On My Mind - Seventy Years Since World War II
ISHIGOOKA Ken / Journalist
August 4, 2015
I was born two years after the end of World War II, in September 1947. My father returned from the war and married my mother, and children like me were called "Fukuin-kko (demob kids)" - babies born to returning soldiers. We were later called the "Dankai (baby boomer) Generation," the core group of the population that lived through seven decades of Japan's postwar development.
My father was dispatched to Manila, the Philippines, in the final days of the war as part of an emergency program to mobilize university students. He was then ordered to join the Battle of Imphal, a reckless campaign that took place on the borders of Burma - today’s Myanmar - and India that left countless dead, mostly due to starvation and disease. The Allied Forces had the military advantage throughout Southeast Asia at the time, making it impossible to travel directly to Burma. My father was told to head for Burma by land via Hong Kong. As they prepared to sail from Manila, they came across Japan's elite Kwantung Army coming in from Manchukuo, the northeastern region of today's China. That entire troop was annihilated in the Philippines.
After leaving Manila, the sea convoy carrying my father came under attack from the U.S. Air Force in the northern Bashi Channel. The convoy was bombed and the ships sank one after the other. My father told me he would never forget the image of a young, pale-faced officer who stood transfixed on the deck as he went down along with the transport vessel into the night sea. The surviving convoy was in no shape to head for Hong Kong. The best they could do was reach Taiwan. And so my father was to take on the U.S. Forces in the southernmost region of Taiwan. However, following their campaign in the Philippines, the U.S. forces bypassed Taiwan and turned instead toward Iwo Jima and Okinawa, both battlefields where the Japanese army waged suicidal warfare. If the U.S. Forces had landed in Taiwan, my father would not have lived, and I would not have been born either.
It is now eight years since my father died at the age of eighty-seven. In the last days of his life, my father went around his former schoolmates from high school, making a desperate appeal: "We should never go to war again."Those were his last words.
In a few years' time, most of the generation that experienced war, like my father, would be gone. What's more, I myself, who heard my father speak of his war experience, am close to seventy now and living what little time I have left. The majority of Japanese have neither direct nor indirect knowledge of war. We are living in incredible times when some young people are not even aware that Japan was once at war with the United States. Once, I was stunned to hear a student ask: "Professor, what was the Cold War like? I have no idea, because it happened before I was born." It is not just World War II; it is all becoming part of a past long gone.
And the greatest problem facing us is that as if to coincide with the exit of those who remember the war, the postwar order in East Asia is being shaken badly. North Korea is openly developing nuclear weapons, China is challenging the United States as a global power, and territorial issues are coming to a head in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The Cold War may have ended, but its structure has remained intact, as in the North-South division of the Korean Peninsula and the subtle antagonism that persists between mainland China and Taiwan. Meanwhile, the new order of the future has yet to take shape.
In the past, the tragic and vivid personal accounts of war had worked as a deterrent. People who have never lived through a war can only imagine war in the abstract, which lacks any sense of reality. Moreover, instability in the existing order gives rise to fear and overconfidence, which in turn incites nationalism and an emphasis on nothing but chest-thumping righteousness and assertion of legitimacy. "What would be the consequences of an expansion in the confrontation and tensions, when they include military options?" - imagination and contemplation of the worst-case scenario are simply shoved aside.
In Europe, introspection on World War II has encouraged reconciliation to the point that leaders of each country - both victor and loser – can participate side by side in memorial events. A forum for discussing security for the entire region is being created. At the very least, the need to seek ways to prevent unanticipated clashes from escalating into a military standoff is becoming a shared idea.
Unfortunately, developments in that direction have seen little progress in East Asia. We are fast approaching an era in which we must think about the future of East Asia by seeing value in sharing the basic stance of understanding each other's standpoints. We must not let another major tragedy occur after seventy years of the postwar period. I believe it is time we start preparing to that end.
