每一种文化传统中都有其关于战争的信条，其中有些是西欧各国所共具，尽管各有些特点。诸如，号召全力进行战争的动员方式，局部失败时如何坚定信心，战死和投降者的某种稳定比率，对战俘的某些行动规则等等。这些在西欧国家的战争中都是可以预料的，因为这些国家同属一个大的文化传统，包括战争在内。

日本人与西方人在战争惯例上的一切差异，都是了解他们的人生观以及对人的全部责任的看法的资料。我们的目的在于对日本的文化及行为进行系统的研究，至于那些不符合我们信条的东西在军事上是否重要，我们不必管它。他们的每一个行为都可能很重要，因为他们提出了与日本人性格有关的许多问题，需要我们解答。

日本为其战争的正义性进行辩护的那些前提与美国的恰恰相反。日本衡量国际形势的观点与我们也不同。美国把战争的起因归之于轴心国的侵略。日本、意大利、德意志三国以征服的行动非法地破坏了国际和平。轴心国所占领的地方，不论是满洲国、埃塞俄比亚还是波兰，都证明他们推行的是压迫弱小民族的罪恶方针。他们践踏了“自己生存、也让别人生存”，或者至少是侵犯了对自由企业“开放门户”的国际准则。日本对战争原因则有另外的看法。他们认为，只要各国拥有绝对主权，世界上的无政府状态就不会结束。日本必须为建立等级秩序而战斗。当然，这一秩序的领导只能是日本，因为只有日本已经在国内实现了统一和和平，平定了叛乱，建筑了公路、电力、钢铁产业。据官方公布的数字，日本的青少年中有百分之九十九点五都受到公共学校的教育。因此，它应该帮助落后的兄弟之邦一一中国。“大东亚”诸国是同一人种，日本应当首先将美国，其次是英国、俄国，从世界的这一区域内驱逐出去，使之“各得其所”。万国均应在国际等级结构中确定其位置，才能形成统一的世界。在下一章中，我们将探讨这种受到高度评价的等级制在日本文化中所具有的含义。这是日本民族创造出来的、最符合其口味的幻想。但对日本来讲，最大的不幸就在于那些被日本占领的国家，并没用同样的观点来看待这一理想。尽管如此，即使是在战败后，日本也还不认为应该从道德上排斥“大东亚”这一理想。另外，在日本战俘中，连最不好战的人，也很少指责日本对大陆和西南太平洋地区所怀抱的目的。今后在一个相当长的时间里，日本必将保持它某些固有的态度，其中最重要的一项，就是对等级制的信仰和信赖。这一点与我们热爱平等的美国人，是水火不相容的。但是，我们却必须了解等级制对日本意味着什么，有什么好处。

如何取得胜利，日本人的想法也不同于美国的通行见解。它叫嚷日本必胜，精神必将战胜物质。他们说：美国是个大国，军备力量确实优越，但这算得了什么？！这些都是早就知道的，根本没有放在眼里。日本人从他们的一家大报纸——《每日新闻》上，读到了以下一段话：“我们如果害怕数字就不会开战。敌人的丰富资源并不是这次战争创造的。”

就是在日本打胜仗的时候，日本的政治家以及军人们都反复强调：“这次战争并不是军备的较量，而是日本精神与美国物质的战争。”在我们打胜仗的时候，他们还是反复地说：“在这场较量中，物质力量注定必将失败。”这一信条在塞班岛、硫黄岛溃败时，毫无疑问成了很方便的遁词，但这并不是专门为失败而准备的遁词。在日军夸耀胜利的几个月中，它一直起到了进军号角的作用，并且早在偷袭珍珠港以前，它就是一个深人人心的口号。在三十年代，前陆军大臣、狂热的军国主义分子荒木贞夫大将——在名叫《告日本国民书》的宣传小册子中写道：日本的“真正使命”在于“弘扬皇道于四海，力量悬殊不足优，吾等何惧于物质！

当然，像许多备战的国家一样，他们实际也在担忧。在整个三十年代中，国民总收入用于军备的比例惊人上升。在偷袭珍珠港的那年，国民总收入将近一半被用在陆海军的军备上。有关民用的行政支出只占政府总支出额的百分之十七。日本与西方各国的区别并不在于日本对物质军备毫不关心。但是，军舰和大炮，只不过是永世长存的“日本精神”的表面象征，犹如武士的佩刀是他的道德品质的象征。

