WHAT PRICE "BUSHIDO" NOW?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 130, 19 December 1941, Page 6

WHAT PRICE "BUSHIDO" NOW?

Japan Forgets Her Ancient Code Of Honour

Written for "The Listener" by

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL

ORDE

LEES

A.F.C., O.B.E., formerly Lieutenant-Commander. (attached )

Japanese Naval Air Service, and "Times" correspondent in Tokyo

O one was more surprised than the writer of this article when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour; more shocked, more pained. A reat part of his life has been spent in Japan, and there also are his home and all his property. On the other hand, few people in New Zealand know the Japanese people as well as he does, or the Japanese fighting men, since his wife is a Japanese, and he was for two years ‘a flying instructor in Japan. But with it all he had to leave Japan at a few hours’ notice, bringing away with him nothing but his personal laggage. Colonel Orde Lees spent 21 years in the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. He was a member of Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition in 1914-1916 and in 1917 he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps. He was the first British officer to make a parachute landing, and conducted research in this branch of aviation. After the war he went to Japan to instruct in"parachute work in the Japanese Naval Air Force, with the rank of Lieutenant- ee in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

declared stab in the back by launching her blitzkreig offensive against Hawaii and Manila. Let us try to realise what sort of stuff we are up against in both the mechanisation and personnel of her fighting forces. Saint Francis Xavier, the first Christian missionary ever to land and preach in Japan, declared three hundred years ago that the Japanese were more fond of weapons and of strife than any other nation. With, perhaps, the possible exception of Germany, this may be said to be almost as true of Japan to-day, save for this significant difference. In Xavier’s day, and until quite recently, Japan was proud of what she called Bushido. Now Bushido is in principle an admirable ethical code of honour comparable in certain respects with medieval chivalry, with the notable difference that, whereas chivalry implies chiefly the honouring and defending of women, Bushido almost deliberately goes out of its way to relegate women to a position of utter inferiority and concerns itself with, among other things, such matters as the chival--rous relation between victor and vanquished, attacker and attacked. In passing, it may be said that Bushido is indirectly responsible for that submissive self effacement among Japanese women which so often intrigues the passing tourist, and not infrequently causes the occidental resident in Japan to take a@ well-born Japanese girl in marriage. Ji has given us all an unNow Bushido has been cast aside by Japan’s rude attack on America without as much as an "on your guard," and all that centuries of noble Samurai (knights) strove to achieve is, in one single day, set at nought. If ever Japan lost face in the eyes of the world she has done it now -disgraced herself for ever by her gangsterlike overture in the Pacific War.

Fighting Code This shameless breach of her ancient code of gentlemanly behaviour, which is precisely what Bushido actually means, will not, however, prevent her fighting men from observing the age-old rules so far as modern warfare permits. That they have not invariably done so in their invasion of China is common knowledge, but there, they say, they are in conflict with soldiers to whom such things as Bushido and chivalry are unknown qualities. At least that is the usual Japanese excuse for atrocities on the part of their own men. Such delinquencies have always been ‘claimed to be reprisals. So much for the men in the ranks. Whether their officers will strictly abide by the rules of war when opportunities for unreported aberration may occur, remains to be seen. Those of the Navy, with their very strong English traditions, are more likely to do so; those of the Army are strongly imbued with the Germanic spirit of militarism, and everyone knows what that means. The Air Force in Japan is not, as yet, a separate body, but is attached to the Army and to the Navy as was ours at ‘the beginning of the last European. war. It is a dangerous mistake to Ganahis: | it. Militarism From am Cradle Ever since the last European war, militarism has been increasingly stresséd_in the schools; first only in High Schools vand Universities, then in the Middle Schools, and more recently in the Primary Schools. Now children of the tenderest years are given military drills, regimentation, and lessons in patriotism, and these have lately been regarded as the most important of their daily curriculum. Little tots are taken for overlong marches armed with sticks. Some like it, most don’t. ; This year the summer holiday for primary schools was cut down from the usual month to only a week, so as to

