soldiers at the front.

49

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A tanka poet.
Wuhan military logistics baseSuperior Private Takeuchi from the Kakinuma Unit actually brought home copies of the “Bapo Poetry
Circle Draft Poems.” (Bapo is another name for Yuezhou). While he did not have the inaugural issue,
he had a total of seven editions. There was one poem signed by Commander Horie using his pen
name at the top of each edition, along with his brief comments on each of the poems.
The clouds are low, the color of the grass slope faded, the encampment in the canyon is lonely in
winter.
Green bamboo grass of the encampment of soldiers. Smoke from cooking streams in the morning
light over a withered and lonely hill.
After the emergency assembly, before dawn on a winter field, the frigid three stars of Orion in thewest.
Lucky to see the splendid sunrise over mountains in Hunan. We are Imperial shields.
A soldier who died in a car is already a god. We braked hard to stay on the slope. (In honor of theheroic war death of Lance Corporal Minamiya).
Round hills line up in the wintry desolate canyon. The color of the blue bamboo grass sinks into
my eyes.
White deep frost fell in the canyon. The grass underneath grows reddish.
In the final edition, Commander Horie selected an excellent tanka poem from each poet, starting fromthe inaugural issue, and I want to introduce some of the poems here.
Standing night guard. Listening to the quiet breathing of a comrade who talked about his wife
joyfully. By Kazuo Takeuchi
The wildfire is quiet when night falls, burning the distant sky red. By Kenichi Nagasawa
I woke up hearing my mother’s words in a dream. A flock of geese cry as they fly in the night sky.
By Masao Kobe
The white silk with stitches of a thousand women is tinted by the water of a creek. By Masao
KatsumataWaking up to see sunrise. I hear the Kimigayo (Japanese national anthem) sung by the soldiers
encamped in the canyon at dawn. By Tanekazu Senda
Feeling the streaming fog at dawn on my cheeks. Walking quickly to roll call on a red dirt slope.
By Akisaburo Obata
In the midst of an intense battle in the Philippines. Grasping a telegraph key. Thinking of my still
young sister. By Shigeo Shinagawa
A friend who reached here clinging onto another friend’s back. Bearing the pain with his teeth
biting hard. By Hideo Morita
The troops proceed in the winter night. Mixed with the squeaking sounds of transport wagons on
the Sanyan Bridge. By Nobuharu Ebana

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Soldiers’ Library
The Soldiers’ Library, which provided the opportunity for my chance meeting with Second Lieutenant
Katashi Suzuki, was opened in May 1943. We received bookshelves from the library at the Japanese
Club, and initially lined up books using four racks (sufficient for 800 books).
I bought books at the Shimeido Bookstore on Jianghan Road, the Hankou Bookstore on Zhongshan
Road, and at other bookstores in town that I visited. In Hankou, new books were sold at 20 percent
above the list price, and that soon increased to 40 percent. At first, Paymaster Major Tokujiro Ogamiof the accounting office interfered, saying that the purchase of goods was the work of accountingof ficers, but he later gave me special dispensation when I told him that the Soldiers’ Librar y
Management Regulations state, “The selection of books will be made by the recreation section chief.”
I selected Superior Private Kazuo Takeuchi, who had graduated from Keio University, to manage theborrowing and returning of the books. To organize this, I had him get white cards from the JapaneseClub and catalog the books as in a regular library. I thought we would use an open stack system forall of the books, but Paymaster Major Ogami objected, so we had no choice but to keep the books
behind wire mesh. To get a book, the soldier or officer had to check in his service cap, which wasgiven back in exchange for the book when the soldier or officer left the library. There weren’t manyusers when the library opened, so we added five persons to each report. If the daily record was five,then we recorded 10, and if it showed 10, we recorded 15. But when Paymaster Major Ogami fromaccounting came, unfortunately, there were only two or three people there reading. He reportedly
snapped at Superior Private Takeuchi, saying “The soldiers do not come because the collection has
nothing but dense books.” But the library did have popular novels such as Miyamoto Musashi andShinsho Taikoki (A new account of Hideyoshi) by Eiji Yoshikawa, Daibosatsu toge (Daibosatsu pass)by Kaizan Nakazato, and Fuji ni tatsu kage (A shadow standing on Mt. Fuji) by Kyoji Shirai.
The policy for selecting books for the librar y came up for discussion at the officers’ meeting. I
thought that I had been given full authority for selection by the management regulations, but there
was substantial criticism from Major Ogami and from several other officers that overall, the books
were too highbrow. Nevertheless, there were sufficient historical narratives and humorous booksin the library rooms of each unit, and my policy was that since we published bulletins in the nameof the military logistics base library, I wanted to have a solid collection of books for a central libraryorganized by the Army. It was Army Surgeon First Lieutenant Nagasawa who first agreed with thispolicy and strongly backed me. Perhaps this was because Army Surgeon Nagasawa was an avid
reader. He insisted that it was absolutely necessary to offer a collection of basic literature for thoseseeking knowledge to prepare for the future development of Japan.
While I said that I would include as many entertaining books as possible, I believed my ideas were inline with the commander’s intentions, so I did not change my initial policy. I wanted the men to use
the Soldiers’ Library to improve their education and enhance their knowledge during their tours ofduty, and I felt it was fine even if there were only a few users.
I included notes on some of the books I purchased for the Soldiers’ Library in a letter I sent home
August 21, as follows.
Konanshun (Spring in Jiangnan) by Masaru Aoki
Toshi oyobi toshijin (Tang poetry and poets) by Hoan Kosugi
Konsai zuihitsu (Essays by Konsai) by Yaichi Aizu
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Wuhan military logistics baseKurara Shuman (Clara Schumann) by Mitsuko Harada
Nihon no minka (Japanese houses) by Wajiro Kon
Kashu chijitsu (Poetry collection—Long spring day) by Katsuhiko Nakai
Musashino (Musashino) by Tamura and Honda
Tochinoki no kage (Shade of the sawtooth oak) by Annu Kobori
Manyoshu josei no uta (Poems by women in the Manyoshu) by Japan Women’s University
Koji junrei (Pilgrimage to ancient temples) by Tetsuro Watsuji
Nihon bijutsu no kansho (Appreciation of Japanese art) by Kitagawa and Okudaira
Nihon shokubutsu bunruigaku (Taxonomy of Japanese plants) by Honda and Sakisaka
Shakaigaku gairon (Introduction to sociology) by Yasuma Takada
Wagakuni kempo no dokujisei (Originality of the Japanese constitution) by Soichi Sasaki
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (Hitomaro Kakinomoto) by Mokichi Saito
Nihon bijutsu no tokushitsu (Characteristics of Japanese Art) by Yukio Yashiro
Sugaku gairon (Introduction to mathematics) by Suetsuna and Aramata
Kamera Zuiso Musashino no Seitai (Camera essays—Ecology in Musashino) by Kunizo Kato
Shina jihen kashu (Second Sino-Japanese War poetry collection) by the magazine Araragi
Nihon zakki (Miscellaneous notes on Japan) by Bruno Taut
Taiheiyo chiseigaku (Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean) by Karl Haushofer
The proprietor of the Shimeido Bookstore, Mr. Tsutsumi, said he would donate copies of 10
magazines each month to support the Soldiers’ Library, so I selected Kaizo (Reform), Chuokoron(Central review), Bungei shunju (Literar y arts spring and autumn), Tanka kenkyu (Tanka poetr y
Research), Hototogisu (Little cuckoo), Eiga hyoron (Movie review), Kagaku gaho (Science pictorial),
Hoso bungei (Broadcasting art), Bijutsu hyoron (Art review), and one other magazine. I also received
copies of newspapers air mailed from Japan that had been donated by the Hankou branches of the
Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun newspaper companies. Each time they arrived, I posted notices
on the bulletin board of the cafeteria on the first floor of the Soldiers’ Dormitory which read, “Japanesenewspapers through (date) sent by airmail have arrived.” I was told that as a result soldiers who cameto receive their orders would sometimes remove their “official business” armbands, drop by to readthe newspapers, and then return. I also negotiated with the movie theater—the Towa Theater—toshow advertisements for the Soldiers’ Library during intermission. In addition, the monthly tabloid
newspaper Sozen’ei published by the 11th Army Journalism Team printed “News from the Soldiers’
Library” each month.
I sent an official request directly to Nihon Shoseki Haikyu Kabushikigaisha (Japan Book Distribution
Company) asking for priority distribution of good books for the library, and we were able to receive
special deliveries of books. Mr. Tsutsumi also called the military logistics base first when new books
arrived by ship, and arranged for us to purchase them before they were sold to the general public.
Accordingly, I called the army surgeon in charge of the library at the 1st Army Hospital, and he cameand selected books to buy. On the way back, he complained about the extra work, asked me to havethe military logistics base buy appropriate books for them, and did not come again. So, the military
logistics base became responsible for buying the books for the hospital as well. When I had sparetime, I also went to the Marugo used bookstore on Yangtze Street and when I found good books, Ibought them even though they were used. And when the proprietor of Marugo found suitable books,
he would set them aside for me.
Mr. Tsutsumi offered to mail books to Tokyo for me, so I asked him to send some books right away.
I had him deliver the Eiwa chujiten (Standard English-Japanese dictionary), edited by Hidesaburo

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Saito and published by Iwanami Shoten, to my eldest son Yasuyoshi, who had entered junior highschool; Pari yori aisuru haha e (From Paris to my beloved mother) by Namiko Imanishi to my eldest
daughter Mariko; Kimitachi wa dou ikiru ka (How do you live?) by Yuzo Yamamoto and Genzaburo
Yoshino to my second son Michinari; and the picture book Usagi no tegami (The rabbit’s letter) by
Ryu Osanai to my second daughter Yuriko. These books arrived safely. I subsequently had books
mailed on several occasions.
At the proposal of the Hankou National Defense Women’s Association, we once organized a campaign
to send publications to officers and soldiers at the front, and we collected many books. We were told
to keep any of the publications that we needed. Most of the publications collected were magazines,
including many bundled issues of Chuokoron (Central review), Shiso (Ideas), and Bungakukai (Literary
world). I thought these publications would wind up being burned as kindling to cook rice if we sent
them to the front, so I received them and put them in a corner of the Soldiers’ Library. When a young
staff officer from the Unity Army50 came for an inspection and saw the bundles of Chuokoron andShiso, he asked, “Who is responsible for getting soldiers to read these magazines?” as if reprimandingus, and I responded, “The Soldiers’ Library is a facility of the military logistics base, so the military
logistics base commander is responsible.” He then went off with the parting remarks, “The reading ofsuch items must have been prohibited! It’s disgraceful.”
I knew that when Colonel Okada, a senior staff officer of the Unity Army, was at the military academy,
he had studied under Commander Horie. When Colonel Okada came for an inspection just the otherday, he returned feeling happy that we had good books, so I was not concerned. In fact, Colonel
Okada was surprised to find that we had copies of Nichiro rikusen shinshi (New history of JapaneseRussian land battles) by Takazo Numata, Nihon kosenshi no shinka (The true value of ancient Japanese
war history) by Ryotaro Nakai, and Sensoshi gaisetsu (Outline of war history) by Tsunamasa Shidei. At
the end of 1943, the commander of the 11th Army, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama, also visitedthe Soldiers’ Library when he inspected the military logistics base facilities.
From the autumn of 1944, the U.S. air force in China became active, and it became difficult for large
vessels to navigate west of Jiujiang. Because the transportation of military supplies was given priority,
the shipment of books and other general freight completely ceased. I heard that there were crates ofbooks stockpiled in Nanjing, and I asked the Akatsuki Unit (anchorage headquarters) for help, but
this did not work out as I had hoped. For that reason, it became impossible to obtain new publications.
I then thought about transferring the confiscated books that were stored at Warehouse No. 102 andvisited Major Furumai of the freight depot to discuss this, but he said he would not bring out evenone book without an order from the Army. To resolve this, I visited Staff Officer Tabata at the Army
General Staff Office and explained the situation, and he issued a routine order, as follows.
The head of the 11th Army Field Freight Depot is to turn over some of the confiscated books
to the commander of the Wuhan Military Logistics Base, and to follow the instructions of First
Lieutenant Yamada regarding the types, quantity, and other details of the books to be turnedover.
I asked for volunteers from among the cadets who had graduated from the reserve officers’ cadet
school and were staying in the unit barracks while waiting for their orders to be transferred to units at
the front, and asked them to sort the books. The confiscated books included Western language books
and Chinese classics, but there were no Japanese books whatsoever. In the end, two cadets who liked
50

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Unity Army was the nickname of the Japanese Sixth Area Army.
Wuhan military logistics basebooks cooperated with the Soldiers’ Library in sorting the books and preparing an inventory until thework was completed. These cadets were Shin’ichiro Sumino and Yasunosuke Miwa, and we ate dinner
together each night and talked about various books. When they were drafted, Sumino was studying
economics at the University of Tokyo, and Miwa was majoring in physics at Hokkaido University.
These two cadets left for the front around the time the cold winds blew from the north. I wrote lettersto their parents in Japan and informed them that I had met their sons at a military logistics base incentral China and that they had left for the front in good health. I received postcards in reply from
Sumino’s father who lived in Shirokane Sankocho in Tokyo and from Miwa’s father who lived in
Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture.
One day in the late spring of 1945, Cadet Sumino came to visit me at the Wuchang Military Logistics
Headquarters. He explained that he had returned to Hankou, and I gave him a postcard that hadarrived from his home. Sumino had not received any mail from his family while he was at the front,
so he was delighted to find out that his parents were in good health when the postcard was written.
Cadet Sumino safely returned home after the war, but I heard that Cadet Miwa died at a field hospitalin Ronghuowan, 40 kilometers south of Yuezhou in November 1945. Miwa had become sick at thefront. The picture of ancient Chinese constellations that I sent to Hoei Nojiri was copied in detail by
Miwa at the city government library with a sharpened H pencil51 on thin Japanese tissue paper. Miwa
was a short young man who wore glasses and spoke few words.
We selected about 300 volumes for transfer to the Soldiers’ Library. They were from the confiscatedbooks that had been stored in the warehouse at the freight depot, Western language books fromthe former Hankou British Club library that were held at the chapel on Hanjing Street, and Western
language books that were at the library of Huachung University in Wuchang.
Those that I remember include Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) translated by Kencho Suematsu,
Cha no Hon (The Book of Tea) by Tenshin Okakura, Bushido (Bushido, The Soul of Japan) by Inazo
Nitobe, and Nihon Shukyoshi (History of Japanese Religion) by Masaharu Anesaki, as well as books
by Yakumo Koizumi (also known as Lafcadio Hearn), books about ukiyo-e art, Chinese opera andChinese ceramics, English translations of Sangokushi (Records of the Three Kingdoms), Suikoden (Water
Margin), Koromu (Dream of the Red Chamber), Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), Toshisen(Selected Tang poetry), and Shiki (Records of the Grand Historian), books about mountains including
Nihon arupusu no tozan to yanken (Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps) and Kyokuto
no yuhojo (The Playground of the Far East) by Walter Weston, and Eburesuto 1933 nen (Everest 1933)
by the Alpine Club, Arabian Naito (The Arabian Nights), which had beautiful copper-plate prints,
Anderusen Dowashu (Collection of Andersen’s Children’s Stories), which had interesting lithographillustrations, modern Chinese literature including works by Xiao Jun, Ba Jin, Lu Xun, Xie Bingxin,
Chinese classics including Ci poetry of the Song dynasty and Qu poetry of the Yuan dynasty, together
with dictionaries, illustrated references, topographies, art books, and other publications that might beuseful later, even if not read now.
In March 1945, Staff Officer Akira Takahashi of the 6th Area Army came to visit, having heard of
the reputation of the Soldiers’ Library. From among the confiscated books, he asked to borrow Leo
Tolstoy’s Sevastopol Sketches, John Ruskin’s Giotto and His Works in Padua, Inazo Nitobe’s Bushido,
and H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World, and took them away. Ruskin’s Giotto included collotypesof beautiful Christian religious paintings. At that time, the library had around 5,000 books, and the51

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A hard pencil.
Wuhan military logistics baseproprietor of the Inatomi Company, who was a member of the Japanese Residents Association, once
donated 200 books.
The soldiers who used the Soldiers’ Library were almost all regulars. Some asked to take books out,
but we refused the requests for the time being. The regular users were the same. Superior Private
Takeuchi kept statistics on the users, and he once invited those who came frequently and called ameeting. We reported in the military logistics base bulletin that the Soldiers’ Library was holdinga meeting because we wanted to hear what users wanted concerning the operation of the library.
We designated about 20 men and sent requests in the name of the commander to the head of eachsoldier’s unit, asking them to give special consideration to our requests. We gathered that day at 11:00
a.m. and spoke freely about various topics without attention to rank, and had lunch and sweets for tea,
which were sweet buns from the military logistics base canteen. One soldier said he had a great time
and was very happy because it was the first such get-together that he had attended after joining the
Army. The soldiers wanted to continue holding the meetings, but we became busy thereafter and so
this was the only meeting that was held.
The Soldiers’ Library had a variety of books. I was reading the poetry collection Kokyo (Hometown)
by Minoru Ooki, which I brought to my room. The cadet on duty suddenly got sick, so I took the dailyroll call in his place. I left it up to the young cadets to foster spirit among the soldiers, and I brought
the book Kokyo from my room and read a few poems out loud to the men.
I read them a series of poems from when the author was first drafted: “On the Way Home 1,” “On
the Way Home 2,” “The Night Before,” “The Morning of Parting,” and “Parting.” Ooki receives hisdraft notice while his wife is in the hospital, goes to the hospital, explains the situation to the doctor in
charge, and has his wife discharged. He tells his wife who is happily returning home without knowing
why that his draft notice has come. The two of them then live together quietly for the next five days.
He describes the night before he enters the Army and the morning of his departure.
The Night Before
People busily came and went, / The days allowed passed busily. / The departure tomorrowmorning draws close. / When I came back from the barber, / My wife was checking my army
uniform and other belongings under a lamp alone. / I gave her a tuft of my hair that I brought
home. / She apologized for her illness and gave me an amulet.
Many of the men of the Kakinuma Unit, which had been assigned to the military logistics base, weregenerally old soldiers nearly 40 years old or physically unfit soldiers who were categorized as gradeB-2. On cold winter nights when the biting wind blew, I quietly read a few poems out loud to thedrafted soldiers who had left their wives and children behind in their hometowns. I then explainedthat this book was in the Soldiers’ Library and recommended that they should read it themselves
when they had some free time.
Commander Horie liked to read, so he often visited the Soldiers’ Library and would take away newly
arrived books to read in his room. At the military logistics base the officers would regularly eat lunch
together. They could not pick up their chopsticks until the commander arrived, so the officer on duty
would often come to tell Horie, “All the officers have assembled.”
After the meal was over, there were reports from the adjutant and the section chiefs about theirassigned duties, and then a general discussion. The commander liked to talk and would make small
talk, and the young cadets always became impatient. The adjutant would respond to the commander’scomments and I also often joined the conversation. Adjutant Otani told me he was pleased saying, “It127

Wuhan military logistics basehas become easier since you came.”
During lunch, the commander spoke about the Zohyo monogatari (Common soldiers’ story) from the
Iwanami Bunko series. He said this was an old battlefield story about tactics on the battlefield andthe mental state of foot soldiers, attendants, and others at the front with low status. According to thestory, if you become thirsty, you should sip the blood of the dead. It also seems the commander read
Shigezane Okanoya’s Meisho genkoroku (Records of the words and deeds of famous Shoguns) and hespoke about Takakage Kobayakawa. The commander talked about the passage where Kobayakawa
points out to the magistrate Mitsunari Ishida that in the Japanese invasion of Korea, they have only
made battle preparations to be the winning army but have not made any preparations for losing,and how Kobayakawa—instead of following the tactics of dying to avoid surrendering in the capital
Gyeongseong 52—emphasized the tactics of a fighting retreat and fought a rear-guard action bythemselves, counterattacked the large Ming army, fought bravely, and destroyed the Ming army. The
commander may have shared this story because he already had a premonition of the results of the
Pacific War, but we had no way of knowing this at that time. When the commander talked about suchmatters, the young cadets listened in boredom staring at the ceiling thinking, “Oh, there he goesagain.” Books in the Soldiers’ Library were the source of information for all of these talks.
At the military logistics base, the rules called for field officers to take their baths from 4:00 p.m.,
officers from 5:00 p.m., noncommissioned officers from 6:00 p.m., and soldiers from 7:00 p.m.
There were times when the commander was late and did not come out by 5:00 p.m., and the officers
promoted from the ranks and officers who graduated from the Officer Candidate School wouldn’t
dare take a bath with the commander. I had been a one-year volunteer, and I entered the bath when
the time came without restraint. I would call out “Excuse me,” salute the commander while I was
naked, and then we would chat in the hot bath. This was a little impudent, but I could do this because
the commander himself was a bit democratic in that he was not a stickler about ranks.
One day a letter arrived from Commander Horie, who had gone to Yuezhou, asking me to deliver
the book Shina bukkyo no kenkyu (Research on Chinese Buddhism) by Daijo Tokiwa, which was in
the Soldiers’ Library. I had this book carried to him by a messenger, together with Sanjusannen no
yume (My Thirty-Three Year’s Dream) by Toten Miyazaki that had newly arrived. Horie later said
that Miyazaki’s book was very interesting. My Thirty-Three Year’s Dream was an autobiography byMiyazaki that described his dramatic life. Miyazaki, who spent his life earnestly wishing to build
a new China, was misunderstood by his colleagues and became cynical. He became a disciple ofKumoemon Tochuken, and traveled about reciting naniwabushi Japanese narrative songs. Miyazaki
was an activist who worked for the development of Asia.
Lieutenant Colonel Fujii of the Military Logistics Base taught Japanese and Chinese literature ata girls’ high school in Ube before he was drafted. He borrowed Chikamatsu jorurishu (Collectionof Japanese ballad dramas by Chikamatsu) from the Collection of Japanese Masterpieces as well as
Suikoden (Water Margin) and Toshisen (Selected Tang poetr y) from the Japanese Translation ofClassic Chinese Literature series from the Soldiers’ Library and read them. Even Paymaster Major
Ogami from accounting, who complained that the books at the Soldiers’ Library were too abstruse,borrowed Sangokushi (Records of the Three Kingdoms), which had been adapted into a Japanesenovel by Eiji Yoshikawa, and took it to his room. Army Surgeon Nagasawa, who strongly supported
the establishment of the library, also borrowed a wide variety of literature. He read many poetry
collections, including those of the Araragi school, got along well with the commander, and asked me
52128

Another name for Seoul.
Wuhan military logistics baseto give him a poem written by Yoshu Mizuno that I had received some time before, which was written
in sumi ink on hand-made paper.
Japanese mothers are strong. Sending their children to the wide world to live. By Yoshu
He brought the poem to his room, framed it, and hung it on his wall. Officers at the military logistics
base also took out books occasionally, and soldiers sometimes spoke secretly with Superior Private
Takeuchi and took out books.
The writers Einosuke Ito, Kazuo Dan, and Hiroshi Ueda, who were working with the army, were
impressed that the Soldiers’ Library was collecting books that could no longer be obtained in Japan. I
wanted the writers to compose articles about the Soldiers’ Library in the Wuhan Continental News but
Major Fujii said that it was not desirable to use the regular press to promote the Army, so I gave up on
this plan. We also received donations of books from civilians who were repatriating to Japan, and thelibrary had around 5,000 books at the end of the war.
Among the confiscated books, Chinese classics were collected in the hall of the girls’ school in theJapanese Concession and sorted by a single clerk named Fukuchi from the Japanese consulate inHankou, but they caught fire in an air raid on December 18, 1944. Most of the Western-language
books which had been at Huachung University and the Hankou Club were collected at the church
on Hanjing Street, but these were also reduced to ashes in an air raid on January 14. When I went tolook the following day, I saw the books turned into white ash retaining their original shape amid amountain of rubble, and I felt anew the horrors of war. I had a hard time leaving that place, thinking of
how pointless it was for me to lament the fate of books even when human lives were being lost in vain.
However, the books at the Soldiers’ Library were fortunately saved from damage in the air raid. Afterthe war ended, I had some of the books including paperbacks, light novels, and poetry collectionstransported to the Yangtze district—which was the Army assembly point—to ease the boredom of theprisoners of war, but all the rest were handed over to the Chinese. After the timing of our repatriation
was determined, as mementos of the Soldiers’ Library, the commander took home the photographcollection Musashino fubutsu (Scenery of Musashino) edited by Shinzo Fukuhara, and I took home
Bunraku ningyo zufu (Encyclopedia of Bunraku puppets) by Shigewo Miyao, which was publishedby Jidaisha in January 1944. I cut out color photographs of the dolls for a maiden, an old samurai, astrong male character, and a young man from Bunraku kashira no kenkyu (Bunraku puppet heads
research) by Seijiro Saito, pasted them into Bunraku ningyo zufu (Encyclopedia of Bunraku puppets),and brought it home. The book was marked with the stamp of the Hankou Military Logistics Base
Soldiers’ Librar y and had been donated by Kaneji Ito of the Japanese Residents Association on
October 4, 1944.
The books purchased for the Soldiers’ Librar y included Shina gakugei daijiten (Unabridged
dictionary of Chinese arts) published by Ritsumeikan University. From this book I found out that
the Chinese classic books on sex Su Nu Ching (Canon of the Immaculate Girl), Yu Fang Pi Chueh(Secret Instructions Concerning the Jade Chamber), Yu Fang Chih Yao (Important Matters of the Jade
Chamber) and Tung Hsuan Tzu (Book of the Mystery-Penetrating Master) were included in the Double
Plum Tree Collection edited by Te-hui Yeh. In particular, Canon of the Immaculate Girl, which had
disappeared in China because of the book burning by Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin
dynasty, had been transcribed and restored from the Ishinpo—the oldest surviving medical text inJapan, edited by Yasuyori Tamba. I discovered the Canon in the Huachung University Library andkept it as a reference at the Soldiers’ Library. I also collected and archived Burton’s Arabian Nights,

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Wuhan military logistics basethe foreign settlement version of Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), and Sui Yangdi Yanshi(The romantic history of Emperor Yang of the Sui).
The Soldiers’ Librar y had a copy of Zoku taishi kaikoroku (Sequel: Reminiscences about China)
published by Toa Dobun Shoin, and this included accounts about Buntaro Kashiwabara. When I readthis, I learned that Kashiwabara founded the Kokan Junior High School in the suburbs of Hankou.
Kashiwabara was born in my hometown of Narita in Chiba Prefecture. He was a great man who was
active in political circles together with Tsuyoshi Inukai as a lawmaker for the National Party. I wrote ashort essay entitled “Hankou and Buntaro Kashiwabara” and sent it to a friend in my hometown. Thiswas printed in the Narita choho (Narita town news) in February 1944.
When I visited the Shimeido Bookstore on Jianghan Road in Hankou to look for books for the
Soldiers’ Library, I discovered a book entitled Zoku taishi kaikoroku (Sequel: Reminiscences
about China). This book included a detailed account of the great man Buntaro Kashiwabarafrom our hometown. His contributions regarding the China problem are so well known theyrequire no further mention, but the fact that he founded Kokan Junior High School in Hankou
is virtually unknown, so I decided to visit this junior high school in the suburbs of Hankou andseek some traces of his presence there.
One day, I turned in front of the Hankou Shrine from the Japanese Concession and visited
Kokan Junior High School, which is located in the suburbs one kilometer away. I listened tostories about Kashiwabara from the teacher Toyonori Matsuo, who was the acting generalaffairs director, who spoke as follows:“The Toa Dobunkai Association,53 which was located in Shanghai, planned to construct
Kokan Junior High School in Hankou and the Chunichi Gakuin in Tianjin for theeducation of Chinese students. They chose Chairman Kashiwabara and he cameto Hankou in 1919, selected the plot of land, and worked on the construction of thebuildings. Kashiwabara worked in both Tianjin and Hankou at the same time. In thespring of 1922, his wife Akiko came as well. They stayed at an inn at first and later moved
to the school. The opening ceremony was held in March and they went back to Japan for
the time being in May. I graduated from Toa-Dobun Shoin University54 and was working
at the Abe Corporation in Hankou, but that company went bankrupt in the recession
after World War I, so I returned to Japan and was asked by Kashiwabara to work for
Kokan Junior High School. The first class had around 50 students, and Xiao, who is now
the director of the city education bureau, was a member of the first graduating class.
Shigeyasu Saito later resigned as principal of Kiryu Junior High School, came to Hankou,
and took charge of the school’s affairs. When there was strong anti-Japanese sentiment,
the school staff suffered persecution and the school was eventually forced to separate
from the Toa Dobunkai. The core of the school’s management then came from the ChinaJapan governing board.”
Matsuo then showed me a memorial photograph from the school’s opening ceremony. There
were 21 people in the photo, with Hankou Consul General Asanoshin Segawa in the center,
together with the commander of the Central China Garrison Army, Major General Okudaira,and Hubei Province Governor He Peirong. It showed Kashiwabara on the far left of the front
row and his wife, who was wearing a formal kimono with a pattern on the bottom, second
53
54