美国一贯追逐强大，日本则一贯重视非物质资源。日本也像美国一样开展增产运动，但日本增产运动的基础却在于其独特的前提。他们说，精神就是一切，是永存的。物质当然也是不可缺少的，但那却是次要的、瞬间的。日本的广播电台会喊道：“物质资源是有限的，没有千年不灭的物质，这是明显的道理。”这种对精神的信赖被原原本本地应用于战争的日常行动。在他们的战术手册中有一句口号：“以吾等之训练对抗敌军数量上之优势，以吾等之血肉对抗敌军之钢铁。”这是他们的传统口号，并不是为这次战争而特意制定的，他们的军队手册第一页上就用粗体字印着“必读必胜”四个字。他们的飞行员驾驶小型飞机以自杀方式进攻撞击我们的军舰，就是精神战胜物质的教材。他们把这些飞行员命名为“神风特攻队”。所谓“神风”，是指公元十三世纪成吉思汗东征日本时，其船队遇飓风而遭覆灭，这次“神风”拯救了日本。

甚至在民间，日本当权者也推行精神优越于物质条件这一信条。例如，老百姓不是在工厂里干了十二小时，又被通宵达旦的轰炸搞得筋疲力尽了吗？他们说“身体越累，意志、精神就越昂扬”，“越是疲倦，就越能锻炼人”。老百姓冬天在防空洞不是很冷吗？大日本体育会就在广播中命令大家做御寒体操，说体操不仅能代替取暖设备和被褥，而且可以代替一般老百姓为维持正常体力所需而又很匮乏的粮食。他们说：“当然，也许会有人说，在现在食品缺少的时候谈不上做什么体操。此话不对。食物越是不足，我们就越要用其他方法来增强我们的体力。”这就是说，必须用额外消耗体力的方法来增强体力。美国人对体力的观点，总是看昨天是否有了八小时或五小时的睡眠；饮食是否正常；是不是寒冷，再计算可以消耗多少体力。日本人的计算方法则根本不考虑什么体力贮存的问题，认为那是物质主义。

在战争中，日本的广播宣传更为极端，甚至说在战斗中，精神可以战胜肉体死亡。有家广播电台曾播送过一个英雄飞行员战胜死亡的神话：

空战结束后，我国的飞机以三四架的小编队飞回机场。—个大尉在最先返回的一批之中。他从自己的飞机上下来后，站在地上，用双筒望远镜注视着天空。当他的部下返回时，他一架一架地数着，脸色有些苍白，但却十分镇定。看到最后一架飞机返回，他写了报告，向司令部走去。到了司令部，向司令官作了汇报。然而，刚汇报完，他就倒在地上。在场的军官们急忙跑上前去帮助，他已经断气了。经过检查，发现躯体已经冰凉，胸口上有弹伤，是致命的弹伤。一个刚断气的人，身体不可能是冰冷的。而大尉的身体却凉得像冰块一样。大尉肯定是早就死了，是他的精神支持他作了这次汇报。可以肯定，是已逝的大尉所怀抱的强烈责任感创造了这样的奇迹。

这在美国人看来，肯定是一段编造的荒诞奇谈。然而，受过教育的日本人对这种广播却并不发笑。他们相信，日本的听众肯定不会认为这是荒诞无稽的故事。他们首先指出一点，即这个广播如实地说明，这位大尉的英雄事迹是“一个奇迹般的事实”。为什么不能有奇迹？灵魂是可以训练的。这位大尉显然是一位自我修炼到家的髙手。既然日本人都懂得“镇定的精神可以千年不灭”，那怎么就不能在一位以“责任”为其全部生命中心信念的大尉身上停留几个小时呢？日本人深信，通过特殊的修炼，可以使一个人的精神达到最高境界。大尉学会了，并且收到了效果。

日本人在战争期间对各种事情的说法（不仅是关于等级制以及精神力量髙于一切的说法），都为比较文化研究者提供了素材。他们宣扬安全、士气等等都是精神动员的问题。不论遇到什么灾难，城市空袭也罢，塞班岛溃败也罢，菲律宾失守也罢，政府对日本老百姓所作的解释都是：这些早在预料之中，没有什么值得担心。收音机照样进行着夸张的宣传，显然指望日本人继续相信，他们仍然处在一个“一切均在预料”的世界之中。他们认为这样就能使老百姓镇静。

“美军占领了基斯卡岛，使日本本土处于美军轰炸圈之内，但是我们对此早有估计，并作了必要的准备。”

“敌人肯定会以陆、海、空三军的立体战术向我们发动攻击。对这些，我们在作计划时，早就加以考虑了。”

