The Flowering of Racial Spirit

Front matter

The latest photograph of the Author, taken in Manila.

The Flowering Of Racial Spirit

By Asihei Hino

Foreword

I am feeling most pleasant that at present, I find myself in the midst of a New War and a New Dawn. I hope and believe that the day will come in a not very distant future, when all the races of the Orient will realize the magnificent design of “Asia is One,” which is being carried out by the Empire of Japan, our Fatherland, with the final object of restoring the racial spirit of the Orient that is surging among them. Trusting in each other with the depth of alternating current as one group of blood-relatives, we must restore the pride of the Oriental races, which has been bent by Occidental materialism. The Sun of the Orient, which once fell into the hands of invaders, has now been recovered by our hands. Stirring up our valour, which is steadfast and overflowing with sincerity, we must be engaged in the plan of the New Sun. Historically speaking, Japan and the Philippines have been very closely related countries. Now, before us, the Great Road of establishing a New Philippines has been opened with great possibilities by our immutable cooperation. We, Japanese, do not spare any possible effort towards that objective.

Here, several of my shorter pieces have been gathered into one volume, but these were published in Japanese newspapers and magazines and were not written for the original purpose of being read by the Filipino people. Therefore, I fear there may be some parts which are not of interest to them. The translation was made through the efforts of Mr. Nisina, a good friend of mine. I look forward with pleasure, however, to the coming of the day when I will be able to write pieces that are originally intended for the Filipinos. But it is not in the spirit of haughtiness but in the spirit of cooperation with each other. -

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: ppoem|{it}From today, without turning back to mind

my private affairs,

As a humble shield of the Sovereign

I will set forth.

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: ppoem|{it} If we go by sea let my corpse be water-soaked, If we go by mountain let my corpse be grass-grown, I will die by the side of our Sovereign, I will never turn back.

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 subma 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 Filipi 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,

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 record 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, “,” 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 vol 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 Sin

“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 Creation of a New Mythology

The Creation of a New Mythology

On the morning of the 8th of December, 1941.

I was still asleep when my wife awoke me to hear the radio broadcast. As I had a presentiment about it, I instantly got up and listened in, and though I heard the broadcast, maybe, from the middle, the same news was being announced repeatedly.

“The announcement of the Army and Navy Sections of the Imperial Headquarters: The Imperial Japanese Army and Naval Forces have entered into a condition of hostilities against the Anglo-American Forces, before daybreak of today, the 8th of December, in the Western Pacific.”

I felt something like an electric shock coursing through my being. I felt some excitement but it was quite different from a feeling of surprise. It was not because what I had presupposed has been realized, but because I have instantly felt deeply in my bosom the acknowledgment of the fact that what should naturally come to pass has been actually realized. And what I thought was that at this same instant the whole nation must be feeling, before their radio receiving sets, the same emotion that I was feeling.

It was quite another thing from the fact that we met with some astounding situation. Although it is true that an astonishing situation has set in, and however an astonishing commencement of the situation it might be, it is merely the fact which the Japanese people acknowledge with high pride. A certain anxiety which was haunted by the empty visions of Japanese-American parley has in a moment been obliterated. The popular expresssion that “the dark clouds cleared up and the bright blue sky appeared,” may perhaps most straightforwardly express the emotion of the nation at this moment.

Hearing the brilliant results of our assaults one after another by radio news announcements, I now began to succumb to the magnificent emotion that the creation of a new mythology has begun. I do not exaggerate, when I say that I saw in my vision the figures of gods, holding halberds in their hands, and going on their way to rule over the Great Eight-Islands. In ancient times the gods of our ancestors came down from the Takamagahara (“Empire of Heaven” in the Japanese mythology), and subduing those who were not loyal, founded Japan, our Fatherland. That is, indeed, the very history of the creation in mythology, which is so brilliant as to dazzle us now to turn back and see. By the consummation of that mythology the dawn of Japan began.

On that day, in front of my radio receiving set, I could not but think with tears of emotion about the endeavours for the creation of a New Mythology, which Japan, our Moth , has just begun once more. The New Mythology has now been begun on a magnificent scale. Our Mother-country, Japan, is carrying out her God-given mission on the Great Eight-Islands surrounded by blue seas.

But we know quite thoroughly that great perseverance and sacrifices were necessary in the history of the former mythology. When we look in retrospect at that mythology, we cannot but conceive a feeling of piety towards the magnitude of the sacrifices suffered. That spirit of sacrifice has copiously flowed through the blood-vessels of us, the Japanese people, for several thousand years like a stream of river.

Now that the magnificent task of creating the New Mythology has once more begun, it is needless to say that, as before, the greater perseverance and sacrifices are necessary. The Japanese people must have felt all these matters at an instant in their bosoms. In other words, this satisfactory task cannot be accomplished by merely making a boisterous pageant of it, but it must be struggled through and consummated with presence of mind, serenity, and clenched teeth.

A Magnificent Composition

A Magnificent Composition

It has been for a long time since the problem of war and culture was taken up. But now with the opening by Japan of a decisive battle against the United States of America and Great Britain, I think that the problem of culture has reached the time when it will truly be given a final solution.

