The fanaticisms of the Japanese troops seen during WW2 was a direct produce of a program of indoctrination of the general population that started in the 1920’s. This featured a phrase supposedly used by the first Emperor ‘The eight corners of the world under one roof’. This has been interpreted to mean that Japan has the divine right to dominate all of Asia and the Pacific area, and eventually rule the world. To further reinforce the idea of service to the Emperor, they begun to promote a distorted form of the Samurai Bushido code. They used this as a way of reconciling traditional Japanese values of honour, humility and collective conformity. It emphasises collective loyalty rather than freedom and individuality. A citizen’s duties and obligations to the nation are paramount, there is almost no recognition given to an individual’s rights. This system of indoctrination started in school where each morning schoolchildren would bow in the direction of the Imperial Palace and answer their teacher’s call of ‘What is your dearest ambition?’ to which the children would answer ‘To die for the Emperor’. This indoctrination was further reinforced within the Japanese military.
The Japanese were not soldiers in the western mould, the Japanese soldier was always portrayed as being a warrior and even more so their officers. The result of this is that in the attack the Japanese soldier will come on and on and on, over the bodies of his fallen comrades until he is victorious or is killed. If he is killed then he would expect more like him to run over his body in turn until the enemies of the Emperor are vanquished. In defence he will have to be exterminated before a position can be taken. The word fanatical could be used to describe the Japanese soldiers approach to war, but it is not quite the right word. Certainly the Japanese soldier believes in his Emperor, his Country and his Cause, and his belief is unshakable, but he is no more immune to fear than a soldier of any other army, whereas the fanatic is anaesthetised by the very power of whatever drives him. What, then, keeps the Japanese solider running forward in the attack, and why will he stay in his bunker knowing that he could be buried alive. The answers lies in a complex amalgam of iron discipline, national tradition, religion and philosophy, all of which are utterly alien to Western thought and way of life.
However, discipline alone will not make the Japanese soldier the formidable opponent he will be. His tremendous devotion to duty comes from deep within himself, and had been implanted there since boyhood. During her long centuries of isolation, Japan’s history had been one long brawl between war-lords, and in this troubled story the dominant figure in Japanese life was the Samurai, the professional fighting caste which lived by a code known as bushido, a concept similar to Chivalry of the European Middle Ages in that the primary virtues are bravery, loyalty, benevolence, good manners, and the unimportance of the individual in relation to the cause. This code demanded that failure in any martial undertaking can have but one ending, and that is death, either in combat or through ritualistic suicide by disembowelment known as ‘Seppuku’ also known as ‘Hari-Kiri’ in western literature. In this the principal, after due spiritual preparation, slashes open his own stomach with a horizontal stroke, with a very sharp short tanto blade knife, ending with an upward slice. Both forms of death are considered honourable and in the latter case the victim is even permitted to shorten his agony by either having his head swiftly removed by a friend with a Katana sword or by blowing his own brains out.
The discipline of the Imperial Japanese Army could not be borne by any other army in the world. The focus and the intention of this discipline is to reduce the individual to an automaton who will obey his orders absolutely and to the letter. It is a discipline in which physical violence features prominently, and this violence can be administered for the most minor of infringement and on the spot. Sometimes, mere hard repeated slapping across the face would suffice, but fists, boots, clubs and the flats of an officers’ swords are quite commonplace instruments of chastisement or as a means of emphasising a point of view. In the Japanese Army, discipline flowed downhill: senior officers slap junior officers, junior officers slap non-commissioned officers, and so on down the line until the lowliest of privates, with no subordinates to chastise, bears the punishment. Japanese officers had to be careful, however, not to shame a man, because under that circumstance a subordinate would often feel they have no recourse but to commit seppuku in order to expunge his error or regain his honour in the face of unjust punishment. Even this fades in to triviality in comparison to the treatment that could be handed out to those who are unfortunate to cross the path of the Kenpei-Tai. Officially this is the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army. It functions as both a conventional military police and as a counter-intelligence police force. In Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpei-Tai could and will arrested those who it merely suspects of being anti-Japanese. While it is institutionally a part of the IJA, the Kenpei-Tai also discharged the same functions of a uniformed military police force for the Imperial Japanese Navy under authority given to it by the Admiralty Minister. It was granted additional powers similar to that of a European Gendarmerie, with executive, and judicial police functions with regards to those who worked in militarily important industries and with regards to foreigners in Japan itself and in Japanese occupied territory. These additional police powers have been granted to it by the Japanese Home and Justice Ministers.
