Major KOIWAI, one of the few surviving officers in the South Seas Force, wrote in his memoir that those who could not move bid farewell to the departing soldiers by saying, "Before the enemy arrives tomorrow morning, we will make sure that all of us will commit suicide."

KOIWAI tried to explain the psychology of those soldiers who were abandoned by their units and would certainly face death by their own hand. He wrote as follows:

Around that period, those soldiers did not know about surrendering. They regarded being captured as a more shameful act than death. They did not have any options other than to kill themselves. Namely, to kill themselves with the weapon which should attack the enemy was the same as to protect the nation, to honour their family, to be loyal to the Emperor and to be dutiful to their parents. Furthermore, by completing one’s life in that way, they believed that their spirits would be entombed in the Yasukuni Shrine for ever. (2:589)

On the battle fields of New Guinea I saw many soldiers die shouting a phrase, "Tennô Heika banzai!" (Banzai for His Majesty the Emperor). I tried, for instance, to get to the bottom of this fact. But all that I could say in "The Battle in the Mountains" (which he published in 1944) was that in this unique country where ancestor worship had been the basic principle of government, the noble spirit of man to sacrifice himself for the sake of his community found its expression through the Tennô. No one was allowed at that time to go so far to say, as my study of human nature had led me to conclude, that dying cry of "Tennô Heika banzai!" was nothing but an instance of self-deception to alleviate the pains and loneliness of death.

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