著者

大原 長和 松浦 長彦 服部 英雄

出版者

九州大学大学院比較社会文化学府

雑誌

比較社会文化 (ISSN:13411659)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.15, pp.1-25, 2009

---

I was involved in the edit of the book named "The Springtime Group, good-bye Roppon-matsu-campus"(『青春群像, さよなら六本松』) this past year. While being engaged in this work, I heard a lot of stories of old times. But articles irrelevant to the campus were not to be carried in this book. So I decided to publish two stories concerning World War II. One is by Mr. Ohara Nagakazu, who is Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University. He received a call to arms before his graduation, It is the so-called "Gakuto-Shutujinn" (学徒出陣) -many students enlisted in to go to the front. He first joined the Sasebo Kaiheidan (marine mass) and next went to the Mine Bomb School (機雷学校) (antisubmarine school, 対潜学校) and then went to the submarine school after that. He became a member of Special Attack Corps (Tokkou, 特攻) for homeland defense war (the Hondo Kessen). It was just before the end of the war. The warships of Japan, that were very few left, were not able to move because of the shortage of fuel oil. Enemies' airplanes attacked the warships one after another and all of them sank immediately. Mr.Ohara, the second lieutenant of Naval forces (少尉) , was looking at the scene through the spectacle. It was the end of the Imperial Navy. Several days later, Mr. Ohara saw the clouds caused by Atomic Bomb from the Kurahashijima island and the war ended before the sortie instruction to him. I heard this story from Professor Ohara himself for the record. The followings are cited from the introductory article of the war written by Mr. Matura Osahiko. This had already been published as a book. We have the small number of copies of this book since they were distributed only among the bereaved family. Mr. Matsura had been doing the leftist movement while he was attending the Fukuoka High School at Roppon-matsu. Even after he became a student at Tokyo Imperial University, he continued the leftist movement. He was arrested and detained, however, and being converted, he gave up the leftist movement. His grandfather tried to have him apply for military forces. But this attempt became impossible since he had been imprisoned. He was summoned to military forces several years later. He continuously joined many battles in various places throughout Asia. His main battlefields were China, Batan Peninsula and Manshu. When the artilleryman shot the cannon, his assignment was work to measure the position to the target and the distance. He was always in the dangerous front. He is a person who thinks from the weak person's standpoint. He described taking officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldier's tricky, non-human actions. We can learn ugliness and the ineptitude of the war well by reading such records.