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The association has also been called the East Asia One Culture Society in English.
The school was called the Tun Wen College in English.
Wuhan military logistics basefrom the right. Matsuo was 31 years old at that time and Kashiwabara, who used the pen nameToho, was around 54 years old.
When I entered the auditorium (lecture hall) on the second floor, there was a photographof Kashiwabara with a kindly face as one of the members of the committee that founded theschool. He is wearing the 3rd class medal of the Order of the Golden Grain, presented by the
Chinese government, and had the look of a loving father’s eyes. He must have watched overthe education of several hundred young Chinese men for over 20 years after that time. At theentrance, there is a framed inscription which reads “Kokan Junior High School” signed byVice President Li Yuanhong. In front of that is a sundial that was erected in October last year
in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the school’s founding. The following words are
written on its granite pedestal.
“In the autumn of 1919, 10 years after the Toa Dobunkai first made the proposal for aschool, Buntaro Kashiwabara came to Hankou and began preparing for its construction.
The school was completed a year later.”
I was told that the four acacias on the right-hand side of the school gate that did not die in thegreat flood in Hankou during the 20th year of the Republic of China (1931) and still grow wereplanted 20 years earlier, when the school had just been built.
I then visited Jusaku Hozuma, who founded Hankou Bank, and was an eminent figure in
Hankou who worked as a temporary employee of the Japanese consulate, and I listened to his
memories of Kashiwabara. This is what Hozuma had to say:
“Building a school in Hankou from 1920 through 1923 was difficult because this wasduring the height of anti-Japanese sentiment in Hankou following Japan’s Twenty-One
Demands on the Chinese government, and people would not sell land in their own name.
Kashiwabara supervised the construction himself. He gave up on layering Chinese bricks
with mud in the Chinese style, and decided to cover the surface of each brick with mortar
and stack them, and to pour water on the bricks beforehand to increase their adhesion. He
visited the construction site himself every day, and had no compunction about knocking
bricks down with the end of his cane if they were not done right. His wife frequently gavemoney to the beggars who came to the nearby Gude Zen temple and kindly looked after
Chinese students, perhaps because she had no children.”
Zenzaburo Abe, of the Taifu company in the Japanese Concession, also graduated from ToaDobun Shoin University, so I went to visit him at night and listened to him talk. This is what
Abe had to say:
“Kashiwabara was the comptroller of the accounts of the Toa Dobunkai Associationand supervised the editing bureau. He was mostly involved with editing a collection on
Chinese economics. In September 1920, he suddenly came to Hankou and said he wasgoing to look for land to build a school. Yokohama Specie Bank had some land given as
collateral, so the land was bought from the bank, but it was in a thicket far from town,
and it was necessary to build a road there and to lay water and electric lines. It was a
grandiose plan to the extent that I thought, “What will they do in the future after building
a school in such a place?” Kashiwabara advised Saito—who lacked the political skills tonegotiate with Chinese VIPs and recruit new students—and managed almost everythingby himself. He collected books from a variety of sources, including ancient Chinese
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Wuhan military logistics baseliterature such as county annals and provincial chronicles and archived them at the school
library, but these were all scattered and lost in the Second Sino-Japanese War. One of therooms in the housing for teachers where Kashiwabara lived was a Japanese-style room,
which became the headquarters of the 6th Division after the conquest of Wuhan, and thedivision commander lived there. I told the adjutant that a Japanese person had come morethan 10 years before and built a junior high school, and he was surprised. Kashiwabara
had no dignified appearance like the patriots of the Orient. He was a genial person who
was skillful in finance. While living alongside the larger-than-life Japanese who roamed
about China and bragged about their exploits, Kashiwabara administered the accounts of
the Toa Dobunkai by himself. He was the most important, and also the most necessary
individual. It was not easy for him to manage accounting for the Toa Dobunkai, which
would receive money from the Army General Staff Office and use it right away, or rather
receive money so they could spend it, while being greatly criticized by Japanese roaming
about in China. Even if Chinese defectors went to Japan, no one could care for thembecause everyone was broke. So, in the end, Kashiwabara took them all in and took careof them. There are many prominent Chinese today who received help from Kashiwabara.
It is also well known that Kashiwabara built Mejiro Junior High School and worked
to develop education. Kashiwabara did not try to gain approval or seek applause fromspectators, and he was not particularly eccentric. But the passing of Kashiwabara with his
deep knowledge regarding the China problem was a great loss to the nation.”
Hidesuke Sako, who had won a contract for some of the construction work on Kokan JuniorHigh School, returned to Japan, but his son Nagahide had received help from Kashiwabara
in the past, so I visited him at the Anchang Company. However, what he told me were notmemories of Kashiwabara during his residence in Hankou.
In Februar y 1944, my friend Shoto Namekata, from my hometown of Narita, met Kashiwabara’s
widow Akiko, who lived in the Teradai district in the same town, and asked her about their time in
Hankou. She said that the proprietor of the Shimeido Bookstore, Yasuyuki Uematsu, knew about
their time in Hankou very well. I tried to visit Uematsu, but he was away in Nanjing so I could not ask
him about those times. I also read Toten Miyazaki’s autobiography My Thirty-Three Year’s Dream.
Miyazaki writes that when Kang Youwei55 fell out of favor and was exiled to Japan, his colleagues
in Japan initially welcomed him as an unexpected visitor. When a new Cabinet was formed andgovernment policy changed, they shunned him, and no one would visit him. In that book, Miyazaki
wrote: “During this time, the only one who showed him respect at all times was the great man
Tsuyoshi Inukai, and the only one who showed him kindness was Kashiwabara, and this was enoughfor him to be grateful.” This book is also another means to honor the memory of Kashiwabara’s great
legacy.
Buntaro Kashiwabara was born in Teradai, Narita Machi, in January 1870. He graduated from Tokyo
College (currently Waseda University) in July 1893, and opened the Toa Dobun Shoin University inShanghai together with Atsumaru Konoe, Liu Shenyi and others in November 1898. It was a four-year
boarding school that taught both Chinese and Japanese students and had three departments: politics,
commerce, and industry. In May 1912, Kashiwabara ran for a seat in Japan’s parliament as a candidateof the National Party and was elected. From September 1920, he spent three years in China with hiswife to build junior high schools in Tianjin and Hankou under orders from the Toa Dobunkai, andfounded Chunichi Gakuin and Kokan Junior High School as institutions for the education of Chinese
55

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Kang was a Chinese scholar and political reformer.
Wuhan military logistics baseyouth. Kashiwabara opened Mejiro Technical School in 1922. He became sick the following year, in
October 1923. He resigned from all of his official duties and worked at regaining his health, but diedin August 1936 when he was 68 years old. His wife Akiko died in January 1967 at the age of 85.
In the autumn of 1943, I found the book Nihon bijutsushi zuroku (Illustrated history of Japanese art),
written by Toyomune Minamoto and published by Hoshino Shoten of Kyoto, at the Hankou Bookstore
on Zhongshan Road and purchased it for the Soldiers’ Library. I also bought a copy for myself, kept
it on hand, and browsed through it from time to time. I later mailed this copy to my home in Japan. I
had completely forgotten that I had sent a letter to the author, Minamoto, at that time. After I returned
home when the war ended, I picked up a copy of Kobijutsu kengaku (Study of antique art) by thesame author at a second-hand bookstore in Tokyo’s Kanda district one day, and was surprised when I
flipped through the introduction and saw the following quotation from my letter, which I had forgotten
about.
I recently received the following postcard from an unknown army officer stationed in central
China:“When I was reading your Nihon bijutsushi zuroku (Illustrated history of Japanese art),
which I discovered at a bookstore in a town far up the Yangtze River at the front at nightby dark candlelight my heart became clear… Being allowed to briefly be away from mymilitary duties to feel deep longing for such antique art is the greatest pleasure for me
right now. The cold winter has arrived, and the biting winds are blowing hard, but I will
push forward with my service, devoting my life, while thinking of the beauty and nobilityof the fatherland.”This single army postcard, with a picture of a Chinese street snack seller on the front, writtenwith a fountain pen, moved me deeply. I could not help but feel joyful to know that my poor
single-volume illustrated history of art was serving in an unexpected way on a battlefield
far away. And I could not help but recognize anew that the antique art, which harbors ourancestors’ beautiful souls and remains everywhere in Japan, has such a great significance for
the Japanese people.
I remember days when I was exposed to bombing attacks on the desolate battlefield of Shayangzhenin Hubei and devoured such illustrated art histories at night. And I secretly prayed in my heart thatthe day would come when I would survive and return to come into contact with such works of art
once again.
I let Minamoto, who lived in Kyoto, know that I had safely returned to Japan and expressed my deep
gratitude. The following is a letter from him.
As I began reading your postcard, which had a familiar handwriting, it reminded me of themilitary postcard that arrived in early spring the year before last. You have no idea how muchit moved me to know that you found my Nihon bijutsushi zuroku in a town along the Yangtze
River and read it to pass the time at the front and felt yearning for the past beauty of old Japan.
I meant to reply right away, but I am lazy by nature, so I failed to pick up my brush and write.
With the passing of time, the confusing developments of the war situation on the continent
became so intense that I could not imagine the conditions there without feeling concern about
the fate of the person who sent the postcard to me.
The war ended in vain, and those who had to return to Japan all returned but what happened

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Wuhan military logistics baseto the man who sent that postcard was one of the concerns that sometimes came to my mind.
In the summer the year before last, I collected several of my essays on old temples and had
the collection published by the same company that published Nihon bijutsushi zuroku under
the title Kobijutsu kengaku (Study of antique art). In the introduction to that book, I quoted
your postcard to illustrate how much love of antique art can prompt love for the fatherland.
That may also be the reason why I have an unforgettable impression about you.
It is truly happy news for me that you happened to have returned home safely and that as aresult of your special efforts, my Nihon bijutsushi zuroku, of which I have profound memories,
was waiting for you at your home safe and sound. I feel as if some sort of beautiful episodehas been completed with a happy ending. Let me offer my congratulations on your safe returnfrom the bottom of my heart. As I imagine from your postcard, it seems that your housemanaged to escape war damage. If that is so, it is truly wonderful news.
Since you live in Tokyo, perhaps we can meet some day, and perhaps you will have some
opportunity to come to Kyoto. That would truly be a romantic incident in life.
They printed 7,000 copies of Kobijutsu kengaku, but they all sold out right away. I have one
last extra copy remaining and I am sending it to you. I trust you will enjoy it.
I prayed that one day you would return safely. And a letter from you came to me.
After waiting for you in sorrow, my family and I celebrate your return.
November 26, 1946			
Toyomune Minamoto
In closing, I would like to present part of the memoir written at the time by Superior Private Takeuchi,
who was in charge of managing the books at the Soldiers’ Library.
Looking back now at my one year of life at the Soldiers’ Library, it was like the guten alten
Zeiten (the good old times) with my heart full of joy. When I finished my breakfast and went
off to the library carrying a newspaper, there was a bounce in my step.
This library was one of the army facilities planned to promote wholesome forms of recreation,and I was assigned to this work under the supervision of First Lieutenant Yamada.
We had to begin from collecting books, but that was not easy because of the graduallyworsening transportation problem and the decline in the number of copies of books publishedat that time, and because only five or six copies of each type of book came to Hankou. As
recreation was the primary purpose of the library, we decided to mostly collect novels, but
because each unit already had a substantial number of historical narratives and collections ofhumorous books, we decided to omit these types of books and collect slightly more highbrow
works.
In this way we obtained a collection of 500 books and put up our sign, which was writtenwith good penmanship by Master Sergeant Senda, and had the smell of fresh wood, as
the ‘Soldiers’ Library’ on July 25, 1943. The library was on the third floor of the Soldiers’
Dormitory building, which also housed the Soldiers’ Cafeteria. With a book vault, a place tobrowse newspapers and magazines, and a reading room for around 50 people, the library
was complete, for the time being. The room, which we were concerned at first would be too
dark, had a very bright feeling to it because we had large windows, two or three paintings on
the wall, and flowerpots on the tables. It did have the fault that we could hear the noise of thecafeteria on the second floor, but it was quite fine overall.
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Wuhan military logistics baseWhile we did not expect that a throng of users would come, we thought we could attract
around 20 eager readers. However, only three came on the first day. The number of readers
did gradually increase, but in the first month, we ended with an average of 13 visitors per day(excluding those who came to browse newspapers and magazines). With this, we received
complaints that the usage did not justify the expense, including complaints from Major Ogami
from accounting, who would come together with noncommissioned officers and make snidecomments, which was unpleasant. Given this, First Lieutenant Yamada’s decision to hold fast
to his original position, while natural, was also greatly worthy of respect:“Amid this war, as many as 13 soldiers come to read quietly each day. The statementthat the number of users is small is a subjective opinion. Even if just one person carries
forward the torch of Japanese culture, that is enough. For that purpose, this library must
continue.”
I was so happy to hear Yamada’s words I could have cried. And I thought that we needed tocollect good books.
About half a year after the library opened, there was a group of what you might call regulars
who came to the librar y to read. There were about 20 enthusiastic readers who would
always come to the library when they went out. We held a meeting to ask their preferences
for the librar y and their opinions. On that day, 12 or 13 of them were in attendance, andFirst Lieutenant Yamada and I also attended. This was an informal gathering, people spoke
freely, and lively topics emerged, but no decisively good ideas came forth. And we could
not accommodate many of their requests. The general opinion was that it was impossible toexpect common soldiers to come to the library when they had a day off once every week or
two weeks.
Given their living environment, the soldiers sought immediate forms of entertainment: justalcohol, women, and food. The men said that after soldiers go out and take care of their
immediate needs, they have no desire to read books. Also, when the soldiers went out, theywould move about in groups of two or three, so even if they might agree on drinking, theywould hardly ever agree on reading books. Given these conditions, there was really nothing
we could do, and so we were left with this issue outstanding. As for other areas such asproblems with facilities, we decided to work on further improvements in the future.
The best story above all was about a certain private first class who feared he would be yelled
at just for taking out or returning a book and had second thoughts. When he came to thelibrary, he was surprised at my attitude, which never became soldier-like and was conversely
effective. I could not help but smile wryly imagining this shy raw recruit addressing me in aformal military manner saying, “I have come to borrow a book, sir.”
No opinions were voiced regarding what kind of books we should collect, even though
this was the subject that I was the most interested in. The men did say they were not very
interested in reading war novels. Among the authors they liked, Yuzo Yamamoto was themost popular by far, followed by Ton Satomi, Kan Kikuchi, and Jiro Osaragi, and surprisingly
Saneatsu Mushanokoji, Naoya Shiga, and Kyoka Izumi were a little less popular.
At that time the collection expanded to around 2,300 books. We were able to acquire almost
complete collections of essays regarding China and tanka poetr y collections, aside fromold versions. Personally, I was happy we were able to collect a series of works by Kensaku
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Wuhan military logistics base

Shimaki, starting with Unmei no hito (Man of destiny), which I was reading when I wasdrafted, and Seikatsu no tankyu (Quest for life), as well as Shi, tomo, shoseki (Teachers,
friends, books) by Shinzo Koizumi. I enjoyed reading Anya koro (A dark night’s passing)and Nomin (The peasants), and it was a joy to read Nihon kenseishi (Histor y of Japaneseconstitutionalism) by Takeki Osatake and Ho to toseikeizi (Law and command economy)
by Teruo Minemura; they brought back a lot of memories. When I read Nihon bunka noshinrinen (New doctrine of Japanese culture) by Yasuzo Suzuki, I was filled with nostalgia
and deep emotions. I was also happy that we were able to get many books by Ogai Mori, eventhough these were paperbacks, since these were difficult to obtain in Japan.
Even though I was surrounded by books, I felt increasingly lonely as the number of books
increased. My personal collection of books was very small, but I had put my heart into eachone of them. There were some that I had bought with my meager allowance when I wasstudent, and others that I had long searched for but could not find and stumbled on while
walking at night after I had given up. When I open these volumes, there are words underlined
in red pencil from the period when I earnestly sought truth, the marked-up words became awhip for my laziness. I had left some books on top of my desk for days, without unwrappingthem even though I bought them with such enthusiasm. There was not a single one I did not
fondly remember. I longed for the comfort of my study, where I sat on a wicker chair with myback to the bookshelf, which had only a small number of books. I do not know who said that
‘libraries are graveyards for books,’ but that is well stated.
The readers were all enthusiastic. A third of them borrowed works of popular fiction. Suchbooks were in high demand, so they were hard to obtain, which was unfor tunate, anddetective stories were particularly popular. I wanted to let the readers—who looked throughdifferent books murmuring how they could not read them in such a short period of time andleft after just reading an essay—take the books out. Around one-fifth of the men read rather
intellectual works such as Tari Moriguchi’s books on art and works by Shinobu Orikuchi.
Quite a few of the men requested poetry collections.
Also, surprisingly, there were many requests for introductor y books on subjects such as
electricity, mathematics and astronomy. At first, I did not take any notice of these types ofbooks, but in fact such books were not available at all. There were two or three such books
among the books that had been donated, and I had to have the men make do with this. I could
not help but be moved by the pureness of their desire to pursue studies concerning their workback home even while they were at the front so they would not forget what they knew, eventhough their situation was different from mine.
I have fond memories of chatting around the embers of the hibachi heater with the men when
they grew tired of reading. Small talk about Japan, their own units, impressions of the books
they had read, and the apathy of soldiers became a diversion on their days off. The articles
in the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri dailies donated by each of the newspaper companies(although these were local editions) always ser ved as sources for topics of conversation.
There was also a local newspaper called the Continental News, but it was not interesting at all.
Its articles were all in the style of an official gazette, and even though a lot of space was given
to the literary column, the content was empty, while the newspapers from Japan were lively
and provided things to talk about. We would comment on these articles with our personal
opinions and talk on endlessly.

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Wuhan military logistics baseThe soldier over in that corner must be a candidate for superior private. He is earnestly
studying military manuals. Even here, I cannot help but wonder about the diverse nature ofhuman beings.

Military Logistics Base Cultural Lectures
The militar y logistics base’s lectures on cultural subjects were actually the first thing I started
working on in response to Commander Horie’s intentions to expand wholesome forms of recreation.
These lectures were held on June 5, 1943 in the Militar y Logistics Hall on the fifth floor of thebuilding that subsequently became the Kaikosha Army Club.
Lecture: “The Life and Works of Beethoven,” Yoshio Kimura, Wuhan Music Association (20minutes).
Recorded music: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 “Fate” (40 minutes).
Lecture: “Regarding the Noh Movie Aoinoue (Lady Aoi),” presented by Hajime Takimoto of
the Wuhan Noh Association (20 minutes).
Film: Noh movie Aoinoue, featuring Kintaro Sakurama, produced by the Board of Tourist
Industry Japan (40 minutes).
Newsreels: Ceremony commemorating 2,600 years since the foundation of Japan; Nippon
News, three reels, including one which was the most recent edition.
I remembered watching the newsreel of the ceremony commemorating the 2,600th anniversar yof the foundation of Japan in the plaza in front of Nijubashi Bridge, so I specially asked the China
Film Company for it, and they had it sent from their head office in Shanghai. Prince Takamatsu’s
congratulatory address in the ceremony was majestic. However, the military logistics base’s projectfor cultural lectures was said to be too difficult and received poor reviews, so it ended with just thisone event. Mr. Tsutsumi, the proprietor of the Shimeido Bookstore, who led us the record, and Mr.
Hirota of the Hankou Branch of the China Film Company, which had the movie Aoinoue, laughed
wryly when they heard that the cultural lectures had been cancelled. Mr. Tsutsumi, who assisted withthe establishment of the Soldiers’ Library, had been in favor of my plan for the cultural lectures, lent
us his cherished records, and helped with arranging for the guest speakers.
Even after the military logistics base’s cultural lectures were cancelled, we held concerts of recorded
music a few times at the officers’ quarters. We used confiscated records from the freight depot andrecords borrowed from the broadcasting station. In addition to such Western music as Tchaikovsky’s“Nutcracker” and Beethoven’s “Eroica,” we presented a variety of types of music including
naniwabushi narrative ballads, biwa (Japanese lute) music, gidayu puppet theater recitals, and popularsongs.
What could we do to beef up wholesome forms of recreation? Aside from building an amusement park
without alcohol or women and creating a library, what else could we do? Holding cultural lectures
to enhance education, holding tanka and haiku poetry gatherings... Would there be leeway for such
events amid busy military schedules, and would superior officers allow the soldiers to participate? Iworried about such issues since this was during a war, when enhancing the strength of the military
was the overwhelming concern, and we were at a military logistics base at the front.
I also wanted the military logistics base to solicit contributions from the various units stationed in
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Wuhan military logistics baseHankou and publish a tabloid-type newspaper once a month with short stories, poems, tanka, haiku,
comic tanka, and comic haiku. I asked my direct superior, Lieutenant Colonel Fujii for permission,
but he opposed my request on grounds that the tabloid would compete with Sozen’ei, which was
published once a month by the 11th Army’s Journalism Team. So printing the tabloid was notpossible. But Sozen’ei rarely printed such literary contributions. And, of course, they did not print theseven tanka poems on welcoming the entertainment troupe from Miyazaki City that I submitted while
I was hospitalized for war injuries. Sozen’ei only printed harmless remarks that seemed to be forced
submissions. When I asked them to print “News from the Soldiers’ Librar y,” it seems they were
initially hesitant, since they feared that it might prompt complaints from the front by making soldiers
think Hankou was the only place where everything was going well.

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Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 7

Operation Togo
Diary of the Commander of the Shayangzhen Military Logistics Branch
In April 1944, the China Expeditionary Army initiated Operation Togo (Operation Ichi-Go) to open arailway route that would cross the continent and connect Busan, Mukden, Beijing, Hankou, Guilin,
Nanning, Bangkok, and Singapore. The operation also aimed to secure strategic positions along the
Hunan-Guangxi railway, the Guangzhou-Hankou railway, and the southern part of the Beijing-Hankou
Railway, and to destroy the main bases of the U.S. air force in China. This campaign was fought innorthern, central, and southern China, and a total force of about 500,000 Japanese military personnel
are said to have been involved.
The 12th Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama, began the campaign
and occupied strategic positions along the southern part of the Beijing-Hankou Railway south of the
Yellow River. The entire 11th Army participated in this campaign under the command of Lieutenant
General Isamu Yokoyama. To disguise the plan to advance into Changsha and Hengyang, which werethe main objectives of the attack, the 11th Army employed diversionary tactics, pretending to advancetowards Yichang and Changde. Divisions were intentionally being shifted around before converging
on certain locations.
Each time there was a campaign, the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters took part by forming
campaign branch offices. Officers were assigned to the branches in turns, following the movementsof the divisions that were on the frontlines. The recreation section was no exception. I was ordered
to the Shayangzhen Branch. I had previously been posted there during my assignment with the 11th
Army’s Field Freight Depot. At that time, my fellow officer, First Lieutenant Tsuji, was travelingtoward Li County, crossing the Yangtze River with 40 men and draft horses. They were moving overhilly terrain where trucks could not travel, and Tsuji complained about his bad luck in drawing thatassignment. Beyond that, they were attacked by the enemy and encountered various other difficulties.
However, it was at the Shayangzhen Branch, where I went, that soldiers died from bombings. At the
Li County Branch, which was led by Tsuji, all of the men returned safely.
The following excerpts are from a diary, which I wrote in from time to time in place of taking notes,
and which I later revised slightly.
April 12, 1944
At 9:00 a.m., we departed for Shayangzhen after being seen off by Commander Horie and his
subordinates in front of the headquarters. We moved in five trucks. There were 35 of us underthe branch commander, Lieutenant Colonel Fujii. The only officers were Army Surgeon Second
Lieutenant Norikazu Kuroda and me. There was so much luggage on board that there was almost no
room for the soldiers to ride. Men were calling out, “Be careful not to fall.”We drove through a farm belt in central China in light rain, with nothing to obstruct the view. We
arrived at Zaoshi at 2:30 p.m., and spent the night at the facilities of the local military logistics branch.
The New Fourth Army was nearby, and frequently entered urban areas to loot. There were no electric
lights, so at nighttime it was pitch black.

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Wuhan military logistics baseApril 13
We left Zaoshi at 8:00 a.m. There were infantrymen taking a break on both sides of the road, avoiding
the trucks that sped along. They were all exhausted and lying down, covered with dust. Driving
around the soldiers was not easy. We soon entered hill countr y. We heard members of the New
Fourth Army would sometimes carry out attacks along the narrow path of Yanmenkou, at the foot ofa denuded mountain. We arrived at the Luohan Temple by the Han River at noon. It took time to go
across the river. We got across by putting the trucks onto two connected motorized watercraft. We
finally arrived at our destination, Shayangzhen, at 2:00 p.m.
April 14
I assumed the duties of my new position. In the evening, I found some time to go to the freight
depot’s guard unit, where I was formerly stationed. (The Tanaka Company had become the Takayama
Company, under First Lieutenant Shigeru Takayama.) The soldiers who had entered as new recruits
the year before had grown strong, and had been promoted to private first class or superior private.
They were all happy to see me and came to greet me. The willow tree that I had my men dig up by theHan River and plant in the barracks courtyard when I was the acting company commander had firmly
taken root. Its leaves were rustling in the breeze. We ate together in the officers’ room. Then I took abath and went back.
April 15
Because soldiers had been deployed to Luohan Temple on the other side of the river and to the unit
barracks on the outskirts of the city, there are only 13 men left at headquarters. We draw up waterfrom the Han River, purified it, put it into drums, and supply the water to each unit by truck. Thisis also part of the work of the military logistics base. The illumination is a bit weak, but it is goodenough for night work.
Because I was formerly assigned to the freight depot’s guard unit here, I have many acquaintancesamong the depot officers. The 11th Army was headed towards Changsha and Hengyang, withthe freight depot to follow, so the depot generously transferred to the military logistics extra baseprovisions and fodder that they could not carry with them. Although firewood was in short supply,
there was a surplus of miso in particular and we received plenty. Because the freight depot had no
documents to verify the headcount of the units in transit—whose soldiers were paid by the military
logistics base—the wages could be inflated.
As for the divisions passing through Shayangzhen, during the night the 13th Division (“Mirror
Division”) and the 58th Division (“Wide Division”) secretly advanced east, and during the day the
116th Division (“Storm Division”) advanced west as a diversionary tactic, while maneuvering day
and night near the crossing point of the Han River. The divisions continued moving at night to avoid
air attacks. Because it took time to cross the Han River, Shayangzhen became a hangout for soldiers.
Superior Private Kojima came with a request to hire coolies to clean the unit barracks. When I went
there, because of the frequent turnover of the units that were stationed there, the barracks werein shambles, and the latrines were dirty, with filth spread everywhere, leaving no place to stand.
This mess was beyond the ability of coolies or military logistics to deal with. We thought of having
the units in transit provide the labor, and adopted what we called “feast tactics.” We used coolies tomake pork miso soup from early in the morning, when it was still dark. While we called this “porkmiso soup,” it almost never contained any pork. We usually used youtiao Chinese deep-fried breadstick instead, together with tofu and vegetables thrown into a large pot and cooked into miso soup.
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Wuhan military logistics baseThis soup was provided to the men as rations, and it was very popular. We finished cleaning up thebarracks right away, with labor from the units that were stationed. The distribution of miso soup by
the military logistics base apparently calmed the soldiers and their subsequent management became
easy. It is simply common courtesy to clean up after yourself.
April 23
The commander of the 13th Division (“Mirror Division”), Lieutenant General Tadashi Akashika, spent
two nights in a free-standing house at the military logistics base. I heard he was taking his meals
alone, so I had the freight depot make a kind of sponge cake and I brought it to him. At the sametime, I lent him a copy of Maurice Dekobra’s A Frenchman in Japan: Travels (an English translationof Samourai 8 cylindres), which I brought from the Soldiers’ Library. That book includes the story of
Dekobra going to Mount Mihara and speaking with someone who wants to commit suicide, and his
survey of the income of apprentice geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto.
Akashika told me:
My division is comprised of men from Sendai, Wakamatsu, and Shibata, and we are said to be
used to mountain warfare. We are always used for turning movements,56 so we have it harderthan the other divisions. My men have the strength to endure hardships and privations, butthey are obstinate and not flexible. For example, when I, the division commander, got out ofthe vehicle to urinate, I ordered the guard riding with me to watch for enemies from on top ofa nearby rock. The guard was still standing there after I had finished and was ready to depart.
Similarly, when soldiers manning machine guns get shot, the officers replace them withother soldiers, who also get shot. The platoon leaders think only about finding new machinegunners, without even thinking about changing positions.
Akashika then laughed wryly.
Because of the campaign, the movement of divisions became intense. The commander of the 116th
Division (“Storm Division”), Lieutenant General Ou Iwanaga, stayed at the barracks of this military
logistics base. I heard from a construction officer that Iwanaga was difficult to deal with and hardly
spoke, so I greeted him at the gate wearing new white gloves and led him about the place, but he justglanced at me and said nothing. The next morning, however, when I joined the line of division officers
to see him off, the commander himself stopped in front of me and greeted me saying, “Many soldiersfrom my division will pass through here and trouble you in many ways, so please take good care ofthem.” The construction officer was surprised because it was the first time he had heard the head of adivision speak to a person in such a way.
One day in June, the commander of the 58th Division (“Wide Division”), Lieutenant General SuehiroMori, who had round eyeglasses with thick plastic rims and a Kaiser moustache, was staying at thebarracks on the outskirts of town. I approached him in the evening while he was stretching outside
by himself and explained that there was a grave of fallen soldiers from the Wide Division nearby. He
said, “Take me there,” and came out in his long boots, wearing his sword. I also put on my sword,
and joined him. Four soldiers from the Wide Division who had died in a recent air raid while working
at the crossing point at the Han River were buried under a grave mound below the banks of the Han
River. The grave marker was still fresh. The commander took off his hat, and politely prayed. On theway back, he silently walked on the banks of the Han River, which were illuminated red by the setting
56

