The war in New Guinea as portrayed in Japanese newspapers (Symposium paper)
Panel name: Remembering the war
This page was contributed by Dr TOYODA Yukio (Rikkyo University, Tokyo)
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate newspaper articles dealing with the Pacific war in the New Guinea area, and to present Japanese perceptions as observed in these articles. We believe that it is meaningful to analyse the perceptions expressed in these articles since the newspapers have been the major source from which ordinary Japanese people have learnt about the war in New Guinea. Method of collecting data We have looked into five major newspapers in Japan: Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei and Sankei.[1] We had access to the articles which appeared in Asahi from 1945–1995 through a CD-ROM database provided by the publisher. We searched for articles with the keywords “New Guinea” or “Papua New Guinea” and then selected the articles dealing with the Pacific war. Articles appearing in the other four, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei and Sankei since 1985 have been collected through an on-line search service provided by Nikkei Telecom. We collected data using the same keywords. Articles before 1985 from these four newspapers were collected through the monthly indexes provided by each newspaper's publisher. The indexes are sometimes not adequate to find all articles, and in those cases we had to check each page respectively. We are trying to trace articles back to 1945, and we have so far investigated back to 1975. It takes quite a long time, and the quantity of data is, therefore, still insufficient. We are still working, and we must admit that this is a tentative report. One further caution: each newspaper has local editions, but the data in this paper is based only on the Tokyo edition of each paper. The numbers of articles are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Numbers of newspaper articles on the Pacific war in New Guinea, 1945–1999
The first thing we have to mention is that the number of articles dealing with the war in New Guinea area is not very large. Besides, most articles are very short, for example a few columns only. They only report news related to the war and with New Guinea, without any comments. This is probably because Papua New Guinea is of little interest to most Japanese and because the number of the articles dealing with Papua New Guinea in general is very small. The articles regarding the Pacific war, therefore, are few. There are some series of articles dealing with the Pacific war in Papua New Guinea; one in Asahi in 1967, and two in Yomiuri in 1978 and 1981 one in Mainichi in 1995. Besides these series, we have found that there are some series in local editions of each paper, and these are not included in the Table 1. We have found one in the Osaka version of Yomiuri, which was quite long, a series over 160 days, and was later compiled into a book. [2] Having admitted the small numbers involved, we will now present some characteristics observed in these articles. Contents of the articles We have divided the articles by content into various categories, as follows: - Articles on bone collecting tours, including memorial tours to console the dead - Memoirs or recollections of war veterans - Stories of the families of the war dead - War damage inflicted by the Japanese in the New Guinea area, and war compensation The categories do overlap, and some articles do not fall into any of these categories. The first category contains articles about the tours that collect the bones of soldiers who died during the war. These articles began to appear in the 1950s. Some are about the tours organised by the Japanese Government through the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the others are about the tours organised by travel agencies. After the war ended the Ministry of Health and Welfare sent missions to south-east Asia and the Pacific in order to collect the bones of the dead. Eleven missions were sent to the Pacific area from 1955 to 1976, and the bones of 230,440 war dead have been collected. In the areas of New Guinea and the Solomons, the bones of 36,105 soldiers have been collected, out of the 299,300 men who died in these areas. Besides these official tours, many memorial tours have been organised by travel agencies from the 1970s to the present, and many of the Japanese tourists who visited PNG during these period were those who joined these memorial tours (Toyoda 1999). Most articles just report that a particular mission was sent to a particular place, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. But some articles talk about who joined the tours, with what purpose and ask what the participants thought about the tours. There was a case in which a reporter joined the tour and wrote a series of stories about the war in Papua New Guinea. The number of these tours is, however, decreasing, since those who join them are becoming too old. In 1992, an article in Asahi introduced a travel agency that had been organising memorial tours to Papua New Guinea. The agency had been sending several missions every year since 1980, but the article said that it was thinking of giving up the tours, now that nearly fifty years had passed since end of the war. The second category contains articles based on the memories or recollections of war veterans. The articles were written by reporters about ex-soldiers who fought in the war. The contents are, therefore, mostly very similar to that of articles written by the war veterans themselves. These publications have been already analysed by Iwamoto (1998). According to him, 471 books and 672 articles had been published the war’s end and 1988.