日本战俘，就连那些希望日本早日停止这场没有希望的战争的俘虏也认为，轰炸不可能摧毁本土日本人的士气，“因为他们对此早就有了思想准备”。在美军开始对日本城市进行轰炸时，飞机制造业协会副会长在电台的广播中说：“敌机终于飞到我们头顶上空来了。然而，我们飞机制造业者一直预料着此类事态将会来临，并对此已做好万无一失的准备，所以没有丝毫可值得忧虑的。”

一切都在预料之中，全都筹划好了，并且万无一失。只有从这一信念出发，日本人才能继续坚持自己那种必不可少的主张——万事都是我们主动期求的，绝不是被动的，不是别人强加的。“我们不应认为自己是消极地受到了攻击，而应该认为是主动地把敌人吸引到我们身边来的。”“敌人，你要来就来吧。”他们绝不说，“要发生的事终于发生了”，而是说：“我们所等待的终于来临了。我们欢迎它的到来。”

海军大臣在国会演说中引用了1870年代的伟大武士西乡隆盛的遗言：“有两种机运，一种是偶然碰上的，另一种是自己创造的。面临无比艰难之时，必须自己去创造机运。”另外，据电台报道，美军突入马尼拉市中心时，山下（奉文）将军“微微一笑，得意地说，敌人现已落入我怀中矣……”“敌军在仁牙因湾登陆后不久，马尼拉市即迅速陷落，此乃山下将军的神机妙算，事态的发展正符合将军的部署。山下将军的作战计划正在继续实施中。”换句话来讲，就是说，败得越惨，事态就发展得越顺利。

像日本人一样，美国人也走极端，只是走向另一极端。美国人全力以赴投入战争，是因为这场战争是别人强加给我们的，我们遭到了攻击，所以要给对方一点厉害瞧瞧。凡是考虑如何才能使美国大众情绪稳定的发言人，在谈及珍珠港或巴丹半岛溃败时，绝不会说“这些都是我们在计划中充分考虑到的”。反之，我们的官员会说“这是敌人肆意强干的，我们就要给他们一点颜色看看”。美国人把自己的全部生活用在经常应付挑战上，并且随时准备应战。日本人则把自己的信念建立在万事预先俱有安排的生活方式上，在他们那里，最大的威胁莫过于未曾料到。

日本人在作战行动中经常宣传的另一个主题也显示了日本生活方式。他们经常说“全世界的眼睛如何注视着他们”，所以，他们必须充分发扬日本精神。美军在瓜达尔卡纳尔岛登陆时，日军向其部队下达的命令是，他们现已处在“全世界”的注视之下，必须表现日本男儿本色。日本海军官兵有一条诫令，在遭到鱼雷攻击，命令弃舰时，必须以最出色的姿态转移到救生艇上，否则“会遭世人之耻笑，美国人会把你们的丑态拍成电影，拿到纽约去放映”。这关系到他们在全世界的形象。这种重视，在日本文化中也是根深蒂固的。

在关于日本人的态度中，最引人注目的问题是对天皇陛下的态度。天皇对其臣民到底拥有多大的控制力？有几位美国权威人士指出，在日本整个封建时代的七百余年中，天皇一直是有名无实的元首。每个人所尽忠的对象是各自直接的主君——大名以及大名之上的军事大元帅、将军，至于对天皇忠诚与否，几乎根本没人关心。天皇被幽禁在被隔绝的宫廷之中，其活动和仪式均受将军所制定的规章制度的严格限制。甚至一个地位很髙的封建诸侯如果对天皇表示敬意就被视为背叛。对于日本一般老百姓来说，天皇几乎不存在。

一些美国学者坚持认为：日本只能从它的历史来加以理解，那么，一个在活着的老百姓的记忆中早已模模糊糊的天皇，怎么能够成为日本这样保守的民族拥戴、集结的真正中心呢？他们说：那些反复强调天皇对其臣民有永世不坠的统治权的日本评论家是太夸大了，他们的坚持只能证明其论据的脆弱。因而认为，美国的战时政策没有理由要圆通礼遇天皇，恰恰相反，对日本近来编造的这种邪恶的元首观念，我们有一切理由施以猛烈的攻击。天皇是日本现代国家神道的核心，如果我们向天皇的神圣性进行挑战并予以摧毁，那么，敌国日本的整个结构就会坍塌。

