The Flowering of Racial Spirit/Translator's Preface
Translator’s Preface
On a certain date in the 16th Year of the Syōwa Era (1941), I had the honour of being enlisted by the Imperial Order, and I left a certain station on the same night with my comrades, with just the same feeling expressed in the poem written by Imamaturibe-no-Yosohu, one of the Sakimoris or vanguards who were sent out in February of the 7th Year of the Tempyō-Syōhō Era (750 A.D.) to the northwestern provinces of Kyūsyū from the Eastern Provinces of the Empire. The poem is included in the 20th Volume of Manyō-syū (one of the oldest poetry anthologies of Japan) and its essence is as follows:
We got on board a certain steamer at a certain harbour, proceeded to a certain port, and waited there for the order to advance. In the meanwhile, on the 8th of December, we listened in to the radio receiving set in the transport. With tears of emotion and reverence I heard the announcement of the Imperial Rescript concerning the declaration of war against the United States of America and Great Britain. Next I heard the address of Premier Tōzyō about the Imperial Rescript, and I was awestruck and felt that my whole being was strained. A little while later the brilliant results of the initial battle at Pearl Harbor were announced, and I felt deeply grateful for the honour of being born as one of the subjects of the Great Empire of Japan, and at the same time I was profoundly moved by the privilege of being attached to the forces participating in the Greater East Asia War. Thus, on a certain day of December, the gigantic fleet of transports at last began to steam ahead magnificently toward the Philippines.
At this time, indeed, the poem which was declaimed by a general of the Ōtomo clan, a military caste who accompanied the Emperor Jimmu when He pacified the Eastern provinces about twenty-six centuries ago, became literally my own poem. Its essence is as follows:
I was firmly determined and profoundly resolved to die for our Emperor and Fatherland at any time.
Although our fleet of transports was attacked by the fish torpedo of enemy submarines and raided by enemy airplanes, the losses sustained were so slight as to be negligible, and we at last set our first step with high morale upon the shore of Lingayen Gulf in Northern Luzon on the early morning of the 24th of December.
We were, first of all, very much surprised because the Filipinos are so similar to the Japanese. Among them we found a person who resembled very much one of our comrades, and among our comrades we found someone whose face was very much like the faces of some of them, and thus we were a little perplexed.
Even the outlying regions by the seashore were connected to all the corners of the Philippines by fine national roads for motorcars, paved with concrete or asphalt. In every town and village we found fine primary schools where the English language is taught, but we could scarcely find any vocational schools where technical knowledge and practical education are taught; there were many beauty shops and cinema houses around, but we could not find any bookstore. Anybody could clearly see the traces of the governmental policy of making the Filipino people ignorant, and the economic policy of exploitation of the resources of the Filipinos by the Americans.
Considering the facts that after the oppressive sovereignty of over three hundred years of Spain, who destroyed completely all the Oriental tradition and civilization of the Filipinos at the time when she conquered the Philippines, the natives succumbed to the lure of materialism and epicureanism during the American regime of over forty years; finally, by the failure of the haughty diplomatic policy of the United States of America, who regarded the coloured races of the Orient as inferior, involved the Philippines in the present Greater East Asia War, thus causing her soil to be devastated and rendered into ruins by the havocs of war and burning the houses to ashes as victims of the “scorched-earth” tactics; and, furthermore, forced the Filipinos to cross swords with the Japanese, who are of the same race with them as Orientals: I could not but whole-heartedly sympathize with them. At the same time, an overflowing feeling of love towards the Filipinos welled out from the bottom of my bosom, and the teaching of Christ, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,”(Matthew-5:44) could wonderfully enough be put into actual practice. Towards America, however, I could not help feeling an irrepressible indignation. I sincerely and earnestly pray, that the authorities of the Government of the United States of America will not neglect such a solemn as well as awful prophecy of Ezekiel, which is as follows:
“Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee.”(Ezekiel-7:3-4)
On the 1st of March, Mr. Asihei Hino, whom I have respected since even long before as the author of “Wheat and Soldiers,” “Mud and Soldiers,” etc., etc., joined the Propaganda Corps of the Imperial Japanese Forces in the Philippines. Several days later, the strategic operations against enemy fortifications in Bataan Peninsula began, and I lodged with him in the same quarters at San Fernando, Pampanga. He and Messrs. Sirō Ozaki and Hirosi Ueda wrote the original manuscripts for the leaflets and the records for the radio broadcasts at the front to advise the Filipino officers and soldiers to surrender, and I translated them into English day and night, and Mr. Ocampo re-translated them into Tagalog, and the manuscripts in English and Tagalog were sent to the press or the recording room as the case may be. We had very busy moments during those days, but they were very pleasant to recollect. Afterwards, I was fortunate enough to have taken advantage of many opportunities of keeping Mr. Hino’s company. On the 3rd of April, the general assault against the enemy fortifications in Bataan Peninsula was begun. On the 11th of the same month, all the USAFFE forces in Bataan surrendered and the operations ended.