[3] The war veterans in general, according to Iwamoto, portrayed the war in New Guinea as miserable; in this respect, the newspaper articles are very similar to the publications by ex-soldiers by themselves. In the articles, the war veterans remember their experiences. But the articles do not generally focus on the experience of battle, but rather on how they fled or escaped from the attacks of the Allies, how they endured hunger and how they survived the war. After the defeat on Guadalcanal, Japan began to retreat in the New Guinea area, and had little food supplies coming from the rear. Therefore, it was a serious problem for the Japanese troops to get food in the New Guinea area. Many articles report how the soldiers had to rely on the people in New Guinea to find food. New Guinea was the site of hard-fought battles, but the experiences reported in the articles are mostly how ex-comrades lost their lives because of sickness, especially malaria, and of hunger. In those articles, the soldiers frequently confess that they could not do anything, and that they felt guilty for that. As a part of these reports, the articles deal with the veterans' revisiting the battle sites in New Guinea. The veterans joined memorial tours, and they remembered how they had fought the war and how their ex-comrades had lost their lives. They also expressed their eagerness to revisit the battle sites in order to console the dead. The third category contains reports about families who lost members during the war. Some of them joined the memorial tours a few decades after the war ended and visited the sites where their family members had died. They often say, in the articles, that if they had not visited the site and had not properly performed the death ritual, the spirit of the dead would not have gone to heaven or another world. This is because of Japanese views on the spirit of the dead (Toyoda 1999). Japanese believe that the spirit of the dead will hang around for a little while after death. Only after the formal cremation ceremony will the spirit of the deceased be relieved and go to heaven or the next world. Therefore, most relatives of the war dead believe that the spirit of the dead remains somewhere in this world until they perform the ritual. They think that they should perform the ritual on the spot where the person died and they feel sorry if they do not perform the ritual properly. For them, the spirits of their relatives are still sleeping somewhere around New Guinea. The next category contains articles dealing with war damage in Papua New Guinea and issues of war compensation. This is very new. Articles in this category appeared once in the 1970s and again in the 1990s. The issues of war compensation have been very common in newspapers during the last decade and have especially focused on brothels. Some women, not from New Guinea, claimed that they worked in the brothels during the war as “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers and that they should be compensated. The policy of the Japanese government toward these comfort women is not to respond to individual claims. Rather, in 1995 the Japanese Government set up a foundation called the Asia Women Foundation and tried to help those women with this foundation. But most claimants did not accept help from the foundation and these cases are still being disputed in court. The issues of comfort women and other war damage have mainly been focused on Korea and south-east Asia, rather than the Pacific area. Quite recently it was reported that some new documents had been opened to the public, indicating that there were some brothels in the New Guinea area during the war, and this led to discussion of the issue, of which Japanese historians had not had any knowledge. Some articles in the 1990s in Asahi also reported that a group of Papua New Guineans claimed there had been a great number of massacres in New Guinea and that they were demanding compensation. Articles in this category have been increasing during the last decade, and sometimes the readers also join the discussion in the readers' columns of the newspapers. There are some articles that do not belong to these categories, such as those reporting that a Japanese has built a small war memorial museum, others dealing with the problem of what to do with the war relics Japanese has left, and so on. Characteristics of the articles From these articles, we may be able to infer what perceptions readers take away from them. There are common characteristics in the articles. For those articles dealing with the experiences of war veterans, the characteristics are mostly the same as the publications that the war veterans themselves have written. The publications by survivors have been already analysed by Iwamoto (1998), who describes their characteristics as follows: Most authors devote major part in their writings to describing the history of their battles, uniformly concluding that the war in Papua New Guinea was just so miserable. They normally do not express their views on controversial subjects such as the cause of the war or war responsibility. Similarly most authors have not written about Papua New Guineans. (Iwamoto 1998) Most of this