On 20 September, a public hall in central Tokyo was fully packed to hear some 20 persons, including three women, all veterans of the last war, speak their own experiences of the war. It was organized by a small private museum, located in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, intent on collecting first-hand testimonies on the war. They are inviting the still surviving veterans to speak up, and their slogan is "Let us speak before we die". They have started the work as the veterans are usually known to keep silent on what they did and saw in the war. They are aiming at collecting the testimonies of 150,000 war survivors.
I was not able to be present at the above meeting. But fortunately I was able to get the printed summaries of what the 22 persons were going to speak on that day. Their average age is said to be 92. Two of them could not come and it was 20 persons who actually spoke, each for a short time. Together they fought on almost all the fronts that Japan did during the war. Some of them were very young then. The three women were residents of Palau, Okinawa and Tokyo, respectively, who met the US bombing there.
What impressed me most out of these summaries was the very first one. Its narrator volunteered to be an airman at the age of 15. His first appointment was in Inland Japan, but later he was transferred to the Chinese Northeast, was captured by the Russians and engaged in hard labour for two years. One in every six died thus. When they were sent back to Japan and reached Nahotoka, a Siberian Port on the way, they dipped their hands in the sea and wept, saying that this sea would take them back to their country.
But he found his house burnt down by an air-raid. The one he mourned for most was his elder brother, who was killed by a torpedo at the age of only 18. He was gone without knowing the era of peace which was very sad, he concluded.
The museum can be contacted by
http://www.jvvap.jp
Their email is senjyou@notnet.jp
I was not able to be present at the above meeting. But fortunately I was able to get the printed summaries of what the 22 persons were going to speak on that day. Their average age is said to be 92. Two of them could not come and it was 20 persons who actually spoke, each for a short time. Together they fought on almost all the fronts that Japan did during the war. Some of them were very young then. The three women were residents of Palau, Okinawa and Tokyo, respectively, who met the US bombing there.
What impressed me most out of these summaries was the very first one. Its narrator volunteered to be an airman at the age of 15. His first appointment was in Inland Japan, but later he was transferred to the Chinese Northeast, was captured by the Russians and engaged in hard labour for two years. One in every six died thus. When they were sent back to Japan and reached Nahotoka, a Siberian Port on the way, they dipped their hands in the sea and wept, saying that this sea would take them back to their country.
But he found his house burnt down by an air-raid. The one he mourned for most was his elder brother, who was killed by a torpedo at the age of only 18. He was gone without knowing the era of peace which was very sad, he concluded.
The museum can be contacted by
http://www.jvvap.jp
Their email is senjyou@notnet.jp
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