Ken Ishigooka is a journalist and former special editor of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
My father was dispatched to Manila, the Philippines, in the final days of the war as part of an emergency program to mobilize university students. He was then ordered to join the Battle of Imphal, a reckless campaign that took place on the borders of Burma - today’s Myanmar - and India that left countless dead, mostly due to starvation and disease. The Allied Forces had the military advantage throughout Southeast Asia at the time, making it impossible to travel directly to Burma. My father was told to head for Burma by land via Hong Kong. As they prepared to sail from Manila, they came across Japan's elite Kwantung Army coming in from Manchukuo, the northeastern region of today's China. That entire troop was annihilated in the Philippines.
After leaving Manila, the sea convoy carrying my father came under attack from the U.S. Air Force in the northern Bashi Channel. The convoy was bombed and the ships sank one after the other. My father told me he would never forget the image of a young, pale-faced officer who stood transfixed on the deck as he went down along with the transport vessel into the night sea. The surviving convoy was in no shape to head for Hong Kong. The best they could do was reach Taiwan. And so my father was to take on the U.S. Forces in the southernmost region of Taiwan. However, following their campaign in the Philippines, the U.S. forces bypassed Taiwan and turned instead toward Iwo Jima and Okinawa, both battlefields where the Japanese army waged suicidal warfare. If the U.S. Forces had landed in Taiwan, my father would not have lived, and I would not have been born either.
It is now eight years since my father died at the age of eighty-seven. In the last days of his life, my father went around his former schoolmates from high school, making a desperate appeal: "We should never go to war again."Those were his last words.
In a few years' time, most of the generation that experienced war, like my father, would be gone. What's more, I myself, who heard my father speak of his war experience, am close to seventy now and living what little time I have left. The majority of Japanese have neither direct nor indirect knowledge of war. We are living in incredible times when some young people are not even aware that Japan was once at war with the United States. Once, I was stunned to hear a student ask: "Professor, what was the Cold War like? I have no idea, because it happened before I was born." It is not just World War II; it is all becoming part of a past long gone.
And the greatest problem facing us is that as if to coincide with the exit of those who remember the war, the postwar order in East Asia is being shaken badly. North Korea is openly developing nuclear weapons, China is challenging the United States as a global power, and territorial issues are coming to a head in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The Cold War may have ended, but its structure has remained intact, as in the North-South division of the Korean Peninsula and the subtle antagonism that persists between mainland China and Taiwan. Meanwhile, the new order of the future has yet to take shape.
In the past, the tragic and vivid personal accounts of war had worked as a deterrent. People who have never lived through a war can only imagine war in the abstract, which lacks any sense of reality. Moreover, instability in the existing order gives rise to fear and overconfidence, which in turn incites nationalism and an emphasis on nothing but chest-thumping righteousness and assertion of legitimacy. "What would be the consequences of an expansion in the confrontation and tensions, when they include military options?" - imagination and contemplation of the worst-case scenario are simply shoved aside.
In Europe, introspection on World War II has encouraged reconciliation to the point that leaders of each country - both victor and loser – can participate side by side in memorial events. A forum for discussing security for the entire region is being created. At the very least, the need to seek ways to prevent unanticipated clashes from escalating into a military standoff is becoming a shared idea.
Unfortunately, developments in that direction have seen little progress in East Asia. We are fast approaching an era in which we must think about the future of East Asia by seeing value in sharing the basic stance of understanding each other's standpoints. We must not let another major tragedy occur after seventy years of the postwar period. I believe it is time we start preparing to that end.