applies also to the contents of the newspaper articles. But we can add some further comments. First, most of the experiences described are not of battles, but of the men's stay in New Guinea during the war. This is probably related to the fact that the newspaper articles are usually short and do not appear successively. They stress that the men had little to eat, that they had to escape from the Allies and they had seen many comrades dying of sickness and hunger. Quite often, the area during the war was described as “a hell on earth”. There was a saying that “Heaven is Java, hell is Burma, and you never come back from New Guinea even if you die.” Second, it is stressed that the New Guinea area was a very remote and unexplored area. The same expressions recur in descriptions of New Guinea: it was very mountainous, covered with jungle, swampy, full of mosquitoes which carried malaria, and so on. Another recurring comment is that it had been very hard to move in such areas without being found by the Allies. These expressions, together with the experiences of veterans, give readers an image of the fierceness of the war in New Guinea. Thirdly, for most veterans and also for families of those who died, PNG is the place where many soldiers still stay without going to heaven. Especially for those who lost their family members in PNG, it is the place they should visit to perform the death ritual for them. Many families of the deceased confessed that for a long time they had wanted to visit, in vain. At the same time, compared with the publications by veterans themselves, there are some characteristics in the newspaper articles that are different. First, the articles are usually shorter than the veterans' books and articles, and they tend to be anecdotal. Even in the case of series, which taken as a whole are long, they are fragmented. There have been several series about the war in New Guinea. In these series, which often introduce the experiences of veterans, there is a tendency to collect episodes showing how they survived the war, and to introduce one episode each day, rather than describing the overall history of the battles. Although the articles in serials are similar to those publications by war veterans themselves, they still tend to be collections of many episodes that attract readers' attention. Next, although we mentioned that the number of articles is not very large, we find that the war is quite often mentioned when articles deal with New Guinea area, when we compare it with other areas, such as Korea, China and south-east Asia. This is partly because the other areas currently attract many people's interest economically and politically. For Japan, PNG is, like other south Pacific countries, considered to be a minor country compared with those of Asia. But when we talk about the war in China, Korea and south-east Asia, we are obliged to face very controversial subjects, such as the causes of the war, the harm the Japanese inflicted on the people, the issue of war compensation and so on. Japanese tend to be very sensitive, therefore, when we deal with the subject of war in those areas. In comparison, fewer problems are raised, or at least have been raised in the past, when talking about the war in New Guinea. Lastly, recent articles, especially from the late 1990s, have begun to deal with the issue of war compensation in New Guinea. In 1994 it was reported that an International Forum on War Compensation for the Asia-Pacific Region had been held in Tokyo. Also in 1998, Asahi introduced a group of Papua New Guineans who had come to Japan to join the same international forum. Although the forum in 1994 did not attract many people's interest, one in 1998 did arouse some interest. The article mentioned the heavy losses the people of PNG had suffered and pointed out that the figures were much heavier than had previously been reported. In this connection, a discussion began as to whether there had been any brothels or comfort women in New Guinea during the war. This issue was not clarified until the 1980s, partly because of the lack of documents and partly because it had not attracted people's attention. In 1993, Mainichi reported that new documents had been found in the National Library and that they indicated that there had been nine brothels in New Guinea. In the 1990s, especially in the past few years, newspaper discussion on this issue has become quite common. War compensation The fact that the issue of war compensation has begun to be discussed is probably related to the recent discussion of historians' attitudes toward modern Japanese history. Some Japanese historians and their followers have begun to insist that Japanese history has been taught with unfair distortions and that this has meant that many Japanese have lost confidence in the history that is presented to them and also in the state. They argue that it has been stressed in Japanese history lessons that Japan invaded other countries and done a lot of bad deeds, especially during the Pacific war. These historians and their followers call themselves “liberalistic historians”, or they insist that they have a “liberalistic attitude toward history”, and blame the others for being too masochistic: they label the others “masochistic” historians, or insist that they have a “masochistic attitude toward history”. Since this discussion began in the late 1990s, some issues have been seriously argued, such as whether a large-scale massacre really