My Life: Interview with Sunao Tsuboi, Chairperson of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, Part 2
Jan. 21, 2013
Militaristic young man
by Sakiko Masuda, Staff Writer
Prepared to die for his country
Mr. Tsuboi was born in Ondo-cho, which is located on an island in the Seto Inland Sea that is part of the city of Kure. In 1938 he enrolled at Kure First Middle School (now Kure Mitsuta High School). Kure then had a military port.
I was the fourth of five children. My dad was an executive at a company that manufactured fishing nets. He traveled all over selling the nets, not just in Japan but also to the Korean Peninsula and China. He’d go anywhere there was an ocean. Like me, he liked to crack jokes, but he was very strict. I was good at math and science, so he told me I should become a famous inventor. But when I was in the second year of junior high school my dad died of acute pneumonia. After that I was determined not to cause trouble for my mother, so I studied really hard.
Under a national policy, the Manchuria-Mongolia Youth Volunteer Corps was sent to the former Manchuria (in northeastern China).
I set out to become an inventor, but I was also determined to serve my country. When my dad was still alive I decided to volunteer to go to Manchuria with the Youth Volunteer Corps. Japan is a small country, and I was tired of living here. I wanted to be a sort of cavalry officer.
But I couldn’t bring myself to tell my strict dad that. I needed his permission to sign up, though, so finally I told him. As I expected, he was furious. He convinced me that I shouldn’t quit school, so in the end I gave up on joining the youth volunteer corps.
The military’s influence in Japan was growing. On days when school was out, Mr. Tsuboi helped with the work on farms where the men had been sent off to war. He was also put to work on a land reclamation project for the expansion of the Naval Academy on Etajima.
When I was a fourth-year student under the old junior high school system, I applied to the Naval Engineering College, but I failed the physical. Just after I entered junior high school, my eldest brother was killed in the Sino-Japanese War. My second eldest brother died of illness on New Guinea in the South Pacific around 1945. But I was still prepared to die for my country on the field of battle.
Militarism is scary. The war ended while I was still unconscious from the A-bombing. When I came to and my mother told me Japan had lost the war, I argued with her saying, “That’s just a false rumor being spread by the Americans. The ‘divine nation’ will not lose the war. Take me to the battlefield.”
I didn’t believe Japan had lost the war until that fall when my third eldest brother, who had been drafted, came home and took his uniform off.
(Originally published on January 17, 2013)
by Sakiko Masuda, Staff Writer
Prepared to die for his country
Mr. Tsuboi was born in Ondo-cho, which is located on an island in the Seto Inland Sea that is part of the city of Kure. In 1938 he enrolled at Kure First Middle School (now Kure Mitsuta High School). Kure then had a military port.
I was the fourth of five children. My dad was an executive at a company that manufactured fishing nets. He traveled all over selling the nets, not just in Japan but also to the Korean Peninsula and China. He’d go anywhere there was an ocean. Like me, he liked to crack jokes, but he was very strict. I was good at math and science, so he told me I should become a famous inventor. But when I was in the second year of junior high school my dad died of acute pneumonia. After that I was determined not to cause trouble for my mother, so I studied really hard.
Under a national policy, the Manchuria-Mongolia Youth Volunteer Corps was sent to the former Manchuria (in northeastern China).
I set out to become an inventor, but I was also determined to serve my country. When my dad was still alive I decided to volunteer to go to Manchuria with the Youth Volunteer Corps. Japan is a small country, and I was tired of living here. I wanted to be a sort of cavalry officer.
But I couldn’t bring myself to tell my strict dad that. I needed his permission to sign up, though, so finally I told him. As I expected, he was furious. He convinced me that I shouldn’t quit school, so in the end I gave up on joining the youth volunteer corps.
The military’s influence in Japan was growing. On days when school was out, Mr. Tsuboi helped with the work on farms where the men had been sent off to war. He was also put to work on a land reclamation project for the expansion of the Naval Academy on Etajima.
When I was a fourth-year student under the old junior high school system, I applied to the Naval Engineering College, but I failed the physical. Just after I entered junior high school, my eldest brother was killed in the Sino-Japanese War. My second eldest brother died of illness on New Guinea in the South Pacific around 1945. But I was still prepared to die for my country on the field of battle.
Militarism is scary. The war ended while I was still unconscious from the A-bombing. When I came to and my mother told me Japan had lost the war, I argued with her saying, “That’s just a false rumor being spread by the Americans. The ‘divine nation’ will not lose the war. Take me to the battlefield.”
I didn’t believe Japan had lost the war until that fall when my third eldest brother, who had been drafted, came home and took his uniform off.
(Originally published on January 17, 2013)
