Japan at War: An Oral History

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Summary: Shocking hidden stories of the people of Japan
Review: As an American Nisei (2nd generation) Japanese american, my parents experienced the terror of the civilian firebombing at the end of World War II. Since they, as many, are reluctant to talk about it, this book helped me to capture some of their experiences and come to a greater understanding of an extremely difficult time. The irrefutability of oral history as the direct retelling of recollection and experience creates a context for telling these heretofore untold stories. It provides a sense of the greater story in a way that documentary and narrative historiographic contexts told from the perspective of the "winner" are unable to capture.

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Summary: AN INSIDE LOOK AT JAPAN DURING WORLD WAR II
Review: For those who are interested in what life was like for the Japanese people during World War II this is the book to read. The book contains a series of interviews with locals who survived the war and also with military personnel, even those who participated in atrocities against the Americans and Chinese. The book starts out slow moving, but it then becomes hard to put down. It is an excellent baseline compilation; in fact you see parts of this book quoted in other significant commentaries of the Pacific War. Some parts of the book will enlighten you and possibly make you feel terribly empathetic and sorrowful; other parts will dismay and disturb you. But, it you are a serious student of the war, this is MUST READING and a serious and significant contribution to Pacific War literature.

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Summary: We forget Japanese cruelty toward others.
Review: I was a kid in China during World War 2. (I was born in 1935. The brutal Japanese invasion of China began in 1937.) I know it's "incorrect" of me, but I find it hard to sympathize with the Japanese or with those who sympathize with the Japanese. Yes, they suffered, as is clearly shown in this book, but what about the horrendous suffering they inflicted on others?

I still remember vividly the day in 1945 when the news came thru the radio that America had invented a bomb, only the size of a man's fist (so the story went), which was so powerful that just one of these bombs can wipe out an entire city, and America had just dropped one on a Japanese city! I still remember the wild rejoicing. We all assumed that America, the country of miracles, would make hundreds of these bombs and drop them all over Japan and wipe that country off the face of the earth.

To this day, every August 6th, I celebrate Hiroshima Day.

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Summary: An essential book for any fan of World War II
Review: The authors do an outstanding job of gathering accounts from a variety of Japanese survivors. The topics range from the conflict in China to the dropping of the atomic bombs. The book allows the reader to understand the reasonings behind specific actions by soldiers and the mindset of both civilians and soldiers throughout the war. Reading chapter 15, "Special Attack," was truly frightening. For anyone who wanted to know why the Japanese Kamikaze pilots felt they should give their lives for their country, then this is a chapter that must be read. Overall, an excellent book that needs to be read for those interested in this vast topic.

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Summary: Destined to become a classic
Review: There is no lack of oral histories of the Second World War as seen by American, British, German, or even Russian participants. It is another matter when one comes to the Japanese. This book is the first important oral history to be presented exclusively from the Japanese side.

The Cooks present dozens of oral histories that are virtually unedited, presenting each interviewee's story just as it was told. The oral histories are grouped into chapters roughly by time period or theme, and each chapter has a succinct introduction that puts the oral histories that follow into their wider historical perspective. Each oral history is introduced with a very brief description of the interviewee, with a minimum of footnotes, often to writings previously published by the interviewee himself.

Because the histories are presented verbatim, one reads each of these stories of the war precisely as the teller of the story wants to remember it, complete with biases and fifty years of selective memory. Being already familiar with the broad historical events of the war, I found this utterly fascinating. There is the convicted war criminal who denies the Rape of Nanking took place, and adamantly refuses to admit that the white objects on the ground in his own collection of photographs are actually dead corpses. Then there is the military doctor who "remembered" performing practice surgery on unanaesthetized Chinese prisoners only after four years of Chinese Communist brainwashing. There's good reason to believe that such atrocities occurred, but did the Chinese force the doctor to recall a repressed memory of a real even, or did they just implant a false memory?

There is the Japanese prisoner of war who helped write propaganda leaflets for the Americans and who recalls his time in America as a POW as one of the happiest in his life. And then there is the Okinawan who tells of crushing his own mother's skull with a rock, because the Japanese military had convinced his family that the Americans were demons who would do unspeakable things to anyone unfortunate enough to fall into their hands alive.

One gets a sense of a people that were totally disconnected from the real war situation, and of a military that completely desensitized its members. There is a dreamlike, or perhaps I should say nightmarish, quality to almost all the interviews. The power of the book lies in the juxtaposition of so many recollections, filled with so many contradictory observations. Sometimes the contradictions are found in the same history, as is the case for the nurse who believes the Americans used poison gas in the battle for Okinawa, but who also professes astonishment at the excellent treatment she received after falling into their hands.

The accounts of the firebombing of Tokyo or the atomic attack on Hiroshima are naturally painful for an American to read. What is astonishing is how little malice the victims feel towards their attackers. There is one victim from Hiroshima who expresses horror that the United States still maintains a nuclear arsenal, but for most of the others the reaction is more like a shrug: "It was war."

This powerful book deserves to become a classic, alongside "All Quiet on the Western Front", "The Diary of a Young Girl," or "With The Old Breed."

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Summary: Understanding the Orient
Review: World War Two was the most significant event of the 20th century. This book vastly increases one's understanding of that war. After reading it, you will feel as if you had sat down with dozens of Japanese war survivors, who share their memories of that conflict.

Some of the interviews do not ring true--such as the Japanese officer who says they killed only a few hundred Chinese civilians in Nanking.

Other interviews make one understand why the Koreans hate the Japanese.