happened or not in Nanking in China. When war compensation was claimed, the “liberalistic” historians became suspicious as to whether the claims were really based in fact. Those opposed to them, who are called “masochistic historians” by the “liberalistic” historians, claimed that they were based on historical fact and that compensation should be paid. The articles dealing with war compensation in PNG may be related to this discussion. As we mentioned above, in 1998 Asahi introduced a group of Papua New Guineans who had come to Japan to participate in an international forum held in Tokyo. It reported that they claimed that Japanese soldiers had killed more than seven thousand people and more than sixteen thousand women conscripted as comfort women for Japanese soldiers. It further reported that more than two thousand people had become victims of cannibalism after they were killed. These figures were also reported by Mr Gabriel Laku last year in a symposium held at the Australian National University (Laku 1999). These figures had not been reported before and will arouse serious discussion it they are based on fact. We do not have enough space and time to discuss whether these figures are true or not. We only mention that the newspapers differ in the attitude and tone they adopt toward these subjects. When Asahi reported the figures, it did not provide any comment from specialists. If they had requested any specialist comment, it would lead to a discussion whether the figures were or were not correct. But Asahi only reported the claimants' figures, without any comments. On the other hand, Sankei was eager to introduce readers' opinions that oppose the figures and claim that they are wrong. Sankei deals with the issue of massacres during the war and the problem of war compensation much more frequently than the other papers, not only in articles but also in readers' columns, and quite often readers of Sankei oppose war compensation. Summary Most articles in newspapers give a similar impression to readers as the publications written by war veterans (as described by Iwamoto (1998)). They give an impression of an exceedingly miserable war in New Guinea and focus on the horrendous experiences of Japanese soldiers. They stress that a lot of soldiers lost their lives not because of heavy battles, but just from sickness and hunger. New Guinea was often described as “a hell of the earth”. Although we mentioned that the number of articles dealing with the war in New Guinea is small, the war in these areas has been a common theme. Compared with China, Korea and south-east Asia, the war has been talked about without causing serious problems. It would be very controversial for Japanese to talk about the war in China, Korea and south-east Asia. But war veterans have been talking about the war in New Guinea, although they do not mention controversial issues, such as the cause of war or war compensation (Iwamoto 1998). We want to argue that this is related to the fact that the Japanese attitude toward the New Guinea area is different from attitudes toward south-east Asia, or China and Korea. When we talk about the war in other areas, we have to face controversial issues. Japanese feel that the people in these areas might be hostile to Japan and may claim war compensation. Compared with the other areas, the people of the South Pacific area, such as those of Papua New Guinea, are thought not to be hostile towards the Japanese. Quite often, in writings by war veterans, the people in New Guinea area are described as simple, naïve and innocent. Even when the war veterans mention that they were helped by the people in New Guinea, they do not mention any names: they are lumped together as naïve New Guineans. Japanese tend to perceive them as genuine and naïve, without a desire to protest against Japan. Many Japanese did not imagine that they would claim that they had suffered loss during the war. But quite recently, in the 1990s, the issues of war damage and war compensation in New Guinea have been seriously discussed. This is related to the discussions of the other areas, such as Korea and south-east Asia, where the issue of war compensation is very serious. But compared with the other areas, almost no historians have commented on the subject of the war in New Guinea or the south Pacific area. This is probably related to the fact that there are not many Japanese historians who specialise in Pacific history. We hope that the need will be seen for historians to discuss these issues more seriously. Notes [1] Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei and Sankei have circulations of, respectively, 8.3, 10.2, 3.9, 3.0, 1.9 million. [2] Yomiuri Shimbun Osaka Shakaibu (ed), New Guinea, 1992. [3] Iwamoto's bibliography of war memoirs is accessible through the Australia-Japan Research Project website of the Australian War Memorial. Bibliography IWAMOTO Hiromitsu, 1998, “Japanese perceptions on the Pacific War in Papua New Guinea: views in publications”, http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/pwpng/1998symposiumpaper/iwamoto.html Laku, Gabriel, 1999, “The rape of Papua New Guinea”, http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/pwpng/1999symposiumpaper/laku.html TOYODA Yukio, 1999, “Consoling the dead: Japanese memorial tours in Papua New Guinea", http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/pwpng/1999symposiumpaper/toyoda.html Yomiuri Shimbun Osaka Shakaibu (ed), New Guinea, 1992. |