impress upon the little ones the necessity of being prepared to defend, or fight for, their country. Middle school boys, i.e., lads of from about 13 to 18, have been out every Sunday of late on extensive field-days and sham fights, those of 17 and 18 being armed with real rifles, their younger schoolmates with dummy ones only; in addition, an hour a day has been devoted every week-day to military exercises on the school campus or playground. High school and _ university students have the same routine, only more of it, and an extra hour a day is added to their former curricula to allow for it. University students, in fact, during school hours live a life little different from that of conscripts under instruction, so that they know what to expect when their turn comes to be called up for their tour of conscripted service. Most of them regard it as inevitable and put up with it with tolerant grace, though not a few admit privately that they detest it. Official military propaganda is so insistent, and insidious, that, for the most part, parents urge their sons to excel in military exercises for the good of their country. It is not until they actually become soldiers that they realise what a hard life it it. They have the worst pay, the hardest beds, the roughest food, and the least leisure of any army in the world. The life of an American convict would be luxury in comparison with that of the. Japanese private. Fighting For a Penny a Day The actual remuneration of a Japanese conscript was quite recently, and probably still is, two yen a month, which is almost exactly’a penny a day. Euphemistically it is termed pocket-. money by the authorities and is regarded as. such by the conscripts. The officers, a very large proportion of whom , come from the ranks, receive proportionately more, but barely a third of what our officers get. So many of them having

themselves served as private soldiers, they know precisely how the latter live and what they have to put up with, which certainly is not, as a rule, the case in our own forces. In Japan, the social distinction between officers and men seems to be very much what we suppose it to be in Russia’s red army. The training of the officers, like almost everything in Japan, veers to the academic more than to the practical side of military knowledge; some of them are erudite in military matters. All For The Emperor Discipline is maintained less by the penal provisions of an "Army Act," as is mainly the case with us, than by the Japanese traditional sense of loyalty to the Emperor, to die for whom is genuinely regarded as a privilege. So far as the Japanese have any belief in postmortal survival it is deemed that death for the Emperor’s sake will bring a martyr’s reward. It is for this reason vather than through inherent courage that Japanese soldiers heed ,life very lightly and are always ready to undertake without any adieux, dangerous military tasks where death is. -inevitable.. This was the case, for example, in the attack on Shanghai, where three soldiers perfectly cognisant of their fate, walked to certain extinction carrying a heavy des molition bomb which they proceeded. to place under a key position from which there was no possible chance of escape for themselves and deliberately detonated it, blowing up themselves and their objective at the same time. Exactly who the Emperor is at the time is of relatively little importance to a Japanese; like the "throne" with us, it is the emperorship as an entity that is the foundation of all Japanese life, both civil and military... Of purely religious conscience there is practically none, for observing Buddhists are decreasing, and Shintoism, the official state religion, is more of a code than a cult. {Continued on next page)

Japan Stands Revealed

(Continued from previous page)

There is another side to their valour. When the question of patriotism is not at stake, Japanese as a whole show a curious lack of determination, and, under certain circumstances, a lack of courage. In sports and recreative pursuits, such as long-distance swimming or mountain climbing, they will often show a surprising want of perseverance, and unashamedly admit defeat or incapacity long before we, in the ordinary course of events, would think it dignified to do so. A case in point: I, an English and a Japanese friend set out to climb Mount Fuji (12,365 feet) one mid-winter’s day. We had carefully made all preparations beforehand, and our Japanese companion was the most experienced mountaineer of our team. We had barely reached the ridge of Hoeizan, the only part presenting any real difficulty, and which is about twothirds of the way up, when our Japanese colleague suddenly sat down and declared that it was impossible, adding that many had lost their lives in the attempt. This assertion contained a modicum of truth. for of the very few parties who previously had tried to reach the summit in winter a few had actually perished by being caught in blizzards and, as a result, sitting down too long waiting for the air to clear and getting fatally frost-bitten before making up their minds to do something about it. On the occasion in question, and at his own request, we left our fellow-climber at one of the mountain huts for summer climbers and proceeded to the summit without difficulty. We felt sure that he was capable of descending by himself, and on our return, about midnight, were thankful to find that he had apparently done so. We were less pleased on reaching the foot of the mountain to find that he had reported that we had gone on against his advice,and that it would be necessary to send out search parties to locate our remains, ~ Fear of Ghosts All Japanese have a great fear of apparitions and things supernatural. as the

following story will indicate. I was on a simple walking tour in the mountains with a British and a Japanese officer who spoke perfect English. Darkness came on when we were still two miles from our destination, a mountain hot spring inn. It certainly was an unusually dark night. We were following a road through a -wood. I was ahead, and it was difficult to keep to the road, and avoid turning off between the trees at the many sharp bends. All at once the Japanese officer protested: "It is madness to go on; you don’t know what might come out of the wood." At first we thought that he was trying to scare us with a bogy story, until we found that he was almost trembling with panic for fear of ghosts. Finally we calmed him down and placed him between us, and thus escorted him for the rest of the journey, but he was as shaken as he was grateful for our protection when we arrived at the inn. Yet we were sure that he was not a man to be found wanting in courage when it was a case of military duty. So much for the almost suicidal psychology of the Japanese fighting man. He is able to put up with hunger, and hardships if not too long sustained, but he certainly is not tough in the sense _that New Zealanders and Americans are; and when it comes to the implements of war placed in his hands it is quite a different story. -No Mechanical Tradition It must, in the first place, be remembered that the Japanese have no mechanical tradition comparable to ours extending over several centuries. It is only recently that they have been able to construct mechanisms and armaments of any kind, and, judging from Japanese mechanisms that I have had in my hands, especially bicycles and motor cars, and from the glances I have had at military mechanisms and equipment, I should say that such things are always inferior to our own. Take the case of their capital ships. These are most imposing. structures, but I have heard on quite good authority that in their construction money-

