Japanese Army stragglers and memories of the War in Japan, 1950-1975
By: Beatrice Trefalt.
Series: RoutledgeCurzon studies in the modern history of Asia -- 13
Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon
Published: 2003
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Japan. -- Rikugun -- Demobilization; World War, 1939-1945 -- Veterans -- Japan; World War, 1939-1945 -- Social aspects -- Japan; World War, 1939-1945 -- Southeast Asia; World War, 1939-1945 -- Pacific Area
Description: "This book comprehensively charts the discovery and repatriation between 1950 and 1975, of so-called 'stragglers' - Japanese soldiers who had remained in hiding overseas, unwilling to believe the war was over - still fighting the Second World War on the edges of former battlefields in South-East Asia and the Pacific. It explores their return to Japan and their impact on the Japanese people, revealing changing attitudes to war veterans and war casualties' families, as well as the ambivalence of memories of the war."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index
Table of contents: title: The shared past: mobilisation for war; title: Creating stragglers: demobilisation, 1945-1950; title: 'Five years on mice and potatoes': exotic stragglers, 1950-1952; title: 'Living spirits of the war dead', 1954-1956; title: 'But they are not gorillas', 1959-1960; title: The past in the present: Yokoi Shōichi returns from Guam, 1972; title: 'In the jungle, the war was still going on': Kozuka Kinshichi, Onoda Hirō and the last of Lubang, 1972-1974; title: Nakamura Teruo: the last straggler and the issue of imperialism; title: Conclusion; title: Appendix: number and provenance of repatriates to Japan, 1945-1995.