141

Turning movements are also known as wide envelopments.
Wuhan military logistics basesun. The remains of these soldiers were still being held at the military logistics base. I knew theaddresses of their bereaved families, so I sent military postcards informing them that General Mori
had prayed for the fallen soldiers’ souls.
April 27
Lieutenant Colonel Fujii suddenly returned to Hankou, and I was appointed in his place as the branchcommander. According to some soldiers who had been left behind and were catching up to their units
on the frontlines, even more than cigarettes, small arms ammunition and hand grenades commanded
the highest prices when bartering for goods.
April 29
The soldiers at the headquarters gathered to hold prayer services on the birthday of the reigning
Emperor.
With the words, “On the auspicious occasion of the birthday of the reigning Emperor, we humbly pray
to offer congratulations on the Emperor’s long life,” we solemnly saluted with our swords. In responseto requests from the men, I granted permission for everyone to have dinner together that night since
there had been no holidays amid the busy work each day. Some wanted to invite women from the
Shayangzhen Hall, which is managed by the military logistics base, but I scolded them saying, “It isout of the question to call women to a military logistics barracks in the middle of a campaign.”
I heard what sounded like an air raid alarm at 4:48 p.m., while I was working in the office, but I did
not do anything. At the barracks, soldiers had started drinking sake and were making a racket. The
freight depot’s canteen was selling sake because it was the Emperor’s birthday. All of a sudden, we
heard sounds of explosions from enemy planes attacking, and when I ran out from the office, three
U.S. military planes were coming at us in formation. The motorized regiment’s anti-aircraft gun beganshooting back.
I yelled, “Air raid!” and just as I rushed into a nearby air raid shelter, there was a thundering sound. A
500-kilogram bomb had fallen on the military logistics base. When I jumped out, part of the barracks
had collapsed. I could not see through the thick cloud of dust. A bomb crater had been gouged out inthe rear garden. Injured soldiers covered with blood were moving about in confusion asking, “Whereis the infirmary?” and “Are there any medical orderlies?” Many were seriously wounded. A single
Army surgeon was not sufficient, so we decided to immediately send the injured to the hospital bytruck and put them onto trucks.
Somebody said, “Kawaguchi was hit,” and I went to see. Superior Private Shigeo Kawaguchi had been
hit in the hips by bomb fragments and he was covered with blood. His face was turning pale. I thought
his face looked different because his eyeglasses had been blown off. I had a medical orderly give him
first aid, and told him to get treated at a hospital and hang in there. Kawaguchi spiritedly responded“Yes, sir.” Before leaving Hankou, I had ordered Kawaguchi to be a gunner because he said he knew
how to operate a light machine gun. He had jumped out of the air raid shelter, attempting to bring
into action a light machine gun, and was hit. Private First Class Noriyasu Masaoka of the district’s
motorized regiment, which was assigned to supply water, was also seriously injured, and there werestill some seriously injured soldiers buried under the barracks, which had collapsed from the blast of
the explosion. It was a hideous sight, with severed limbs scattered about.
I directed the soldiers at the military logistics base to gather the dead and the wounded. We broughta desk out to the yard and tried to find out whether the soldiers in the barracks were safe. The district
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Wuhan military logistics basecommander (the commander of the 31st Motorized Regiment), Colonel Kosuke Ota, came for aninspection, and told us to immediately submit a damage report. The registry for the garrison had
entries which simply read “officer’s name and XX men,” so we did not make much progress. Adding
the officers staying in their own quarters to the soldiers working for the militar y logistics base,
there were a total of nine men dead and 34 hospitalized. Additional medical orderlies arrived fromthe arms depot, and relief cars came from the administrative division, the district regiment, and thehospital. The fact that I did not have the alarm rung and immediately evacuate the men who were at
the barracks there is the regret of my life as a branch commander. Some of the coolies who worked
for the military logistics base also suffered serious injuries in the bombing. I ordered the medicalorderlies to give them first aid treatment. At night, I sent an emergency telegram to the Hankou
Military Logistics Base.
April 30
At daybreak, Army Surgeon Kuroda returned from the hospital and said that Kawaguchi’s condition
was critical. I rushed to the hospital by truck. The army surgeon in charge said that there was nothing
they could do because Kawaguchi had injuries from bomb fragments from the hips to the abdomen.
Kawaguchi asked for water, and the army surgeon said at this point it was all right to give him water,
so I gave him some saying he should only gargle, but he choked and could not swallow. Kawaguchi
was given a blood transfusion, but in vain, and died at 11:00 a.m. The medical orderly had himchanged into a new white gown and put his hands together in prayer. Meanwhile, Private First Class
Masaoka passed away when he arrived at the hospital. I put the two soldiers’ remains in the vehicle
and returned, planning to hold a wake at the military logistics base that night. The moon was pale andcold as ice. As I sat next to the soldiers, who spoke few words, I continued writing a detailed report tothe military logistics headquarters to be sent by the freight depot shuttle departing for Hankou thenext morning. I was wracked by feelings of guilt by the many casualties that had resulted because myactions were not appropriate.
Having many soldiers die, not feeling at peace, I face the pale moon in the watches of the night.
May 1
At night, we cremated the bodies of the war dead on the banks of the Han River. We piled up thefirewood, poured on kerosene, lined up the dead bodies, and lit the fire. Dense white smoke filled theair. I ordered the sentries to take turns guarding the corpses.
May 2
We left to gather the ashes of the deceased early in the morning.
The reed flowers on the hill are white. Morning dawns as the smoke from burning corpses’ fades.
May 3
In the afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Araya came from the Hankou Military Logistics Base to inspect
the damage. I had dinner with him that night. I picked up the sake carafe on my tray and poured
him a cup, and he served me from his carafe, but then I realized that my carafe was actually filledwith geranium herb tea. I had been suffering from diarrhea, so I had ordered my orderly to brew me
geranium herb tea instead of sake.

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Wuhan military logistics base

May 5The military logistics base went through the motions of holding a memorial service for the two fallen
soldiers, Kawaguchi and Masaoka, before sending back their remains.
I am overwhelmed with emotion as I read the memorial address, “On this occasion, May 5, 1944,
establishing an altar at the encampment of Shayangzhen, we reverently bid farewell to the spirits of
the late Army Superior Private Shigeo Kawaguchi and the late Army Private First Class Noriyasu
Masaoka…”
May 6
Lieutenant Colonel Araya is returning to Hankou in the morning, so I have two soldiers accompany
him with the remains of the dead men.
The sunlight over the Han River is dim in the morning mist. A boat carrying the remains
departs.
May 10For the first time, I granted permission for the soldiers to go out in turns.
May 13The second aerial bombing of the city took place.
I was working in the office before the bombing began when I heard a “pop” sound like a rifle being
fired nearby. I came out thinking that some soldier might have fired his weapon accidentally, but was
told that a soldier waiting for a ride had committed suicide.
Three soldiers who had been left behind because they were ill had arrived at the military logistics
base in the morning, and I specially asked the freight depot vehicle departing at 11:30 to give thema ride so they could catch up to their assigned units, The suicide happened while they were waiting
for the vehicle. The soldier who killed himself took off his shoe, put the muzzle of his rifle into hismouth, and pulled the trigger using the big toe of his right foot, so blood gushed out from the back of
his head and he died instantly. I checked the dead man’s knapsack while his fellow soldiers looked onas eyewitnesses. There were two letters, apparently from his mother in his hometown and from his
wife. The letter from his wife read, “Your mother is too strict, and I cannot take it, so when this letter
reaches you, I will have returned to live at my parents’ home.” The letter from his mother said, “Yourwife is mean, and I cannot possibly live with her.”
When I asked the accompanying soldiers, “Didn’t you notice anything even though you were rightnext to him?” They said they were tired, had inadvertently dozed off, and did not notice anything.
They said the dead soldier was concerned he would be scolded by his commander when they caught
up for being sickly and falling behind. But perhaps it was the two letters complaining of domestic
troubles from his mother and his wife back home that had got to him.
A military policeman arrived, and while he was sketching the layout of the area for recording theincident as a possible unnatural death, three enemy aircraft carried out a dive bombing attack. One
bomb fell on the empty land next to the military police building. The building was half destroyed, so
the military policeman said he had to return quickly.
One of the soldiers said to the military policeman in a crying voice, “I cannot report that my comrade

144

Wuhan military logistics basewho was with me committed suicide. Is there no other way?”
I consulted with the military policeman and he responded, “If the military logistics base issues aneyewitness war death certificate, we will not question it.” So, I asked him to pretend the suicide never
happened. I prepared the eyewitness certificate, which said the solder had died “in war from head
injuries caused by bomb fragments,” using the air attack that had just happened as an explanation,and handed the certificate to the soldiers. They said the soldier who died was the son of a farmer in
Utsunomiya. What an unfortunate death of one soldier! Issuing the eyewitness certificate was theleast I could do. With it, he will be enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine, and his bereaved family in Japan will
receive a small allowance.
May 15
Most of the buildings inside the city have been destroyed by bombing, so the military logistics base
moved to the unit barracks in the suburbs and is working from there.
May 18The third aerial bombing of the city took place. The enemy aircraft came in a formation of sevenplanes. The Takayama Unit’s barracks suffered considerable damage. Fires broke out in the city. A
bomb that fell near the former military logistics base failed to detonate, so there were no casualties.
May 20Because many buildings were destroyed in the bombing, and we have obtained a lot of firewood,ever y day, starting in the morning, we heat up outdoor baths in drums. We let the soldiers who
have marched through the night and have spent the night here take baths. It seems there was aprofessional carpenter among the soldiers who immediately made a footboard for use in the bathtubs
and washing area.
Around this time, the mornings at the unit barracks by the river began with the chirping of little
cuckoos and reed warblers. In the evenings, the movement of the units on top of the Han Riverembankment looked like black silhouettes against the sky.
On the bank across the river, silhouettes of draft horses and transport corps in a row, far away
against the evening sky.
There are many fires every night in the surrounding hamlets. The fires may have been set by local
bandits.
Could it be a fire at a hamlet burned by local rebels? Burning faintly red in the sky, where the Big
Dipper tilts.
June 10The movement of units finally ended, and we have some free time. I just go to the district’s freight
depot guard unit to gather information, or take a dog for a walk nearby. At night, I light a candle andread passages from Sokkyo shijin (The Improvisatore) translated by Ogai Mori, or Nihon bijutsushi
zuroku (Illustrated history of Japanese art) by Toyomune Minamoto, which I brought from Hankou.
June 12The conditions in the surrounding areas have worsened, so nighttime travel and travel by single
vehicles have been banned. A soldier who went to Hankou for liaison purposes did not return, even
145

Wuhan military logistics basethough it was already night. We received a call from the Luohan Temple, late at night, saying that avehicle had arrived, but it had been attacked on the way, and that there were a few wounded among
the soldiers who were riding as guards. I went in a truck to the banks of the Han River to pick themup and to bring the wounded to the hospital. On the way there, the light of fireflies moved in frontof the truck like flowing water. The road was bright with the light of the fireflies, even when theheadlights were turned off.
June 21
A soldier came from Hankou to report, bringing letters from Japan. Among the mail addressed to me,
there was a letter from Hoei Nojiri. I had heard that Nojiri was seeking ancient Chinese documents
regarding the stars when I was at the Hankou Military Logistics Base, and I had found a few books
and sent them to him.
Orion is unusually bright tonight. I wonder if my children in my hometown are looking up at it
too.
In the letter, Nojiri said that in a radio program called “Dai Toa no Sora o Aogite” (Looking up at
the Great Asian sky) on April 17, he had quoted from the humble tanka poem I had written on themargins of a letter I sent him with those Chinese books.
June 27
While working on site to prepare for the relocation of the military logistics branch to the former
location of the Arai Unit’s Materials Depot, we were attacked by seven bombers and eight fighter
aircraft. Part of the building was destroyed by the bombing and strafing. The soldiers who were
working half-naked jumped into a thicket by the river, and were covered with cuts and scratches fromthe thorns of wild roses and bush killer vines, but there were no other casualties.
July 6
A coded telegram arrived, and I had it decoded by the district’s signals team. The telegram said,“Return to Hankou immediately and have your militar y logistics duties taken over by the 39th
Division’s Outlying Station.” I reported to the District Unit Commander, Colonel Ota, and it was
decided that I would leave the next day, on the 7th. Unit Commander Ota had dinner with me thatnight and said he regretted to see me go. First Lieutenants Adjutant Mori and Paymaster Hirayama
attended, along with Takawaki from awards, and Yasukawa from transportation.
July 7
I completed the handover of duties to Second Lieutenant Kimura at the outlying station of the 39th
Division’s Fuji Unit at noon. Kimura was the head of the station. A young boy, who was a war orphan
we had adopted from the previous military logistics base, had become attached to us. He cut the hairof soldiers and ran errands for the military logistics base. He was crying, and asked us to take himwith us to Hankou. Sergeant Major Igame calmed him down, and he was handed over to the new
military logistics base, together with the dog that was kept at the base. The coolie who was in chargeof cooking had graduated from school, and he was delighted when I gave him a Chinese dictionary as
a parting gift.
In the afternoon, we crossed the Han River and assembled at Luohan Temple. We completed loading
the five trucks and had supper by candlelight in the middle of the night. The red star Antares shined
mysteriously in the night sky. The great sorrow at having lost two subordinates in this campaign
146

Wuhan military logistics basestabbed my heart.
July 8
We were scheduled to leave at 7:00 a.m. We were waiting for one officer from the freight depot
who wanted to ride along with us. The soldiers were already in the trucks. While Sergeant Major
Igame was telling them from below that they cannot get on and off the trucks as they pleased, andto do so only after getting permission, in the distance six or seven airplanes came flying low, out of
formation. It was early in the morning, so I thought they were friendly forces, but then I noticed theirengine sounds were metallic, so I loudly yelled right away “Enemy aircraft! Evacuate!” Just then, theairplanes circled and dove, aiming at our five trucks which had gathered, and began strafing us withintense machine gun fire. We were showered with dirt, but most of the soldiers had jumped into a
nearby ditch and were fortunately safe. One soldier staying at the Luohan Temple who was hidingin the barracks was shot through the chest. I had a medical orderly treat him and called the hospitalright away.
One of the trucks had its radiator damaged and could not be driven. We decided to leave some of theluggage we were carrying at the Luohan Temple barracks and depart with four trucks, but PaymasterSergeant Ito said he wanted to leave one soldier behind to supervise the luggage. As usual, I ordered
Sergeant Major Igame to designate someone, but Igame said “Unit commander, please designate
someone yourself.”
Having someone left alone at such an unsafe place was certainly unbearable for both the person
designating and the person being designated. So, I said, “Then, let’s all return together. We will notleave anyone to guard the luggage, and I will take responsibility,” and we departed. (We went back to
get the luggage on a later date).
There were many bullet holes in the drums loaded on the trucks. The boxes containing the remainsof the dead soldiers were also shot up. I contacted the Hankou Militar y Logistics Base by fieldtelegraph from Yingcheng at 3:00 p.m. We had a flat tire on the way, and also difficulties proceeding
because of bad roads. One Nissan truck that was near the end of its service life would not move withany speed. I then ordered Sergeant Major Igame to take charge and follow with three trucks, and I
took off with just the lead truck, a Ford, and arrived at the Hankou Unit Barracks 30 minutes after
midnight. I went to report to the headquarters. When I asked the guard, “Where is the adjutant?” hereplied, “The adjutant has not yet returned from Shayangzhen.”I asked, “Shayangzhen?” and he said, “The adjutant is First Lieutenant Yamada.”
I told him, “I am First Lieutenant Yamada, what about Adjutant Otani?”
He said, “First Lieutenant Otani went to Wuchang today together with Commander Horie.”
When I went up to the second floor and contacted the commander’s orderly, he said that Lieutenant
Colonel Uuemon Araya had seen my telegram from Yingcheng and was still awake and waiting. He
said that Commander Horie had left today to participate in Operation Togo as a military logistics basecommander in Yuezhou because the 11th Army Combat Headquarters had advanced there.
While I was engaged in the operations at the branch at Shayangzhen, the main force of the Hankou
Military Logistics Base had advanced to Yuezhou, and the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters
had been formed in its place under the command of the 34th Army, with Lieutenant Colonel Araya
appointed as the commander, First Lieutenant Yamada as adjutant, and First Lieutenant Tsuji as

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Wuhan military logistics base

Wuchang Branch commander.
July 9Three trucks under the supervision of Sergeant Major Igame arrived at 4:00 a.m. I reported this toCommander Araya and disbanded the Shayangzhen Branch.
On the afternoon of the following day, two-thirds of the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters hadgone to Yuezhou. All of the rest of military logistics duties for Hankou and the Wuchang district were
to be performed by the remaining soldiers and a few assigned units. (The Wuchang Military Logistics
Headquarters led by Colonel Ohara, which was stationed in Wuchang, advanced to Changsha.)
The members of the military logistics headquarters at Yuezhou and Wuhan were as follows.
Yuezhou Militar y Logistics Headquarters: Commander Sadao Horie, Adjutant Yasuhiko
Otani, Lieutenant Colonel Genji Fujii, Major Mitsuyuki Mori, Army Surgeon Captain Kikuo
Miyazaki, Army Surgeon First Lieutenant Kenichi Nagasawa, Paymaster First Lieutenant
Tokujiro Takagi, and others.
Wuhan Militar y Logistics Headquarters: Commander Uuemon Araya, Adjutant Seikichi
Yamada, Army Surgeon Captain Yoshio Osawa, First Lieutenant Yaichi Kawazoe, First
Lieutenant Yoshio Tsuji, Paymaster First Lieutenant Sakae Noguchi, and others.
In June 1964, I went to the parental home of the late Lance Corporal Kawaguchi to visit his grave
at Jikkoku, Gokai Village, in Yamanashi Prefecture. He was the only one of my subordinates whodied during the war, and I had been meaning to go. I stayed at the Jikkoku hot springs the night
before, and went to visit his parental home the following day, but his parents had passed away five
years earlier, and unfortunately his brother, who took over the house, was not at home because he
was away on business. I met his wife, and along with his belongings I found the eulogy delivered byCommander Horie at his funeral, and a letter from Unit Commander Kakinuma. I had thought he had
died from injuries caused by bomb shrapnel, but “piercing bullet wound” was written in his soldier’s
pocket ledger.
A photograph of the late lance corporal on the transom. It looks just like when he was alive. I misshim.
An image of a soldier who died in war, at Shayangzhen in Hubei Province. Twenty years has
passed since then.
In the soldier’s pocket ledger in the casket is written, “piercing bullet wounds through right femur,
soft part.”
Parents have already passed away. Brother’s wife alone welcomes me in a large house.
At the Shayangzhen Military Logistics Base, Private First Class Masaoka had also died in the war, but
he belonged to a motorized regiment which was temporarily assigned there for supplying water, so he
was not a soldier who had accompanied me directly from Hankou. Masaoka was originally from Kochi
Prefecture, and they say he was the son of a farmer from near Cape Ashizuri.

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Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 8

Wuhan Militar y Logistics Base
Wuhan Military Logistics Base Commander
Here, I would like to introduce a few people who were at the Wuhan Military Logistics Base and write
about some episodes that occurred at the base.
In his memoir, The Voiceless Front, Commander Horie described Lieutenant Colonel Uuemon Araya,
the Wuhan Military Logistics Base commander under whom I served as adjutant, as follows.
Here, I am going to write a bit about Colonel Araya. Araya had been a senior officer at the
Militar y Logistics Headquarters before I took up my post. While he lacked the ability toadapt strategically to circumstances, he had an earnest and sincere character, and his fairand impartial work attitude gained my absolute trust. Araya served as the most important
depar tment head within the headquar ters, as an impor tant campaign branch of ficecommander, and as acting commander when the main force of the military logistics base wasmobilized. After the Wuchang Military Logistics Base had been absorbed into Hankou, Araya
would be in Wuchang when I was in Hankou and in Hankou when I was in Wuchang, serving
as my right hand. He never gave me any reason for concern. In March of the year the war
ended, even after being promoted to colonel, he would not move from his post at the Military
Logistics Base Headquarters. While Araya really should have been transferred to serve as thecommander of a suitable unit, he continued working at his duties with no hint of complaint,
and I bow my head to his superb character.
Lieutenant Colonel Araya, the commander of the Wuhan Military Logistics Base, was born in Saga
Prefecture. He graduated in the 22nd class of the military academy, served as a cadet in the Fukuoka
24th Infantry Regiment, and was transferred to the Oita 72nd Infantry Regiment upon being promoted
to second lieutenant. Araya returned to the Fukuoka 24th Infantry Regiment in 1925, and was placedon inactive duty as an Army infantry lieutenant colonel in 1932. He then served at Kashima Middle
School in Saga Prefecture, and was called up for duty in April 1939. Araya was appointed commanderof the Kokura 14th Infantry Battalion, but in April of the following year, in 1940, he was placed incharge of military logistics duties as a staff officer at the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters,
assisting the former commander, Colonel Matsuda.
I served as adjutant to Lieutenant Colonel Araya for just 8 months, but he was truly a man of absoluteintegrity, as rarely seen. There were some secret ser vice funds for the militar y logistics basecommander. Even though I told him that these funds were for him to use freely, the upright Araya
absolutely would not spend them for his private use. He had me take charge of the funds and use
them to entertain commanders of units visiting Hankou, to purchase cigarettes, goods in kind, andother expenses for the prisoner of war camp, to pay dining expenses for gatherings of the officersof the units attached to the military logistics base, to cover expenses for the celebratory toast foreveryone following the New Year’s ceremonial bow toward the Imperial Palace, and so forth. The
secret service funds were ostensibly to pay for obtaining information from Chinese spies, and false
receipts were issued for accounting purposes stamped with seals with names such as “Li” and “Jin.”
I was also concurrently serving as the recreation section chief in addition to my duties as the military

149

Wuhan military logistics baselogistics base adjutant. I continued to entrust performances, movies, and the handling of visiting
entertainment troupes to Cadet Nakanishi, and I remained in charge of the cafeterias and comfort
facilities. I thought these tasks would be a bit too much responsibility for the young Cadet Nakanishi.
I believe Army Surgeon Captain Osawa, who became the senior army surgeon at the Wuhan Military
Logistics Headquarters, was transferred from the unit in charge of guarding the areas along the
Tianjin-Pukao railway line. Compared with guard units on the front lines, at rear echelon units like at
the military logistics base, military discipline inevitably seemed loose, by nature. There were many
aspects that were not orderly, as at regular units. For example, some of the men worked outside thebarracks, and the men had different working arrangements and hours. Captain Osawa—who had anearnest character—wanted to change this somehow, and he apparently decided to retrain the men to
enforce military discipline, starting from the young cadets.
Cadet Ishida visited me in my room one evening while I was the adjutant. He told me Captain Osawa
had summoned Cadet Nakanishi, told him he was slacking off, ordered him to remove his eyeglasses,
and slapped him on the cheek the moment he took them off. Osawa then said that Ishida was next,
and Ishida came to ask me what to do. I told him he did not have to remove his eyeglasses. I said
breaking a pair of glasses or two does not matter. I told him to stare back at Osawa with full force inboth eyes, as if to say I do not allow you to slap me. I said if his determination won, he definitely would
not be slapped. When Ishida visited later, he told me it was just as I had said. Ishida said he stared at
Osawa without removing his eyeglasses, and Osawa did not slap him after all.
Several days later, Captain Osawa visited my room in the evening and told me that Commander Horiein Yuezhou had given him various warnings about his behavior. Osawa said I was the only one who
would notify the commander about him. I replied that I am responsible for military discipline at the
Wuhan Military Logistics Base as the adjutant, and I
Map of the
11th Armyreport what is necessary as part of my duties whenThree Cities
Headquarters
Hankouof Wuhanasked by the commander. When I then told him I
Shrinehad not done anything mean, such as slandering
Japanese Concession
people, he left while “complimenting” me on myhigh spirits.
German Concession
One time later, Osawa returned late at night drunkon sake, and hit the guard on night watch because
the sentr y’s attitude was bad. I complained to
Osawa, telling him that when he has some issue
with the duties of the night watch, he should speakwith the officer on duty or the adjutant, and that
he was not permitted to act violently to a soldier
on duty, even if he was a superior officer. Osawa
responded that he understood.
Osawa had been transferred to the military logistics
base thinking he would be the senior army surgeon,
but he was disappointed because Army Surgeon
Captain Miyazaki, who took up his post just before
Osawa, had seniority. When the main part of themilitary logistics base advanced to Yuezhou, Army
Surgeons Miyazaki and Nagasawa both participated
150

DazhimenTrain Station
Xunlimen
French Concession
Train
StationRussianConcession
Zhongshan Park
British Concession
Zhongshan

Hankou Road
Chinese district

Jianghan Road

HankouMilitary Hankou Pier 18
Jiqingli LogisticsCustoms
Base House

Han River
Hanyang
Lute
Platform Dabie
Mountains Yangtze
River
Yellow
Crane Tower

Fortressgate
Wuchang
Yanzhi Mountain

Sheshan
Mountain

Shahu
Lake

HongshanMountain

Source: Seikichi Yamada, “Bukan Heitan”,
Tosho Shuppansha, 1978.
Wuhan military logistics basein the move, and Osawa remained in Hankou as the senior army surgeon at the Wuhan Military
Logistics Base. He also continued to be in charge of medical treatment at the special comfort facilities,
for which he had been responsible since he took up his post.
According to Nurse Sekiguchi, who worked at the special comfort facilities, Osawa specialized insurgery, so while he was zealous about the treatment of external wounds and tumors, he viewed
internal disorders such as pains in the chest or fevers as feigned illnesses, and did not take up suchcases, and he frequently would not provide treatment to the women from Korea.
When Commander Araya invited all the officers to dinner at the officers’ club Suigetsu, I pretended
to be drunk and teased Osawa, saying that he looks at women’s private parts every day for free asa perquisite, and asked him if it wouldn’t be charitable to give that fortunate duty to some younger
doctor. As the senior army surgeon, Osawa may have felt shame for being at the comfort facility
infirmary and neglecting the treatment of units in transit because he subsequently exchanged duties
with Cadet Nohara, and returned to the military logistics base infirmary.
I once heard from talk among the men on duty that a young cadet from accounting was going out atnight without eating his dinner. I summoned him and told him to eat dinner properly before going out
or there could be a misunderstanding that he was always being entertained by vendors.
In December 1944, an entertainment troupe from Chiba Prefecture performed at the Militar y
Logistics Hall in the evening, and Superior Private Ichikawa—who was born in Chiba City—visitedthe performers in their dressing room. The was a sign posted on the dressing room door saying thatentry without permission was prohibited, but Ichikawa apparently ignored this and entered. Cadet
Nakanishi, who was in charge of the performances, happened to stop this soldier. He asked him whogave him permission to enter, and wound up hitting him suddenly. The leader of the entertainment
troupe said he could not bear to watch what was going on. I heard about this afterward from thetroupe leader, and so I called Cadet Nakanishi to my private room and asked him why he had hit asoldier in front of people from the soldier’s prefecture, and told Nakanishi that if he had issues with asoldier, he should call him to his own room later on and then hit him. That superior private came froma distinguished family in his region, and when he lived there, he served as a director of the Greater
Japan Imperial Rule Assistance Youth Corps. I admonished Nakanishi, saying that it is absolutely
unacceptable to hit a soldier in front of a civilian. I also knew this soldier’s family well because I camefrom the same region. Nakanishi may have wanted to show off in front of the people from this region
because he was young. Ichikawa should have told him he had received permission from me, but hehad an honest character and could not lie.
First Lieutenant Kawazoe, who was the barracks section chief, was an officer promoted from theranks with a dignified character. During Operation Togo, units advancing from northern China storedtransported luggage at the barracks in Hankou, and left behind soldiers to supervise the luggage.
Many of those soldiers were leading an idle life, on pretenses that they belonged to organizations
such as the “Hankou Liaison Station.” There were also soldiers who would not advance to the front
lines after being discharged from hospital treatment and stayed at the militar y logistics base’squarters for individual servicemen, as well as soldiers who shirked their duties by feigning illness
to avoid going to the front. Near the end of the war, the reservists in the lowest category of physicalfitness included many who were sick and weak, and lacked fighting spirit. Kawazoe thoroughly
investigated small units and lone soldiers, formed then into new units with the highest-ranking seniorsoldiers as their leaders, and sent them off to the front. The teams supervising luggage included
soldiers who were investigated by the military police for reselling government property and lavishly
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Wuhan military logistics basespending the proceeds. In addition to urging soldiers to fight more vigorously, an effort was made to
exercise supervision over small units such as luggage supervision teams and liaison stations. These
units were placed under the command of the military logistics base and their personnel came underthe base’s control. Because all of their provisions and fodder were supplied by the military logistics
base, it became impossible for black market elements to get involved. The requests for provisions
and fodder from each subordinate unit were complex, so the Freight Depot was happy with the lumpsum orders that were compiled at the military logistics base instead. First Lieutenant Kawazoe singlehandedly accepted all of these thankless jobs.

