Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike Wadatsumi no Koe): Writings of the Fallen Japanese
Students
Compiled
by Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-Kai (Japan Memorial Society for the Students
Killed in the War—Wadatsumi Society)
Translated by Midori Yamanouchi and Joseph L. Quinn
University of Scranton
Press, 2000, 344 pages
Some Japanese student soldiers who wrote the letters,
diaries, and poems included in this book entered the military upon graduation
from elite universities, but many soldiers had their university studies cut
short when in late 1943 the government eliminated deferral of military
service for students other than those in selected fields such as engineering
and natural sciences. The Japanese book entitled Kike Wadatsumi no Koe
(Listen to the Voices from the Sea), first published in 1949, had as its goal
the promotion of peace so as to never repeat the tragedy of war. The committee
that published the 1949 version of the book writes in the postscript of the
"desperate voices that fill this entire book, the voices of those very
finest of young men, whose eyes were shielded from the sight of the truth, who
were abused, tyrannized, and killed" (p. 301). Listen to the Voices
from the Sea is an English translation of the 1995 version of Kike
Wadatsumi no Koe, with the first English translation (The Sun Goes Down
published in 1956) being based on the 1949 version of the book.
Kike Wadatsumi no Koe became an instant success, with
about a quarter million copies being sold in a short time after its publication
in 1949 (p. 308). After many reprintings and a revised edition in 1959, over
one and a half million copies had been sold through 1982 (p. 317). The book
also was made into a successful commercial movie in 1950, and there was also a
remake of the film in 1995 at the fifty-year anniversary of the end of World
War II. Dower (1999, 199) argues that the letters in Kike Wadatsumi no Koe
came close to imagery promoted by the wartime militarists even though the
editors had no such intention:
These were pure young men. Their deaths were noble. They
could not be faulted, certainly not criticized, for having offered no
resistance to militarism. It was their deaths, rather than the deaths of those
they might have killed, that commanded attention and were truly tragic. Indeed,
there were no non-Japanese victims in this hermetic vision of the war. It was,
moreover—and here the class bias of the academic compilers revealed
itself—their literacy, their status as elite university students, that made
these young men's deaths so worth noting. They were selected as figures to
mourn because they wrote so well, but also because it was easy to imagine them
as the future leaders of Japan.
Midori Yamanouchi, Professor of Sociology at the University
of Scranton and co-translator of this book, took on the project of translating
these letters "to give a human face to each of those fallen
college/university students" and to show that special attack forces
members were not "mindless, robot-like figures, who simply followed orders
and died" (pp. vii-viii). Yamanouchi performed the initial translation of
this book into English. Joseph Quinn, Professor of English at the same
university, then rewrote the draft, and Yamanouchi reviewed the changes to
ensure accuracy with the original meaning in Japanese. This thorough process
resulted in an excellent translation of the original Japanese writings. The
book's Acknowledgments section incorrectly states that Kike Wadatsumi no Koe
had not been translated to English before (p. viii), since The Sun Goes Down,
published in 1956, is an English translation of the same Japanese book.
Listen to the Voices from the Sea includes writings
from young soldiers throughout the war and after Japan's defeat, with the
earliest writing dated in 1938 and the latest in 1947. The book divides the
posthumous manuscripts of the fallen students into three parts: (1) During the
War Between Japan and China, (2) The Period of the Asian-Pacific War, and (3)
Losing the War. Members of special attack corps wrote about one fifth of the
letters in the book, but about half of these writings are dated before they
entered the military or before they entered the tokkōtai (special attack corps).
The letters of many soldiers, not just members of the
special attack corps, are filled with reflections on death, as they realized
that returning home alive was highly unlikely. The writings reflect the young
men's great love of learning, and many men complain that they no longer have
time to read books and reflect on them since military life demands all their
time and energy. Several soldiers mention the brutality of the beatings
received from superiors for even trivial mistakes.
Very few letters deal with romantic love with a spouse or
girlfriend, but many young soldiers express their affection to family members,
especially their mothers. The last letter of Ryōji Uehara, a kamikaze pilot,
contains the clue on how to discover his hidden romantic interest. He tells his
parents that inside a drawer, which he explains how to unlock, is a book he is
leaving behind as he departs on his final mission. Inside the book is a will
different than the one he sent from the Army air base. Letters are circled here
and there throughout the book, and by tracing the letters throughout the book
you can decipher the will he made out to his secret love (p. 238):
My dear Kyoko-chan. Good-bye. I was in love with you, but
you were already engaged to marry someone else—so my heart was really in agony.
And yet, when I thought of your happiness, I gave up the idea of whispering the
words of love to you. All the same, however, I will always love you.
Although many letters reflect intellectual musings and
emotional turmoil of the student soldiers, some writings give very mundane
details. For example, one Army soldier takes up several pages to explain the
steps involved in taking care of horses used by his field artillery unit. The
following short excerpt illustrates the minutiae in this soldier's writing (pp.
45-6):
The tools with which we care for them are: a brush, a metal
comb, a wooden comb, an iron spatula, a tub for washing hooves, a can of hoof
oil, and a few other things. The brush, metal comb, and spatula are kept inside
a bag called "teire bukuro" (a grooming bag). The method of
caring for a horse is as follows: first, you use your hands and knees to prop
up the animal's leg and you turn a hoof upward; next the spatula is used to
clean the hoof by removing all soil, horse dung, etc.; then the washing tub is
filled with water and the hoof rubbed clean with a piece of cloth.
A letter can be difficult to understand when the reader does
not know the background of the writer and the circumstances at the time the
letter was written. Many writings included in this book begin and end abruptly,
but they convey the anguish and tragedy experienced by these Japanese
student soldiers. The book does include each writer's basic biographical
information (e.g., dates of birth and death, university and major, date entered
military, rank), and the translators provide valuable explanatory notes on
terms used in the writings.
Listen to the Voices from the Sea includes the postscripts of the 1949, 1959, 1982, and
1995 editions of Kike Wadatsumi no Koe, which provide
background on the strong influence this book has had for several decades in
Japan. With this outstanding English translation, Yamanouchi unquestionably
succeeds in her goals to show that Japan's special attack forces members were
not mindless, robot-like figures and to give a human face to each of these
student soldiers.
Midori Yamanouchi and Joseph Quinn also translated
In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers
(Harukanaru Sanga ni): More Voices From A Lost Generation of Japanese Students
(2005), which was compiled originally by Todai Gakusei Jichi-kai Senbotsu
Gakusei Shuki Hensan Iinkai (Committee for Compiling the Writings of the
University of Tokyo Students Killed in the War, the University of Tokyo Student
Council).
Source Cited
Dower, John W. 1999. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World
War II. New York: W.W. Norton.
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