We have believed in the significance and power of culture under whatever conditions; we will still continue to believe so hereafter. And I believe that the consummation of the pride of the Japanese race will be determined by the influence given upon the soaring up of the Japanese race by the power of culture. That will become a magnificent emotion for the fundamental power with which the Japanese race, as a great nation, will fight through this war to the end. If we continue to reflect upon culture the great task, with its magnificent composition, of our Fatherland, Japan; the culture itself also must develop a magnificent composition. I cannot think of any other way for the cultural men to offer themselves for the destiny of our Mother-country. That is the only resolution of the cultural men.

Front-lines of Bataan

Front-lines of Bataan

I went on an observation tour of the front-lines in Bataan Peninsula on the 5th of March, 1942, which lasted for three days. Starting from San Fernando, Pampanga, I proceeded to Hermosa, Bataan, by way of Guagua; and from the east coast, crossing the foot of the Natib mountain range, went to Olongapo on the west coast, and thereat put up for the night. Then we landed at Mayagao by a launch, and thence we went as far as Moron. I have various thoughts, and I cannot describe them wholly within such a short article as this. But the tour of these few days made me realize the difficulties, which are beyond description, of our officers and soldiers, and made my breast choke with emotion. The experience which I had in running about the battlefields of China with a gun in my hand enabled me to understand how this new battle of the South, in various changing features, blocked up in the face of the unlimited valour of our soldiers.

When I stood up on a hill which was located in the eastern side of Mabatang, it was so hot that my breath was almost checked by the rising vapour which seemed to be blazing up. I heard that formerly a very formidable enemy fortification was located at this place, and a furious battle developed here. The ranges of Mount Natib undulate to the right, and if we stand facing southward, Mount Mariveles, with its irregular shape full of swellings and depressions, can be seen through the deep clear blue air. In front of this, Mount Samat stands in a lower plane but in a clearer relief. It may be due to the clearness of the air that these mountains appear so near that it seems as if we could touch them with our finger if we point at them, and it makes us think as if we could reach at the summit in one or two hours by walking. The trees of mango and acacia, groves of banana and coconut trees, bamboo clumps, and Manila Bay which can be seen on the left; together with these objects, this scenery of scorching heat is overflowing with robust masculine beauty. It does not make us think that on the mountains and among the valleys at the foot of them, which appear so beautiful in front of us, there are numberless enemy forces establishing their positions, installing cannons, and aiming at the lives of our soldiers. I felt, nevertheless, a kind of pathetic, ghastly and eerie atmosphere abounding at this short interval in the afternoon under this dazzlingly clear sunshine.

There are many large cannon shell craters everywhere in the fields around us. Trees and bamboo clumps on the roadsides along our way were miserably cut down. Bamboo trees in the clumps were cut half-way, causing their tops to bend on the ground in long columns. It seems that the shelling was very furious. The cannon shell craters in the fields showed that the shells which have caused them have fallen one after the other in the same spot; some other shells fell successively in a line from another nearby shell, their patterns forming the shapes of a gourd or skewered dumplings. These craters are filled with water, where many carabaos are wallowing pleasantly.

I hear that Bataan Peninsula had been the ground for maneuvers of the USAFFE. Measurements of the comparative distance or range between any two points had been taken sight of. Therefore, the toils of our forces have by no means been easy. One of our soldiers said that enemy forces fired cannon shells as frequently as rifle bullets, and another soldier said that if we fired one shell the enemy returned our firing a hundred-fold, and still another said that cannon shells as large as drum cans were hurled against us at the rate of thirty times a minute. I gazed on the faces of soldiers who told me such things, with a feeling that nearly caused tears to flow from my eyes. They told me such stories about the wantonness of the enemy’s firing, without any expression of fear, impossibility or difficulty in matching such a cannonading. They talked about such wanton firing with laughter, as if they could not help laughing. Perhaps the enemy forces who were entrapped in Bataan Peninsula may have been already driven into a desperate plight. We don’t know how many cannon shells they have in stock, but perhaps they have enough to fire cannon shells as if they were rifle bullets, or thirty times a minute, or cannon shells as large as drum cans.

However, our soldiers must laughingly spring to the charge against such ridiculous enemy counter-attacks. I can firmly believe in such boundless courage of the Japanese soldiers.

It is already a question of time when Bataan Peninsula will fall into the hands of our forces. The appearances of the front regions like San Fernando, Guagua, Hermosa, Mabatang, Olongapo, or Moron, are full of variety, but the sense of reliance on the serenity of our soldiers, which is overflowing in these towns, is directly connected with the idea of completion of this magnificent war of Greater East Asia. I cannot forget this impression.

We had fought for a long time against the Chinese forces in the battlefields of China, but behind them lay concealed the United States of America and Britain. We are now fighting against these true enemies, and I am forced into an irrepressible indignation when we see the tyrannical figures in another shape of white men in the battlefields of Bataan. They are making the Filipino soldiers as their puppets, and making the Filipinos as the victims to be sacrificed. We are not fighting against the Filipinos, but those who expose their corpses in the battlefields are mostly Filipino soldiers. I met with many Filipino prisoners of war at Hermosa, Olongapo, Moron, etc. Their families and homes are in the regions which are occupied by the Japanese forces, and they are enjoying a safe and peaceful existence. These families who are with the Japanese forces, are anxious day and night about their sons or brothers, who were taken away and forced by the Americans to make a stand in the fronts of Bataan.