One Military Police Major
Major K of the Military Police Headquarters was an older officer who had been called to duty. He wasa short man with salt-and-pepper hair who had participated in the Siberian Intervention. He came tome, saying he wanted to inspect the comfort facilities because he had been newly placed in chargeof military logistics base affairs. I told him that was no problem at all, but he also said that at the endof the inspection he wanted to watch the physical examination of the comfort women, so I told him,
“Please ask the army surgeon in charge directly when you go to the comfort facility tomorrow.” Thearmy surgeon in charge then was Cadet Nohara, who was young but good-natured. After Major K wasshown through the guest rooms of each brothel, the cafeteria, and the clinic, he was rejected offhand
by Nohara who said, “I have never let anyone watch the physical examinations,” and K returned
dejectedly. Because Major K may have been offended because we had denied his request to watch thephysical examinations, we subsequently had an incident that may have been a case of harassment by
the military police.
A bag of sugar was discovered when luggage being carried in a rickshaw was inspected, and it wasdetermined that this had been diverted from the Soldiers’ Amusement Park, which was a military
logistics facility. For that reason, the manager of that facility was charged with violating the Economic
Control Order, and as the adjutant of the military logistics base, I was summoned to the court martial
as a witness. As it happened, there was a trial for rape by a soldier from the Akatsuki Unit scheduledjust before this trial, so I wound up unexpectedly attending that trial, which was closed to the public.
In September 1944, when General Yasuji Okamura was directing Operation Togo as the commanderof the 6th Area Army, he issued the “Five Precepts of the Unified Army Commander,” telling soldiers
to completely observe the spirit of the slogan “Attack the U.S. and honor the people,” and proclaimingthat soldiers should not burn, kill, or rape. These ideas were proclaimed up as slogans of the holy war.
For that reason, crimes such as arson, murder, and sexual assault were prosecuted especially harshly,
and military discipline was strictly enforced.
From what I heard, in this rape case, the defendant was hiding a motorized sailboat in the reeds by
the riverbank and would take shelter there during daytime air raids. When he went to the nearby
hamlet to procure goods, he dragged out a young girl who was hiding in a house after she had failed
to run away in time, and he raped her. The defendant responded to the questioning by the legal
officer and justified his acts by saying that the woman who failed to escape quietly took off her pants,
lay down on the dirt floor herself, wrapped her arms around him and moved her hips, and received
money afterward, so the intercourse was consensual. But the legal officer rejected this flat-out andadmonished him severely, saying that violently raping a young woman who was frightened andfacing death is absolutely inexcusable. The Army was strict and had abandoned the past practice ofoverlooking infractions when the accused had a record of meritorious service, and would not pardon

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Wuhan military logistics basesuch acts even when committed by veteran soldiers.
The Military Police Headquarters’ discovery that sugar from the Soldiers’ Amusement Park was
being sold on the black market was a great shock to everyone connected with the facility. On theother hand, this was a stroke of good luck for management purposes. We had frequently received
anonymous information that some of the managers of the inns, restaurants, and cafeterias inflated
the numbers of customers in their reports to the military logistics base and received supplies of extra
goods. It should have been possible to realize a huge profit by not selling the prescribed quantities,
and holding some back and selling them on the black market. Looking at my memo from January
1945, the market price of a 1.8-liter bottle of sake, which sold for 40 yen at the base canteen, was
850 yen.57 To obtain vegetables and other items, it was necessary to carry out a bit of black-market
activity, including barter with salt, and we were ready to treat such activity as an inevitable part ofgoods procurement. Nothing could be done when the military police officially took up a case. In suchcases, the vendors were fined.
The military police had special powers, and it became very difficult if you not on their side, so wealways made efforts to maintain friendly relations with them. The official stance was that the military
logistics base was responsible for maintaining order at the comfort facility. As excuses to seek
cooperation, we would go to the Military Police Squad for discussions, send the movie team to the
Military Police Squad, and otherwise worked at being conciliatory at all times. Several troublesome
incidents occurred, but because of such efforts at conciliation, the incidents were all resolvedsmoothly. I will now write down the main incidents that took place while I was the military logistics
base adjutant.
One incident was when Sergeant Kawamoto of the military logistics base was arrested by the military
police when he was caught in the act of stealing. Kawamoto was visiting his regular prostitute in
Jiqingli, and when she got up to wash, he went out with her long undergarment hidden wrappedaround his waist. Kawamoto ran right into a militar y policeman. He was reprimanded because a
red undergarment was showing under his military uniform. Kawamoto was drunk so he defied themilitary policeman, and was immediately hauled off to the Military Police Squad.
When I received a phone call about Kawamoto’s arrest and went to get him released, there was an
air raid. Having no choice, I wound up speaking with the sergeant major in charge inside an air raid
shelter. Kawamoto had completely sobered up and was meek. He had been reprimanded severely andkept overnight. This was not a case of undermining discipline, but rather a case of theft.
In the embezzlement case of Private First Class Oda, Oda had been asked by the female proprietor of
the Katsuya cafeteria in the city to sell her camera, and he was suspected of embezzling the money
after he took the camera home. Oda’s explanation was vague, and it seems that the female proprietor
had spoken with the military police. When I summoned Oda and asked him about this, he explainedthat the man who was buying the camera had gone to Daye and not yet returned, but that he was areliable man so it would be all right. Oda was a soldier in the Kakinuma Unit attached to the military
logistics base, and Unit Commander Kakinuma offered to have everyone pay for the camera, but that
could mean recognizing Oda’s embezzlement. So I met with the female proprietor of the Katsuya
cafeteria, asked her to wait until the man who was buying her camera returned, and she agreed. I had
this conveyed to the Military Police as well, and gained their approval. The case was settled when the
man returned and paid the money for the camera.
57

While the same character is used to write “yen” and “yuan” in the original text, since the author is referring to the street
price of sake off base, the market price may be 850 yuan, not 850 yen.

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Wuhan military logistics baseThe case of Cadet Matsuda losing a patrol map was as follows.
Many cadets who had graduated from the reserve officers’ cadet school were staying at the Hankou
unit barracks and were standing by, to be sent to the front. Until their departure, they were left withnothing to do, so they were lazing about idly, and perhaps because he found this to be an eyesore,
Army Surgeon Osawa ordered several of them out on patrol to inspect the state of hygiene at the
Army-designated restaurants. When those inspections were finished and mimeographed maps ofHankou City showing the locations of the army offices were to be collected, however, Cadet Matsuda
said he had thrown his map away, thinking it was no longer necessary. This somehow reached theears of the military police. They threatened to punish the loss of the military map as a violation of theMilitary Secrets Act, and a medical orderly came running to my office with a pale face. I immediately
went to the unit barracks, and when I called for Cadet Matsuda, he explained he had lost the map
after he returned to the barracks. I ordered him to immediately search for it. I then went to the
Military Police Squad, told them that the map would certainly be found, and asked them to overlook
the incident once it was located. Now the order issued by Army Surgeon Osawa to carry out hygiene
inspections was not an official order of the military logistics base, since no prior notification had
been given to the base. Regardless, it was not permissible for soldiers of other units to be punishedfor carrying out duties of the military logistics base, so Commander Araya was also concerned, andhe wound up visiting Military Police Squad Leader Hattori. I thought that if worst came to worst,
we could create a new map, submit it as the map that was lost, and settle the incident that way. Even
though this was a secret map for military use, it was simply a sketch of Hankou City with the military
logistics facilities, the Guard Unit’s Headquarters, Military Logistics Headquarters, Freight Depot,
Military Police Squad and other military offices that were well known among the locals marked,
and its loss would not cause any harm to the military. Nevertheless, once the military police became
serious, the incident took on an extra dimension.
In the end, the map was found, and the incident was resolved. This is an example of the ridiculous andmartinet-like attitude to the enforcement of rules that is particular to the Army.

The Double Suicide at Suigetsu
From the end of September through November 1944, autumn rains continued like the rainy season in
Japan. Possibly for that reason there were no air raids, as if they had been forgotten, and we enjoyeda stretch of carefree days. It was around that time that a double suicide occurred at the officers’
restaurant Suigetsu.
One day in September, there was a phone call at the militar y logistics base from the restaurant
Suigetsu, saying that the hostess Takane had drunk poison. I immediately set off to investigate
together with Army Surgeon Captain Yoshio Osawa, and we found that the woman named Takane had
attempted suicide together with an Army surgeon who was a captain from the Hayabusa Unit. Takane
was a small-framed but rather sophisticated and stylish woman.
They told us that the army surgeon who had spent the night did not wake up and come out, evenwhen it became nearly 10:00 a.m. When the madam knocked on the door, no one answered. She
thought something was wrong, forced the door open, and found the two on the verge of death fromhaving taken poison. She immediately called the Hayabusa Unit, which sent a car to pick up the
captain, and he was no longer there when we arrived.
Takane, who had been left behind, was in a coma, and in the room alone. But she was still alive, so for

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Wuhan military logistics basethe time being Army Surgeon Osawa injected a cardiac stimulant, pumped out her stomach, lifted her
tongue with disposable chopsticks so she could breathe, and tried to nurse her back to health, but she
could not be saved. A woman who had been in the next room said, “They were up talking until late atnight, and I heard them speaking quietly until after midnight. I also heard something like sobbing.”
When we looked, we found a pocket-sized volume of The Complete Works of Soseki Natsume in a redbinding by Takane’s pillow. When I picked it up, it was Volume 13: Collection of Literary Sketches.
Inside, there was an opened white envelope with a letter presumably written by the captain. I thought
this might be his will, but when I checked it was a love letter addressed to Takane, with the following
message in small, carefully written characters.
I was looking forward to going to your place early tonight, but I suddenly had to operate on apatient with appendicitis. I was thinking only about you during the operation. My unit will betransferred far away soon. Even though there are only a few days left for me to see you, thepatient’s condition is poor, and I cannot leave him alone. I am looking at the stars in the sky
right now and thinking only about you. I would be so happy if we could be together always
like the stars Altair and Vega. I am thinking about this keenly…
Two birds in cages without freedom. Maybe they hoped to realize their love—which could not be
attained in this world—in the next.
The adjutant of the Hayabusa Unit soon came to see me at the military logistics base. He said theywanted to somehow keep this incident secret. I replied that rather than coming to the militar ylogistics base, it would be better for him to first make that request to the Military Police Squad, and I
silently handed him the letter written by the captain. I heard that the captain also died eventually, but
I never found out how this incident was handled by the military police.
At Suigetsu, Takane’s room was left empty and not used after this incident. There were rumors ofwhispering voices in the middle of the night, and it seems the women were afraid and would not gonear the room. As a last resort, the proprietor asked the priest of Higashi Honganji Temple to comeand recite sutras for the repose of the dead. Workers from Suigetsu and those concerned from themilitary logistics base gathered in Takane’s room that evening, had a drink, sang war songs that were
becoming popular at the time including one that went “So long, Hankou, until we meet again,” anddrove away the ghosts who were haunting the room. On their urging, I also sang the “Hakutosan
bushi” (Paektu mountain song), which is one of my favorites.
Do not cry, do not lament, and come meet me at Kudanzaka. I will return without fail, with asmall box made of paulownia wood covered with brocade cloth.

Days at the Military Logistics BaseAround the middle of October 1944, Tosuke Yoshida, who was a commentator on China and the headof the editorial board of the Shanghai News, came to Hankou from Shanghai. With permission from
Commander Araya, I went to pick up Yoshida one evening at the Chuo Hotel to come to the military
logistics base and give a lecture. After Yoshida spoke about the future of the Second World War, there
was an interesting question and answer session at a discussion session for officers only. Yoshida’sview was that Chiang Kai-shek was not pro-British and pro-American as reported since he was
Oriental after all, and that he seemed to be thinking deeply about China’s independence. Yoshida said
Chiang believed that if the great war ended in the victory of the anti-Axis powers, Chinese cities would
fall to Anglo-American capitalism, while rural farm villages would be invaded by Soviet communism,
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Wuhan military logistics baseand China’s independence would be more uncertain. Yoshida said that the death of Wang Jingwei58
was not necessarily disadvantageous for Japan, and conversely, that the consequent rise of a thirdforce could be expected to move forward an alliance between Japan and China in the future.
The proprietor of the Shimeido Bookstore, Yasuyuki Uematsu, held a banquet for Yoshida at the
Ginsetsu restaurant which was attended by Shanghai Daily Bureau Chief Sakata, Sawakichi Ichidaof the Wuhan Patriotic Association, and other notables. I was the only person from the military who
had been invited. At the table, Yoshida spoke about the fish of Yangtze River while we all enjoyedauthentic Chinese cuisine.
After his speech, however, a man came from the consulate police and asked various questions
about Yoshida’s remarks. Reluctantly, I dealt with him appropriately and sent him off. I did not hearanything from the Military Police Squad. (Please refer to Shanghai muhen (Infinite Shanghai) thatwas published by Chuo Koronsha in March 1949 regarding Yoshida’s plans to make peace between
Japan and China during the war.)
While this happened earlier, I was asked by the Yangtze Militar y Logistics Branch commander,
Sergeant Major Mizuochi, to attend a public order maintenance meeting on October 9, 1944, so I
attended. The representatives from all the hamlets in the pacification district gathered, including a
71-year-old man with a long beard like Ma Zhanshan59 and dark skin, a man with red eyes who may
have been suffering from trachoma, a man with a shiny shaved head, a man with long hair neatly
parted down the middle who said he was attending as proxy for his father, and a man wearing black
eyeglasses. I spent one night, returned by the regularly scheduled shuttle the following morning, andreported to Commander Araya.
I then received a message from First Lieutenant Yasukawa, from the Ota Unit’s Liaison Station. He
reported that Commander Ota had gone to Linxiang, which was a strategic point on the GuangzhouHankou Railway, by airplane and spent the night, On the return flight, the plane went missing
near Puqi, and a search was taking place from the sky and from the land. The plane may havemade an emergency landing. The unit’s Presentation Day60 celebration was postponed indefinitely,
and Yasukawa returned a shamisen. The day after the meeting of unit commanders, I had told
Commander Araya how I received various courtesies from Commander Ota when I was ser vingas the Shayangzhen Branch commander, and Commander Araya proposed inviting him to dinner.
Araya invited Ota to the Fusokaku restaurant two days later. That dinner party was attended byCommander Ota, his adjutant, Paymaster Hiyama, and First Lieutenant Yasukawa from their side,and by Commander Araya and me from our side. At the dinner, Paymaster Hiyama mentioned that
the Presentation Day celebrations at their unit were to be held soon, and he wanted to borrow a
shamisen if there was one available for the soldiers’ entertainment. We had one sent from the officers’
restaurant Gion and handed it to him. That evening the adjutant said he was not feeling well andhardly ate at all, so Paymaster Hiyama accompanied Commander Ota to Linxiang in place of the
adjutant, and ended up in this aerial accident. Commander Ota was the leader of the 31st Motorized
Regiment, and he was promoted posthumously to major general.
I received a phone call from Sergeant Major Mizuochi in Yangtze, who said that the chairman of
the Public Order Maintenance Committee in Wu Tong Kou—who had attended the meeting the
day before—had been murdered that morning. Mizuochi said Wang Jingwei’s guards had come to58

Wang was the president of the Japanese-backed Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China.
Ma was a Chinese general who fought the Japanese.
60
Presentation Days were festivals when military bases would be opened to the general public.
59

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Wuhan military logistics baserequisition coolies, and when the chairman refused, saying that was not possible without a certificate
from the militar y logistics base, he was abruptly shot and died immediately. Mizuochi said thechairman’s daughter came to inform the military logistics branch, and he was about to go investigate.
I told him to exercise caution, and he said he would bring a squad of armed men. The elderly man
who was killed had a kind and gentle face. When I had asked how many children he had, he told me
he had five grandchildren and smiled. He had left the meeting early saying he was ill, and went homealone in the wind. I could see the smiling face of this old man, who didn’t even drink, in my mind’seye.
One afternoon, I received a letter saying that the treatment of guests by the military logistics base
was poor, so I went to the officers’ restaurant Gion to investigate. I summoned the young geisha
called Kimitatsu and said to her, “We received a complaint from Adjutant Izumi, from the Guard Unit’s
Headquarters, that the treatment of customers here is bad. What happened?” She crossly replied,“When he came and spent the night, a waitress told me a customer I know had just returned fromthe front, and when I got up and instructed her to carry bedding to the parlor downstairs, he became
jealous and complained all night. He finally said he was going to report me to the adjutant at the
military logistics base. Ridiculous!” Then a geisha named Inafuku, who had long eyelashes and a jaw
that stuck out appeared.
I asked her, “Aren’t you cold dressed like that?”“I have my underwear on, so I am not cold. More than clothing, what I want is a pair of socks. Even
with a lined kimono, a geisha cannot work without socks.”
I told her, “Ok. I will speak with the Freight Depot for you.”
Then an older geisha named Kosuzu, who had recently recited the Gidayu sanjusangendo to her own
accompaniment when the geisha from Gion visited the hospital to entertain the soldiers, came out andoffered to perform the climax of Ninokuchi mura, but I declined saying I would listen to it on anotheroccasion when I had more time. Kosuzu was delighted that I understood Gidayu, because I told her I
liked the blind performer Koma-tayu from the Osaka Bunraku Theater.
We sent off the spirits of the war dead at 6:00 p.m. The remains of solders from the 11th Army whodied in combat or from disease have been enshrined at the military logistics base, but they were toleave Hankou on the Koyo Maru at midnight and were to be ferried down the Yangtze River, so we
saw them off at Pier 22. I rode in a Plymouth together with the commander, and we went to the pier.
The remains, which were then enshrined at the front of the first-class dining hall at the direction of
the captain, were in 23 large boxes wrapped in white cloth. We offered incense and returned.
At night, Paymaster First Lieutenant Noguchi came to say he had been invited by Wang Wenming of
the New Market Theater to celebrate the National Day of the Republic of China, and asked me to joinhim. At the dinner, when we spit out the chicken bones, a large dog walked around under the table
and ate them. The Chinese opera performance that night was Er Jin Gong.
We came back part way through the performance at 11:00 p.m. Paymaster Noguchi suggested wedrop by Jiqingli, so we did. When we checked the register at Hananoya, we found that a lot of selfrestraint was being practiced. The head clerk must have called because the proprietor of Hananoya
and Business Association Assistant Director Kaneda soon came. We chatted, and went back at
midnight when the lights were turned off. There had not been any air raids for around one week.
Large, three-stor y buildings were lined up along the dark main street with no traffic, like stage

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Wuhan military logistics basescenery. The vermillion moon rose in between the buildings. It was a strangely cold and eerie night.
While I was serving as the Wuhan Military Logistics Base adjutant, when I had free time, I would
walk about, searching for Chinese bookstores and visiting libraries. I will now write about when I was
asked by Yoshu Mizuno to send a book about stars to Hoei Nojiri, my meeting with Army writers, andtwo or three other odd incidents.
Hoei Nojiri graduated from Waseda University one year after Yoshu Mizuno. Nojiri worked as theeditor in chief of Kenkyusha, and then served in various posts as a lecturer at Waseda University,
but he is better known as an astronomy researcher than as an English literature scholar. Nojiri wrote
many educational books including Seiza junrei (Pilgrimage of the constellations) and Hoshi to tozai
bungaku (Stars and Eastern and Western literature), and he was close friends with Mizuno. In May
1943, I received a letter from Mizuno, saying that Nojiri was looking for ancient Chinese literature,
so I wanted to find something unusual and send it to him. I found a book called Chinese Literature at
the library of Huachung University, and when I looked at the section about astronomy, there were thenames of astronomy books written in Chinese characters along with explanations in English written
underneath. Using this information, I found Jingtian Gai by Matteo Ricci, Star Catalog by Shi Shen,and other books, and sent them to him.
I wrote in a letter to Nojiri that to teach my men the locations of the stars when I was posted to
Chichijima Island in the Ogasawara Islands, I used concepts such as the “number of hours” and“fractionation” from the North Star. The “number of hours” refers to the face of a clock indicatingup, down, left and right, and “fractionation” refers to the distance between the three fingers fromthe index finger to the ring finger used to show a shooting target. Nojiri later asked me about
fractionation.
I do not remember why I sent that letter to Japan. Anyway, I mailed a book about seals called the Book
of Ancient Seals to Kozo Hoda, who was in my platoon at Chichijima Island, thinking it might be usefulfor his seal engraving. Along with the book, I enclosed the Ming Dynasty Star Map, which I had foundfor Nojiri, in the same package. I believe Hoda handed the map over to Nojiri when he visited him at
Kenkyusha.
The letter from Nojiri read:
Mr. Hoda, whom you mentioned in your letter, visited me yesterday and I received the copyof Ming Dynasty Star Map. It is a reproduction of this rare work. I had heard of its name, but
I never thought I would find a copy. The work resembles the original, and I was very happy
to receive it. I will cherish it for a long time together with the star map I received as a giftfrom a second lieutenant while he was stationed in central China like yourself, who returned.
Mr. Hoda talked about you fondly. He said, “There was no superior of ficer who could
talk about the stars so well in other units.” He himself is also a likeable man with a gentle
appearance. Hoda is presently working as a teacher at a high school for girls, and his healthhas completely recovered. I am planning to get your home address from him and to send yourchildren a copy of the new children’s book Nihon no hoshi no hon (Japanese book of stars). At
any rate, I repeatedly pray for your good health and look forward to warmly welcoming you
and celebrating when you return. (Beer should become plentiful by then.)
When I went over to Wuchang together with Commander Araya for the appointment of a newcommander of the prisoner of war camp, I went off by myself to a Chinese library in Hubei Province,
looked for books about astronomy, and found an ancient star chart, so I decided to go one more time
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Wuhan military logistics baseand copy it. This chart had a Chinese-Western constellation comparison table, and I copied part ofit before returning. I subsequently found that book at a street stall, and sent it to Nojiri. The chart’stable:
Aldebaran (Taurus) 畢宿
Canopus (Carina) 老人
Rigel (Orion) 参宿
Algol (Perseus) 大陵
Capella (Auriga) 五車
Vega (Lyra) 織女
Altair (Aquila) 河鼓
Castor (Gemini) 北河
Sirius (Canis Major) 天狼
Antares (Scorpius) 心宿
Deneb (Cygnus) 天洋
Mizar (Ursa Major) 開陽
Nojiri had a section called “A Random Selection of Star Books” in a book he later wrote, which said:
Regarding Chinese star books, I have added a few books including Jing tian gai ( 経 天 該 )which were gifts from Seikichi Kimura (my name was given incorrectly), who was at the front
during the war. In my diary, however, the title of that book was Jing tian yi ( 経 天 議 ), so I
asked Nojiri about this discrepancy. He explained, “It is the Jing tian gai, which, in contrast
to the famous Butiange61 by Dan Yuanzi in the Sui dynasty, is a book that was edited by the
Christian missionary Matteo Ricci, and while both books have the same verse form, the Jing
tian gai adopts the Western constellations, so it is very interesting to compare them. The date
I received the book from you was August 10, 1944, and I wrote that down together with yourname.
I found a celestial globe at a second-hand store on Huang Pi Road. While I had a terrestrial globe,
a celestial globe is unusual, so I bought it right away and put it on my desk. This was not Chinese,but rather appeared to be foreign, and the constellations were engraved in the Western style. I kept
it carefully because I wanted to deliver it to Nojiri. It was tiny, with a diameter of just around fivecentimeters.
In the summer of 1944, a large number of writers came to Hankou at the invitation of the journalism
team. Jun Takami also must have come, but I did not meet him. Einosuke Ito said he wanted totour agricultural villages, and one evening I accompanied him to the New Market Theater to watch
Chinese opera. With Hiroshi Ueda, I stopped by a certain tea house on Jiang Han Road, handed him
a concession edition of Chin P’ing Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), and had him bring it back toJapan. That book was lost during an air raid on Chiba. I met Kazuo Dan at the Yosuko Hotel andasked him to deliver a book on stars to Nojiri, but he left that book in the barracks when he escaped
61

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Butiange is sometimes translated as Pacing the Heavens.
Wuhan military logistics baseduring an air raid. Keishichi Ishiguro came to my room one evening, saying he wanted to change
hotels. He saw the slender-necked vase on top of my desk and praised it. The characters, reading“Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal” were written on the bottom rim, so it had once belonged to the court,
and accordingly it had paintings of the dragon and phoenix. Commander Itabashi had given it to me
as a memento when he departed for the front, and there was another small vase with a painting of aflower basket with autumn flowers on a white background which had “Made during the reign of the
Qing Dynasty Qianlong Emperor” written on its bottom rim. Ishiguro also noticed a pile of English
books on ukiyoe paintings, and he told me he had found an original self-portrait by Hokusai in Paris.
Ishiguro moved to the Kairiku Hotel, if I am not mistaken.
My eldest son, Yasuyoshi, once asked me to send him some Chinese postage stamps. I had him sendme some commemorative stamps recently issued in Japan to trade them with a Chinese collector. I
took these and visited Ren Futian, who was the director of the Zhongjiang Industrial Bank.62 Whileconversing using writing,63 he showed me a variety of Chinese stamps. He said these were leftovers
and that I should feel free to take as many of them as I liked, so I shamelessly took many andreturned to the base. I gave him stamps issued in Japan commemorating the first anniversary of theGreater East Asia War, the fall of Singapore, the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the Imperial
Rescript on Education, and the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of Japan,64 and he was delighted.
He thanked me politely. In his albums with stamps from each country, which he showed me later, I
was surprised to see that the commemorative stamps from Japan that I had given him were already
mounted. He was generous, as one would expect of a great man of China.
I somehow got along well with Army Surgeon Eiichi Osaki, of the Itabashi Unit Headquarters, andI would often visit him and chat late into the night. However, he hardly ever came to visit me at the
military logistics base. I was usually the one who went. I would go in the evening, get a haircut, takea bath, and have dinner and talk without drinking very much. Osaki had graduated from Kanazawa
Medical University, and he came from Uozu City in Toyama Prefecture. Perhaps because Commander
Itabashi was strict, the food at the Itabashi Unit was much better than that at the Military Logistics
Headquarters, and that was one more attraction. On top of Osaki’s desk was a picture of his young
and beautiful wife. He had some good quality Chinese ink and he said he would give me a block,but I didn’t take one. We went our separate ways when he was sent to Changsha during Operation
Togo. After the war, I spent one night in Uozu when I went to Kanazawa around 1948, and Osaki wasoperating a clinic. He had patients who were in urgent need of treatment, so we hardly had any time
to talk. Osaki passed away in December 1966 when he was 48 years old.

