Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers

An excerpt from Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. Also available on web site: online catalogs, secure.
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Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers 3. We read and read, trying to understand why we had to die in our early twenties.

We felt the clock ticking away towards our death, every sound of the clock shortening our lives. This moving history presents diaries and correspondence left by members of the tokkotai and other Japanese student soldiers who perished during the war. Outside of Japan, these kamikaze pilots were considered unbridled fanatics and chauvinists who willingly sacrificed their lives for the emperor.

But the writings explored here by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney clearly and eloquently speak otherwise. A significant number of the kamikaze were university students who were drafted and forced to volunteer for this desperate military operation.

Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers

Such young men were the intellectual elite of modern Japan: A salutary correction to the many caricatures of the kamikaze, this poignant work will be essential to anyone interested in the history of Japan and World War II. Paperback , pages. Published April 15th by University of Chicago Press first published To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Kamikaze Diaries , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Sep 02, Ruth rated it it was ok Shelves: The book is very scholarly, and not very emotionally engaging. The book summarizes what's in the letters of the young pilots, but it's not a direct translation.

It's more of a critical synthesis of what the young men wrote. There were poignant passages, but these were very few.

Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers - Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney - Google Книги

I expected the author to be an editor, who would write the foreward and then let the boys speak in their own words, but this is unfortunately not how the book was organized. The author spends a lot of time on the rigorous schooling these exceptional young men endured, but the tone of the book remains somewhat aloof and academic. Given that this is the first English translation of any of these diaries, I'm glad to have been able to read the scraps of the diary the author quotes. And the book humanizes those who I used to assume were brainwashed kamikaze idiots.

The truth is, the tokkotai pilots were far far from brainwashed and were the intellectual elite of their generation.

Their integrity, innocence and sense of duty could not prevail over a maniacal regime who systematically manipulated them into believing that it was shameful for them not to die. These men so desperately wanted their lives and early deaths to mean something, and the government refused them even that. Aug 24, david-baptiste rated it it was amazing.

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Jan 09, Nicholas rated it really liked it Shelves: This book humanizes the kamikaze pilots by showing that they were not simply naive or nationalistic young men, but among the brightest of their generation. As the other reviews note, this book is not a simple translation of several diaries but a scholarly examination of selected portions. As such, Ohnuki-Tierney accomplishes her goal of making the complicated thoughts and feelings of this selection of young men accessible to current readers.

Jun 13, N. Rowland rated it it was amazing. What a brilliant book. It gives such an insight into the boys who were required to become Kamikaze pilots. They were the best and the brightest, they were loved, their families heartbroken, their lives lost. Feb 05, Stephen Douglas Rowland rated it it was ok. It contains far more scholarly analysis than diary, but it is interesting enough, though often repetitive. Not a must read but a good one somehow. Feb 10, Christy rated it really liked it. A good insight to what these student soldiers went through.

Jun 08, Sheila rated it really liked it Shelves: Throughout the various history classes I have taken over the years, the role of the Kamikaze during WWII was largely explained in the same way: Japanese culture dictated that soldiers should give their lives for their empire and that is why pilots were so willing to give their lives to bring down enemy planes and ships. However, in Kamikaze Diaries: By first pointing out that the majorit Throughout the various history classes I have taken over the years, the role of the Kamikaze during WWII was largely explained in the same way: By first pointing out that the majority of soldiers, particularly the student soldiers, did not willingly become Kamikaze pilots, Ohnuki-Tierney provides a fresh perspective into the minds of Kamikaze pilots.

Drawing on their personal diaries and correspondence with family members, she provides a haunting look into the way these young men struggled to remain loyal to their country and accept their fate. I think one of the most important details to note in regards to this text is that the soldiers whose lives and thoughts the author examines are student soldiers.

This means that they were all students at prestigious universities before being drafted into the war. This is something I constantly had to keep remembering because it's easy to fall into the habit of simply taking the experiences of some and applying it to all.

Therefore, although the accounts of the student soldiers presented in this book provide a voice and a face for kamikaze pilots as tormented youths, the reader cannot assume that this was the case with all pilots.

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Doing so would perpetuate the same cycle of misunderstanding that kamikaze pilots have suffered for over 50 years; the stigma that they were all crazy and that everything could be blamed on Japan's "supposed" cultural fear of failure. Overall, I found the book to be well written and analyzed.


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The author's notes that explained the symbolism used in the student's writings were helpful and added an extra layer of depth and understanding to the text. Because the pilots were all former students of prestigious universities, they quite often refer to philosophical works or classic novels in their diaries, using them to analyze the dilemma they face. These parts can be difficult to understand unless the reader has studied these same philosophers before.

However, I noticed that while the first student soldier continually referenced philosophical texts, it wasn't as prominent in the stories that followed his. By the end of the book, I felt that the author had done an excellent job of giving the student soldiers a voice and on dispelling many of the misunderstandings that surround the kamikaze pilots. Jan 28, Sarah Crawford rated it really liked it. The book is basically about the history of some of the Japanese kamikaze.

The entires are based on diaries or other writings of the students who became kamikaze. It is not an actual collection of long diary entries, though.


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It's more a summation of the individual histories and thoughts of those who died. The introduction goes into how students were recruited into the war effort. An interesting quote from this section is: Whereas German soldiers were told to kill, Japanese soldiers were told to die.

Some Japanese soldiers were subject to being shot by their own troops if they tried to escape or surrender to the Americans. Various forms of coercion to get students to become kamikaze are examined, including peer pressure, and punishment for not volunteering by being sent to the front lines in some really bad area. There was also the old standby that if a particular higher-up didn't like you for some reason, you could end up a kamikaze whether you liked it or not. University of Chicago Press, Over the last decade or so there have been several Japanese comedic and dramatic interpretations of life as a kamikaze pilot.

Kimi o wasurenai Fly, Boys, Fly! These artistic products try with varying degrees of success to push audiences to think about the motivations that led educated young men, ripe with talent, to choose to end their lives in the kamikaze forces. She asserts that the young men who volunteered, but were more often coerced, were not monsters but misdirected and misled youths.

Kamikaze diaries : reflections of Japanese student soldiers

Our real wrath, she suggests, should be directed at the imperial government and military elite who forced these tragic young souls toward the path of no redemption. The Anglophone reading audience is richer for her contribution. Her suppositions generated fierce debate. Her second volume on the diaries themselves, and it really should be sold as a companion piece, does not work as well as a stand-alone project.

Read in tandem, the first book offers historical analysis, while the second provides a thorough, if sometimes dry, annotated and translated insight into what the student pilots read. In Kamikaze Diaries Ohnuki-Tierney warns us about facile political use of the kamikaze image as seen in the aftermath of 9. Everyone in Japan, at all levels of society, struggled with finding meaning in the war. More importantly, what did the upper-level military generals think of the students—did they value them or merely place them in a long line of sacrifices contributed in the name of war?

In her concentrated focus on the diaries, the author develops little of the social or military context in which these works were written.