G02Br, Fernando Hannaka ‘99, Masao Ijuka, Family friend, 1923, Saitama
I interviewed a friend of my mother, Mr Masao Ijuka, on November 8, 1997. He is 74 years old. I met him at his home in Konosu, Saitama prefecture.
Q: What did you do during World War II?
A: I was just like you, a boy in high school, when war broke out in China. Towards the end of the war against the United States, I was called up to become a military cadet. I was hoping to become an officer, but the war ended.
Q: How was life in Japan during the war?
A: There was no freedom of speech. The radio stations and newspapers were all controlled by the government.
Q: Was everyone in favor of the war?
A: No. Most people supported the war because the government was always encouraging them to fight. Some Japanese leaders, though, wanted the war to end as soon as possible. This is because they knew that Japan was too weak in technology to fight against the United States. The military power was 20:1 in favor of the U.S., so there was no way to beat them. It was like a Little League baseball team playing against a Major League team. There was just too much difference.
Q: Why do you think that Japan wanted to expand its territory?
A: Japan expanded its territory because it was looking for natural resources. As you know, Japan lacks oil, coal, and iron, so it needed those resources to develop its industry and military. At the time, Japan was able to produce most of the food it needed, and around 80% of the food consumed by Japanese was produced domestically. Today Japan has to import 60% of its food, and much of that comes from the U.S.
The reason for the war to break out between Japan and the U.S. was their disagreement over diplomatic policy regarding China. At the time, Japan occupied Manchuria because it had a lot of natural resources. Also there was interest in this region because Japanese could find jobs there. The U.S. did not recognize Japanese rule over Manchuria because it wanted to disrupt the Japanese occupation. Japan took over land in China before the U.S. did, so the U.S. felt that it had to catch up, in order to benefit from the resources there.
The Americans and the Japanese could not come to a peaceful agreement. In 1931, the Mukden Incident happened in Manchuria. China, supported by the U.S. and Britain and the Manchurian emperor, protested against Japan. There was also another clash near Beijing, but Japan did not declare war on China. In 1940, the U.S. stopped exporting some products to Japan. This created many problems, because Japan relied on those imports. As a result, Japan had to get oil and other resources from a different place, such as Southeast Asia.
The war in Europe was different from the war in Asia. Hitler and Mussolini were fascists and wanted to implant this system all over Europe. Germany wanted to get back the land that it lost in World War I. Japan, on the other hand, wanted to free the Asian people from the colonial slavery imposed by the U.S. and European empires. We were the only strong country in Asia, so if we did not fight against the Europeans and Americans, we would end up becoming a colony too. The Southeast Asian people did not have education or a strong army. Indonesia invited Japan to occupy it, but many people in Malaysia and Singapore were against the Japanese occupation, because most of them were descended from Chinese. Guerilla warfare broke out, so Japan had to fight against the guerillas. Japan began losing the war in 1942, so it needed natural resources from Asian countries.
Q: Why did the Japanese Navy attack Pearl Harbor?
A: Japan and the U.S could not agree peacefully on policy towards China. So around 1940, the U.S. threatened to stop trade with Japan unless it withdrew from the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany and Italy and withdrew its forces from the territories in Asia that it had invaded. Japan refused to follow this.
Many people believe that Japan made a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. However, this is not true. The U.S. had already declared war on Japan on November 26, 1941. Japan had prepared to send a declaration of war against the U.S. two hours before the Pearl Harbor attack. But Ambassador Nomura in Washington was a lazy person and did not follow orders from the Japanese government. Instead, he said it took a long time to translate the declaration, so it only reached the American president after the attack.
Q: Was the war necessary?
A: The war was not good, but it was unavoidable. Japan had tried to make peaceful agreements with the U.S., but it failed. If the Japanese did not fight against the Americans, they would have become their slaves, like the other countries in Asia. Most of my friends and I were always against the war, because we had studied American history at school and knew that Japan was no match for the U.S. However, if I had been Prime Minister at that time and had said “No” to the war, there would have been domestic unrest, because so many people were anxious to fight.
Q: What else would you want to add?
A: War is a very bad thing, and it does not bring anyone any good. People behave like animals, especially the soldiers in the front lines, and many people die in the end. People say that they fight for justice and for the country, but the ones who are really in control are the leaders. Leaders like Churchill, Roosevelt, and Tōjō Hideki are never the ones who die in war. They do not know the reality or war, and in the end the people are the victims. Those who have nothing to do with the war end up getting killed, like the innocent victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There were no military bases in those cities, but still the atomic bombs were dropped. Although many countries around the world decided not to kill ordinary people in war, after World War I, still more than one million were killed in Japan during World War II.
Five days after the American B-29 planes bombed Tōkyō on March 10, 1945, I was sent there. The city was devastated. There were no living people, just rotting bodies lying on the ground. At the time, I thought “the war had to end as soon as possible.” This was only one of the many cities that were attacked by thousands of fire bombs.
After the war, Japan has been treated like a colony by the United States. One of the main points of the “Peace Constitution” made right after the war was that Japan would stop fighting and should not have an army. The Americans promised that they would protect Japan with their army. This meant that Japan had to depend on the U.S. for protection. In addition, the Americans kept military bases in Japan, and they are causing local problems. Especially the bases in Okinawa take up a lot of land, so there is not enough for the people to work on. More recently another problem has arisen, that Japanese planes cannot fly over the U.S. This means that Japanese airlines cannot compete fairly with American airlines. I think that the U.S. should stop trying to be the police of the world and play fair with other countries.
This situation of being dependent on the U.S. cannot be blamed only on them. The Japanese Prime Ministers since World War II have always agreed with what the American President says. When Japan is involved in some international affair, they always ask “What shall I do?” Unlike the German leaders, the Japanese leaders do not know how to say “No” to the U.S. This is one of the main reasons why Japan is not able to become independent of the U.S. today.