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Japanese Military Suicides During the Asia-Pacific War: Studies of the Unauthorized Self-Killings of Soldiers アジア太平 洋戦争中の日本軍の自殺 兵士の無断自殺についての考察

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Japanese Military Suicides During the Asia-Pacific War: Studies of the Unauthorized Self-Killings of Soldiers アジア太平 洋戦争中の日本軍の自殺 兵士の無断自殺についての考察 Volume 13 | Issue 25 | Number 2 | Article ID 4334 | Jun 22, 2015 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Japanese Military Suicides During the Asia-Pacific War: Studies of the unauthorized self-killings of soldiers アジア太平 洋戦争中の日本軍の自殺 兵士の無断自殺についての考察 Janice Matsumura, Diana Wright Given the numerous news reports and articles personnel (soldiers as well as civilians describing unprecedented rates of self-inflicted employed in the army) for 1938 was 30 persons deaths among U.S. active-duty personnel, with for every 100,000, which exceeded the average figures by 2012 exceeding those of soldiers rate for the nation’s general population.4 In killed in combat in Afghanistan, military suicide 1936, the overall suicide rate was 22.2 per has become an issue of burning relevance for 100,000; by 1939 it had dropped to 17.5.5 today's U.S. military1 Rising rates have also been recorded in other countries, including The increased number of suicides in the Japan, where the number of suicides among Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) for 1938 not only members of the Self-Defence Forces has ran counter to the experience of many Western remained higher than the national or civilian armies during earlier conflicts, where the rate average since 2003.2 Moreover, in the case of among soldiers declined and remained lower 6 Japan, it would not be the first time that than that for civilians. For those familiar with officials were confronted with data indicating theories of suicide, it was a sign that the an increase in suicides among militaryundeclared China conflict was not a “great personnel. popular war.” In a groundbreaking 1897 study, the French sociologist Émile Durkheim argued Japanese suicide during the Asia-Pacific War that suicides decreased during “great popular (1931-45) is most closely associated inwars [that] rouse collective sentiments, American and international consciousness with stimulate partisan spirit and patriotism, kamikaze pilots and tends to be discussed as political and national faith alike, and evidence of popular acceptance of any and all concentrating activity toward a single end, at wartime policies. This article addresses the far least temporarily cause a stronger integration lesser known topic of unauthorized military of society.’7 But, at the same time, he noted death, examining suicides and attempted that during wars that have failed to excite and suicides that aroused the concern of army thus unite the people suicide rates remained authorities in the late 1930s. In response to unchanged or even increased. Japan’s escalating war with China, the number of conscripts rose from 170,000 in 1937 to Already concerned about declining birthrates 320,000 in 1938.3 According to the anonymous that threatened a loss of manpower during a authors of a special report on suicide issued by long war,8 IJA officials could ill-afford to ignore the (Kempeitai) military police in 1938, this led any issue that was emblematic of low morale to more suicides: in the period from 1928-1938, and possibly defiance.9 Observing that the life the average annual number of suicides had of a soldier belonged to the Emperor, the been about 120 persons, and in 1938 alone, the authors of the military police report branded figure climbed to more than 156. It was self-killing without official permission an calculated that the suicide rate among military inexcusable act of disloyalty.10 Moreover, 1 13 | 25 | 2 APJ | JF asserting that the IJA now had the highest Psychiatrists could be of assistance in verifying suicide rate among all the militarysuicides and identifying the possible cause and organizations in the world, theseKempeitai motives. But, in drawing attention to aspects of authors urged the army leadership to remedy army life, such as a culture of bullying, this “deplorable situation.”11 Although the widespread syphilitic infection among troops absence of data makes it impossible to know and even war crimes, they also revealed an how army officials continued to deal with unawareness of or possibly a refusal to accept unauthorized suicides beyond the late 1930s, the fact that in the IJA, as in all military existing material reveals that shortly before the organizations, combat efficiency and respect war with China spilled over into a multi- for authority was prioritized above all else. War national conflict, mental health expertscrimes and atrocities were a problem only investigated the problem. insofar as they aroused popular resistance or their exposure undermined propaganda that As a contribution to studies of militarycast the invasion of China as part of a “Holy psychiatry and the emerging scholarship War” (seisen) to liberate oppressed Asian available in the English-language on the history peoples from their European and American 12 of Japanese psychiatry, this article assesses colonial oppressors. While it contradicted a the collaboration of these practitioners with carefully crafted