The Prisoners of War Who Were Dragged Through Town
Around the middle of November 1944, when I went to report to the 34th Army Headquarters, I
happened to run into Second Lieutenant Ishii, who was the leader of the journalism team. Ishii had
been a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper before he was drafted. A ceremony commemorating
the third anniversary of the Greater East Asia War was to take place on December 8, 1944, and aconference of meeting of media managers was being held. Ishii asked me if I wanted to attend as anobserver. I declined because whipping up war sentiment among civilians was not one of my duties at
the military logistics base. Incidentally, at this conference, they discussed a plan to parade American
62

Also known as the Middle Yangtze Industrial Bank.
Japanese and Chinese who were unable to speak each other’s languages could sometimes communicate using messages
written in Chinese characters.
64
Legend says that the Emperor Jimmu, the first Emperor of Japan, ascended to the throne in 660 B.C.
63

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Wuhan military logistics baseaviators who were prisoners of war through Hankou City. The plan was to turn over the prisoners who
were under investigation by the Hankou Military Police Squad to the Wuhan Propaganda Association,and to have the Association parade the prisoners around the city and encourage hostile feelings
against the evil British and Americans.
I did not see this parade, but according to Hamada, the Manager of the Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 2,
an American serviceman covered with blood helped a comrade who was collapsing get up onto theplatform at the Zhongshan Road traffic circle. Hamada knitted his brow, saying it was horrible. It was
the Chinese people, of course, who threw stones and beat the airmen’s faces. He said that plainclothes
military police escorted the parade.
The two American pilots who had been dragged around were returned to the Military Police Squadon the verge of death, and they died without receiving medical attention. There was also a rumor thatthey may have secretly been strangled.
Possibly as retaliation, Hankou was carpet bombed by 150 B-29s from noon on December 18. A
ferocious air raid with bombs and incendiary bombs continued until evening, and the attack targeted
the military facilities on the banks of the Yangtze River, the Japanese concession, and the German
concession. The elementary schools, girls’ schools, consulates and other buildings in the area werereduced to ashes.
Then on January 14, 1945, Hankou was raided by 80 B-29s, and the former Russian concession, theentire French concession, the city government, Nishi Honganji Temple, the Military Logistics Hall,and the Anglican Church on Hanjing Street were destroyed by fire. Our fire-fighting preparations
were insufficient to deal with the repeated dropping of incendiary bombs, and there was nothing we
could do. In the evening I heard that the Military Logistics Hall was in danger, so I passed under thefalling sparks to go nearby and have a look, but the hall had already burned down, and a large beam
was vigorously burning underneath. Yet, aside from the Military Logistics Hall, which was inside theformer British concession, the other military facilities (Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 1, Soldiers’ Dormitory
No. 2, the quarters for individual soldiers, the unit barracks, the officers’ clubs, the special comfort
facilities, etc.) were all in the Chinese district, and remained unharmed.
After the war, an advance party from the U.S. occupation forces came to investigate the dragging
incident and demanded that the remains of the two men be turned over. The 6th Area Army
Headquarters was in a difficult position. They unofficially begged the military logistics base to sharesome remains of dead Japanese soldiers which were kept at the military logistics base. Preparations
were made at the Enshrined Deities Section to secretly putt remains into wooden boxes and writing
name tags in English. When I heard about this, I asserted that we should clearly reject that request
because I was the military logistics base adjutant at that time, and I knew that the prisoners had notbeen cremated at the military base crematorium. The military police and crematorium workers soon
confirmed that the prisoners had been cremated at the private crematorium, proving that the military
logistics base had nothing to do with the matter.
(This case was tried by the U.S. Military Tribunal in Shanghai after the war, and five defendants were
executed, including Masataka Kaburagi, who was the Chief of the 34th Army General Staff Office,and some of the militar y police who were involved. Hankou Militar y Police Commander Kameji
Fukumoto was sentenced to life in prison, and Hankou Consul Manabe was sentenced to three years
imprisonment. Because the head of the 34th Army, Lieutenant General Tadayoshi Sano died from
illness, and the head of the Hankou Military Police, Lieutenant Colonel Moritsugu Hattori committed

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Wuhan military logistics basesuicide, their indictments were dismissed. The 34th Army Headquarters was relocated to northern
Korea before the war ended, so Second Lieutenant Ishii, who was the head of the Journalism Team,was detained in Siberia after the war and tried in absentia.)

The Deaths of Two American Aviators
Speaking of American aviators, we once detained two American airmen at the Hankou Militar y
Logistics Base’s prisoner of war camp. These prisoners were on a reconnaissance plane that crashlanded near Changsha.
We received a phone call from the Army in October 1944, and it was decided that the Militar y
Logistics Base would take custody of these prisoners. Japan’s war on the continent was an extensionof the Second Sino-Japanese War, for which no declaration of war was made, so Chinese prisoners
were not officially treated as prisoners of war. Americans prisoners were made captives after adeclaration of war, so I thought they had to be treated as official prisoners of war pursuant to the lawsof war, and when I asked the Army about this, they said that was correct.
After I checked the relevant laws and issued orders based on the laws, I went to the prisoner of war
camp and met directly with the two American airmen. I told them I would offer them every amenity as
far as the rules allowed, and asked them if they wanted anything. One was a major and the other was asergeant. The tall major was a professor at some university. He said he was a Christian and asked me
to lend him a Bible. When I asked him why a great power like the United States would attack a weak
and small country like Japan, he said that Japan is small but strong. I asked him how the war would
end, and he said with a laugh that it would end with a U.S. victory. I later had an English language
copy of the Old and New Testaments that I owned delivered to him.
A few days later, I found the familiar leather-bound Bible placed on top of my desk. I was told it hadcome from the prisoner of war camp. When I called the camp to inquire, there had been a sudden
direct order from the Army, and they were turning over the American prisoners to men from the
Hayabusa Unit who came to get them. There was a message from the American major sending his
regards to me, and saying he had returned my Bible.
I immediately issued orders to turn over the prisoners, and later had these printed and distributed tothe concerned parties. While the American prisoners were being escorted to Nanjing, the ship they
were on was bombed and sank in the Yangtze River, and they went missing.
After the war, when I was assigned to the 6th Area Army Public Relations Office in Wuchang, I was
called to the Military Headquarters to deal with questions about these prisoners. They said that thetwo prisoners who had entered the Hankou prisoner of war camp had never left. Of course, this was
only on paper. Perhaps the orders to turn over the prisoners which I had sent to the authorities inquestion never arrived, or were not included in the Military Headquarters records. If the fact that theprisoners left the Hankou prisoner of war camp could not be proven, then the military logistics basecommander and adjutant at that time would be held responsible. That is what the Army had to say.
The binder holding the orders and the staff diar y from the militar y logistics base had alreadybeen burned and thrown away. I thought it was a waste of time, but I went to the Military Logistics
Headquarters and looked through documents. Of course, there was no reason to expect that thewritten order would be there, but I found a copy of a receipt written in pen on military lined paper
inside a binder of miscellaneous documents which had remained without being burnt. This receipt
was written as follows, and had a thumbprint.
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Wuhan military logistics base“1. American prisoner Craig Wick,65 and one other prisoner.
Have duly received the above.
__ Year __ Month __ Day, Army Second Lieutenant ______, Hayabusa Unit No. ____.”
I brought this to the Military Headquarters right away and fulfilled the responsibilities of the military
logistics base. It is not my concern how the Army settled this matter afterward.

Murder at the Kaikosha Army Club
Mr. Ishida, the proprietor of Officers Quarters Choko Hotel, which was a Military Logistics facility,
also operated a cafeteria at the Kaikosha Army Club in Hankou. Around the summer of 1944, aveteran who came from Japan was employed as the manager of club.
However, he and Ishida did not get along, and at the end of the year, Ishida was suddenly forced toquit. I do not know the details, but Ishida said he would return to Japan after the New Year, and hecame to pay his respects to me, who was the military logistics base adjutant at the time. I told Ishida
he should return to Japan as quickly as possible since the conditions were getting worse and it would
become difficult to return, and we parted. But he could not book passage on a ship, and he apparently
remained in Hankou for about a month.
One evening in February, when I was reading a book I had borrowed from the Soldiers’ Library in
my room, a medical orderly entered and said, “We just received a phone call saying that someone
has been shot with a pistol at the Kaikosha Army Club. They want us to send an army surgeon rightaway. Army Surgeon Osawa is ready to leave, and he says he wants you to go with him.” Osawa and I
rushed off to the Kaikosha Army Club in an automobile, taking along the medical orderly.
Two militar y policemen had already arrived. The retired lieutenant colonel, who was the clubmanager, and the driver had died immediately. Apparently, the pistol had been fired by Ishida.
Ishida had been assigned a room at the Kaikosha Army Club and was living together with his wifeand children. He may have gone mad. He went to the managers’ room alone, and suddenly shot the
manager with his gun. The driver, who was surprised by the sound of gunfire, came running from thenext room and was also shot the moment they met. Ishida disappeared, and they said it seemed hewas still hiding somewhere inside the building.
Ishida’s wife had fainted when she heard this news, and Army Surgeon Osawa went off to take care ofher.
The medical orderly suggested “Adjutant, let’s go look at the scene,” and we went into a pitch-black
hallway using flashlights to find our way. It felt creepy knowing that Ishida, who had gone berserk,
was hiding somewhere in the darkness. When we entered the manager’s room, the lights wereshining brightly. The manager was dead, sitting face down in front of his dinner. It seems he was shot
through the forehead, and a line of blood was flowing out like a red thread. I was also surprised at
the sumptuous nature of his dinner, which was still untouched. While such meals were a part of hisjob, I could not believe my eyes, seeing how he was having such luxurious meals while our forceswere fighting critical battles. In the hallway, the driver who had been shot through the heart and diedinstantly was lying face up, in a pool of blood.

65

163

The name has been rendered phonetically.
Wuhan military logistics baseThe army surgeon finished his autopsy in the presence of the military police, and we returned to thebedside of Ishida’s wife, who had fainted. The military police were quietly questioning the cafeteria
women and office clerks, taking notes. There was no sign they had made any effort to search for theperpetrator. A heavy silence ruled, and it felt as time was passing very slowly.
Then we suddenly heard a bang, which sounded like a gunshot, from a room on the third floor. The
military police and clerks ran up, and said that Ishida had committed suicide. When I followed them
upstairs, Ishida was leaning on a desk face down, dead. He had placed the gun in his mouth andpulled the trigger, and the bullet had pierced his skull and lodged in the ceiling.
There was a suicide note scribbled in pencil on small letter paper on top of the desk addressed to noone, which read: “I am terribly sorry it came to this. I will take responsibility and die. Please look after
my wife and children.”
As soon as the autopsy was completed, the staff at the Kaikosha Army Club brought coffins fromsomewhere right away, put in the bodies of the manger and driver, called the Buddhist priest Taizen
Nakanishi from Minobusan Betsuin Temple, and had him recite sutras.
Meanwhile, dealing with the remains of Ishida, who had committed suicide, was a hopeless task. His
wife was sick in bed, and his frightened little children crouched by her side. Having no other choice,I decided to deal with the aftermath of the suicide at the military logistics base. We finally put Ishida
into a coffin late at night and had the same Buddhist priest recite sutras.
The priest said, “People who are shot and those who do the shooting all become Buddhas once they
are dead,” and politely recited the sutras. The priest had a goatee on his chin, and wore a shorthemmed clerical garment and shoes suitable for a battlefield priest. He was a man with strong moral
character.
While the priest said they had all become Buddhas, funerals were conducted separately at two
locations: Nishi Honganji Temple and Wuhan Temple. As the military logistics base adjutant, I had toattend both funerals.
Why did Ishida commit violence in this way? Even looking at his scribbled suicide note, there is no
way to tell whether the act was premeditated or impulsive. In any event, he must have had someextreme discord or grudge. I did not know those details, and I did not inquire.
I had visited Ishida in his room at the Choko Hotel on an errand in the past. He had a copy of Genkai(Sea of words) by Fumihiko Otsuki on top of his desk. I thought that was unusual and when I pickedup the book and looked at it, Ishida said, “Section Chief, I will give it to you if you want it. Please takeit with you,” and I accepted the book saying, “Then please donate it to the Solders’ Library. We willkeep it there,” and I brought it back.
The retired lieutenant colonel who had been murdered had come to the military logistics base on
one occasion. He had an extremely arrogant attitude and demanded, “Turn over some of the books
from the Soldiers’ Library to the Kaikosha Army Club. Such highbrow books are inappropriate forsoldiers.” I refused his request. Perhaps for that reason, after that he would look the other way andsay nothing whenever I greeted him in the street.

Inflation and Signs of Defeat
The navigation of large ships on the Yangtze River was suspended because of persistent attacks by164

Wuhan military logistics base

U.S. planes, and only small vessels that were transporting military supplies were allowed to makeemergency trips. Electricity was restricted because of a shortage of coal, and with a shortage of tablesalt, there was also a lack of commodities that were necessary to sustain daily life. Symptoms ofinflation emerged, and the value of Central Reserve Bank of China notes fell further and further. To
buy the women’s affections, soldiers going to the comfort station gave generous tips in addition to the
fixed fees, as well as soap, cigarettes and other rationed goods more frequently than in the past. The
women also became greedy, and some of them even started to openly demand goods. Rather than themoney required to pay off their debts, goods became more important to live.
The comfort women could quickly identify the units the men came from by looking at the insignia on
their chests. Soldiers from the Freight Depot, who wore a cherry blossom insignia, were the mostpopular because they had soap, cigarettes, and other goods which they obtained as perquisites orfrom outside their allotted rations through friendship with comrades. Only soldiers from the military
logistics base and the Guard Unit’s headquarters were entertained at Jiqingli at the official prices.
That was not possible for regular soldiers. I worked to eliminate this unfairness by guiding andsupervising the brothel owners and women, but I could not possibly prevent the invisible wave ofgreat inflation. There were countless complaints that men who had come from the front were being
asked to pay outrageous prices.
The Military Logistics canteen was established for soldiers staying at the quarters for individual
soldiers, and it sold sake, cigarettes, sweets, towels, tissue paper, soap and other sundries, but the
Kyokko cigarettes and other prized bartering items were seldom sold to military personnel who were
not officers.
The monthly salar y of a superior private at that time was around 24 Japanese yen, including the
war zone allowance, or around 133 yuan in Central Reserve Bank of China notes. The prices at thecanteen were kept low enough so that a soldier could go out around twice a month, drink a glass of
sake, eat lunch, and watch a movie or be entertained at the comfort facility on the way back, but withthe sudden depreciation of Central Reserve Bank of China notes, such activities became impossible.
Yet the soldiers had quite a lot of money from activities such as selling rations. At the end of 1944, myorderly bought a 1.8-liter bottle of sake and two packs of Kyokko cigarettes as rations for the officers.
The proprietor of the Toseiro brothel in Jiqingli happened to be visiting the military logistics base justthen, and he complained that he could not even drink sake for the New Year, so I gave him the bottle
that I had.
I could not drink much sake, and I did not smoke, but I was sometimes asked by officers from units
that were in transit to buy high-quality sake, confiscated foreign cigarettes, and other goods at the
Freight Depot canteen for their superior officers. But that was also troublesome, so I purchased these
items in advance and kept them in my office cabinet. I always kept Fukumusume top-quality sake, as
well as Three Castles, Ruby Queen, and other foreign cigarettes on hand. These cigarettes and otheritems were almost all for me to give to others.
Prices began to surge at a feverish pace after the New Year, once 1945 began. I have the results of asurvey on market prices for the procurement of supplementary provisions and fodder in March ofthat year. The survey, which was conducted by Superior Private Takeuchi from the accounting officeof the Yuezhou Military Logistics Headquarters, reads as follows.
I investigated the market prices of supplementar y provisions and fodder in the Yuezhou
District the other day. When I say I investigated the prices, there were no accurate statistics,

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Wuhan military logistics baseand I just asked the Cooperative Society and the consulate police for the prices of certain
goods. Moreover, there were substantial discrepancies among the prices that were reported.
The prices were roughly as follows. (The prices are expressed in Central Reserve Bank of
China yuan notes).
Beef: 320 yuan
Pork: 360 yuan
Table salt: 1,400 yuan
Sugar: 300 yuan
Chinese cabbage: 120 yuan
Leafy green vegetables: 100 yuan
Fish: 480 yuan
Prawns: 360 yuan (The above prices are per kilogram.)
White rice: 20,000 yuan (per 150 kg.)
Chicken eggs: 30 yuan each
Tofu: 20 yuan each
These prices are 4 to10 times higher than they were in the same month of the previous year
(March 1944).
Purchases by units were normally calculated based on a fixed amount per soldier. Of course,that was no longer sufficient to cover the costs, so the shortage was paid for with table salt,
which was used for barter. The price of table salt also varied from region to region. In thisregion, where units that advanced south and returned were garrisoned, the market priceof table salt rose because too much salt was paid by units that were not familiar with thelocal prices, which also pushed up the price of agricultural goods. Therefore, centralizedpurchasing by the Cooperative Society, which is responsible for procuring supplies, is one way
to solve this problem. Yet, no measures have been taken regarding this matter.
The survey also said the price of a pack of Kyokko cigarettes, which sold for 0.8 yen at the canteen,
had a market price of 1,000 yen.66 Both the units and the soldiers, as individuals, were placed at themercy of these skyrocketing prices and this madness. Of course, the military had no effective means
to counter this invisible, powerful enemy either.

66

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This may be 1,000 yuan, since the same character is used to write “yen” and “yuan.”
Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 9

Militar y Logistics Base Adjutant’s Diar y
1944-1945
When I was looking at books at the Hankou Bookstore, I found Kyoshi Takahama’s haiku collection
Gohyakku (500 poems). This was a 436-page octavo-sized edition published by Kaizosha in June
1937. It had about one poem per page with a lot of blank space, so I bought it and used it in place of anotebook. I purchased an extra copy and gave it to Commander Horie, and it seems he used it to write
down his poetry.
I used it to jot down my personal history and memories from when my children were born, and later
for miscellaneous notes.
After I was appointed the adjutant at the Wuhan Military Logistics Base, I used the book in place ofa diary and wrote in it, on and off. Here, I present excerpts from the diary entries when I was themilitary logistics base adjutant from the end of 1944 through the spring of 1945, with the hope of
conveying a bit of the frantic atmosphere at the Wuhan Military Logistics Base, which was subject toair raids.
When I read this now, although the writing is rather detailed in some places, on the whole—likethe entry “Kojiro (the woman from the comfort facility) came and cried,” which does not say why
she cried—it is senseless because it lacks context. I meant to write about both public and personalmatters, but the diary is mostly about private matters, which is embarrassing.
December 16, 1944
There was a car going to the 34th Army’s headquarters, so I got a ride. I had them let me off near
the Hankou Japanese Residents Association and proceeded to the girls’ high school. The daughterof Mr. Yoshioka, the Assistant Director of the Young Women’s Association, was there. I asked her toshow me some Chinese books downstairs which had not been burned, but she could not open thedoor because the key did not fit the yale lock. I met the newly appointed principal, and he spoke about
various matters. The principal told me that Mr. Yoshioka used to go to the Hubei Province municipal
government offices in Wuchang from time to time, but that he had suffered a minor case of cerebral
thrombosis in September and was now resting at his home next to the former French consulate, andthat I should pay him a visit.
I visited Mr. Fukuchi, a clerk at the Japanese consulate general. The Chinese books that Fukuchi
had spent several months painstakingly sorting through had nearly all been reduced to ashes. The
loss of the Collection of 60 Yuan Dynasty Musical Dramas and Lyric Poems, which I fondly remember,and other Song dynasty books, was very regrettable. We went to the girls’ high school together andlooked through various books that had escaped the fire, and parted, promising to meet at Hanjing
Street at 10:00 a.m. the next day.
December 17
I went to the church on Hanjing Street at 10:00 a.m. and looked through a wide range of books
in English into the afternoon. I selected Inazo Nitobe’s Bushido, The Soul of Japan, Dr. Masaharu
Anesaki’s History of Japanese Religion, a book about rock gardens, a book about urban planning,
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Wuhan military logistics baseRichard Burton’s Arabian Nights, a collection of all of Shakespeare’s works, The Outline of History by
H.G. Wells, essays by Charles Lamb, a collection of poetry by John Keats, a book about Chinese plays,
and a book about ukiyoe painting from a pile of Western-language books.
December 18
I went out to look for books again in the morning and finished checking through the books that had
been privately owned by foreigners. I finally found Wayside and Woodland Ferns by Edward Step,
which is a book about ferns and had beautiful heliotype pictures. From this book, I found out that
English ferns and Japanese ferns are quite different. The English have ferns similar to bracken andfiddle-head fern, but nothing like Old World forked fern or northern maidenhair.
It was close to noon when I returned, and the air raid alarm soon sounded. Thinking that the bombs
would eventually fall here as well, I was reminded of the cruelty of war. As part of work to protect
items at the military logistics base from bombs, I am thinking about moving 300 valuable volumes
from the Soldiers’ Library to the Headquarters. Commander Horie, in Yuezhou, said the library wasa creation of my heart and soul, and I want to somehow save even a small part of this collection. I also
want to take down the picture of Commander Hata entering Wuhan from the gallery and bring it to
the Military Logistics Headquarters.
(On this day, Hankou was attacked and suffered catastrophic damage. The Japanese concession was
hard hit and was reduced to ashes. There was heavy bombing for five hours starting from noon by
150 bombers including U.S. air force B-29s.)
December 23
I accompanied Commander Araya to the Wuchang Military Logistics Branch for the appointmentof a new director of the Wuchang Prisoner-of-War Camp. I met First Lieutenant Tsuji. From among
the letters of soldiers in transit which First Lieutenant Tokuyama inspected, I read a postcard from
Second Lieutenant Masao Matsumoto. He sounds like a book lover. In the postcard, he said he
was tired of the silly talk about drinking and women ever since he was drafted, and that given his
character he would rather read books, even if he had to eat sardines. Apparently, Matsumoto was ateacher at some commercial college, and in the postcard, he mentioned a book of his that was going
to be published. On the way back, I found an ancient Chinese star chart at a library in Hubei Province.
At night, we had dinner at the Kinjo Inn and crossed the Yangtze River on the last ferry. We could
not contact the car that was to pick us up, so I walked back to the headquarters along Jianghan
Road under a wintry sky together with the commander. When we met Sergeant Major Takaya fromtransportation at the entrance, he apologized and made excuses.
December 24
Adjutant Shindo of the Itabashi Unit, who is returning to Hengyang by airplane, came to pay his
respects. I bundled a letter addressed to Second Lieutenant Kon Suzuki with a letter from his wife
enclosed, volumes 1 and 2 of the pocket edition of Sakushabetsu Manyoshu (Manyoshu classified byauthor), Nagatsuka Takashi kashu (Collection of poems by Takashi Nagatsuka), and the four volumesof the Banyu Bunko Chinese edition of the Dao De Jing (Way power book) by Lao-zi, and I asked
Shindo to deliver these to Suzuki. Shindo said he would send these as official mail from Henyang to
the Field Division.67 I have heard that Chaling is a land of scenic beauty surrounded by rivers in three67

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This is a reference to the 27th Division, which was nicknamed the Field Division.
Wuhan military logistics basedirections. A posting there may be easier than in Hankou, which is being bombed indiscriminately. I
sincerely prayed for Shindo’s continued good luck in war.
December 25
I left for Yangtze together with Commander Araya at 9:00 a.m. The commander rode in the passenger
seat, while Sergeant Hayakawa and I were in the back exposed to the wind. At Yangtze, members of
the Railway Unit were training in a desolate winter field. In the afternoon, we visited Farm No. 1 andFarm No. 2, and returned by the 5:00 p.m. military shuttle. Sergeant Koyama from general affairs
called and told me about what happened at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I found an old copy of Bungei
shunju magazine. It included “Kiseki” (Miracle) by Kojiro Serizawa and “Jinkichi Monogatari” (“Storyof Jinkichi”) by Hiroshi Ueda.
There were long-tailed birds with black heads and blue backs flying about on the Yangtze plain. WhenI checked in Shanghai Birds, I found out that these were azure-winged magpies. It seems they are thesame as the Japanese blue magpie.
December 26
When I went out to patrol the military logistics base facilities, I ran into First Lieutenant Horikoshi
from the 5th Field Replacement Unit68 on Hualou Street. When I was stationed in the Ogasawara
Islands, Horikoshi once came to the Tanaka Unit at Miyanohama Beach on Chichijima Island as an
education section officer attached to the battalion headquarters of the Shibuya Unit. Horikoshi said
he had been drafted again eight months after he was discharged, and that Unit Commander Tanaka
was still on Chichijima as the fortress adjutant. He said he would drop by some night, and we parted.
At night, Cadet Matsuda visited me.
December 27
I went over to Wuchang with Commander Araya, and the air raid alarm sounded when we were
inspecting the Daitoa Dormitory. Air raids are taking place every single day. We quickly evacuated tothe suburbs by car. We went to a small farmhouse in the suburbs of Wuchang. It was a peaceful sunny
spot on a winter’s day. It turned out there were friendly aircraft flying at a high altitude, so there wasnothing to worry about. We inspected the Shimbu and Hakko Dormitories. The alert was lifted while
we were at the Hakko Dormitory. We inspected the prisoner of war camp in the afternoon, and went
back by the 3:30 p.m. ferry. At night, I went to visit the teacher Yoshioka, but he had been evacuated
and was not there.
December 28
I patrolled Soldiers Dormitories No. 1 and No. 2 in the morning, and I hung the 41 cm x 27 cm
oil painting Jingzhou Castle Gate, which I had received from Toyoshiro Murota, in my room in theafternoon. A second lieutenant from the Field Division came by, saying he would be joining that unit
at New Year’s, so I gave him a letter addressed to Second Lieutenant Suzuki. He told me there weremany war dead among the older officers during the Anren Campaign, so I asked about Suzuki, but hesaid Suzuki’s name was not among the dead. It pains me to hear about the casualties, thinking about
the invasion of Suichuan that is about to begin. Sergeant Major Igame returned to the unit, and I gave
new assignments to the sergeant majors. At night, it became quite cold. Mitsuko from the Matsuuraro
brothel brought me the 2nd volume of Manyoshuka (Gems of the Manyoshu).
68

Field replacement units were manned by soldiers who were temporarily not assigned to a permanent formation. They
included new arrivals and transfers, as well as servicemen discharged from hospitals.

169

Wuhan military logistics base

December 29
A letter arrived from my wife for the first time in a long time. I am glad to hear that our children are
all well. She wrote that many bombs or incendiaries fell near the house of Mr. Ogida (my supervisor
at the National Railways) in Ogikubo. I think it is not easy to be in Japan either. There were no air raid
warnings yesterday or today, which is unusual.
December 30
There was an internal affairs inspection in the morning. Mr. Arai, the proprietor of the Toseiro
brothel, came and complained, so I gave the director of the comfort facilities business association abottle of sake for the New Year’s toast for the brothel owners. The official price of sake is 850 yen.69
I am finding the sexually explicit Burton’s Arabian Nights to be boring, perhaps because I do notunderstand it well.
This will be my fourth New Year’s in the Army. I spent the first as a fortress infantry platoon leader
at the Hasukidani Valley Barracks on Chichijima Island in the Ogasawara Islands, the second as apatient with a war injury at the Hankou No. 1 Army Hospital, the third as the recreation section chiefof the Hankou Military Logistics Base, and this time as the adjutant of an empty military logistics
base. We must make next year the year for final victory in this horrible war.
December 31
I went out to patrol the facilities. There was an air raid alarm for the first time in a while. They said
there were four aircraft circling above, but the types were unknown. A letter from my children attheir evacuation location dated November 13 arrived via Tokyo. Michinari (my 2nd son) wrote about
catching grasshoppers and Mariko (my eldest daughter) wrote about participating in an athletic meet.
I was happy to hear that my children are healthy. A letter also arrived from Hoei Nojiri. He wrotethat he had sent Zenten seizucho (Complete star chart) to my home, and asked about fractionation. At
night, Sergeant Hikosaka came to visit, and we talked.
Januar y 1, 1945
The weather is fine. The air raid alarm sounded at 5:30 a.m. Last night the electricity came back,which is unusual, and we could pump the water all the way to up the 5th floor, so I heated the officers’
bath on the 4th floor and took a morning bath. By chance, the New Year’s sunrise came up between
Hankou Bank on the left and the Hankou Customs House on the right. I prayed that this year will be
the year we achieve victory. At 9:00 a.m., we enjoyed the New Year’s soup with mochi. At 9:30 a.m.,
we conducted the ceremonial bow toward the Imperial Palace and gave three cheers on the rooftop.
We had the New Year’s toast at 10:00 a.m. and the officers’ meal at 12:30 p.m. At night, I had sukiyaki
in First Lieutenant Paymaster Noguchi’s room. The electricity went out, so we talked after lighting atung oil lamp, and went to bed late at night.
Januar y 2
The skies are cloudy. I spent the entire day flipping through Western-language books in my room.
Outline of Town and City Planning has Heian period (794-1185) city plans with beautiful illustrations.
At night, Cadet Mikoshi came, and I grilled some mochi rice cakes and served them to him.

69

170

This may be 850 yuan; the same character is used to write “yen” and “yuan” in this book.
Wuhan military logistics baseJanuar y 8
On this Day to Reverently Accept the Imperial Edict, I woke up at 6:00 a.m. planning to visit Hankou
Shrine, but light snow kept falling in the morning, so I didn’t go. At 10:30 a.m. a car was leaving for the
Military Headquarters, and I went out. I had been asked by Commander Horie in Yuezhou to delivera 1,000 yen solatium to Mr. Yamazaki, the head of the Hankou Japanese Residents Association, so I
paid him a visit. He was speaking with a correspondent named Kasari from the Wuhan Continental
News. Yamazaki put on his glasses, read the letter from the commander, told me he would send a
thank-you note later on, and asked me to convey his gratitude to the commander. He had a clerk writeout a receipt. The fires set by the incendiary bombs that hit the residents’ association were all put out,
since they had enough hands there at lunchtime, but their homes were all burned. When I dropped
by the girls’ school, the third floor and above were burned, but part of the first floor remained. I met
Mr. Fukuchi, who said that all the good books had been burned and only worthless books remained.
Fukuchi said he had nothing left but the clothes on his back. I walked back through the snow. I
visited Mr. Shiki, who was made homeless even though his residence at the On Lee Building had
escaped the bombing, and I gave his wife a letter from the commander. The Navy Guard Unit had also
been burned down and destroyed. I visited Mr. Murota, who had lost his home, and so his family wasliving together with another family. He showed me several paintings by Chinese young women that
he had saved from the fire. He told me he had saved paintings in the style of Ryusei Kishida depicting
autumn flowers and others showing the scenery of the Bund. I am thinking about asking Commander
Araya to buy a few of these for the military logistics base. More than Central Reserve Bank of China
Notes, Murota said he wanted matches, so I am going to give him matches in addition to money.
Januar y 11
I went to the New Market, and the proprietor Wang Wenming had also been evacuated, and was
not there. (The New Market was an amusement park like Korakuen. It was initially confiscated andused as a prisoner of war camp, but it was returned to the owner Wang at the request of the Chinese
government, and reopened as a private-sector amusement park.)
Januar y 13
Kiyoshi Ogawa (a resident of Hankou from my hometown of Narita) visited me at the militar ylogistics base. He brought a letter from Akiko Kashiwabara. She is the wife of Buntaro Kashiwabara.
Ogawa said that the large acacia tree in front of Kokan Junior High School was planted by her froma cutting. I visited Mr. Kimura at the Wuhan Propaganda Association. Then I visited Chiyo Manabeat the Chamber of Commerce. I had a meeting with her about comfort women entering the Young
Women’s Association. My orderly bought me a lamp. It cost 250 yuan, which is 45 yen in Japanesecurrency. The official price of a 1.8-liter bottle of sake, which costs 40 yen at the canteen, is 850
yen.70 One decanter of sake costs 150 yen71 at Army-designated restaurants. Commodity prices are
skyrocketing. Central Reserve Bank of China banknotes may eventually become wastepaper.
Januar y 14
The air raid alarm sounded in the afternoon, and when I went downstairs, they said that fighter
aircraft had arrived, and planes were battling in the sky. I went up on the roof to take a look, and I
70

While the same character is used to write “yen” and “yuan,” since the author is referring to the street price of sake offbase, this may be 850 yuan.
71
Again, since this is a reference to the street price, the currency unit is most likely “yuan,” even though it is written using
the same character as “yen.”

