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In the Pacific War, U.S. armed forces were surprised to encounter Japanese fighters
deliberately crashing onto enemy warships. In the second half of the War, after the Naval Battle of Midway and Japan became inferior in the number of weapon such as warships and aircrafts, these suicide attacks become common in Japanese tactics. Human controlled torpedoes were also developed. Why did these concepts arise among the Japanese people? It was the natural Japanese concept during the period of despotic government that soldiers were the possessions of the Emperor, similar to weapons such as tanks or bullets. There is a term of "G.I." (Government Issue) in the United States, but it means everything a soldier wears is a government issue. The Japanese concept is that the soldier himself is a government issue, This was a derivative of the concept that all citizen are the Emperor's possessions and the Samurai's spirit "to prefer to die rather than to be shamed as a prisoner alive". The performance of "Harakiri (to die cutting own belly)" in the warrior age in Japan is also from Samurai spirit to praize honor than to disgrace himself alive in public. Then decapitation is heavier punishment not allow to praize Samurai's honor. There is a comment by an U.S. military prisoner interrogation personnel. When he told the prisoners to inform their families of their survival, every prisoners required not to inform it. Every Japanese prisoner worried about his family to be ostracized in their society as the family of a coward, while, if he was dead in the battle, his family would be prized as the family of a brave soldier who met a glorious death in action. Concepts stated above still underlies the Japanese business world. Phenomenon currently observed among Japanese businessmen called "Karohshi (death from hard work)" is one of the examples. Following is the writer's actual experience just after the Pacific War when there were many camps of U.S. occupation forces throughout Japan. Just after the Pacific War, I used to work nightly in N.C.O clubs and officers clubs as a musician for G.I.s and officers of the U.S. armed forces for their dining and dancing pleasure. They had show attractions, Bingo games, and movies during band intermissions and we were able to enjoy these with G.I.s at neighboring tables. One day when a dog fight movie was presented, G.I.s were delighted and reacted with joyful applause each time a Japanese Zero fighter was fired on. Once it happend that a member of our band was delighted and applauded unconsciously when an American fighter P-41 was fired on. All of G.I.s watched at us in surprise and the atmosphere changed. They continued to watch the movie in silence and were never delighted. We felt they got angry with the musician's behavior and thought we wouldn't be able to get out the camp alive as it was the common sense in Japanese wartime that military police would arrest anyone even though he/she is a compatriot who takes a critical attitude to armed forces or government. Time passed in silence and gradually we could realize the reason G.I.s never shouted for joy was from their sense of sympathy for Japanese people not getting angry. We learned about the democracy and the liberalism in our school, but this event gave me realistic understanding of democracy and liberalism. Most of Japanese people have not such an experience and the fact that the democracy and liberalizm are given by the other country not be won by thmselves is one of the reasons Japanese people could not completely change their ideology to democracy and liberalism. The context of company and employees is also different. For westerners, a company is a facility where employees to work, while for Japanese people, an employee is the one belongs to a company. |