Saving short cuts and cheapened material are used in non-essential parts. This is in line with what I have actually been shown by a leading foreign engineer engaged by the Japanese to organise a huge factory for the construction of small cars following closely the lines of the famous Austin Seven. He said that whereas, in the Ford car there were some 150 different metals used, he found the greatest difficulty in convincing the board and engineers that it was absolutely necessary to employ at least 40 or 50 different kinds, especially in the case of the more expensive metals, In commercial goods, too, cheapening devices and materials are often used, as New Zealanders may occasionally have found when buying Japanese goods. There is the case of the elegant looking pencil which had graphite for more than an inch from either end but something different or nothing at all in the centre. When the importer protested that the goods received were not up to sample he received the _ reply, "Please examine the sample." He then found that the centre three inches of the pencil were entirely innocent of lead. I have seen too many motor cars broken down in Japan, too many locomotives on the main train lines with broken or damaged parts bound together with copper wire and with missing lock-nuts or no nuts at all, to believe that the mechanisms of the guns and other offensive weapons in Japanese warships are always kept up to 100 per cent. efficiency. As to the actual serving and handling of the guns, this is much too great a secret for anyone but the actual Japanese personnel ever to observe, but on account of their smaller stature and a general tendency to neglect precision in movement it is’ probable that their gunnery is inferior to ours on those grounds alone, while it is certain that they have been unable to keep up to date with us in the highly specialised art of gunnery’ control which we taught them etek the last European war. "Not: Bad" Pilots In the air I am more competent to speak, for T have flown many times with Japanese military pilots. It was our opinion that they were not bad pilots, nor were they very good ones. Either

they were forgetful or they were careless. In an open training aeroplane, a pilot is made conscious that his machine is side-slipping by the extra draught on one or the other cheek. Our Japanese pupils had to be reminded of this elementary fact many more times than it was necessary to tell British learners. The ground crews were even more negligent. It required a great deal of urging to convince them that lumps of mud adhering to the undersides of the wings tended to retard the air-speed of the plane and that these must be daily washed off. Again, both ground staff and pilots were sometimes oblivious of the fact that an engine " missing," if only occasionally, on one of its cylinders was dangerous to take off with. One fatal accident occurred partly from this cause. The pilot, knowing by his revolution-counter that the engine was "missing," disregarded advice and took off. Finding that he could not gain height to clear some trees at the. end of the aerodrome, he turned back, then made the fatal mistake of looking over the side of his plane and estimated his speed by the rate at which the grass appeared to be rushing past beneath him instead of keeping his eyes on his air-speed .indicator in the cockpit as he should have done. As a result he side-slipped. crashed, and was killed, while his observer was seriously injured. I temember it because I had only just changed places with the observer. Southward Aims Of Japan’s southward aims it is hardly necessary to speak. They have been discussed and have been patent to all for nearly a decade; in fact, Japan’s covetousness of the Philippines was no secret 20 years ago. Next she began to cast affectionate eyes on the Dutch East Indies. It was about then that the intensive militarism in boys’ schools, alluded to at the beginning of this article, began. Siam, now Thailand, followed,, Japan for years having made every kind of attempt to do by peaceful means what she has now done rough-shod in a day. Had it not been for the foresight of British statesmen, Japan would have had a walkover at Singapore. At the same time, it was the vigorous policy of fortifying Singapore that especially piqued Japan to seize it if possible. Lost Opportunities Those who have not had time to read much about the medieval and more recent history of Japan may not know that from the year 1660 until the Restoration of the Emperor’s sovereignty in 1867, Japan shut her doors to foreign intrusion. Not only did she shut her doors to toreigners, but she neglected the easy acquisition of, all the land that lay to the south of her-the Philippines, Malay, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, and the greatest prize of all, Australia and New Zealand. Now she thinks that she can gain by force what she was too stupid to take for the asking. One could have commiserated with her over her lost opportunities, but for her underhand attack of the present, and for her departure from her age-old tradition of Bushido, who will ever forgive her?