The Japanese were not soldiers in the western mould, the Japanese soldier was always portrayed as being a warrior and even more so their officers. The result of this is that in the attack the Japanese soldier will come on and on and on, over the bodies of his fallen comrades until he is victorious or is killed. If he is killed then he would expect more like him to run over his body in turn until the enemies of the Emperor are vanquished. In defence he will have to be exterminated before a position can be taken. The word fanatical could be used to describe the Japanese soldiers approach to war, but it is not quite the right word. Certainly the Japanese soldier believes in his Emperor, his Country and his Cause, and his belief is unshakable, but he is no more immune to fear than a soldier of any other army, whereas the fanatic is anaesthetised by the very power of whatever drives him. What, then, keeps the Japanese solider running forward in the attack, and why will he stay in his bunker knowing that he could be buried alive. The answers lies in a complex amalgam of iron discipline, national tradition, religion and philosophy, all of which are utterly alien to Western thought and way of life.
However, discipline alone will not make the Japanese soldier the formidable opponent he will be. His tremendous devotion to duty comes from deep within himself, and had been implanted there since boyhood. During her long centuries of isolation, Japan’s history had been one long brawl between war-lords, and in this troubled story the dominant figure in Japanese life was the Samurai, the professional fighting caste which lived by a code known as bushido, a concept similar to Chivalry of the European Middle Ages in that the primary virtues are bravery, loyalty, benevolence, good manners, and the unimportance of the individual in relation to the cause. This code demanded that failure in any martial undertaking can have but one ending, and that is death, either in combat or through ritualistic suicide by disembowelment known as ‘Seppuku’ also known as ‘Hari-Kiri’ in western literature. In this the principal, after due spiritual preparation, slashes open his own stomach with a horizontal stroke, with a very sharp short tanto blade knife, ending with an upward slice. Both forms of death are considered honourable and in the latter case the victim is even permitted to shorten his agony by either having his head swiftly removed by a friend with a Katana sword or by blowing his own brains out.
The discipline of the Imperial Japanese Army could not be borne by any other army in the world. The focus and the intention of this discipline is to reduce the individual to an automaton who will obey his orders absolutely and to the letter. It is a discipline in which physical violence features prominently, and this violence can be administered for the most minor of infringement and on the spot. Sometimes, mere hard repeated slapping across the face would suffice, but fists, boots, clubs and the flats of an officers’ swords are quite commonplace instruments of chastisement or as a means of emphasising a point of view. In the Japanese Army, discipline flowed downhill: senior officers slap junior officers, junior officers slap non-commissioned officers, and so on down the line until the lowliest of privates, with no subordinates to chastise, bears the punishment. Japanese officers had to be careful, however, not to shame a man, because under that circumstance a subordinate would often feel they have no recourse but to commit seppuku in order to expunge his error or regain his honour in the face of unjust punishment. Even this fades in to triviality in comparison to the treatment that could be handed out to those who are unfortunate to cross the path of the Kenpei-Tai. Officially this is the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army. It functions as both a conventional military police and as a counter-intelligence police force. In Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpei-Tai could and will arrested those who it merely suspects of being anti-Japanese. While it is institutionally a part of the IJA, the Kenpei-Tai also discharged the same functions of a uniformed military police force for the Imperial Japanese Navy under authority given to it by the Admiralty Minister. It was granted additional powers similar to that of a European Gendarmerie, with executive, and judicial police functions with regards to those who worked in militarily important industries and with regards to foreigners in Japan itself and in Japanese occupied territory. These additional police powers have been granted to it by the Japanese Home and Justice Ministers.
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