"The Battlefield Experience Of Japanese Soldiers In ..." Topic

…The Asia-Pacific War

"Abstract: The total number of Japanese casualties in the Asia-Pacific War (1937-1945) is estimated to be around 3.1 million, with military fatalities accounting for 2.3 million. In contrast to the popular image in Japan of these war dead as "noble heroes" (eirei) who fought valiantly in service of the nation, however, the realities of war were quite different. Rather than being killed in combat, some sixty percent of soldiers (1.4 million) died away from the battlefield, succumbing to disease and starvation. Others suffered from the military's failure to secure dependable supply lines to provide food and equipment replenishments, resulting in a large number of otherwise preventable deaths. In this article, Professor Yoshida Yutaka focuses on the grim realities of war death as experienced by ordinary soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Army, a topic rarely touched upon by scholars. Combining a social historical approach with rigorous statistical analysis, Yoshida sheds light on the institutional issues and peculiarities of what was once proudly known as the "Emperor's military."

The article translated below was written by Yoshida Yutaka, emeritus professor at Hitotsubashi University, for a 2006 edited volume on various aspects of the battlefield experience of Japanese soldiers during the Asia-Pacific War.1 Since then, Yoshida has expanded his work on the topic into a full-length book, which was published in 2017 under the title, Nihongun heishi: Ajia-Taiheiyō sensō no genjitsu (Soldiers of the Japanese Military: The Reality of the Asia-Pacific War).2 The book has attracted a great deal of attention in Japan. It was awarded the Asia-Pacific Special Award and the Shinsho Award in 2019 and has sold over 200,000 copies.3 One of the key reasons the book has had such an impact is that there has been so little scholarly writing about the experiences of ordinary Japanese soldiers…"

More here

apjjf.org/2020/19/yoshida-tao

Armand

Thank you.

The article is interesting. Too bad the entire book has not been translated.

Thanks for posting.

A votre service mes amis…

Armand