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Introduction Introduction ‘Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald On 29 November 1910, a small ship of only two hundred tons (181 tonnes) set out from Tokyo Bay carrying twenty-seven men headed for Antarctica; they were the first of their nation ever to have done so. The Japanese were a seafaring people, and by 1910 had more than six hundred years of maritime experience, so it was not a lack of knowledge or skill that had prevented their sailing south. And yet, even in the early years of the twentieth century, the idea of a Japanese expedition to Antarctica was generally dismissed, even by many Japanese. This was, in fact, the era of intense, international, Antarctic exploration – the Heroic Era, as it has come to be known – with world-famous British explorers such as Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Lieutenant Ernest Shackleton, and eventually, the equally famous Norwegian Roald Amundsen, planning expeditions to that continent. Any general history of Antarctic exploration will reveal that numerous expeditions from many of the European countries sailed to the southernmost continent in those years, and although they may have achieved little more than the Japanese mission, or indeed in some cases, far less, the names of their ships and the names of their leaders live on in the minds of Antarctic scholars. The little Japanese ship and its crew, and the man who led them, however, have faded from most accounts of those years. 1 Chapter 1 firstly examines the Heroic Era of Antarctic exploration, and this is followed by a brief overview of some of the more famous expeditions and explorers of that era, in order to provide a background and context for Shirase’s expedition. This is followed by a summary of the events of the expedition itself. This is necessary because the expedition narrative has not been told in English in any substantive way for over eighty years, and the details of the expedition are now relatively inaccessible outside the Japanese literature. Shirase’s post-expedition life is then examined with regard to the heroic status he initially enjoyed, and how swiftly that vanished. Through reference to contemporary newspaper articles and other sources, it is shown that he became a forgotten hero. The chapter ends with an overview of extant research on Shirase’s life and the Kainan Maru expedition, both in English and in Japanese, illustrating the paucity of this material, and the unwarranted neglect this subject has suffered in the academic literature. Chapter 2 discusses the Heroic Era as a product of late-Victorian and Edwardian England in particular, investigating the factors that generated a peak in Antarctic exploration at that time, as well as looking at a number of causal factors in, and features of, the form of hero-worship that arose at that time, in order to provide a basis for the comparisons of the following chapter. Chapter 3 investigates the late-Meiji and Taishō eras in Japan, with reference to the factors in Japanese society that led to an upsurge in hero-worship at that time, and focuses on youth culture in particular. 2 Chapter 4 looks at the role Count Ōkuma Shigenobu played in securing Shirase’s heroic status, to what extent he may have used the expedition to distract public attention from other events occurring at that time, and what part his subsequent disregard may have played in Shirase’s rapid fall from fame. Finally, Chapter 5 investigates the importance of an explorer’s writing in securing heroic status, by looking at the way in which literary ability and skilful or fortuitous timing can be crucial to enduring fame, while at the same time, a lack of skill or unfortunate timing of publication can have severely detrimental effects on heroic status. The discussion then turns to an analysis of Shirase’s situation, the style of writing seen in the magazine articles and books he published, and a broader overview of the literary genres that were gaining popularity in the Taishō years. A brief investigation of film culture in the West and in Japan at this time follows. Conclusions are then drawn regarding the expedition film footage, and the influence changing public tastes in film may have had on Shirase’s heroic status in Japan. The conclusions reached in each of the preceding chapters are then drawn together to illustrate the factors identified as instrumental in the rise and fall of an explorer hero of the Heroic Era of Antarctic exploration. The importance of this one case in the wider field of investigation into the historical figures of the era – what might be termed “hero studies” – and exploration history, is then discussed. 