171

Wuhan military logistics basecould see them flying toward the air field. When I went into the underground air raid shelter, I wastold that B-29s had come. After a while, I heard the sound of bombs exploding. I went out to look rightaway and saw that many incendiary bombs had fallen on Jianghan Road and were burning furiously
like candles in a row. Fires broke out in three directions around the Military Logistics Base.
Civil Air Defense personnel did not come out, perhaps because they had also taken shelter. Manyof the Chinese houses had locked front doors, and if they caught fire, there was no way to put out
the fires. A west wind picked up, and so I assigned men to the west side of each floor of the military
logistics base. Sparks were falling down intensely. Private First Class Oda, who was on lookout, cameto tell me that fires had spread to the vicinity of the Military Logistics Hall, so I sent 20 men. I also
asked the commander to immediately return, and I sent his car from Unit Barracks No. 3 to Army
Hospital No. 2 to pick him up.
In the evening, a messenger came, saying that fire had spread to the ceiling of the Militar y
Logistics Hall and nothing more could be done. I felt sad knowing that the elegant dark red curtain
embroidered with the chr ysanthemum and water pattern, which is the emblem of the Hankou
Military Logistics Base, would also burn. The altar and the ritual utensils prepared for the memorial
ceremony scheduled for the next day would also be burned as they are. When I rushed to the
Military Logistics Hall under the falling sparks, the hall had already burned down. One large beam
was vigorously burning underneath.
The fires upwind were finally brought under control at night. The cadets made an admirable effort
to put out the fires. While he was eating rice balls distributed as emergency rations, one young cadet
said his watch had gotten wet and stopped working. There was no way for me to compensate him, so I
gave him a pack of Kyokko cigarettes.
I went up on top of the roof to take a look, and the fires were still burning brightly. The constellation
Orion was sparkling in the light indigo sky. When I put my hand up between Rigel and Betelgeuse,
the distance was exactly three fractions between the thumb and the little finger. In the sky due south
there was a bluish-white celestial body shining brighter than the others, which may have been Jupiter.
I ordered Sergeant Baba to lend blankets to the extra guards and to the soldiers who were watchingover the houses. I went to bed at 11:00 p.m.
Januar y 15
In the morning, I had some free time, so I walked down the alley in front, and visited Mr. Hino of the
Asia Development Culture Research Society. Hino, who was wearing the national uniform,72 said tome, “I was just about to come thank you. Thank you so much for yesterday. We were having a regularmeeting at the neighborhood association right over there, and an incendiar y bomb fell nearby. I
checked around here briefly, but everything was OK, so I went to put out the fire.” I came here with
10 men yesterday, but Hino was out, so I left a note on his door in chalk saying, please contact the
military logistics base adjutant about sending soldiers to carry out books. I returned the Iwanami
Bunko editions of Kurisuchina Rosecchi shisho (Christina Rossetti anthology) and Ryokan shishu(Ryokan poetry collection) which I had borrowed two or three days before, when I came over with
Mr. Tsutsumi from the Shimeido Bookstore.
Hino suggested we move the books to the mausoleum on the north side of Zhongshan Park, and I
suggested having some of them kept at the Military Logistics Base, if he did not mind.
72

172

The so-called national uniform was a drab Mao-style jacket worn by Japanese civilians in World War II.
Wuhan military logistics base

Lately, I feel that old editions of Kaizo and Chuokoron are more valuable than recently publishedbooks. I picked up one of the magazines. I don’t know when it was published. It had a poem about
Nara by Yaichi Aizu.
All through the Night. A maiden in a village in Ikaruga weaves cloth. Since autumn isapproaching.
Hino told me, “The church on Hanjing Street burned down.” I was surprised and asked if that was
really true. It was a pity. I should have borrowed the key and looked more carefully. It’s unfortunatethat I had hesitated because I didn’t want them to think I would take away the good books. I reallycan’t believe that they all were all burned. When I consider how tens of thousands of books at
Huachung University and the Hankou Club were burned to ashes, I just can’t get over it.
It was nearly 2:00 p.m. when the alert was lifted. I went to the officers’ cafeteria. They were serving
bean paste rice dumplings, which were a rare treat and delicious, even though the dumplings hadgone hard. I said to the commander, “I have to patrol the Army-designated restaurants this afternoon,”and I went out with Sergeant Ikeshita. We dropped by the Matsukawaya Kimono Shop. I told the
proprietor Umemura, “I’m glad your place was unharmed. The Military Logistics Hall was destroyed.
That curtain was also burned. But let’s rebuild it.” Umemura said, “It was very lucky that the victims’
futons were saved.” An incendiary bomb fell on the Chobei Takeda Pharmacy next door, but they all
put out the fire. When I went in front of the Marugo used bookstore, the proprietor was there.
I said, “Sir, your store was hit.” He replied, “We got it this time. I have taken out some books, but I can
no longer run the business, so I will donate them to the Soldiers’ Library.” I told him, “No, we have abudget, so I will buy them from you.” He then added, “The books I was storing on the second floor to
put out later were also burned.” On the street outside, his wife was bundling books with a baby on her
back covered with a nursery coat. There were still a few Iwanami Bunko editions.
I went to see the ruins of the city government, turned around, and dropped by the Chinese restaurant
called Dong Lai Shun, which is an Army-designated restaurant on Hualou Street. The proprietor
asked, “Why don’t you carry out your inspection?” Sake, which cost 8 yen at the canteen, sold for
150 yuan in Central Reserve Bank of China banknotes. Cooked rice, which cost 2 yen on base, soldfor 50 yuan. Mongolian mutton barbeque cost 1,000 yuan and sautéed sliced meat, which cost 20 yen
on base, sold for 240 yuan. They must have been making quite a profit! If two or three people ate
sukiyaki, drank two or three decanters of sake, and were not careful, the bill could easily come to
10,000 yuan.73
When I went to the special comfort facilities, the commander was there. A 50-kilogram bomb had
fallen near the Katsumiro brothel and destroyed part of the brothel, which needs to be fixed. I
checked the air raid shelter in the park, and then went out.
I parted from the commander in front of the Towa Theater and also parted from Sergeant Ikeshita,
who said he was going to the goods warehouse. I was walking alone along Zhongshan Road when I
heard what sounded like an anti-aircraft gun. Just then, there was a deafening explosion. I thought
we had been hit, and when I looked up, black smoke was rising high. At the same time, the air raid
alarm sounded. A while later, the enemy aircraft had apparently left, and there were no more soundsof explosions. I dropped by the Hankou Post Office on Zhongshan Road. The postmaster was there. I
greeted him saying. “We got hit without warning.” I then went from Zongshan Road to Jianghan Road,73

173

All of the street prices for products sold outside the army base cited in this paragraph are assumed to be in yuan.
Wuhan military logistics baseand the people at the cigarette shops and confectionary stores were sitting with carefree faces, andhad made no efforts to run. I thought that indeed this is the great nation of China!
When I returned to headquarters, ever yone was saying we had been lied to. I learned that First
Lieutenant Kawazoe had gone to the Military Headquarters, Army Surgeon Osawa had gone to therestaurant Gion to prepare for the inspection by the director of the Military Medicine Department thenext day, and Paymaster Noguchi had been in discussions at the goods warehouse, so only the officerof the day on duty was at the headquarters. At night, there was no electricity as usual, and I skimmed
through Eburesuto 1933 nen (Everest 1933) by lamplight. I wrote official and private letters to
Adjutant Otani and Army Surgeon Nagasawa in Yuezhou, and went to bed late. The fire at Warehouse
No. 102 at the Freight Depot brightly colored the night sky.
Januar y 16
Mr. Hino from the Asia Development Culture Research Society came in the morning, so I spoke withthe commander about keeping some of their books at the military logistics base. Hino told him he canentrust the books without concern because First Lieutenant Yamada takes care of books so well. Hino
said he is prepared for the worst if something should happen and if the books are to burn together
with the Army he would understand. Hino was a reserve first lieutenant who was a propaganda teamleader at the Special Duties Department. He had studied psychology at Nihon University.
Lieutenant General Momoi, the head of the army’s medical department for the entire theater, arrived
at 11:50 a.m. We arranged for lunch at the Kairiku Hotel. He arrived with one extra man in his
entourage, so I left it up to Army Surgeon Osawa and ate my lunch at the military logistics base. I
returned to the Kairiku Hotel at 1:20 p.m. and waited outside. The driver came holding a baby boy
who was not yet a year old, and everyone caressed the baby. The baby’s father was 37 years old. A
female clerk at the Kaikosha Army Club said the father was a private who had been drafted. It waspeaceful in the soft sunlight. But the air raid alarm sounded once again. We returned to the Military
Logistics Headquarters by car. The general was wearing a steel helmet, and I guided him to the air
raid shelter, which was lit with Chinese candles.
A long time has passed, and the alarm still has not been lifted. The air surveillance sentry on the roof
told us through a speaking tube that he was hearing strange aircraft engine sounds east of Wuchang.
The general laughed, saying it was interesting that the sentry said “strange” but did not clearly say
whether they were enemy or allied forces. I said, “Sir, a total of more than 100,000 books confiscatedfrom the enemy—both Chinese books and Western-language books—have been lost to fire. The
Chinese books were burned on the 18th of last month, and the Western-language books were allburned two days ago on the 14th. It is most regrettable.” He replied, “There was a plan in Nanjing todisperse the 10,000 books of the Army Hospital, since we can no longer collect books.”
Once the alert was lifted, we went from the quarters for individual officers to Unit Barracks No. 4, andthen to the special comfort facilities. After that, Lieutenant General Momoi went to the freight depot,
and we returned by the commander’s car.
When I took Sergeant Ikeshita and went to look at the church on Hanjing Street, the burned books
had turned to ash but retained their original shape. It was depressing. We met Sawakichi Uchida on
the way. When I asked him, “Is the library at the China-Japan Culture Association OK?” he replied, “Theroof caught fire and soldiers put it out, but I’m afraid it will leak when it rains if it is not repaired.” I
said to him, “Maybe we should keep the books at the military logistics base. In times like these, books
are also valuable items. The military logistics base will also be bombed sooner or later but we have
174

Wuhan military logistics basemanpower, so we should be able to put out any fires on the first or second floors. You should discuss
this carefully,” and we parted. When I entered Sanjiao Street in the French concession, the Tokyo-ya
tea house was also burned and gone. The Russian Association was gone as well.
The sky-blue glass of the Tokyo-ya sign strangely remained unbroken. A soldier was standing in frontof the library. When I asked him his unit, he replied “Whale,” and when I looked more carefully, I
saw he was a second lieutenant. It was hard to tell because he was wearing his military overcoat. I
asked him if they were the ones who had put out the fire, and he replied, “Yes. In the evening, thefire spread to the roof, so we climbed up and put it out. We did this twice around 7 o’clock and around
9 o’clock.” I said to him, “This is the China-Japan Culture Association Library. It contains precious
books. It would be a shame if they were burned. Thanks to your efforts, they did not burn. I amvery grateful,” and left. When I then went to Nishi Honganji Temple, it had burned completely withnothing left behind. I went home at 5:00 p.m. At night, when I got into bed and was glancing throughRinjin (Neighbor) by Yoshu Mizuno, there was a knock at my door. It was First Lieutenant Horikoshi,
who had been in the Shibuya Unit on Chichijima. He said he had been called up again, assigned tobe the leader of the Hankou Guard Unit’s Communications Squad, and was just dropping by. I got
up and we spoke about various things. He explained that there were many casualties in the bombingat Warehouse No. 102 on the 15th because the enemy aircraft had threaded their way through ourplanes and the men could not tell which planes were which, and the enemy aircraft apparently hadsome accurate sighting device. We agreed to meet at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow to get new boots, and heleft.
Januar y 17
It is the second day of mid-winter training. We are practicing using a sword with both hands. First
Lieutenant Horikoshi arrived early. I had him wait a moment, and we then went to the goods
warehouse together and exchanged boots. I received one pair of rubber-soled socks for mid-wintertraining. The air raid alarm sounded when I was sitting by the stove after lunch. I heard we shot down
one P-5074 in Wuchang. The alert was lifted, but then the alarm was soon sounded again. Considering
what happened the other day, I decided to be careful and went downstairs. I visited Postmaster Koide
at the post office. Koide said he was getting on a ship today—with little warning. The proprietor
of Ginyoku came by, and said they were having dinner the next day and asked me to come, so I
accepted. We are going to keep the books from the Asia Development Culture Research Society inthe former field officers’ room, and plan to move the books using empty boxes for Kyokko cigarettes.
I visited Hino after dinner. He said that if you spend time with the Chinese, they are very warmhearted. Hino told me he wants to establish a Japanese university in Hankou, and that he was leading
the Asia Development Culture Research Society in preparation for that.
Januar y 19
Five cadets staying at the quarters for individual officers came to help. We went to the China-Japan
Culture Association and received the books from Sawakichi Uchida. We loaded an encyclopedia
published by Heibonsha and many dictionaries into the car, and took them away. I was surprised at
how the star charts and other Chinese publications were so solid. At night, Hino came by, and we haddinner together. There was also an air raid alarm today as usual. We joked, calling this “the regularflight from Kunming.” The alert was finally lifted after two hours.

74

175

The author probably meant to write “P-51.” The P-51 Mustang was an American fighter plane.
Wuhan military logistics baseJanuar y 21
Four cadets came. I had them tag numbers onto 300 magazines. Sayuri from the Sanseiro brothel andChiyomi from the Matsuuraro brothel came to report that they had been suspended from business.
The “regular flight” came today as well. At night, there was no electricity.
Januar y 22
I went to the Militar y Police Squad to meet with the chief of the Special Higher Police Section
regarding the loss of a patrol map by Cadet Matsuda. I won four out of four matches at the year-end
military sword skills competition in the morning, but my right hand got hit, and it hurt so much that
I could hardly lift my hand. The commander went to the Military Police Squad. In the afternoon,
the map was found, so I visited the Military Police Squad once again and had the handling of theincident entrusted to the Military Logistics Base commander. Hino came by, and I gave him Romantic
History of Zhao Yang and Romantic History of Emperor Yang of Sui. At night, I chatted with Paymaster
Noguchi in his room until the lights went out.
Januar y 23
There was a light snow in the morning, but it soon stopped. I heard that former prisoner of war camp
director Second Lieutenant Yamamoto had died in action. I was surprised, since only a little more thana month had passed since he left. I had Cadet Miwa copy the Chinese ancient star map. I went out toZhongshan Road on some business, and then visited Hekisui Ito of the Sanki Company and listened to
the Chinese opera records, the third and fourth acts of “Farewell My Concubine.” It was fun to listen
while reading the plot. I wrote a letter asking for the return of Complete Collection of Great Chinese
Opera Actors, which I lent to the prisoner of war camp some time back, and gave the letter to theofficer of the guard for delivery.
Januar y 25
We held a memorial service from 11:00 a.m. There was an air raid alarm in the afternoon. My former
orderly, Superior Private Tajima, came to report, and returned Sachio kashu gappyo (Sachio Itopoetry collection review) and Shina tenten (Here and there in China) from Army Surgeon Nagasawa.
Wulipai, where the Yuezhou Military Logistics Base is located, is a mountainous area, and I would
like to go there in early spring. When I went to Shayangzhen for communications, there were fields
of yellow rapeseed flowers blossoming on the way there, and when I went for the campaign, thered plums blossoms were blooming in all the villages. Also, on my way back, the lotus flowers werebeautiful. At night, I picked up Riichi Yokomitsu’s Shin’en (Sleep garden).
Januar y 26
I went to the freight depot and asked where the Chinese records were kept. They told me that thewarehouse for confiscated goods is Warehouse No. 102. I stopped by the Hankou BroadcastingStation, and we spoke about holding a record concert at the quarters for individual soldiers. Then I
met Mr. Murota at the Hankou Gallery. He was in bed with hemorrhoids. I visited Ren Futian, who
was the director of the Zhongjiang Industrial Bank, and exchanged some postage stamps. I went tothe consulate general, but the clerk, Mr. Fukuchi, was out. I met the teacher Yoshioka at the girls’
school. When I went to Warehouse No. 102, I was told that the Chinese records had all been sold off
last March, but that there were still a few Western-language books, so I went up to have a look. I tookhome the Complete Collection of Chinese Opera Records. The book from the prisoner of war camp wasreturned. I was surprised to find that the prisoners had put a cover on the book and had handled itwith care.
176

Wuhan military logistics baseJanuar y 29
In the morning, I went to the broadcasting station to pick up records in preparation for the record
concert at the quarters for individual soldiers. They did not have the Chinese opera Farewell My
Concubine. I borrowed Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Beethoven’s Eroica, Chinese popular songs, anda few other records. There was a phone call from the Army. I went to the Military Headquarters
Accounting Department in a motorcycle with a sidecar with Paymaster First Lieutenant Noguchi todiscuss the increase in the Military Logistics Base Facilities fees from the following month. I asked
Second Lieutenant Nakanishi to take care of the preparations for the concert. The air raid alarmsounded after we finished our discussions. Japanese aircraft were patrolling the skies, so I walked
along the Bund and returned. The Toho Dance Troupe was unharmed. A while after I got back, theair raid alarm sounded again, but the alert was soon lifted. In the evening I heard that Yangtze hadsuffered a sudden aerial attack, with three dead and over a dozen injured at the field railway. I was
also told that during the concert at the quarters for individual solders, the 200 cadets, who weredemoralized because of poor pay, had remained lazily inside their rooms and would not even comeout to listen to the records.
Februar y 3
It is snowing. Staff Officer Tabata came to inspect the military logistics base’s facilities, so I waiteduntil nearly 5:00 p.m. He inspected the Soldiers’ Library, Kaikosha Army Club, Kairiku Hotel, thequarters for individual soldiers, Ginyoku restaurant, Towa Theater, Jiqingli, Gion restaurant, andSuigetsu restaurant, and then left. We face the issues of making the Towa Theater a military logistics
base facility and of running a military telephone line to Jiqingli. At night, Hino came, and we spoke
until around 11:00 p.m. I heard that the U.S. military had advanced to around 40 kilometers from thecity of Manila. I flipped through Koshiro Onchi’s Hakubutsushi (Natural history).
Februar y 5
We held a funeral service for Second Lieutenant Yamamoto. Because this was held at the Wuchang
Guard Unit, I attended on behalf of the commander. Powder snow fell lightly on the barracks
compound at around 1:00 p.m. I went to visit Wuchang Postmaster Iwashiro, but he was not there
because he had been transferred to Hankou. I took the 3:00 p.m. ferry. I dropped by Warehouse No.
105, but First Lieutenant Okuda was not there. I went to the comfort facilities, but the air raid alarmsounded, so I returned. In the evening, I found out that someone had taken Seitaro Atsumi’s Kabuki
nyumon (Introduction to kabuki), and Volume 1 of Utsubo Kubota’s Manyoshu hyosyaku (Commentaryon the Manyoshu) from among the books belonging to the Asia Development Culture ResearchSociety, which is a problem. At night, Sutezo Hiroki from China Film came to visit. We talked about
the reopening of the Towa Theater. He left after 11:00 p.m.
Februar y 6
Cadet Sumino came, and I asked what happened to the missing books, but he did not know. Kojiro
from the Matsuuraro brothel came and spoke while crying. Sayuri from the Sanseiro brothel wants toreturn to Korea because her mother is in critical condition. There was an air raid alarm at night.
Februar y 7
Staff Officer Takahashi from the Unity Army arrived at 10:00 a.m. and inspected the Soldier’s Library.
A phone call came, saying the main force was to withdraw from Yuezhou. There were air raid alarms
twice in the afternoon. I was told that the U.S. military had made their way into part of the city of177

Wuhan military logistics baseManila. It was quite cold at night. I borrowed Kyoka Izumi’s Shakuyaku no uta (Song of the peony)from the Soldiers’ Library and read it.
Februar y 8
I visited Hankou Shrine at 6:00 a.m. At 9:30 a.m., we conducted the ceremonial bow toward theImperial Palace on the rooftop. At 1:00 p.m., because the repair work on the air raid shelter at the
comfort facility had been completed, I went to join a celebratory toast. An air raid alarm sounded
before the mess preparations were made, so I went back together with Army Surgeon Nohara. At
night, when I was reading a book with my legs under the foot warmer after eating dinner, Fujiko from
the Matsuuraro brothel came in drunk and crying. I took her back to Jiqingli, and visited Mr. Hekisui
Ito of the Sanki Company on my way back. The lunar New Year is approaching on the 13th and wewant to somehow reopen the theaters, but with the air raid alarms every day and Japanese planes noteven flying, the citizens are restless. The two lost books were both found.
Februar y 10
I was going to accompany Commander Araya to the Military Headquarters, but Noji75 came, so wecancelled our plans because we had to call for the Plymouth. We visited the remains of the JeanMartin Moyë Hospital in a motorcycle with a sidecar, and toured Zhongshan Park. It was cold.
We cannot find appropriate land for relocating the military logistics base. It is noisy, with air raidsirens and other sounds. I spoke with First Lieutenant Okuda regarding the books in Freight
Depot Warehouse No. 102, and plan to go and get them tomorrow. Powdery snow fell at night. The
commander held a banquet for the officers of the attached units at the restaurant Ginyoku. It was
lively, with 15 people attending. The group included five of us who had been one-year volunteers:
Second Lieutenant Nashimoto, First Lieutenant Army Veterinarian Miyai, First Lieutenant Paymaster
Noguchi, Second Lieutenant Tanaka, and me. The sky is snowy today so we can eat without concern.
Februar y 11
Today is Empire Day. We perform the ceremonial bow toward the Imperial Palace on the rooftop. I
went to look at the confiscated books at Warehouse No. 102 just after 10:00 a.m. with Cadet Sumino
and one other soldier. We chose to take 50 books. There was a star chart published in 1870, a book by
Lafcadio Hearn, a copy of Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, and a book by Pierre Loti. We were invited tolunch. The air raid alarm sounded in the afternoon. We took shelter at the riverbank. The alarm wassoon lifted. We went back at 3:00 p.m., and there was another air raid alarm. Fighter aircraft came. I
skimmed through the Iwanami Shinsho edition of Bara (Rose) by Riichi Yokomitsu. A ship arrived,
and there were rumors it was carrying 700 sacks of mail.
Februar y 12
I was invited to a preview of the Chinese version of the joint Japanese-Chinese film Springtime
Remorse (Japanese name: Noroshi wa Shanghai ni agaru (Signal Fires of Shanghai)) at the Chinese
Majestic Theater. Wang Wenming of the New Market was there with his small grandchild. He said
tomorrow is New Year’s Day, so he wanted me to come and see the Chinese opera. Even though she
was only around eight years old, the small girl knew her Chinese characters well. I folded a paper
crane from a plot outline and gave it to her. The Chinese performers Mei Xi, Li Lihua and Wang
Danfeng seemed finer than Tsumasaburo Bando. In the afternoon, I visited Hino briefly. Cadets
Sumino and Miwa came and joined me for dinner. We chatted, and they left at 9:30 p.m. There were75

178This may be a reference to Kahei Noji, who was a major general as of the date of the diary’s entry.
Wuhan military logistics baseno air raid alarms today, which is unusual.
Februar y 16
Staf f Of ficer Takahashi from the Unity Army came in the afternoon to greet the commander.
Takahashi said he was being transferred to the General Army (China Expeditionar y Army).
Takahashi told me he wanted to keep the books he had borrowed from the Soldiers’ Library the otherday for a little while longer. I saw him off at the entrance. In the evening, Commander Araya invited
all the cadets to Soldiers’ Dormitory No. 2 for dinner on the occasion of the reorganization of the
Wuhan Military Logistics Base. Twenty cadets attended. I also got a little drunk and sang the “Hachijo
shome bushi” (Hachijo love song) which I learned on Chichijima Island. “When I saw it from offshore,
it looked like a devil’s island, but when I came, Hachijo was an island of love…” No mail arrived from
Tokyo. When I went out, thankfully, the sky was cloudy, and I was glad I did not have to worry about
air raids.
Februar y 17
I accompanied Commander Araya to Wuchang at 9:30 a.m. Commander Horie returned from
Yuezhou. I returned at noon before Commander Araya. On the way, the air raid alarm sounded
while I was on the ferry boat, and I felt anxious. Fortunately, no enemy aircraft came. At night, I had
dinner with Commander Horie, and I sent Sergeant Ikeshita in my place to Wang Wenming, who
had originally invited me. Adjutant Otani stayed in my room overnight and we spoke until late atnight. With the withdrawal of the Yuezhou Military Logistics Headquarters, a new Yuezhou Branch
was formed, led by Lieutenant Colonel Fujii. First Lieutenant Tsuji, the commander of the Wuchang
Branch, left to take up a new post at the Yuezhou Branch.
Februar y 19
At 9:00 a.m., I gathered the comfort women at the special comfort facilities and gave a lecture on
customer ser vice and other matters. I gave the copy of The Plum in the Golden Vase Illustrated,which I had received from Keishichi Ishiguro, to Hekisui Ito, the owner of the Sanki Company. Cadet
Sumino and another soldier came to let me know they were going to Wuchang.
Februar y 20
At 10:00 a.m., I went to Barracks No. 3 for units in transit for an inspection by Staff Officer Yasuzaki.
In the afternoon, First Lieutenant Horikoshi, who was my comrade when I was in the Ogasawara
Islands, came to visit. Cadet Kokubo came, and we went together to the Asia Development Culture
Research Society.
Februar y 22
Commander Horie came to Hankou. I met at the consulate Mr. Fukuchi, the clerk. Among the books
which escaped fire at the Japanese girls’ high school, I found a Chinese version of Zen no kenkyu (Aninquiry into the good) by Kitaro Nishida and Destruction by Ba Jin. I also took back the pornographic
What the Master Would Not Discuss and around a dozen other books and loaded the onto themotorcycle sidecar. In the evening, Cadet Watanabe dropped by. He said that I had taken good careof him while he was in Hankou and that he had had a good time. I promised him that I would write
a letter to his home. At night, I read Yasunari Kawabata’s Yukiguni (Snow Country) and Ba Jin’s New
Life.