image of nurturing or army authorities in efforts to understand and mutually supportive relations among soldiers, better control the unauthorized deaths of army authorities accepted the incessant hazing soldiers. Notably, the psychiatrists whose and beatings of subordinates because, as opinions are examined here drew no clear historians of the IJA have revealed, it furthered connection between suicides and combat- the objective of “making unquestioning induced conditions, such as “war neurosis,” obedience second nature.”15 As for syphilitic 13 “combat stress,” or “battle fatigue.” As the infection, army officials after 1937 believed military had long promoted the notion that a that comfort stations, a system based on the unique spirit (yamato damashii) would enable sexual slavery of women from Japan’s colonies the Japanese people to cope with the hardships and occupied territories, offered a solution to of war, discussion of war-related psychological this and other problems. As a 1940 War breakdown, much less suicide was unwelcome. Ministry memorandum observed, the stations It could not be acknowledged that the physical would “heighten the men’s moral[e], keep and mental hardships of training or the discipline and prevent crimes and sexual battlefield could drive previously well-adjusted diseases.”16 individuals insane; at most, it could be proposed that they triggered a preexisting Jiketsu versus Jisatsu condition in already abnormal persons. One psychiatrist conscripted into the army, Sakurai By the late 1930s, in the IJA, the only officially Tonao (1907-1988) claimed that individuals acceptable self-killing for a Japanese soldier with these latent conditions did not even have was one that was authorized: i.e., the result of to experience combat and could go into self-sacrifice for a specific goal set by profound shock merely by receiving a draft superiors, not by the individual, and, thereby, a notice. While government propaganda obliged demonstration of unquestioning obedience to people to look upon conscription as a cause for state authority. The military authorities in fact celebration, Sakurai reported that for the maintained a clear distinction between period 1937-38 he found 30 cases of individuals authorized self-killings and suicide. Instead of attempting suicide within a week or so of being using the common Japanese word for suicide, drafted. Nineteen of these were fatal.14 jisatsu (自殺), to describe these authorized self- 2 13 | 25 | 2 APJ | JF killings, they applied the term jiketsu 自決( ), people’s experiences” are unreliable and do not which conveyed the notion that the death was qualify as “research works.”21 By research self-determined and not coerced. As Koji Taira works, it is presumed, that these government observes, “jiketsuis [meant] to honor and officials are referring to works based on glorify the person who had the extraordinary government documents. courage to kill himself or herself in this manner. Calling such casesjisatsuwould amount In investigating military jisatsu -- unauthorized to a blasphemy.”17 Those who reportedly self-killings or suicides and attempted suicides experienced this noble self-inflicted death not on the part of soldiers that were not the result only included kamikaze pilots, manned of superiors’ orders and served no combat torpedoes, and soldiers carrying out doomed objectives, this article relies on the small banzai charges against usually superior forces. number of official documents that survived During the Asia-Pacific War, a total war that efforts by the Japanese government and wiped out many distinctions between soldiers military to destroy them and, specifically, and noncombatants, military officials called studies conducted by army personnel including 22 upon civilians in Okinawa and Manchuria to psychiatrists. By 1939, IJA authorities had perform jiketsu, including shudan jiketsu or access to at least three studies on what the compulsory group suicide, rather than fall into authors termed jisatsu among troops. Aside the hands of the enemy.18 from the Kempeitai report, there was an article by the aforementioned Sakurai Tonao that was Although these deaths are the ones generally published in an army medical journal. Sakurai associated with Japanese wartime suicide, most appears to have spent his entire term of service of them seem to fall outside of definitions of at Tokyo’s Kōnodai Army Hospital, the army’s suicide. For philosophers Joseph Margolis and sole psychiatric hospital, and would become Tom L. Beauchamp, suicide is any act or after the war a leading authority on neuroses, omission intentionally undertaken by a person particularly those associated with soldiers.23 to bring about his/her own death,unless the There was also a 94-page secret report on death was altruistically motivated, coerced, and suicide completed in 1939 for the IJA by caused by conditions that the person did not another conscripted psychiatrist, Hayao Torao arrange specifically for the purpose of ending (1890-1968). Using the Kempeitai report and his/her life.19 If this definition is accepted, many Sakurai’s work as comparative and authorized self-killings should be moresupplementary sources, this article draws accurately described as acts of compulsory self- heavily on Hayao’s research.
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