Ken Ishigooka is a journalist and former special editor of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
戦後70年―わたしはこう考える
石郷岡 建 / ジャーナリスト
2015年 8月 4日
第二次大戦が終わって２年後、１９４７年９月、私は生まれた。父親が戦地から帰還して、母親と結婚してできた子で、当時は「復員っ子」（帰還兵の子どもたち）といわれた。のちに、「団塊の世代」と呼ばれ、戦後７０年の日本の発展とともに生きてきた中核世代でもある。
父親は戦争末期、学徒動員（大学生の緊急戦争動員）の一人として、フィリピンのマニラに送られた。さらに、ビルマ（現ミャンマー）とインド国境地帯のインパール作戦（膨大な犠牲者を出した無謀な作戦で、死者の大半は餓死と病死だった）への転戦を命じられた。当時、連合軍は東南アジア全域を優勢に戦っており、直接ビルマへ移動するのは不可能だった。父親は香港経由陸路でビルマへ行くように命ぜられた。マニラを出港する際、満州（現中国東北部）からの関東軍気鋭部隊とすれ違った。部隊はフィリピンで全滅したという。
父親の乗った輸送船団はマニラを出て、北のバシ―海峡で、米空軍の攻撃を受けた。船団は爆撃され、次々と船が沈んでいった。輸送船の甲板で立ちすくむ青年将校が真っ青な顔をしながら夜の海へ埋没していった姿を、今も忘れないという。生き残った船団は、香港どころではなく、台湾にたどり着くのが精いっぱいだった。父親はそのまま台湾の最南端の地で米軍を迎え撃つことになった。しかし、米軍は、フィリピンのあと、台湾を飛び越し、硫黄島と沖縄（いずれも日本軍の玉砕戦の地）へと向かった。もし、米軍が台湾へ上陸していれば、父親は生きておらず、私の誕生もなかったはずである。
その父親も８年前、８７歳で死去した。死の直前、高校時代の同窓会関係者に「戦争は二度とすべきではない」と必死になって訴えた。最後の言葉だった。
あと数年もたつと、父親のような戦争体験者は、ほぼいなくなる。それどころか、父親の戦争体験を聞いた私も、気がつくと７０歳に近く、残り少ない人生を送っている。戦争を、直接的にも、間接的にも、知らない世代が大半となっている。日本が米国と戦争をしていたことを知らない若者もいるという驚くべき時代だ。私も、「先生、冷戦って、どういう雰囲気だったのですか？私の生まれる前の話で、ピンときません」と学生からいわれて、唖然としたことがある。第二次大戦どころではなく、すべてが遠い昔になりつつある。
われわれが置かれている最大の問題は、戦争体験者が舞台を去るのと歩調を合わすように、大戦後に作られた東アジアの秩序が大きく揺さぶられていることだ。北朝鮮は核開発を公然化し、中国が米国に挑戦するグローバルパワーとして登場し、東シナ海や南シナ海では領土問題が先鋭化している。冷戦は終了したが、東アジアでは朝鮮半島の南北分断、中国本土と台湾の微妙な対立など冷戦構造が残る一方、来たるべき新秩序はまだ見えない。
以前は戦争体験者の悲惨な生々しい経験が戦争への抑止として働いていた。しかし戦争体験のない人々の戦争のイメージは、抽象的で、現実感を喪失している。加えて既存秩序が揺さぶられることで生み出される不安や過剰な自信がナショナリズムを刺激し、威勢のいい正義感や正統意識だけが強調される。軍事を含む対立・緊張関係が拡大したらどうなるのか、という最悪の事態への想像力も思慮も脇に追いやられている。
欧州では、第二次大戦への反省から和解が進み、各国の首脳が、勝者も敗者も並んで、記念式典に参加できる状況までたどり着いている。安全保障を欧州規模で話し合う場も作られつつある。少なくとも、突発的な衝突が全面的な軍事対決に発展しないように模索すべきだとの考えは共有され始めている。
