Firipin shōnen ga mita kamikaze: osanai kokoro ni kizamareta yasashii
nihonjintachi (Kamikaze seen by Philippine youth: Kind Japanese individuals
engraved in my young heart)
by Daniel H. Dizon
Sakuranohana Shuppan, 2007, 353 pages
Daniel Dizon, born in 1930, met several kind Japanese soldiers and airmen
during his youth when Japan occupied his home country, the Philippines, for just
over three years starting soon after the initial attack on December 8, 1941. The
first half of this Japanese book tells his childhood experiences during the war with his
family in Pampanga Province, and the second half describes his postwar
activities and his opinions on a variety of
subjects such as the reasons why Japan instigated a war. This book written in
Japanese provides no background information as to how Dizon, who does not know
the Japanese language, came to be the author. When asked about this in an
interview in October 2009, he explained that two persons came from Japan to his
home in Angeles City to interview him each day for a couple of weeks in order to
gather material to ghostwrite his autobiography.
The question arises as to the objectivity of this book, actually written by
Japanese individuals, about the positive impressions that Dizon had of Japanese
military men during WWII. However, the story seems to be honestly told without
any blatant attempt to convert the book into a propaganda piece. Dizon clearly
has strong positive opinions about Japanese people he met during the war, which
differ from those of many of his countrymen. However, he does not try to hide
negative acts by the Japanese military, such as a massacre of about 300
Filipinos including women and children, carried out by Japanese troops near
Angeles early in the occupation. Dizon's father, a painter who graduated from
Yale University and had many American friends, generally held a negative view of
the Japanese occupying his country. In contrast, Dizon's independent positive opinions
toward the Japanese seem to have been shaped by his own personal wartime
experiences, regardless of beliefs of family members and fellow
countrymen.
The title of Firipin shōnen ga mita kamikaze (Kamikaze seen by Philippine
youth) does not accurately reflect Dizon's experiences. He met several friendly
Japanese soldiers and airmen, especially early in the Japanese occupation
period. However, he never met a kamikaze pilot during the war, since Vice
Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi formed the first kamikaze unit in October 1944 as the
Allies were invading Leyte, and the kamikaze pilots flew from Philippine
airfields for less than three full months through January 1945. Dizon lived in
an area with many Japanese airfields, including Mabalacat from where the first
official kamikaze squadrons made sorties, but Japanese kamikaze airmen had little or
no time to socialize with the local people during this period when they needed
to prepare quickly for their missions against the invading Allies.
Dizon's deep interest in the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps began in 1965 when
he read an English translation of The Divine Wind (1958) by Captain Rikihei
Inoguchi and Commander Tadashi Nakajima. The American military personnel who
came to his hometown of Angeles in 1945 talked about Japanese suicide squadrons, but Dizon did
not know anything more about them despite living close to airfields
from which many kamikaze pilots took off. The stories and last letters of
kamikaze pilots included in The Divine Wind left a great impression on him, and he strongly felt that he had
to do something so that Japanese kamikaze pilots could be remembered in the
Philippines. Other Filipinos expressed little interest, but finally in 1974 he
convinced local tourism officials to erect a monument to the Kamikaze Corps at
the former site of Mabalacat East Airfield. The monument had a sign in English with the
words "Kamikaze First Airfield Historical Marker" and had an inscription in
Japanese with the following words, "Airfield where Kamikaze Special Attack Corps
aircraft first took off in World War II."
After erection of the kamikaze monument in Mabalacat, several Japanese people came
to visit Mabalacat and meet Dizon including the widow of Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi and Saburō Sakai, one of Japan's greatest fighter pilots. During the
1970s and 1980s, Dizon gathered information about kamikaze pilots in the
Philippines and collected Japanese military weapons and equipment that later
became part of exhibits displayed in the Dizon Kamikaze Museum, located in a
large room at his home in Angeles City. However, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo
nearly buried the kamikaze monument in ash. Dizon explained the historical
importance of a new memorial to officials at the Mabalacat Tourism Office, and a
new monument with the Japanese and Philippines flags engraved on a wall was
erected in 2000 at the same site as the original kamikaze monument. In 2004, a
kamikaze pilot statue was erected in front of the wall.