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Februar y 23
Cadet Kokubo came to pay his respects because he was leaving for the front, and he gave me themiddle volume of Rinrigaku (Ethics in Japan) by Tetsuro Watsuji. The weather is cloudy. There wasan air raid in the morning, which is unusual. Mr. Shiki (of the Wuhan Poetry Circle) returned to
Hankou and dropped by.
Februar y 24
The transfer notice for the books from Warehouse No. 102 arrived. I went to the Japanese girls’ highschool, sorted through miscellaneous Chinese books, and found Above the River by Xiao Jun, andother books. I skipped lunch and stayed until 2:30 p.m., dropped by to visit Murota, and came backat 3:00 p.m. There was a letter from my wife dated January 6. At night, there was a meeting of the
Wuhan Poetry Circle at the new Tokyo-ya restaurant that was attended by Shiki, Irisawa, Nagasawa,Sekiguchi, Senda, Hayashi, Furuya, and me. The light rain stopped, and I returned through the dark
streets.
Februar y 25
Tatsumi from the Army Liaison Office, who was drafted locally, had his family living at the house of
Mr. Hayashi, who was a regular member of the Wuhan Poetry Circle. There were many literary booksin the collection there. Tatsumi’s wife told me to feel free to take any books I wanted. I went to the
Kaikosha Army Club in the evening, and tried the 50 yen dinner. I chatted with Hamada at Soldiers’
Dormitory No. 2. When I got back at 9:00 p.m., they were showing the movie Yuki no jo henge (Anactor’s revenge) on the 2nd floor, but they had to stop part way because the air raid alarm sounded.
After that, we could not use the electricity. There was no kerosene either, so I could not use the lamp,
and went to bed.
Februar y 28
The head of the Unity Army’s Accounting Department came at 11:00 a.m. and inspected the comfort
facilities and the officers’ clubs. We had lunch at the restaurant Gion and then discussed tomorrow’s
initial patrol. In the afternoon, I borrowed Riichi Yokomitsu’s Hanabana (Flowers) and Oshu Kiko
(Europe travel diary) from Mr. Tatsumi.
March 2
We picked up books from the girls’ high school. The master painter Murota delivered three paintingsby Chinese young women depicting things such as the scenery of the Bund and flowers. They werepurchased by the Military Logistics Base.
March 3The commander went to a ceremony where Imperial Commands were being conveyed. I went toFreight Depot Warehouse No. 102 in the afternoon to get some Western-language books. At night, I
was invited to a ceremony to mark the completion of the remodeling of the Taikoen restaurant. Tenof us attended, including high-ranking adjutants and high-ranking staff. There was a light rain. I read
Hanabana by Riichi Yokomitsu by lamplight.
March 5
There have been changes of command for posts including the director of the prisoner of war camp.
The Unity Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Amano, came for an inspection at 2:00 p.m.
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Wuhan military logistics baseLieutenant Colonel Araya and I took him around. The inspection finished at 4:00 p.m. We took a breakat the Kaikosha Army Club and the air raid alarm sounded. The wind was cold. The cold returned.
Members of the Deshan Branch were departing for Jiujiang. I went to Pier 17 to see them off, butthey had already left.
March 9At 9:30 a.m., I went out with the commander to accompany Unity Army Deputy Chief of Staff Amanoon his inspection of Wuchang. We left from Pier 18 at the base of the Hankou Customs House at
9:40 a.m. We walked around the facilities. The Koa Inn is at the foot of Sheshan Mountain up against
a gentle slope, and it feels different from Hankou. Red plum flowers are blooming near the air raid
shelter of the nationalist government’s provincial party headquarters at the foot of Yanzhi Mountain,
where the new military logistics base is to be constructed. Below them, yellow dandelions are alreadyin bloom. I met with Adjutant Otani on an issue related to personnel. At night, I gave Tatsumi’s young
daughter a paper balloon and a doll that were inside a comfort bag for soldiers. I returned the book
I had borrowed to Tatsumi’s wife, and borrowed Riichi Yokomichi’s Mi imada jyukusezu (The fruit is
not yet ripe) and Fumoto Oka’s Ozasau (Switchcane).
There were two young sisters sitting in a field at the base of Sheshan Mountain. They said they had
come to gather grass to feed their rabbits. The younger girl was six. My daughter Yuriko at homemust now be five. So, I wrote some poems.
On a beautiful spring day, sisters sit on grass. Thinking of my daughter, I talk to them.
A little girl with double eyelids and adorable red cheeks. I pick her up saying, “Oh, you are soheavy.”March 10Today is Army Memorial Day. I can hear the sound of a unit firing blanks on exercises from early inthe morning. I woke up twice during the night from air raid sirens.
March 13
I attended a meeting about rear duties for Staff Officer Yasuzaki of the Unity Army. I received a letterfrom my wife dated January 13. She wrote that my sister-in-law is very sick. My son Michinari became
the president of his class. My daughter Mariko became the vice president of her class. I wrote lettersto my children.
March 14
There is a light rain. People who have entered Jiqingli using official identification are investigated. I
met with Rumiko from the Toseiro brothel. In the afternoon, Hankou Mayor Shi Xingchuan came by.
He graduated from the Military Academy in the same year as the commander. A letter arrived from
Second Lieutenant Suzuki’s wife.
March 15
We held a funeral for fallen war heroes in Wuchang. Smallpox vaccinations were carried out in theafternoon. In the evening, I invited Kazuo Dan to the Yosuko Hotel and asked him to hand over copies
of How Are the Stars to Hoei Nojiri and Kiitsu shisho (Keats poetry anthology) to Yoshu Mizuno. I
heard that the novelist Kinzo Satomura died in the war in Lingayen, in the Philippines.

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March 18
It is raining. At noon, I had the comfort facilities’ brothel owners assemble, and gave a lecture. I spoke
about the prohibitions against luxuries and gambling with Japanese playing cards. In the afternoon, I
went to the Katsuya cafeteria regarding the resale of a camera by Private First Class Oda. At night, I
questioned Oda.
My daughter Yuriko came to me in a dream, and asked for white chopsticks to play house. My wife
was outside. I told Yuriko I was busy just then and did not have any chopsticks, and sent her away.
Then I woke from the dream.
Strangely Yuriko came to my side and said she wanted white chopsticks. My wife was outside.
Yuriko came and said she wanted white chopsticks, but I spoke to her coldly. I woke up feeling
regretful.
Wistful eyes of a dear child who wants to use white chopsticks for a playhouse.
I failed to speak to my wife who was outside the window. I woke up from the dream feeling dreary.
March 26
Captain Iwasaki came from Shayangzhen. I read a mimeographed copy of an article by the Domei
News Agency, which said the U.S. military was planning to land on Okinawa. In the afternoon, I went
to the Katsuya cafeteria regarding the camera resale incident involving Private First Class Oda.
March 28
In the morning, a few books arrived at the Shimeido bookstore for the first time in eight months.
I bought Yaichi Aizu’s Sankokushu (Mountains and Valleys). I went to Wuchang at 10:30 a.m.,accompanying Lieutenant Colonel Araya. At the invitation of the businessman Tian, we went to the
Tianfu Temple and were then treated to vegetarian Chinese cuisine. At night, there was a farewell tea
party for Navy Paymaster Captain Mishima in Hankou. The air raid alarm sounded after 9:00 p.m., so
the party ended. Mr. Shiki remained. Just when I sat down on a chair in the second-floor reception
room after lighting a candle, a bomb fell right behind the Military Logistics Headquarters. I jumped
up and ran to the corner of the room without thinking. Most of the windows of my room were broken,
and it was a horrible sight. Two soldiers were injured by glass fragments and carried to the infirmary.
All the glass windows of the general affairs office and the commander’s office on the south side wereshattered. They said a single B-29 had dropped four 50-kilogram bombs.
March 29
We picked things up and did some cleaning. Kazuo Dan came by to pay his respects before returning
to Japan.
April 1
There is a report that Japanese forces have occupied Laohekou. Another report says 90 enemy ships
have been sunk in battles around Okinawa. I wrote letters to Hisako Matsumoto and Kunikatsu
Shimazu, who are the teachers of my children in Yumoto, where they have been evacuated.
April 4
There is a light rain. I dropped by the consulate police. They said the dining expenses for soldiers at

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Wuhan military logistics basethe Army-designated restaurants were as much as 15 million yuan.76 The value of the Central Reserve
Bank of China banknotes has crashed. Measures to deal with the situation will be difficult.
April 5The commander came. I visited Hino. I spoke with the assistant director of the Japanese Residents
Association. He said he was astonished at the defeatist and decadent morality of people.
April 6
The news says the Koiso Cabinet had resigned. As of today, the decision was made that I will beassigned to the Headquarters at Wuchang. Second Lieutenant Masuda is being appointed theRecreation Section Chief for the Hankou District. I returned “Farewell My Concubine” and otherrecords to Hekisui Ito. I visited Business Association Assistant Director Kaneda in Jiqingli.
April 7
I went to the business association at 9:20 a.m., had all of the comfort women gather, and gave afarewell speech in a casual manner. I told them to be ready for death depending on the war situation,
to simplify their private lives in line with the demands of the state, and that even though I am therecreation section chief for the military logistics base, I could no longer look after them directly
because I was being assigned to the Wuchang Headquarters. I became a bit sentimental. I hope forstrong policies by the Suzuki Administration. At night, I got my luggage ready.
April 8There is a light rain. I went to Wuchang at 11:30 a.m. and reported to Commander Horie. I returned
at 4:00 p.m. The Suzuki Cabinet took office.
April 9It is cloudy. I left Hankou on the 10:00 a.m. ferry to cross the river, which had me feeling nostalgic. In
the afternoon, I visited Second Lieutenant Koizumi at what used to be Huachung University. Nearly
the entire campus had been devastated. Koizumi gave me an English translation of Three Hundred
Tang Dynasty Poems. The officers’ quarters are in a separate building up on a hill. The view of thesetting sun is beautiful. There is a calmness that is different from Hankou. White wisteria flowers areblooming outside my room. At night, I chatted with Army Surgeon Nagasawa in his room. We spoke
until late at night about the co-existence and opposition of two strands of thought: defeatism that has
lost its morality, and the spirit of the suicide attack, in which a person dies a hero’s death rather thansurrendering. In the middle of the night, stars were radiant in the night sky, which made me think air
raids would certainly come. Even after I got into bed, I could not sleep, thinking about the future ofJapan’s monarchy and my country. I dozed off for a while near dawn.
April 15
I headed off to Dai Jia Mountain on the outskirts of Hankou together with Hisashi Suzuki (anemployee of the Rihua Bast Fiber Industr y) to gather plants for famine relief. I brought Makino
shokubutsuzukan (Makino’s illustrated flora) from the Soldiers’ Library, and I took Lance Corporal
Inoue with us. At night, I went to the New Market together with Inoue, and watched the Chinese
Operas Ganlu Temple, Capturing Sanglang, and Spinning the New Cotton. How Xue Yanxiang depicted
76

While written with the same currency as “yen,” it is assumed the currency cited here is the Chinese yuan, since it isfollowed by a reference to Central Bank of China banknotes.

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Wuhan military logistics basedead people using disguises was interesting. I spent the night in Hankou.
April 20In the afternoon, I accompanied the commander to the Catholic orphanage and nunnery. The Chinese
nuns were graceful. They were caring for a large number of abandoned infants. They begged for milkrations.
April 23
I visited Staff Officer Higashi at the Unity Army Headquarters. In the evening, I went with Hekisui Itoto see Stone Statue that featured Dong Mingyan. I spent the night in Hankou.
April 30
I crossed the river and reported to the Militar y Headquarters. I borrowed Matsutaro Ishiwari’s
Ningyo shibai no hanashi (Puppet theater) from Hino of the Asia Development Culture ResearchSociety. At night, I was invited by someone from the Hankou Broadcasting Station to the Chinese
Majestic Theater to see an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s drama, Lady Windermere’s Fan. It reminded
me of the production at the Tsukiji Little Theater.
May 1
I accompanied Colonel Araya to attend a ceremony for lighting a fire at the Wuchang Militar y
Logistics Headquarters crematorium. At night, I read Tomiko Hayashi’s Warushawa hika (Warsaw
elegy). I was deeply moved by the misery of the defeated nation.
May 3
It is reported that that Hitler died in the war.
May 6
I went to Hankou at noon. I went to see The Death of Zhou Yu at the New Market. I met Zhang
Mingsheng in the dressing room. He remembered me and happily shook my hand. I dropped by the
comfort facilities office on my way back. I spent the night in Hankou.
May 10Unconditional surrender by Germany.77
May 15
I returned to Wuchang. There was a letter from my wife dated February 23. I was surprised to learn
that her sister had died on February 14. Two hundred airplanes from aircraft carriers had attacked on
the day of her funeral. The air raid alarm sounded while they were pulling the coffin on a cart to theHorinouchi crematorium, so they took shelter. Conditions in Japan are not easy either.
May 16The Battle of Okinawa is not going well. In the evening, I saw an enemy plane suddenly carry out adive-bombing attack on the top of Sheshan Mountain.

77

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Germany signed instruments of surrender ending World War II in Europe on May 7 and 8.
Wuhan military logistics base

May 17
I was told Unit Commander Itabashi has returned from the front. Sergeant Haruyama came. When I
checked in the illustrated reference book, it seems the two large trees on Yanzhi Mountain are paper
mulberry and Jesso hackberry. At night, the radio broadcast Act 10 of the ballad drama Taikoki. The
air raid alarm sounded. I picked up a letter from my sister-in-law and read it. Several things went
through my mind. I felt it was a shame she had passed away. I want us to somehow win this war.
May 18I received a letter from my wife dated April 3. I wrote a reply. I enclosed 90 yen as condolence money
for my sister-in-law. My wife wrote about the soldiers around the time of the February 26 incident.78 I
visited Priest Nakanishi at the Wuhan Temple, and had him recite sutras. From the letter:On the morning of February 26, 1936, when I stood on the veranda and looked out, I saw
about 10 soldiers walking across the bridge over the Myoshoji River. I thought the soldiers
were strange because they were not wearing their knapsacks, and they were carr yingguns, and had only their ammunition pouches in the front. This was the group that attacked
Inspector General of Military Education Watanabe.
June 6It seems supplies for the Battle of Okinawa have been cut off completely, and the Japanese forces arebeing slowly crushed. Army units in Central Southern China will probably be redeployed. There will
be some transfers of men to units in Japan as soldiers for decisive battles on the mainland. I do notregret for my life, but if I am to die, I would rather become a part of Imperial soil. I secretly pray that
if my bones are to be buried anyway, I would rather they be buried in my own country and not on thecontinent.
I pray that my grave where I throw away this life will be in Japan.

78

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The February 26 incident in 1936 was an attempt by the army to overthrow the Japanese government.
Wuhan military logistics baseChapter 10

Defeat in War
Withdrawal of the Yuezhou Military Logistics Headquarters
According to Taiheiyo senso rikusen gaishi (Historical overview of land combat in the Pacific War) byformer Army Colonel Saburo Hayashi, there were great changes in Japan’s China area strategy fromthe beginning of 1945. First, preparations for operations against the U.S. became the greatest dutyof the China Expeditionary Army, and the focus of military preparations shifted to the coastal areas.
Second, several divisions were chosen to be redeployed from the Chinese theater to Manchuria andKorea. The divisions were to prepare for operations to deal with the U.S.S.R., which had entered
the war against Japan. Specifically, at the end of April, the 3rd, 13th, 27th, and 34th Divisions wererelocated from the front in central China to coastal areas, and at the end of May, the headquarters of
the 34th Army was relocated from Hankou to northern Korea. Hayashi wrote that, for that reason, the
6th Area Army withdrew its forces from areas along the Hunan-Guangxi railway and the GuangzhouHankou railway, which it had occupied with great efforts, and assembled in the Wuhan District. In
the worst case, the 6th Area Army was prepared to stand alone in the Wuhan District, hold its ground,and fight.
On February 13, 1945, there was a phone call from Yuezhou regarding a meeting concerning therelocation of the Military Logistics Headquarters. On February 14, it was decided that the Hankou
Militar y Logistics Base was to be evacuated to the nationalist government’s provincial par ty
headquarters in Wuchang. On February 17, Commander Horie returned. At night, after dinner, I
heard about the struggles of the military logistics bases on the front from Adjutant Otani and Army
Surgeon Nagasawa. One motorized regiment was attached to the Yuezhou Military Logistics Base,and they suffered air attacks almost every day as they were frantically transporting ammunition,
provisions and fodder. When they were being bombed and came under machine gun attack, theywould immediately light smoke bombs and avoid additional enemy aircraft attacks by pretending to
be on fire. At this time, one adjutant, who was merely a first lieutenant, was managing the activities ofa motorized regiment.
Shortly before Yuezhou was reduced to ashes by aerial attack, the military logistics base was carryingout administrative duties from a bull-rush mat shack that had been hurriedly constructed in a hamlet
called Wulipai, which is in a basin surrounded by hills a little over three kilometers south of Yuezhou.
We stationed a sentr y on the top of a hill. He would sound the alarm right away when he heard
explosions or saw aircraft, and the alert was conveyed to each barracks. But the enemy planes came
faster. The men would hurriedly take cover, jumping into roughly dug air raid shelters. A work unit of
250 soldiers from the Field Division was assigned to the military logistics base here.
Superior Private Takeuchi, who had been at the Soldiers’ Librar y, was ordered to work at theaccounting office, and he followed us to Yuezhou a little later. Here is something he wrote in his
memoirs at that time.
Four of us transporting a safe containing money left Hankou and arrived at Yueyang at 11:00
p.m. on July 19, 1944. There was an intense air attack on the way. We heard that the railway
bridge had been bombed, so the train stopped, and we spent four nights at Lukou Station,
which was unmanned.
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At Yuezhou Station in the middle of the night, the surrounding area was pitch black. I could
vaguely make out the tents of the units that had been billeted scattered here and there. The
private homes were almost all completely blown up, without leaving a trace. The damaged
station building stood alone, black and cold. I went through town, which was under strict
blackout regulations, to the military logistics branch. I could hear Chinese being spoken frominside the destroyed buildings. My boots clacked as I walked on the stone pavement, while
carefully paying attention to the surroundings. The hobnails on my boots sent off blue sparks
from the friction, and this was strangely impressive.
I finally arrived at the military logistics base. The buildings all around had been bombed, andK was inside the one building that remained standing. While unshaven, he was in good spirits
under candlelight, and was carrying out reception work for quartering officers. T took myhand. He was happy to see me. They told me the bombing had been horrendous, and that thiswas like the Rabaul of Central China.
Three kilometers along the Changsha highway from Yuezhou, there is an intersection withthe road from Changan. This is Wulipai, which is a low-lying basin surrounded by terraced
hills. It is dotted with quickly constructed bull-rush mat barracks and Chinese houses. This iswhere the Yueyang Military Logistics Headquarters is located. They say the fields of Hunan
resemble home. The hills have trees, and the face of the mountain reminds me of those inJapan. This is not like the vast scenery of Hubei, which I am used to. Dongting Lake is locatedjust two kilometers ahead. Its water is absolutely blue. It reminds me of Lake Yamanaka.
Recalling my homeland, I get to work.
The fourth day after I arrived, Yuezhou was bombed once again. It was a formation of morethan 20 Consolidated B-24s. I could see the fighter aircraft escorting the bombers. The
formation flew over us, heading for Yuezhou. The planes were flying at an altitude of around
4,000 meters. Our anti-aircraft guns could not hit them. Our few interceptors that came toattack could not break up the formation. After a while, I saw horrible smoke from the bombs,
immediately followed by the sound of explosions. We watched the aircraft leisurely returningover Dongting Lake with their shining silver wings, and someone commented, “Those arereally fine aircraft.”
There were five or six air raids, but the military logistics base was never targeted. As the days
went on, the soldiers became slack about taking shelter in foxholes, and it was funny to seethem stick their heads out from the holes.
In the city of Yuezhou, almost all the buildings were completely destroyed by the air raids, butthere was no damage at all to the block around Yueyang Tower.
I soon learned that the only radar squad of the Area Army, which was led by a first lieutenant, wason top of the hill on the other side of Wulipai valley. They had dug a tunnel inside that hill, where
they hid their equipment. However, the devices were primitive. The parabolic antenna was simply awooden frame with wires that were spun around. This squad had no Army surgeon, so the infirmaryat the military logistics base was responsible for their treatment. Army Surgeon Nagasawa, who wasin charge, specially negotiated to get a phone line to the military logistics base installed so we could
receive information first. At that time, the radars were called “radio locators,” and the images ofenemy airplanes were called “reflections,” with “a small reflection” meaning a small number of aircraft
and “a large reflection” meaning a formation. Images of the enemy planes were captured as soon

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Wuhan military logistics baseas they took off from the airfield, and the squad was also decoding wireless communications above
enemy territory and inside enemy aircraft. Because of these measures, the military logistics basewas never bombed by surprise. During the retaliation bombing of Hankou, they reported the largest“reflection” ever seen. That was the formation of B-29s.
Along the route for sending additional supplies, the Yuezhou Militar y Logistics Headquarters,
which was located at the starting point of the Guangzhou-Hankou line, and the Itabashi Unit (of the
51st Military Logistics Guard Unit), which protected the area from Military Logistics Line “A” to
Changsha, were troubled by the endless precipitation.
Rain fell every day from September through October 1944, like the rainy season in Japan. In thechapter “Hesitating to Go to the Front” of his The Voiceless Front, Commander Horie wrote about theunits proceeding to the front lines struggling through the mud, the military logistics base trying tomove them forward, and the thankless tasks of the military logistics base.
Because it rained continuously for almost a month around this time, the roads turned into
fields of mud, and transportation for military logistics was suspended once again. If we wereto try and move trucks just because it did not rain for one day, the road surface would be tornup, so the only option was to close the road as an emergency measure until the road surface
became sufficiently dry and hard. Around this time, the locations of each unit remained thesame day after day on the display board which showed the locations of transportation units
on top of the desk at the military logistics base’s transportation section. The duties of thetransportation section were pitiful: just putting up “road closed” signs every day on the roadby the Military Logistics Headquarters at the three-way junction with the roads from Yuezhou
and from Wuchang.
The last time when transportation was suspended because of the destruction of the bridgein Xinshi, the invasion of Henyang was approaching. This time, the invasion of Guilin isapproaching. At the militar y logistics base, we are impatient and eager to do something.
Adjutant O is the man who feels this restlessness as much as I do. O has been the military
logistics base adjutant since spring of last year. With his clear mind, meticulous thinking,and great sense of responsibility, he has handled a variety of matters and clerical work while
stationed here and during militar y operations. Even though O had been a cadet, he is asuperb young officer in no way inferior to the capable active duty officers who graduated from
the Military Academy, and I cannot say how much his assistance in perfect harmony with mywork has helped me.
In the next campaign, in addition to his main duties as adjutant, O also served as chief of thetransportation section. He took great pains in getting transportation for military logistics,
which tends to get interrupted, on track. He was also strongly supportive of the frontline
divisions that had advanced as far as Guilin. Under bad road conditions, even the motorizedunits attached to the military logistics base and the motorized units that shared duties withthe military logistics base could not move as they desired. The negotiations with motorizedunits that were passing through the militar y logistics base to have them take care oftransportation duties that were outside their usual mandate were difficult beyond words. Not
only did Adjutant O brilliantly complete these difficult negotiations, but he also succeeded insometimes persuading the Railway Unit to carry out some transportation duties associatedwith militar y logistics. O ensured that transportation was achieved using ever y means
available. Despite all that, there were inevitably times in China, where the roads are poor,
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Wuhan military logistics basethat the natural phenomenon of prolonged rainfall could not be overcome. I think you can getsome sense of the situation at that time from the following poems.
Although I resigned myself to a long spell of rain, there are officers and soldiers at the front.
Let the rain stop.
With continuous rain, provisions do not follow. Rice in the husk is hulled, so the soldiers may
advance in the field where people have disappeared.
Watching the rain flood the ruts on the military road where not one automobile moves. Thereis nothing that can be done.
Then there was the time when a long rain of one month finally stopped. The joy at the military
logistics base when the rain stopped was incomparable. The light of Venus which had not been
seen for a long time shined gently in the evening sky in the west. It made me feel extremelyrefreshed.
Transportation recovered! Guilin captured! We were honored with an Imperial message!
When I conveyed these messages to the unit, while having a guilty conscience, I wasover whelmed with gratitude and joy, thinking of the hardships of the Militar y Logistics
Headquarters, motorized regiments, and the other officers and soldiers of units under mycommand who had worked hard under these bad conditions.
Adjutant O in this passage is Adjutant Otani. Otani was a young officer who had graduated from Keio
University and had been a cadet. The positions of military logistics commander and adjutant werefilled based on appointments. The most important duty of the military logistics base adjutant was not
personnel, and neither was it awards. It was vital to get wind of the planning of operations beforehandand based on their scale and concept, to have the military logistics base branch offices collaborate
with those operations, calculate the ordnance and other material required, and accurately submit arequest to the Army for manpower for the attached units as soon as possible. It would be too late to
make such a request after the operations orders were issued. It was necessary to make a thoroughproposal beforehand so that the orders would clearly specify the military strength for the motorizedunits and other formations that had to be attached to the military logistics base, which did not haveorganic manpower of its own. This required maintaining close relations with the Army General Staff
Office, especially the rear staff officers, at all times, and constantly checking on their movements.
Officers promoted from the ranks and young cadets almost never directly went to the Militar y
Headquarters. Rather, all orders were handed down via Adjutant Otani. This naturally resulted in asystem with a powerful adjutant.
The comfort system at the Hankou Military Logistics Base had its facilities expanded by successive
recreation section chiefs, and its basic principles had already been established. I could not overlook
the achievements of my predecessors. But based on the intentions of newly appointed Commander
Horie, I reported to the Military Headquarters as often as possible, offered my opinions, and received
instructions for transforming entertainment for the officers and men so that they could enjoy
wholesome forms of recreation. For those reasons, I negotiated directly with the rear staff officers
regarding entertainment activities, without going through the adjutant.

Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters
Among the three cities of Wuhan, if Hankou was the commercial district, Wuchang was the education
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Wuhan military logistics basedistrict, and Hanyang the industrial district along the riverbank. Unlike the flat, congested Hankou
District, Wuchang was a calm and quiet Chinese-style town that has undulating terrain, with Sheshan
Mountain cutting across the middle and the famous Yellow Crane Tower on top of a hill overlooking
the Yangtze River at its western edge. The ancient lofty hexagonal structure was no longer there, andall that remained was a square red brick Western building, but the legend of a yellow crane that flew
up in the sky is still told.
Once upon a time, an immortal flew away on the back of a yellow crane.
What remains of the tale here is the name Yellow Crane Tower.
The yellow crane, once gone, has never returned.
Leaving the white clouds drifting in vain for thousands of years.
A picture showing the mobilization of the entire nation with Chiang Kai-shek on a white horsecommanding the army and the slogan of “resistance to the end” was drawn on the cliffside a few years
ago, but it has been scraped away and the color has faded, with just traces remaining.
Hongshan Mountain is on the eastern outskirts of Wuchang. Baotong Temple is in the forest here.
Baotong is the family temple of Zhang Zhidong, who built Zhang Gong Di. Shahu Lake, which isfilled with cool and clear water, is located far to the north of the temple. Lotus leaves thickly cover thesurface of the lake near the shore. National Wuhan University is located further to the east, with itsseries of fine buildings with blue Chinese roof tiles. The university has been taken over by the Armyand is being used as an Army hospital.
It seems Commander Horie located the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters on February 25, 1945
at the Hubei provincial party headquarters on Yangtze Mountain, which is a small hill facing Sheshan
Mountain, based on his judgment regarding the outlook for the war. I wanted to remain at the
Hankou Branch together with Lieutenant Colonel Araya, but the commander did not permit this. First
Lieutenant Paymaster Noguchi told me later he had suggested that I be left in Hankou to negotiatewith the Army. However, I was resigned to the fact that soldiers must do their best at whatever duties
they are assigned. It was difficult for me to part from the women at Jiqingli. The young and serious
Second Lieutenant Masuda was left as the chief of the recreation section for the Hankou Branch,while I remained as the chief of the recreation section for the entire Headquarters, as in the past. I
was also given concurrent duties as the chief of the Barracks Section for the Wuchang District.
At the Wuchang District, we dug an air raid shelter into the side of Yanzhi Mountain and enshrined
the spirits of the fallen war heroes. It seemed like a different world from the past when I was at
Hankou, where we had a dignified shrine room with a fine black lacquer mortuary tablet with gold
letters which read “Officers and Soldiers of the ‘Backbone Army’ who Died in Battle or from Illness,”
and where the commander would chant the lotus sutra each morning.
The former Siming Bank building on Jianghan Road, where the Hankou Militar y Logistics
Headquarters was located, was said to have been designed by a German. The basement, which
had been remodeled into an air raid shelter, had a narrow entrance, and left no way to escape if theentrance were blocked by bombing. Once, when an air raid alarm sounded, I had just gone up thestairs to the fourth floor with my orderly to inspect the air surveillance lookout and heavy machine
gun positions (two heavy machine guns under the command of Second Lieutenant Masuda). A bomb
was dropped and exploded outside a nearby window with a deafening roar. There was a bright flash,and a pillar of flame rose up into the sky. I was stunned and hurriedly clung to a wall. Wuchang had
plenty of land and a strong air raid shelter, and it felt somehow unhurried and relaxed.

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Commander Horie may have ordered me to concurrently serve as the Barracks Section chief andconduct a sur vey of the Wuchang District’s militar y logistics barracks because he expected thatvarious supply depots and garrisons would be relocated to Wuchang, along with the future relocationof the 6th Area Army Headquarters to Wuhan University. He may have wanted me to check if the
facilities had adequate space.
The Wuhan District was bustling with units in transit that were returning. The units stationed at
Wuhan were busy digging air raid shelters into the hillside of Wuchang to store ammunition, fuel, andweapons, and were also training to learn new ambush tactics.
When I went to the Area Army’s General Staff Office at the end of July, Second Lieutenant Katayama,
whom I was close to, secretly showed me a file of mimeographed copies of transcripts of interceptedshortwave radio messages. Airplanes from U.S. aircraft carrier task forces were bombing mid-sized
and small cities all over the Kanto Region, and carrying out strafing with machine guns. Coastal
areas of Muroran, Kamaishi, and Mito79 were being shelled by ships. Reading this, I realized that the
war was finally entering its last stages. According to Katayama, the 6th Area Army had assembled
sufficient military supplies, ammunition, provisions and fodder to supply itself for two years.
Each unit that had gone south to par ticipate in Hunan-Guangxi Operation (Operation Togo)reappeared in Wuhan, and several of my acquaintances visited me at the military logistics base. My
comrade Second Lieutenant Suzuki, who was assigned to the Field Division, was nowhere to be seen.
He certainly would have dropped by if he were alive and had come back to the Wuhan District. I
casually asked Katayama, and he said that the 27th Division was headed toward a new decisive battle.
I could not help but feel concern for Suzuki’s fate, which was seemingly fraught with difficulties.