東アジアでは、このような動きは、残念ながら、まだ進んでいない。お互いの立場を理解するという基本姿勢を共通価値観とし、東アジアの将来を考えねばならない時代がすぐそこまでやってきている。戦後７０年のあとに、再び大きな悲劇を起こしてはならない。その準備を始める時がやってきたと思う。
（筆者は元毎日新聞社専門編集委員。）
父親は戦争末期、学徒動員（大学生の緊急戦争動員）の一人として、フィリピンのマニラに送られた。さらに、ビルマ（現ミャンマー）とインド国境地帯のインパール作戦（膨大な犠牲者を出した無謀な作戦で、死者の大半は餓死と病死だった）への転戦を命じられた。当時、連合軍は東南アジア全域を優勢に戦っており、直接ビルマへ移動するのは不可能だった。父親は香港経由陸路でビルマへ行くように命ぜられた。マニラを出港する際、満州（現中国東北部）からの関東軍気鋭部隊とすれ違った。部隊はフィリピンで全滅したという。
父親の乗った輸送船団はマニラを出て、北のバシ―海峡で、米空軍の攻撃を受けた。船団は爆撃され、次々と船が沈んでいった。輸送船の甲板で立ちすくむ青年将校が真っ青な顔をしながら夜の海へ埋没していった姿を、今も忘れないという。生き残った船団は、香港どころではなく、台湾にたどり着くのが精いっぱいだった。父親はそのまま台湾の最南端の地で米軍を迎え撃つことになった。しかし、米軍は、フィリピンのあと、台湾を飛び越し、硫黄島と沖縄（いずれも日本軍の玉砕戦の地）へと向かった。もし、米軍が台湾へ上陸していれば、父親は生きておらず、私の誕生もなかったはずである。
その父親も８年前、８７歳で死去した。死の直前、高校時代の同窓会関係者に「戦争は二度とすべきではない」と必死になって訴えた。最後の言葉だった。
あと数年もたつと、父親のような戦争体験者は、ほぼいなくなる。それどころか、父親の戦争体験を聞いた私も、気がつくと７０歳に近く、残り少ない人生を送っている。戦争を、直接的にも、間接的にも、知らない世代が大半となっている。日本が米国と戦争をしていたことを知らない若者もいるという驚くべき時代だ。私も、「先生、冷戦って、どういう雰囲気だったのですか？私の生まれる前の話で、ピンときません」と学生からいわれて、唖然としたことがある。第二次大戦どころではなく、すべてが遠い昔になりつつある。
われわれが置かれている最大の問題は、戦争体験者が舞台を去るのと歩調を合わすように、大戦後に作られた東アジアの秩序が大きく揺さぶられていることだ。北朝鮮は核開発を公然化し、中国が米国に挑戦するグローバルパワーとして登場し、東シナ海や南シナ海では領土問題が先鋭化している。冷戦は終了したが、東アジアでは朝鮮半島の南北分断、中国本土と台湾の微妙な対立など冷戦構造が残る一方、来たるべき新秩序はまだ見えない。
以前は戦争体験者の悲惨な生々しい経験が戦争への抑止として働いていた。しかし戦争体験のない人々の戦争のイメージは、抽象的で、現実感を喪失している。加えて既存秩序が揺さぶられることで生み出される不安や過剰な自信がナショナリズムを刺激し、威勢のいい正義感や正統意識だけが強調される。軍事を含む対立・緊張関係が拡大したらどうなるのか、という最悪の事態への想像力も思慮も脇に追いやられている。
欧州では、第二次大戦への反省から和解が進み、各国の首脳が、勝者も敗者も並んで、記念式典に参加できる状況までたどり着いている。安全保障を欧州規模で話し合う場も作られつつある。少なくとも、突発的な衝突が全面的な軍事対決に発展しないように模索すべきだとの考えは共有され始めている。
東アジアでは、このような動きは、残念ながら、まだ進んでいない。お互いの立場を理解するという基本姿勢を共通価値観とし、東アジアの将来を考えねばならない時代がすぐそこまでやってきている。戦後７０年のあとに、再び大きな悲劇を起こしてはならない。その準備を始める時がやってきたと思う。
（筆者は元毎日新聞社専門編集委員。）
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