Japan At War

Japan at war is an oral history of the Japanese survivors of WWII, their perspectives and views, collected in the form of interviews more than 40 years after the conclusion of the war. The form of the book flows gradually through history, starting with the Manchurian Incident which sparked the war with China in 1931, through the occupation period and return of POW's long after the Potsdam Treaty after the war's conclusion in 1945.

The survivor's stories alternate between lighthearted and heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and in the end tragic. Nobody got out of the conflict without scars, and it’s a testament to human endurance, courage, and forgiveness. There is still so much bottled up emotion, but a resounding chord is one of resignation, and an understanding that it didn't have to be this way.

I found myself tearing up at many of the stories. Camaraderie between Tokko, 特別撃退, the special attack forces the world knows now as kamikaze, the 'divine wind' that saved Japan from the eve of destruction so many centuries before at the hands of the Mongols. The story of the young girl, marrying her stepbrother on the eve of his, getting pregnant only to lose the baby some 9 months after birth. Only after the war discovering that her husband had died months before its end. So much death, grief, and loss. It’s a very effective anti-war book.