Dizon playing with Army Sergeant
Yamazaki, who taught Japanese
at school (illustration by Daniel Dizon)
Dizon also urged that a monument be erected at the site of Mabalacat West
Airfield, since this was the actual location from where the first kamikaze
squadron led by Lt. Yukio Seki took off on October 21, 1944, but had to return
to base when no enemy ships could be located. In 2004, the
Mabalacat West Airfield
Monument was erected, and the Japanese words on the top of this monument are the same
as those from the original buried monument at Mabalacat East, "Airfield where
Kamikaze Special Attack Corps aircraft first took off in World War II." Dizon's
many efforts to remember the Japanese kamikaze have attracted some controversy in the
Philippines and other countries as certain people believe the Philippines should
not have such monuments to remember the Japanese military, which brutally
occupied the country for about three years. For many years Dizon has defended
his fervent admiration of the Japanese kamikaze pilots' bravery and dedication
in statements such as the following (p. 252), "If proof came out that even just
one kamikaze pilot committed an atrocity against Filipino civilians, then I
would immediately tear down the kamikaze monuments."
The first five chapters cover Dizon's life in roughly chronological order.
Chapter 1 describes how he viewed the
Americans, who occupied the Philippines prior to the Japanese occupation, as heroes especially through the
influence of American comics. Chapter 2 covers the Japanese invasion of the
Philippines from the first attack on December 8, 1941, to the surrender of the
Americans at Bataan in April 1942. He met kind Japanese soldiers who taught
Dizon and other children Japanese songs and who really wanted to learn English
to communicate. He describes a soldier named Takemoto who stopped by his
family's home for lunch with a truck carrying American and Filipino POWs from
Bataan, and he allowed his family to give food and drink to the prisoners. The
stories in Chapter 3 take place during the Japanese occupation of the
Philippines. The Dizon family lived in the center of Angeles Town near a
Japanese base, so Daniel Dizon had many opportunities to make friends with Japanese
soldiers. Dizon, who displayed artistic talent even as a child, drew portraits
of some soldiers stationed at Angeles.
The episodes in Chapter 4 describe the dismal state of affairs of the
Japanese military during the last stage of the war in the Philippines. The book
devotes quite a few pages to the story of a Philippine family that sheltered a
Japanese soldier name Butcho. He deserted from the Army and became like a son to
the Philippine family. Eventually the family was forced to hand him over to the
Americans, and the family never heard from him again. Chapter 5 covers Dizon's postwar activities including his appeals to build kamikaze
monuments in the Philippines. Dizon's wife Enriqueta tells her wartime stories
in Chapter 6. As an eight-year-old girl, she worked pulling weeds at Porac
Airfield near Angeles from April to September 1944. She knew many Japanese songs
from school, so a Navy officer often asked her to sing and dance on the wings of
a Zero fighter. The chapter includes a drawing by Dizon depicting this wartime
scene (see below). In total, the book includes about a dozen of Dizon's historical
illustrations of wartime scenes and persons during the Japanese occupation. The
book's last two chapters contain sections on a variety of topics with Chapter 7
focusing on why Japan started the war and Chapter 8 explaining Dizon's desire
for true friendship especially between Japan and the Philippines.
Enriqueta (Dizon's wife) singing and
dancing on wing of Zero fighter
(illustration by Daniel Dizon)
The many individuals in the Japanese military portrayed in this autobiography
provide a distinctive depiction of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. The
book also includes about 20 pages of historical photos from both during and
after the war. Daniel Dizon is sympathetic in his portrayal of Japanese military
men and seems supportive of certain arguments supported by Japanese
nationalists. However, he points out some atrocities committed by the Japanese
military during the occupation, but he also calls attention to brutal acts by
Americans and Filipinos. Despite years of opposition and ridicule by many
countrymen, Dizon has remained deeply impressed by the kamikaze pilots'
spirit and courage, and he has held firm in his strong independent beliefs
concerning the historical importance of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps to the
Philippines.
Friendship between Philippines and Greater Japan.
Dizon at young age is in center among Japanese
officers and men. (illustration by Daniel Dizon) |
