Personal accounts from Japanese soldiers in WW2

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Personal accounts from Japanese soldiers in WW2

Posted: 5/13/2018 3:27:11 AM EDT

I was watching one of Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons videos about Arisaka rifles when the realization hit me that aside from reading Saburo Sakai's book and exerpts in other books, I've never read any books written by Japanese soldiers who served in WW2. Anyone know any good ones? Thanks for your time.

Posted: 5/13/2018 5:06:19 AM EDT

[#1]

They either died or were ashamed and lost face due to losing.

Some exceptions:

"The Pacific War" by Saburo Ienaga (I have this, good read.)
"Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tamaichi Hara

Posted: 5/13/2018 6:26:29 AM EDT

[#2]

A Tomb Called Iwo Jima by Dan King is a fantastic read. He interviews a couple of surviving Japanese veterans. What a brutal battle that was.

Posted: 5/13/2018 7:38:13 AM EDT

[#3]

Might be a language thing. Publishers didn't see a market to translate it?

Posted: 5/13/2018 12:15:09 PM EDT

[#4]

Quote History

Quoted:
A Tomb Called Iwo Jima by Dan King is a fantastic read. He interviews a couple of surviving Japanese veterans. What a brutal battle that was.

View Quote

Thanks, I'm going to download that one.

Posted: 11/15/2018 8:32:55 AM EDT

[#5]

After WWII there was deep shame in Japan and the military was held in contempt for starting, and losing, the war. There was no real market for war memoirs. Fuchida's accounts of Midway were mostly pure fiction and grandstanding but that was all that was readily available in English so historians went with it. Plus, as mentioned earlier, actual participants tended to commit suicide if they failed in their mission.

There is a discussion about post war Japan and the lack of first person memoirs in the book Shattered Sword.

Posted: 11/15/2018 9:50:50 AM EDT

[#6]

The Story of World War II: Revised, expanded, and updated from the original t

I listened to this audiobook and even though it has eyewitness accounts from the beginning to end from all theatres of way, the Japanese military accounts are extremely limited.

Posted: 11/17/2018 9:38:28 PM EDT

[#7]

Certainly would be interesting to read a 1st person from a member of the Japanese Army that returned from Manchuria. Only because of how they returned to Japan still armed, to be disarmed on the docks in Japanese ports. And how they basically returned as an intact early as opposed to the Pacific Island forces.

Posted: 11/18/2018 12:10:32 PM EDT

[#8]

Though I havent read it, I've heard "No Surrender" by Lt. Hiroo Onoda was good. He is the Japanese soldier that held out until the 70s in the Phillipines.

Posted: 11/30/2018 1:03:35 AM EDT

[#9]

I've been on the hunt for this, "Masanori Ito, Sadatoshi Tomiaka and Masazumi Inada Real Accounts of the Pacific War, vol. III Chuo Koron Sha1970."

no luck.

Posted: 3/24/2019 9:04:09 AM EDT

[#10]

Quote History

Quoted:
Though I havent read it, I've heard "No Surrender" by Lt. Hiroo Onoda was good. He is the Japanese soldier that held out until the 70s in the Phillipines.

View Quote

I've owned this one and read several times over. It is an interesting perspective and account of survival and the military mindset of Japan. Only real problem is that LT Onoda didn't start real training or any of his "operations" until it was mid/late 1944. So I'm not sure how much of his account is colored by post-war survival vs. wartime experience.

Another good read in the same vein (with what I feel are similar "nuances") is called "The Emperor's Last Soldiers." I haven't read it in many years, but it was an account of a group of Japanese troops who stayed out and hidden on Guam until mid 60s if I remember. It started as a group, then kept dwindling down until it was just a pair. Those two stuck it out for quite a while, but something happened to one. The last soldier finally turned himself in after about a year-ish of complete solitude.

Posted: 5/2/2019 6:32:14 AM EDT

[#11]

Try "Long The imperial way" by Hanama Tasaki

Written in English in 1950, by a Japanese soldier,educated in America, who fought with the Japanese in China just prior to WWII. It gives you an idea as to the mindset of the Japanese and how they operated. It's an interesting read.

Posted: 6/29/2019 9:17:45 PM EDT

[#12]

If you've never read "The Rising Sun" by John Toland give it a look. It covers the entire War and has a lot of personal Japanese stories, like the guy who survived Hiroshima and made it home to Nagasaki just in time for the second bomb.

Posted: 2/15/2020 3:33:08 PM EDT

[#13]

Quote History

Quoted:
www.amazon.com/dp/B003L77XCWI listened to this audiobook and even though it has eyewitness accounts from the beginning to end from all theatres of way, the Japanese military accounts are extremely limited.

View Quote

This is an excellent audiobook.

Posted: 2/18/2020 3:12:06 PM EDT

[#14]

Zero Fighter By Akira Yoshimura is a good look at production and the real lack of infrastructure in Japan during the war.

Posted: 4/2/2020 9:36:35 PM EDT

[#15]

Anybody read A Tomb Called Iwo Jima by Dan King? It's supposed to have first hand accounts from the Japanese who survived there.

Posted: 4/12/2020 6:59:22 PM EDT

[#16]

Wrong thread

Posted: 5/19/2020 11:02:08 AM EDT

[#17]

Quote History

Originally Posted By dobk:
If you've never read "The Rising Sun" by John Toland give it a look. It covers the entire War and has a lot of personal Japanese stories, like the guy who survived Hiroshima and made it home to Nagasaki just in time for the second bomb.

View Quote

Amazing read. I've read it twice.

Also another vote for Japanese Destroyer Captain

Posted: 5/19/2020 4:42:03 PM EDT

[#18]

SAMURAI -Flying the Zero in WWII With Japan's Fighter Ace. By Saburo Sakai with Martin Calden and Fred Salto.

KAMIKAZE - A Japanese Pilots Own Story Of The Terrible Suicide Squadrons. By Yasuo Kuwahara and Gordon T Allred.

TALES BY JAPANESE SOLDIERS. (BURMA CAMPAIGN) By Kazuo Tamayama and John Nunneley.

I have all three and they're all very good.

Posted: 10/9/2020 8:10:59 PM EDT

[#19]

look into the SINGapore surrender there is a ton of good info Om IJN jugel fighting & tank tactics about the taking of Singapore

Last year I toured the british bunker/museum there. great info

Posted: 11/15/2020 11:48:55 AM EDT

[#20]

A good read from a Japanese War correspondent in China is:
Soldiers Alive by Ishikawa Tatsuzo
Not a true personal narrative of the early war in china, but a good perspective from the Japanese viewpoint.

I've got some more at home I'll try and dig up.

Posted: 3/6/2021 10:02:46 PM EDT

[#21]

Check this out:
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63741858/voices-from-the-rising-sun-contemporary-japanese-accounts-of-war-1941-1945

Posted: 3/6/2021 11:54:59 PM EDT

[#22]

Tagging this one.

Posted: 3/7/2021 6:36:12 AM EDT

[#23]

There are a couple books about Shoichi Yokoi, a straggler on Guam who hid out in a cave for 28 years. He was watching B-52s at Anderson field and thinking WWII was still going on.

Posted: 3/7/2021 10:41:25 AM EDT

[#24]

Page 24: The Japanese have captured in Manila and interred:

Tyrone Power
Claudette Colbert
Jackie Cooghan

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Personal accounts from Japanese soldiers in WW2

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