3 1 The Heroic Era and the Voyage of the Kainan Maru 1.1 Defining the Heroic Era It is difficult to define what exactly is meant by the term commonly used to identify the period in Antarctic history when men from many nations were making the first exploratory trips on the continent, for in what sense those men were any more heroic than their predecessors is unclear. At the most prosaic level, the boundaries of the Heroic Era could be delineated in essentially financial terms: in the “pre-Heroic Era” of the nineteenth century, expeditions were largely funded by whaling and sealing companies sending their ships south to harvest the seemingly limitless resources of oil and skins and whale bone, whereas in the “post-Heroic Era” after World War I and up to the present, expeditions have been funded by large corporations and government research programmes. In contrast, during the Heroic Era, ‘…funding of [expeditions] relied, awkwardly and inefficiently, on institutions and individuals who were too poor, grudging or indifferent to respond. Polar travel drew its funds from a few wealthy men, from slender government grants, from news agencies and publishers…’ (Thomson, 2002, p. 132). The source of funding was thus significantly different over these three periods. On a similar level, the period could be defined in terms of technology. Prior to 1872, all expeditions in Antarctic waters were aboard sailing ships. The difficulties associated with sailing through pack ice, avoiding icebergs, and manoeuvring in the unknown and 4 unpredictable winds and weather of the Antarctic Circle were immense. The adoption of steam power meant an enormous expansion in what were considered “safe” waters. A ship could now reverse out of dangers, and had greatly increased power to force its way through ice. Thus, venturing close to the continent itself was now feasible. This contradicted Commander James Cook’s opinion expressed on meeting with Antarctic pack ice and bergs in the days of sailing ships that, ‘The risqué [sic] one runs in exploring a coast in these unknown and icy seas is so very great that I can be bold enough to say that no man will ever venture farther than I have done: and that the lands which may be to the South will never be explored’ (Quoted in Bayliss & Cumpston, 1939, p. 7). The first of the steamships to cross the Antarctic Circle was the Challenger in 1872, and all major expeditions from that time until the years shortly after World War I were steam-powered. Although both Shackleton with his motorcar in 1907, and Scott with his motorised sledges in 1910, had tried to introduce mechanical power into the Antarctic, the internal combustion engine was still in its early stages of development, and was far from reliable at that time (Finkel, 1976). Nevertheless, these were the first hints of a new technological era for the Antarctic. Douglas Mawson’s attempt to take an aircraft on his 1911-1914 expedition similarly foreshadowed a revolution in transportation for future expeditions. Success in the use of the internal combustion engine was achieved by Hubert Wilkins and Carl Eilson in 1928, when, with a flight of over two thousand kilometres in Antarctic skies, they proved that south polar regions could be explored from the air (Burke, 2006, p. 114). This was the beginning of what has been termed the ‘Mechanical Era’ (Bayliss & Cumpston, 1939, p. 8), but which is also known simply as the Modern Era of 5 Antarctic exploration. Thus, the period between the turn of the century and World War I coincided with a radical change in technology, from wind power, through steam power, to the power of the internal combustion engine. This development was to prove the fulfilment of the prophecies of Dr. Edward Wilson, Scott’s companion on his final journey, who said that when the day came that polar exploration could be achieved by motor transport or flying machines, it would lose its attraction for men like himself and his contemporaries – in other words, for men of the Heroic Era (Preston, 1999, p. 60). There has been some consensus for beginning the Heroic Era with the inauguration of the First International Polar Year in 1882. In 1879, at an International Meteorological Conference in Rome, members discussed the need for synchronous magnetic and meteorological observations in polar regions. This led to an International Polar Conference later that year, and the call for an International Polar Year, during which member nations established scientific stations in both high northern and southern latitudes.1 As this was the first time that the Antarctic had been included in polar studies, it served to draw the attention of the scientific community away from the Arctic, and fostered an atmosphere conducive to exploration of the Antarctic. Nevertheless, defining the announcement of the First International Polar Year as the start of the Heroic Era is not without problems. It has been suggested that the scientific involvement in Antarctica merely served to sustain interest, but was not itself the trigger of the Heroic Era.
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