August 15
The Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War was issued on August 15, 1945, just as theconstruction plan for relocating the 6th Area Army to Wuhan University Hospital was nearly finished.
We were told there would be a meeting regarding rear echelon duties at the Military Headquartersthat afternoon, so I went to Hankou together with Commander Horie. We arrived at the Military
Headquarters, and the commander said he would send for a service ribbon. When I asked him what
was happening, he said the Emperor was going to speak in a radio broadcast. We gathered together
in the meeting room. Chief of the General Staff Office Nakayama stood up and told us we must not
say anything critical no matter what sort of commands were given. I thought that was a strange thing
to say. The broadcast was full of static, and we could not understand a word. We retired to anotherroom and started a meeting, thinking that the Emperor had spoken words of encouragement. After awhile, an Army General Staff officer entered and said, “The war has ended. From tomorrow, everyone
is prohibited from going out, except on official business.” We looked at each other, and were silent.
Eventually the rear echelon staff officer stood up and said, “This meeting is adjourned.” I immediately
received permission from the Army to order the closure of all military base facilities, and I called themilitary logistics bases in Hankou and Wuchang.
Commander Horie did not say a word on the ferry boat back to Wuchang. I also remained silent.
When I looked at the commander after a while, his eyes were filled with tears. Seeing that, I was
suddenly overcome with sadness. I muffled my voice and cried, biting my lip.
In Yoryu no me (Willow bud), Commander Horie wrote about this time as follows.
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Muroran is a city in Hokkaido. Kamaishi is in the Tohoku area and Mito is in the northern Kanto region of Japan.
Wuhan military logistics baseI know that a soldier does not cry, but this Imperial Rescript is intolerable.
After returning to the Wuchang Headquarters, Commander Horie shut himself up inside his roomthat evening and did not come out. Adjutant Otani, Army Surgeon Nagasawa and the rest of us
gathered in one room and spoke late into the night. There was a sense of relief that the war was over,and I was not particularly sad anymore. A slight hope that I would return to Japan one day emerged.
But we might be ordered to repair roads, railways, ports, cities and so forth by the Chinese, and we
had to assume that would take about five years. Given its nature, the military logistics unit was likely
to remain in place until the very last. If that happened, decreasing supplies, insufficient hygiene andother problems could cause around half of the men to die. So perhaps only those of us who could
somehow survive for five years would be able to set foot on Japanese soil. We talked about suchmatters until late into the night.

Japanese Prisoner of War Camp Yangtze District Unit
Upon Japan’s defeat, I was immediately assigned to the Wuchang team of the 6th Area Army’s public
relations office. I left for my new post that day together with First Lieutenant Tsuji, who had returned
from Yuezhou. While I was away, on the order of the Army, the Military Logistics Headquarters hadburned the staff diary. Other files of orders and reference materials, scrapbooks, survey materials anditems concerning the recreation section had also all been burned at that time. I had left my personal
belongings, thinking my assignment would be brief, but they were lost with the repeated relocationsof the headquarters. By the time I returned to my original unit after my assignment was over six
months later, everything had been lost.
The Chinese had us report the provisions and fodder held by each unit beforehand, and only provided
the number of train cars required to carry the reported supplies. In order to secretly transport black
market sugar and cigarettes hidden under the floorboards, it was necessary to bribe the Chinese
officers in charge to increase the number of cars, or leave those goods behind. The unit’s provisions
and fodder dwindled each time we were ordered to relocate.
When turning over armaments, the Chinese detested units that presented accurate numbers. But
the Chinese were delighted with those units that showed them numbers privately and let them know
there were extras aside from what was written on the lists, and delivery was easy in such cases.
Such corruption on the Chinese must have been one of the causes of the annihilation of the National
Revolutionary Army.
The public relations office’s Wuchang team had two officers: Major Ogawa, who had arrived from
the Military Headquarters with his brand-new general staff officer’s epaulettes, and me, under his
command. Aside from us, the office had interpreters and a few soldiers. Our main work was to carryout negotiations in making arrangements with the occupying Chinese forces. On August 20, allpersonnel with ranks of First Lieutenant and below were promoted a single grade. The promotions
were announced, along with the end of the war.
There was a phone call from the military police squad in Wuchang on October 4. Lieutenant Colonel
Masatsugu Nakamura, who was the militar y police unit commander in Liuzhou, had committed
suicide. An autopsy was being conducted by the Chinese side, but they wanted someone from thepublic relations office to be present, so I was designated by Major Ogawa and went in a motorcycle
and side car. I was told that Nakamura had committed suicide, fearing that his subordinates would bemade responsible for the killing of the U.S. pilots. He left two farewell poems and I copied them down,

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Wuhan military logistics basebut they were later stolen, which was truly regrettable. I felt respect on seeing how he had poisoned
himself with composure.
There were 15,000 Japanese soldiers in the Hankou District at the end of 1945. Of these, 8,000
were evacuated downstream the Yangtze River, with 2,000 evacuees each in the Gedian, Echeng,
Huanggang, and Tuanfeng districts.
In February 1946, when First Lieutenant Tsuji and I were ordered to return to our original units,
the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters had been relocated to the Dai Toa Dormitory on theoutskirts of Wuchang. Each unit was soon moved to the Yangtze District on the opposite side of theriver. We were assembled in the unit barracks and at the site of the open yard warehouse in an area
running 1.5 kilometers along the bank of the river. We were called the Japanese Prisoner of War Camp
Yangtze District Unit. There were a total of 7,000 men, divided into Formation 1 through Formation 5.
Commander Horie was ordered to serve as the leader of the District Unit. I was made the chief of theGeneral Affairs Section and I assisted Adjutant Otani, mostly by taking charge of general affairs work.
Soldiers discharged from the hospital who could not work were placed in Training Units No. 1 andNo. 2 under the command of First Lieutenants Higoshi and Yoshioka, and underwent training.
Right after the end of the war, based on Chiang Kai-shek’s generous victory message about “repaying
grudge with virtue,” life inside the prisoner of war camp for Japanese officers and soldiers was
relatively good, compared with other districts. Militar y discipline had not waned, the old order
was maintained, and officers were given orderlies. Salutes were given as usual, and it was just likebarracks life during ordinary times.
The Chinese supervisor for the Japanese prisoner of war camp was a colonel named Huang Chuan
Tian, and he ordered back-to-back investigations of personnel and of the provisions and fodder on
hand. We were required to provide nearly 4,000 men as workers at all times to dismantle and fill
air raid shelters, level the ground in areas that had suffered war damage, repair buildings, clean up
roads, and undertake other tasks in the Hankou District. The troublesome tasks related to labor, suchas assigning work to each unit, were mostly the responsibility of First Lieutenant Kawazoe. From themilitary logistics base as well, work squads led by First Lieutenant Tsuji, First Lieutenant Kakinuma,
and Second Lieutenant Kusakawa went to the Hankou and Wuchang Districts, and the squads wereused to unload cargo from ships. Fortunately, our men were not persecuted much by Chinese citizens
while they worked. However, new military uniforms and boots had been issued at the freight depot
immediately after the end of the war, and soldiers wearing brand new items sometimes had themconfiscated by Chinese military police who said they were too extravagant for defeated soldiers, so wewere instructed to make our shoes and uniforms look dirty, if possible.
With the end of the war, Central Reserve Bank of China bank notes could no longer be used, and thesoldiers had no choice but to barter, using items such as officially supplied soap and socks. One packof Kyokko cigarettes could be exchanged for a garrison cap full of peanuts.
Women and children from farms would gather in the area around the barracks bringing Chinese
sweet buns and eggs, and these could easily be obtained by bartering. Around that time, each unit
devised ways of making tofu, natto fermented soybeans and other foods in their kitchens.
At the militar y logistics base, various activities were planned to cheer up the soldiers, who had
become apathetic with no idea when they would return home. We held a baseball tournament among
the units using rubber balls, and a variety show with volunteer performers. We also exchanged
pocket-sized books brought from the Soldiers’ Library and other books owned by individual soldiers
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Wuhan military logistics baseand read them. This was the first time I read Nihon gaishi (History of Japan) in its entirety. There wasa Christian officer in another unit who lectured on the Bible, but there was no anti-war movement.
There were rumors that the communist New Fourth Army was frequently appearing around Wuhan
seeking surrendering Japanese soldiers, and the National Revolutionary Army became very nervous
and cracked down harshly on communism. The volunteers from Korea were assembled together into
one unit, with about 500 men. They wore insignia with a swirl crest. They said they were citizens ofan independent nation and too proud to be under the command of the defeated nation of Japan, andwould not work or follow commands. So we asked the Chinese to supervise the soldiers from Taiwan
and Korea separately, and delivered them to a new prisoner of war camp at the south foot of Gui Shan
mountain in Hanyang. The Taiwanese soldiers included indigenous peoples and others who wereactually friendly to Japan, and some were sad to leave us.
As the willows on the riverbank started to sprout a faint green, the waters of the Yangtze River werewarming up, and the water rose. The soldiers were looking forward to the ships coming to get them.
A few cases of typhus later broke among the units in the district, and the patients were promptly
hospitalized and quarantined. Out of concern over additional cases emerging, we made a plan tocompletely exterminate lice. We cut dried reeds from the riverbank and used these as fuel to disinfectclothing with hot air. Because we sterilized everything down to the men’s boxers and loin cloths, thisresulted in the strange scene of groups of soldiers standing around drums completely naked, one
after another, until the sterilization of their clothing was finished.
From around the spring of 1946, when the first stage of work was completed, the poetry circle wasrevived under the auspices of the military logistics base and met frequently. While we were enduring
a hard life inside the barracks and camps and looked forward to the arrival of the repatriation ships,
the poetr y circle met, and baseball games, variety shows, and other activities were organized torelieve the soldiers’ boredom. Our poetr y group, which was organized around the commander,
enjoyed talking about poetry in the cold office while snacking on peanuts obtained in exchange forcigarettes. Seven or eight or sometimes 10 poetry lovers from each unit would gather around a candle
until past 1:00 a.m.
On one occasion, Superior Private Tetsutaro Tokizawa, who taught music at a girls’ school in his
hometown, sang the lyrics of a song he had written.
I cannot forget the day when I linked little fingers, to make a promise with my child, who wasabout to cross the Tsugaru Strait in late autumn.
This song was about the sad memory of the day when a superior private sent off his son, who was
evacuating to his grandparents’ home in Hokkaido, at a pier in Aomori. They linked fingers to make apromise, and parted.
The accompaniment was like listening to the waves of the dark and lonely Tsugaru Strait, and therefrain was unforgettable. I still have the musical score, which I asked Tokizawa to write out on music
paper.
On the wooden floor of the officers’ quarters in Yangtze I put on a thin blanket, lit a mosquito coil,and read pocket editions of Nakamura Kenkichi kashu (Kenkichi Nakamura poetry collection) andKinoshita Rigen kashu (Rigen Kinoshita poetr y collection). Around that time, we picked Chinesecelery around the barracks each morning and ate it in miso soup, and we mixed millet into rice forour staple food. It was still early spring. The Yangtze River was low and cold. I submitted the following

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poems to the Yangtze Poetry Circle.
Every morning the scent of Chinese celery that I eat is subtle. I am used to the taste of millet.
Spring is in full swing.
I will return to my home in my country where my children live simply with only me as a souvenir.
Let me go back to my home. My heart trembles with my ultimate longing to see my children.
In March 1946, when repatriation transportation began, we printed a mimeographed 16-page poetry
collection called Yoryu no me (Willow buds) on newsprint and distributed it to those who wanted a
copy. Commander Horie wrote the following postscript:
The birth of the Yangtze Poetry Circle occurred around the time when the upper branches of
the willows along the Yangtze River started to show hints of green in early February, just as
the spring was beginning and our poetic sentiment, which had once subsided after the war,somehow came back to life. We gathered seven times in a very genial atmosphere and had
written a total of 180 poems, and we decided to compile a poetry collection as the repatriationtransportation was about to begin. While the poetr y was simple, it was precious beyond
anything in speaking plainly about the diligence of officers and soldiers working silently
every day while holding dismal feelings inside, about the natural transition of the Yangtze
District along the river from winter to spring, about the mountains and rivers of our defeatedhomeland, and about the sentiment of yearning for home. So, let us depart for our country
soon with this humble poetry collection Yoryu no me as the best souvenir. Etched deeply inthe heart are the fresh willow buds that appear dim in the spring rain at Yangtze just now, as asymbol for the future reconstruction of our homeland.
Yoryu no me, which was mimeographed by Sergeant Major Senda from general affairs, included 188
poems by 27 poets. The following poem was written in sumi ink and signed with Commander Horie’s
pen name in the margin of the copy of Yoryu no Me brought home by Superior Private Takeuchi, who
was in charge of the work at the Soldiers’ Library in Hankou.
Even though it is early evening, in the sky over the hill behind where a sentry stands, Orion shinesbright in deep winter. By Horie
Because it says, “in deep winter,” this poem must be from the time of the Yuezhou Military Logistics
Base.
The following is a passage from the chapter “Yosu no kohoku geki” (Hubei drama in Yangtze) in
Commander Horie’s The Voiceless Front about the time he watched Chinese opera while he was indetention after defeat in the war.
Just around this time, a performance was being held in a hamlet in Yangtze. They had inviteda Hubei drama (village theater) troupe of rather skillful actors. This was taking place forthe first time in more than 10 years, so it was extremely popular. A stage was erected in thehamlet’s open space next to the ferry dock. The audience seating was, of course, the groundunder the open sky, and while the better seating had chairs or stools, for the most part thiswas open air theater with the audience standing. I received an invitation from Director Huang
to go and see this together on the afternoon of the first day, and I also received an invitationfrom Assistant Director Wu to join them for lunch. I went to visit just before noon. Wu’s wife’s
home cooking was soon brought to the round table, and we began an exchange of toasts.

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We Japanese, plus a few others, were the guests. On the Chinese side, there were also one
or two others in addition to Director Huang. The Assistant Director drank quickly, as was
his nature, and he would cry out in a loud voice when he got a little drunk. They told me
the performance was going to begin soon, so we headed off in that direction. We watched
together with Director Huang, placing our chairs at the best location right in front of thestage. We had asked for Japanese officers and soldiers to also freely attend, and there wereabout 20 Japanese mixed in the crowd of Chinese, which filled up the entire area.
I had seen Chinese opera once or twice before. Listening to the explanation of Captain
Yamada, who was an enthusiastic researcher, all I grasped was that it was something like
Japanese Noh theater, so you might say I was at least not completely uninformed. They always
put on Records of the Three Kingdoms as the main performance. This day was no exception. I
think they were showing the assassination of Dong Zhuo, and Lu Bu and Diao Chan played
active roles. With their grand gestures mixed with high-pitched songs and dialog, as wellas their loud elocution and the Chinese fiddle and gong music, watching the opera while I
was a little drunk was really pleasant, even though I did not understand it. It kept reminding
me of the village plays I would see as a child on autumn festival days in the mountains in myhometown.
The Assistant Director yelled out in a horrible voice whenever villagers moved in front of him
and blocked his view. Director Huang explained various aspects of the opera to us, speaking
quickly with pouted lips as usual. The performances were originally scheduled to last for threedays, but they were so popular that the run was extended to one week. There were signs ofpeace everywhere in the countryside of China in the spring the year after the war ended.
I also went to see the Chinese opera being presented in that village at that time. The soldiers in mypoetry circle included a stand-up comedian from Osaka who performed under the stage name Saraku
Akiyama. I asked his commander for permission and brought him along. Unlike the stage at the New
Market, this show indeed had a primitive feeling just like a village play. Saraku Akiyama, (the stage
name of Private First Class Shoichi Hiroi) composed the following poem, which is included in Yoryu
no me.
The rain does not stop. A soldier guarding bedding reads a book, straddling the roof of the camp.

Demobilization
From March, we were permitted to send letters to our families in Japan. Each soldier was allowed two
postcards. We were ordered to stamp these “prisoner of war personal affairs.” At general affairs, theyquickly looked for a soldier who could carve, and had him make the designated stamp. We asked theChinese to mail the stamped postcards all at once.
The military logistics base’s officers were living together inside the barracks. I placed a map caseby my bed when I went to sleep and when I woke up, it was gone. I asked the night duty guard, but
he had no idea what had happened. I did not mind losing the Three Castles cigarettes that were in
the case, but I was heartbroken to lose my children’s photographs and a notebook of poems that I
had jotted down. It was at this time that I lost my war wound certificate, savings deposit book, andthe farewell poems left by Military Police Lieutenant Colonel Nakamura, who committed suicide in
Wuchang. My orderly said it must have been thrown out somewhere, and he searched everywhere,
but it did not turn up. It was deplorable to think that the thief had lost the decency to return the items

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Wuhan military logistics baseother than the cigarettes.
Upon repatriation to Japan, confiscated goods of course, as well as diaries, letters, and otherdocuments all became prohibited items, so I had no other choice but to burn and throw them away.
If any prohibited items were found, the repatriation not only of the individual but of the entire unit
was to be canceled, and we were ordered to make sure that all the soldiers thoroughly followed that
directive.
One soldier came to me saying he had a diamond, and asked if he could take it back to Japan. When I
asked him where he got it, he told me he had removed it from a ritual implement of the Freemasons,
who were said to be a secret society of Jews. When I placed it on my palm, I saw that indeed, it
sparkled in the light. He said he had been hiding it sewn into his good luck belt while worried about
the horrible trouble that would occur if it were found. I called the senior noncommissioned officer todiscuss this, and he said he would check to confirm if it was really a diamond. He placed it on top of astone, crushed it with the heel of his lace-up boots, and it immediately crumbled. It was just a piece ofglass. The soldier said he felt relieved and glad that a heavy burden had been lifted from his mind.
There were swords among the belongings of officers who died in the war, and these were to be turned
over to the Chinese side as weapons. One of the officers who knew a lot about swords removed someof the grip guards and hilt ornaments and kept them. I also received two hilt ornaments and broughtthem home as ornaments for the map case and military cap.
When I was at Yangtze, Captain Mitsuo Sakurai, who was the commander of the 57th Independent
Logistics Company, which was under the direct command of the military logistics base, composed the“Yangtze Song.” At night, soldiers who enjoyed this would gather in a circle to sing and dance.
Yangtze dawned sunny again today, like the fair weather in Japan.
And the rising sun shines over our homeland in Japan.
Japanese cherry blossoms do not bloom in Yangtze.
But the flower of friendship among war comrades blooms.
In Yangtze, crows make their nests and willows sprout.
They say the ships will eventually come.
When we leave our hearts in Yangtze and depart by ship,
the ship will sail to Kagoshima with a tailwind.
While there are many famous things to be proud of in Yangtze,
none compares to the Yangtze song.
A rumor spread that the ships returning to Japan would head first to Kagoshima.
Company Commander Sakurai promptly wrote lyrics to a “Song of Landing at Kagoshima,” and he
had Corporal Ikunoshin Koyama, a soldier in his unit, compose the melody. Corporal Koyama used to
be an assistant professor at Musashino Academia Musicae.80
Oh, we can see the mountains and rivers of Japan in the distance.
80

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A music conservatory in Tokyo.
Wuhan military logistics baseThe bombing, gunfire, and fires of war that raged here are no more.
The spring sun shines cheerfully. Signs of construction
rise up high over the fields.
We are returning to the mountains
and rivers of Japan on a spring day.
In this way, we sang about the joy of the day when we would land in Japan, directing our longing to
Sakurajima, in Kagoshima. The first order for the repatriation of 2,400 soldiers was issued on March
25, 1946. We, of the Military Logistics Unit, departed from Pier 18 in Hankou a bit later on April 28,
and went down the Yangtze River. It was a pitiful sight. We were ferried out on two small private shipsthat were lined up side by side, towed by a steamship.
When we left Hankou, the soldiers stood on the deck, looked at the Hankou Customs House towerfeeling nostalgia, and listened to the sound of its bell.
Someone began singing, “Farewell Hankou, until I return,” and a chorus of deep voices responded,“Tears of our brief separation blur my eyes.”
Hankou Customs House is half visible. Over the shoulders of a full load of soldiers on deck.
Prior to demobilization, the military logistics base had taken in those soldiers who were discharged
from the hospital and were in training units and could not move with their original formations, as well
as soldiers from small units. As a result, our unit came to have 34 officers and 526 non-commissioned
officers and soldiers in a headquarters section and five companies. I was placed in charge of the
3rd Company. Incidentally, as part of our original duties, the military logistics base had the heavy
responsibility of escorting the remains of 25,000 soldiers which we had enshrined earlier because
transportation had been disrupted. So, in addition to their own luggage, the soldiers had to bring backmore than 300 wooden boxes, each of which measured sixty cubic meters.
The morning after we arrived and spent the night at the barracks in Nanjing, I noticed some dirty
water on the mud corridor when I returned from roll call, as if someone had washed their mess kit
there. When I asked a soldier what had happened, he said Sergeant Yosaburo Fujiwara had sufferedabdominal pains and thrown up that morning, and they had not yet cleaned up. He said he would
clean it up right away, and went to get a dustpan with sand in it, and swept it clean.
Fujiwara was hospitalized immediately, but he died at 11:00 a.m. It was cholera. He came from
Kemuyama Village in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture. A fecal examination of all members of the unit
was carried out in the afternoon. This was by direct sampling. We got down on all fours and a glassrod was inserted into the anus. A soldier from the Infectious Diseases Prevention Section told me,laughing, that the nurses and other women hated the direct sampling. Because of this cholera
outbreak, we were not allowed to stay at the barracks even after we arrived in Shanghai. We wereordered to put up tents and to camp in the open space outside the barracks, and we were placed understrict quarantine. Because of this unexpected incident, we were separated from the Kakinuma Unit,
which had been traveling with us. Our departure from the port of Shanghai was delayed, and it was
May 24 when we landed at the port of Hakata in Kyushu. There were no scandalous incidents on therepatriation ship such as mock trials of senior officers. When I dropped by the repatriation office andlooked through the list of repatriated soldiers, I found the name of my comrade, Second Lieutenant
Suzuki, whose whereabouts were unknown to me since we parted in Hankou. Suzuki was in the Field
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Wuhan military logistics baseDivision assembled near Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province when the war ended, and had returned to Japantwo months before I arrived.

The Japanese civilians living in the Wuhan District were assembled at the end of September 1945 andnumbered 14,000. Their repatriation took place in parallel with the repatriation of military personnel.
The last repatriation ship for Japanese civilians was the Kaigen, which sailed in June 1946 and carried
357 passengers. These were both civilians and soldiers from the Unity Area Army Headquarters,
which had been winding up the work that remained. The employees of the military hotels, cafeterias,
and comfort facilities were initially assembled at the Military Headquarters army barracks, and theJapanese civilians were assembled in the Japanese concession, but they were later all treated as
Japanese civilians. I wonder when the women of Jiqingli returned to their countries, and how they
lived after the war. I wonder what happened to the women from the Korean peninsula, which was
divided at the 38th parallel. I pray from the bottom of my heart that they all somehow lived happily intheir later years.

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Wuhan military logistics baseAfterword
The painting exhibition A Mournful Private–War Experiences Exhibition was held at the Chikyudo
Gallery in Tokyo’s Ginza, in August 1972. This was an exceptional exhibit which featured the works
of Japanese-style painter Masao Yamamoto and other artists who ser ved in the Pacific War, andpresented sketches and caricatures from that time, as well as new works painted in recollection.
When I was serving at the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters, Yamamoto was a superior private
who had been called up to Unit 2904 of the 27th Division (“Field Division”), which was attached tothe headquarters. Later on, Yamamoto visited me at my home, and he suggested that I should write amemoir of my time as the recreation section chief at the Hankou Military Logistics Headquarters asa unique testimony of war. Without some explanation, people who did not experience life under theformer Japanese military would probably not immediately understand the words “military logistics
base” or “recreation section.” While those contents are described in the text, my duties at thattime included the particular work of supervising and guiding the comfort women (special comfort
facilities), which had nothing to do with the dust of battle or the smell of gunpowder smoke.
Young people today probably have no idea what the term “comfort woman” means. And I think mostpeople who were adults on the home front during the great war did not know or were not informed
about the conditions of the Japanese military on the battlefield, and only came to learn about whatthings were like from reading battle tales published after the war.
In short, comfort units were prostitution units of women sent to handle the sexual needs of soldiersin the war zone. This system whereby the brothel owners were under the direct super vision of
the military was probably unique to the Japanese military and did not exist in the military forcesof other countries. Even though this was military policy, it was still prostitution of course, and—needless to say—ignored the human rights of the women. I, who was ordered to ser ve as therecreation section chief, could only follow the view of the military logistics base commander that thiswas a necessary evil during wartime. All I could do was to create a better environment within thatsystem, hope the comfort women could gain their freedom as soon as possible, and seek some small
redemption through those efforts. But if I were accused of being an accomplice who closed my eyes
to exploitation by the villainous brothel owners and abetted human trafficking in the name of the holy
war, I would have to resignedly accept that blame.
Compared with the records of officers and soldiers on the front who faced horrible death amid
gunfire, famine, disease, and putrid smells, my war experience may seem far too leisurely. But I
think it is all right for each of us to give testimony about how we lived and what we experienced in
the situations we were placed in, amid the all-out warfare of the Pacific War, including those on thehome front. In that sense, I thought a record of the experiences of one drafted officer more than 40
years old at a military logistics base in the rear is not entirely meaningless, and decided to write thismemoir.
At that time, the military logistics base in Hankou in central China was a relay point for receiving
militar y supplies and mail from Japan, and for transporting militar y mail from men at the front,
officers and soldiers who were sick or wounded, and the remains of the dead to Japan. It was also a
key point for the passage of units from Japan to the battlefield, or from one battlefield to another.
Hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers must have either been stationed or passed throughthis base during the great war. They must have all heard the bell of the Hankou Customs House clock
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Wuhan military logistics basetower. Some of them must have visited the comfort facilities in Jiqingli. Others may have dropped
by the Soldiers’ Amusement Park or the military logistics base library that was called the Soldiers’
Library to spend some time relaxing. Among the soldiers who took part in the sumo, kendo, baseball,variety shows, and other military logistics base events which were held before the Hunan-Guangxi
Operation (Operation Togo) in 1944, or who submitted works to the art show, there must be somewho died glorious deaths at the front. The comfort women I met were at the bottom of the war
machine hierarchy, and they suffered all types of hardships together with the soldiers. Some went
to the front and died along with the men, while others lost their young lives from illness at comfort
facilities that were like prisons without bars. I also wanted to write this memoir in tribute to thosemany men and women who suffered an untimely death.
I served at the Military Logistics Headquarters from March 1943. In June 1945, I was able to entrust a
notebook in which I had written my diary and some notes to my comrade Paymaster First Lieutenant
Sakae Noguchi, who was returning to Japan while being transferred to a unit for the final battle on
the mainland, and have him deliver this to my home. It would have been impossible to trace my lifeat that time in detail from just my memories of 30 years before. Fortunately this notebook, which
was delivered to Japan, and the military mail I sent to my family, survived. So, I was able to write thismemoir based on these records.
Of course, this memoir contains no fictions or exaggerations. It is a collection of notes just as they
were written. To be sure, the rear echelon units had an aspect of laxity often seen in rear area duties.
Beyond that, my thoughts may have been simple and superficial, and I may not have been able tosee through to the truth of the facts, and there may be regrets that I did not address many things
here. Looking back now, I can see I was an unsoldierly soldier, and that there may have been betterways of doing things. Even within the same military logistics base, the experiences of the officers,
non-commissioned officers, and men must have all been different, depending on rank and individual
character. For that reason, this is not a record of a military logistics base but rather my own record as
an individual who was stationed at a military logistics base.
Some of the names in the main text may be mistaken, and I hope I have not given any offense.
I sketched maps of the military logistics base facilities and the Hankou Special Comfort Facilities
from memory, so they may not be accurate. The sketches inserted in the text are from letters I sent to
my children as military mail.
In the memoir, I have quoted at great length from Commander Horie’s The Voiceless Front. Horie
passed away at the age of 85 in December 1971. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to him
and earnestly pray for the repose of his soul. I also quoted from books by Kazuo Nagao, Hideo Fujino,
Tadashi Moriya, and Keiichi Ito, and I would like to express my sincere thanks to them. Finally, I
should like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the many people who provided advice and assistancewith this work, especially Kazuo Takeuchi, who lent me his diar y and notes, Kenichi Nagasawa,Keiichi Teru’uchi, and Takashi Masuda, who lent me precious photographs and other materials,
Tosho Shuppansha President Saburo Yamashita, who kindly took on my crude manuscript, and Junzo
Shimizu, who gave me useful advice regarding the organization of my story.
October 1978
Seikichi Yamada

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Wuhan military logistics base