Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics
in Japanese History
by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
University of Chicago Press, 2002, 411 pages
Cherry blossoms became the dominant symbol associated with
kamikaze pilots from the beginning of their operations. Vice Admiral Ohnishi,
who initiated the kamikaze attacks in the Philippines in October 1944, named
several of the first units after cherry blossoms, such as the Yamazakura-tai
or Mountain Cherry Blossoms Corps. The ōka, a piloted bomb powered by a
rocket, means "cherry blossom" in Japanese, and each ōka used in
attacks against American ships in Okinawa had a painted cherry blossom on each
side. Cherry blossoms became associated with kamikaze pilots in several other
contexts, such as references in many of their last letters to falling cherry
blossoms to signify death in battle. This book by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney,
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, explores why the
kamikaze pilots sacrificed themselves for their country and examines the
political use of aesthetics in the case of cherry blossoms.
Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms has
received much attention in academic journals, probably due to the absence of
other significant scholarly works in English about the tokkōtai (special
attack forces), generally know as kamikaze outside of Japan. This book's
nomination for the 2004 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize attests to the
originality and depth of Ohnuki-Tierney's research. She examines the diaries and
other writings of five tokkōtai pilots to consider why they volunteered
and what role cherry blossoms played in their considerations. These five pilots
were part of about a thousand "student soldiers" who were drafted
from the universities and who later died in tokkōtai operations.
Ohnuki-Tierney shows conclusively that these five pilots differed considerably
than the stereotypical image of kamikaze pilots as patriotic zealots who
eagerly died for the emperor.
Although this book's title starts with "Kamikaze,"
the discussion of kamikaze operations does not begin until about halfway
through the book. The author explains in the Preface that this work started as
a study of cherry blossom viewing, but later the book's concern shifted to a
study of how the Japanese totalitarian government used aesthetics for its
purposes. Maybe as a result of these shifts in the author's direction, the book
lacks focus and digresses frequently to extended discussions only indirectly
related to the book's primary objectives. Some of these discussions can be
quite fascinating, such as a section covering the period from the 1870s to the
early 1940s about how school songs and popular songs referring to cherry
blossoms unconsciously encouraged the advance of militarism. Scholars may find
this extensive background on subjects supporting the book's main arguments to
be valuable, but the everyday non-academic reader looking for insights into the
motivations of the tokkōtai pilots will find this book difficult to
read.
Only Part 3 of this four-part book deals directly with the tokkōtai
operations and the writings of the pilots, but Part 4 does has some references
to the pilots' writings discussed in Part 3. Part 1 discusses the symbolism of
cherry blossoms prior to 1868, and it shows that they came to symbolize both a
wide range of human experiences and a sense of collective identity for the
Japanese people. Part 2 surveys the transformation of the role of the emperor
and imperial system starting with the beginning of the Meiji period in 1868,
and this part also describes the militarization of the masses and of cherry
blossoms during the same time period. The first chapter in Part 3 outlines the tokkōtai
operations and the associated use of cherry blossom symbolism. Part 3's last
chapter contains Ohnuki-Tierney's examination of the pilots' writings to
determine their thoughts on life and death and to investigate the role of
cherry blossoms during the period of their writings. Part 4 analyzes how
Japan's political nationalism influenced the beliefs and actions of the
Japanese people, with particular attention paid to the effects of aesthetics
and cherry blossoms.
Ohnuki-Tierney's use of the writings of only five
"student soldiers" drafted from Japan's two most elite universities
does not seem to be sufficient to conclude on the motivations of the several
thousand kamikaze (tokkōtai) pilots. The first paragraph of the book's
summary (p. 299) states that 85% of the tokkōtai pilots were
"student soldiers" from the universities, but this contradicts
statistics provided earlier in the book (p. 167), which indicate only about 25%
of the pilots were "student soldiers." The author apparently
mistakenly used the 85% of Naval officers who were "student
soldiers," rather than including in the calculation both officers and
enlisted men and both Army and Navy pilots. Although Chapter 6 has the title
"Five Tokkotai Pilots," one pilot was never a member of a tokkōtai
unit but was instead a Naval reconnaissance pilot. The diaries of three pilots
end long before their death (i.e., 16, 12, 17 months respectively for the first
three pilots covered in Chapter 6) and even before they were assigned to a tokkōtai
unit. Since the book examines their reflections on life and death, the time
period after they have been assigned to a kamikaze unit destined for death
seems to be the most critical to understand their considerations.
Japan's militaristic state used cherry blossoms as the
leading military symbol. Fallen and scattered cherry petals signified soldiers'
deaths, and blooming cherry blossoms symbolized fallen soldiers reborn at
Yasukuni Shrine, the national memorial dedicated to honor the spirits of
Japan's war dead. Ohnuki-Tierney concludes that cherry blossoms significantly
influenced the tokkōtai pilots:
In this process of méconnaissance
["absence of communication that results when people do not share a meaning
but rather derive different meanings from the same symbols and rituals"
(p. 3)], the evocative power of the aesthetics of cherry blossoms played a
critical role. The role of méconnaissance is extremely important for an
understanding of the most important question of this book—why did the pilots
reproduce the imperial ideology in action without reproducing its intellectual
and spiritual content. The flower did not move them to take action, but
it made them not confront the méconnaissance between their thoughts and
the state ideology. (p. 303)
However, the author's examination of the five soldiers'
diaries does not seem to substantiate the conclusion that cherry blossom
symbolism as manipulated by the state prevented the tokkōtai pilots from
resisting the government. Most of the diaries contain few references to cherry
blossoms, and many of these were typical comments made by Japanese people in
springtime to recognize the beauty of the cherry blossoms. More plausible
reasons exist for the pilots' inaction in opposing the military and government.
The military required unquestioned obedience, and dissenters received swift and
severe corporal punishment. All Japanese citizens, including those in the
military, lived in an environment of intense social pressure to conform, and
soldiers did not want to be shunned by their fellow soldiers, family, and
neighbors if they protested even slightly against military and government
policies. Anyone actively resisting government policies, military orders, or
the war would have been killed or imprisoned.
Although this book contains analyses of five kamikaze
pilots' writings, it does not include any extended quotations from the diaries
or letters. The author uses numerous short quotations to support her arguments,
but a reader cannot get a sense of the flow of the pilots' writings. In
contrast, the book Listen to the Voices from the Sea, translated in 2000
by Midori Yamanouchi and Joseph L. Quinn, has 300 pages of English translations
of the writings of 75 fallen Japanese students, including four of the
pilots whose diaries were reviewed by Ohnuki-Tierney. This book was originally
published in 1949 under the title Kike Wadatsumi no Koe and became a
bestseller in Japan. Listen to the Voices from the Sea includes writings
of both regular soldiers and kamikaze unit members, and it allows readers to
understand their feelings and opinions better than Ohnuki-Tierney's book, which
has just short quotations and content summaries from their writings.
Ohnuki-Tierney's thoroughly researched and thought-provoking
book makes an important academic contribution, but its unfocused structure and
detailed academic approach will lead most readers to prefer other more
accessible books on kamikaze.
Source Cited
Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-Kai (Japan Memorial Society for the
Students Killed in the War—Wadatsumi Society), comp. 2000. Listen
to the Voices from the Sea: Writings of the Fallen Japanese Students (Kike
Wadatsumi no Koe). Translated by Midori Yamaguchi and Joseph L. Quinn.
Scranton: University of Scranton Press.
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