TRAINING FOR DEATH

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

TRAINING FOR DEATH

Militarism In Japan: Deification Of Emperor

You cannot assess the Japanese army numerically. Japanese officers have often protested to me with a smile that the Japanese soldier is not a whit superior mentally, morally, or physically to tlie soldier of the West, writes Willard Price in “The Spectator.” Yet they insist that lie is, in fact, “a better soldier,” because, unlike other soldiers, he courts death as his greatest honour.

The training of men who will go to their doom with tlie unswerving directness of robots is a weird and unworldly process. It begins 2000 years before the soldier is boru. Bushido has taught the Japanese race to think well of itself, and the Japanese individual to regard himself as nothing but dirt to be ground under the chariot wheels of the progress of his race. The One must give himself for the All. What better racial tradition could there be for tlie making of die-easy soldiers?

Active military training begins at the age of six. Boys in the first year of primary school are taught to march, drill, do the goose-step, sing war songs, and marshal platoons of wooden soldiers. When they reach middle-school at 12 years of age they are provided with light rifles and a uniform with brass buttons. Military instructors take them in hand and drill them thoroughly in the manual of arms. There is a parade ground and drill hall in connection with every middle school. Also there is a sacred vault containing the pictures of the Emperor and Empress, and these are taken out upon special occasions and venerated by the assembled students. There are frequent excursions to military shrines and war memorials.

Each year there are military manoeuvres of schoolboys. In a recent demonstration of this sort 10,000 students participated. They were divided into two opposing “armies,” the one intrenching itself along a river-bank, tlie other attacking the position an hour before dawn. The “armies” were equipped with blank loaded rifles, ma-chine-guns, grenades, and field guns, and were commanded by regular army officers.

Perhaps more important than all this is “Morals.” It is a required subject in every primary and middle school. From age six to 17 the future soldier is drilled, not in morals as we would understand the subject, but in “Morals” with an imperial “M”—loyalty to the immediate family which is called the nation, and the Emperor who is the father of all. This goes on until many students, when asked “What is your dearest wish?” will sincerely enough set down this answer: “To'die for my beloved Emperor.” After graduation, the Young Men’s Association continues the work. It has a branch in every village, and its aim is to make'patriots. Then comes conscription. The young Japanese must

put forth his best effort to be conscripted, and does so, for it is considered an honour. He must first pass a stiff examination. Those who pass ape further weeded down by a ballot so arranged that only one out of eight can succeed. The others are drafted into the reserve.

Tlie new recruits are acclaimed by the commanding officers’ in special ceremonies. and letters of instruction are •sent to their homes so that their families may know the conduct becoming to the relatives of a soldier. His life, which lias been claimed by the Emperor. they must consider before their own. They must in no circumstances be a handicap to him in the performance of his duty. Many a mother has committed suicide rather than be a burden upon her soldier-son. No great sensation was created recently when two small boys who would have no one to care for them if their father obeyed the call io active service in Manchuria, bared their bodies to his sword and died with the Emperor's name on their lips.

The conscript’s required two years ■with tlie colours are spent in a graduated course of hardships. Whatever topographical features the country round may possess are used to the areatest possible disadvantage. If there are mountains, they must be climbed where the climbing is hardest. If there are marshes, they must be waded. Rivers in flood are crossed by raft or improvised bridge. Deep snow is an invitation to an exhausting “snow march.” The bitterest days in winter and the hottest days in summer are seized upon as appropriate times for field exercises. When the ground is frozen, trench-digging is the order of the day.

Death rather than surrender is no platitude in the Japanese army, but a strict rule of conduct. To be taken prisoner is “a dishonour of the greatest magnitude.”

It is always a simple matter in the Japanese army to get volunteers to serve as human bombs, or to ride within torpedoes to certain death, or to wedge their bodies into the muzzles of cannon so that the obstruction may blow the artillery to bits before it may fall into the hands of the enemy. This does not mean that the Japanese soldier is braver than any other. It is the natural outcome of the ever-preach-ed doctrine of self-immolation for the public good.

Because the army is the chief exponent of this doctrine of sacrifice it has some right to be called, as university students have sdlemnly described it to me, “The greatest spiritual force in Japan.” The army is Japan’s church and religion. Buddhism is weak in comparison. As for Shinto, it has become largely identified with tlie army. The army is the will of the nation.