From the 29th of April, the first auspicious occasion of the Emperor’s Birthday since the outbreak of the Greater East Asia War, “The Siege of the Fortifications in Bataan Peninsula,” which is included in this volume, was published in the Manila Niti-Niti Sinbun for five consecutive issues. I read it and was profoundly moved. I could not suppress the desire of introducing to my beloved Filipino friends the episode about the bugler, First Private Mimura, who demonstrated a deep sense of responsibility as a typical Japanese soldier, and I began to translate the piece into English with the cooperation of Mr. Ocampo in between our official duties in the office.
Several days later, on the 5th of May, the general assault against the fortifications of Corregidor Island was begun, and on the 7th of the same month, Corregidor and other fortifications at the mouth of Manila Bay surrendered, and afterwards Lieutenant-General Wainwright ordered all the remaining USAFFE forces all over the islands of the Philippines to surrender unconditionally, and hostilities in the whole Philippines were quelled, and the country reached the state of reconstruction.
Thus, the Propaganda Corps of the Imperial Japanese Forces, of which I am a humble member, was reorganized into the Department of Information, and as one of the means of cultural publicity, it was decided to compile most of the shorter pieces of Mr. Hino with the English translation and ordered to be published as herewith.
Sincerely hoping to introduce to my beloved Filipino friends Mr. Hino’s precious works, as representative illustration of the Spirit of Japan and Busidō, the warriors’ code of ethics—the reason why the Japanese Forces are strong—and the ideals of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere; I did my best—notwithstanding my meager learning and mediocre talent—to translate Mr. Hino’s works into English, as faithfully as possible, comparing the translation word for word more than three times with the original manuscript in Japanese. But under the hurried circumstances natural to military operations, I could scarcely utilize reference materials and hardly had enough time for choice of diction, so I fear that there may be some inadvertent errors or mistranslations. By the grace of the readers’ correction, however, I hope to make this volume more perfect and issue its revised edition in the future.
There is the consoling fact, however, that Painter Zyunkiti Mukai, with whom I have always shared both pleasures and difficulties since our departure from Tokyo, and for whom I must express my most profound and hearty gratitude, despite his pressure of duties, has painted such a beautiful canvas for the cover, which enhances greatly the beauty of this volume.
And lastly, this volume is published today like this because Mr. Hernando R. Ocampo, a young and promising Filipino writer and painter, who has been working with the Propaganda Corps of the Imperial Japanese Forces since immediately after the entrance of the Imperial Forces into the City of Manila on the 5th of January, 1942, cooperated with me faithfully and earnestly with pleasure, from beginning to end. I think it is an extreme honour and a profound pleasure, and I express my hearty thanks to present this volume to the reading circles as the natural result of our good example of personally putting into actual practice the ideal of Japanese and Filipino cooperation, just as we have always emphasized it since our landing on Philippine soil.
I, furthermore, acknowledge and express my gratitude to Mr. Manuel E. Arguilla, one of the leading Filipino writers who won the Short Story Award in the 1940 Commonwealth Literary Contests, who kindly read the proofs and gave me very valuable suggestions; also to Mr. Montano D. Nazario, one of the well-known Manila newspapermen who is at present connected with our Department, who also gave me some valuable suggestions; and for the fact that the pieces compiled in this volume—“The Creation of a New Mythology” and “A Magnificent Composition”, printed in the collection of essays “Coral Reef”, published by Tōhō Syobō, Tokyo; “The Victory of Racial Spirit”, published in the Tokyo Niti-Niti Sinbun; “The Siege of the Fortifications in Bataan Peninsula”, and “Some Memories About Manchoukuo”, published in the Manila Niti-Niti Sinbun; “Front-lines of Bataan”, “A Magnificent Design”, “The Eye” and “An Enemy General”, published in the Southern Cross, the local Japanese soldiers’ newspaper—were translated and reprinted in this volume.
Kazi-o Nisina.
Manila, Philippines
November 3, 1942.
- ↑ The above Japanese poem in thirty-one syllables, written by Imamaturibe-no-Yosohu, in Romanized Japanese is as follows:
Kyō yori wa Kaerimi naku te Ōgimi no,Siko no Mitate to Idetatu Ware wa.
- ↑ The above Japanese poem sung by General Ōtomo, in Romanized Japanese, is as follows:
Umi yukaba mizuku Kabane Yama yukaba kusa musu KabaneŌgimi no He ni koso siname Kaerimi wa sezi.