The fronts in Bataan which are under such circumstances, bewilder the benevolent Japanese forces a little. And the indignation against the tyrannical Americans is all the more intensified. The Filipino prisoners of war and surrenderers are kindly protected; so kindly protected that one of the young Filipinos at Moron climbed a high coconut tree and plucked a fruit for us. We, being brought face to face with that Filipino soldier, enjoyed the sweet juice and the meat of the coconut fruit and smacked our tongues.

We also saw at Olongapo the inhabitants cooperating in the pounding of palay. Under the clear sky, from which stars were twinkling as if they were threatening to rain down their sparks, were gathered many people—old and young, men and women—pounding palay with pestles to the tune of guitars and harmonicas, and to the rhythm of songs. I heard it as a song of the revival of the New Philippines. The Japanese soldiers, too, helped in the pounding.

In the fronts of Bataan the warriors’ morale is overflowing. The stupid cannonading of the enemy is beyond question. The day on which the flag of the Rising Sun will fly on the summit of Mount Mariveles, and when the fortresses of Corregidor shall be rendered into ruins, shall come to pass in a not very distant future.

(March 10, 1942)

The Siege of the Fortifications in Bataan Peninsula

The Siege of the Fortifications in Bataan Peninsula

Chapter I.—The beginning of the General Assault

I am now gazing at the scenery in a new seat of war in the South, which is very different from the battlefields in China, wherein I have had experience as a soldier. The masculine and rugged features of the fortifications in Bataan Peninsula, which the USAFFE has vaunted very much as impregnable, seem to rise and approach my vision in the rising vapour under the blue sky, which is so clear and bright as to dazzle our eyes.

It was at daybreak of the 22nd of December, 1941 that the first of our troops landed at the shore of Lingayen Gulf as the strategic operations for the Philippines were begun. The City of Manila capitulated on the 2nd day of January, 1942. Deserting all bases and defense positions, the enemy forces retreated to the peninsula of Bataan. They called it a “pre-scheduled retreat.”

Bataan is a peninsula which extends itself southward at the mouth of Manila Bay. It is about twenty-five kilometers wide from East to West, and fifty kilometers long from North to South. Between the southernmost point of the peninsula and the town of Ternate at the opposite shore, i.e., at the entrance of Manila Bay, is the fortress of Corregidor Island.

The enemy forces are confronting our forces at Mount Samat in front of Mount Mariveles, one of the steepest and most difficult terrains to assault in Bataan Peninsula, where the main forces of the enemy are entrenched. Mount Mariveles towers up into the clear Prussian blue of the sky, with its undulating shape as irregular as the jagged lines of the clumsily sharpened teeth of a saw. Mount Samat, which is in front of Mount Mariveles, rises clearer and more rugged, with two isolated trees standing erectly on its summit like ornamental hairpins. It seemed as if there must be enemy artillery observers in the trees who were taking note of our positions and the effects of their artillery activities. The mountain, which is conspicuously swelling as a bump on the undulation of Mount Samat, which is sloping into the sea, is Mount Orion, on which the pertinacious artillery positions of the enemy forces are situated.

It may be owing to the clearness of the air that these mountains appear to be so near that they may actually be touched by pointing our fingers to them. Tropical trees like coconut, banana, betel-nut, mango, dorian, and kapok are everywhere in groves, in rows or standing alone. We can find crimson flowers in bloom here and there. Bougainvillaea, gumamela, and poinsettia flowers are blooming, bright red in the shimmering scenery of the rising vapour. The white clouds are ever sweeping in a dazzling glitter over the undulating mountain ranges. It is full of robust masculine beauty. Upon seeing this, it cannot be imagined that tens of thousands of the enemy forces are polishing the muzzles of their guns and cannons within this scenery. But this sturdy and awe-inspiring scenery is full of terrible enmity.

The enemy forces fire their guns day and night from the slopes of the mountains. They seem to have an unlimited stock of ammunition. Their artillery, too, seems to function with accuracy.

All the towns in the vicinity are changed into miserable ruins. Forests and woods are wantonly burned to the ground. The bamboo trees along the road are cut halfway by cannon shells, thus bringing their tops down to the ground in long and continuous columns. Various trees, hit by cannon shells in the trunks, or at the foot of the trunks, are almost withered to death. The enemy forces must have fired cannon shells as if they were merely rifle bullets. One of our soldiers began to count how many were fired in a day; and he counted till four thousand three hundred and several odd ’ties, and he could not keep up counting any more. If we fire one shot, they return our fire tenfold. I am also told that cannon shells as large as drum cans were hurled against us in the morning and in the evening.

There are many craters made by cannon shells in the field, large holes made side by side like pockmarks on a face; in some instances two shells dropped one after the other in the same place, and in other instances shells dropped continuously and their traces appear like skewered dumplings.