然而，许多熟悉日本的有才干的美国人，读过来自前线的或日本方面的报道或文献的，则持相反的意见。在日本生活过的人都非常清楚：没有什么比用言辞侮辱天皇或者攻击天皇，更会刺痛日本人，并激起他们的士气了。他们绝不相信，日本人会把我们攻击天皇看作是攻击军国主义。在第一次世界大战后，他们亲眼看到，民主观念深入人心，军国主义则成为众矢之的，以至军人外出到东京市区时都要谨慎地换上便装，但即使在那些年代，对天皇的崇敬照样是狂热的。这些曾居住在日本的人士声称：日本人对天皇的崇敬，与“希特勒万岁”是不能相比的，后者只不过是纳粹党兴衰的晴雨表，是与法西斯的一切罪恶紧紧联系在一起的。

日军俘虏的证词印证了上述观点。日军俘虏与西方的军人不一样，他们没有受过在被俘后可以说什么、不能说什么的教育，因此，他们对各种问题的回答，显然缺乏规定性。这种不加训练当然来自日本的不投降主义。这种状况直到战争结束前几个月也没有改变，但那时只限于一部分军团和地方部队。俘虏的证词之所以值得重视，是因为它们代表了日本军队意见的一个横断面。他们并不是一些因士气低落而导致投降的士兵，也不是因投降而丧失了典型代表性的士兵。除极少数以外，几乎都是在受伤或失去知觉后，无力抵抗而被俘的。

这些顽强抵抗到底的日军俘虏，把他们的极端军国主义归根于天皇，认为自己是在“遵奉圣意”，是为了让“陛下放心”，“为天皇而献身”，“天皇指引国民参加战争，服从是我的天职”。然而，反对这次战争及日本未来侵略计划的人，也同样把他们的和平主义归之于天皇。对所有人来说，天皇就是一切。厌战者称天皇为“爱好和平的陛下”，他们强调天皇“始终是一位自由主义者，是反对战争的”，“是被东条欺骗了”。“在满洲事变时，陛下表示反对军部。”“战争是在天皇不知道或没有许可的情况下发动的。天皇不喜欢战争，也不允许让国民卷入战争。天皇并不知道他的士兵受到怎样的虐待。”这些证词和德国战俘完全不同。德国战俘不管他们如何对希特勒手下的将军或最高司令部背叛希特勒的行为表示不满，他们仍然认为，战争和备战的责任必须由最高统治者者希特勒来承担。但是，日本战俘则明确表示，对皇室的忠诚与对军国主义及侵略战争的政策是两回事。

对他们来讲，天皇和日本是分不开的。“日本没有天皇就不是日本”，“日本的天皇是日本国民的象征，是国民宗教生活的中心，是超宗教的信仰对象”。即使日本战败，天皇也不能因战败而受谴责。“老百姓是不会认为天皇应对战争负责的。”“如果战败，也应由内阁和军部领导来负责，天皇是没有责任的。”“纵然日本战败，所有的日本人仍会继续尊崇天皇。”

这些一致认为天皇超越一切批判的论调，在习惯于认为凡是人就不能免受怀疑和批判的美国人看来，简直是欺人之谈。但是，直到战败，这些却毫无疑问地仍然是日本的舆论。审讯战俘最有经验的人，都认为没有必要在每份审讯笔记上写下“拒绝诽谤天皇”的字样。因为没有一个战俘愿意诽谤天皇，包括那些和盟军合作、为我们向日军作广播的人在内。从各地汇集的许多审讯战俘口供中，只有三份委婉地表示反对天皇，其中只有一份居然讲到：“保留天皇在位将是一个错误。”另一份则说天皇“是一位意志薄弱者，只不过是个傀儡”。第三份则不过猜测说，“天皇可能会让位于皇太子；如果日本废除君主制，青年妇女也许能指望获得她们羡慕已久的、美国妇女那样的自由吧。”

因此，日本军部将领利用全体日本人的这种一致崇敬，他们把“天皇恩赐”的香烟分赏给部下；在天长节时，率领部下遥向东方三拜，高呼“万岁”。在“部队日夜受到轰炸时”，和部下一起早晚共诵天皇亲自在“军人敕谕”中向军队颁赐的“圣旨”，“奉诵声在森林中回荡”。军国主义分子极力利用人们对天皇的忠诚。他们号召所属官兵要“奉诏必谨”，“免除圣虑”，要“以崇敬之心报陛下的仁慈”，要“为天皇而献身”！但是，这种对天皇意志的遵从却又是一把双刃剑。正如许多日本战俘所说，日本人“只要天皇有令，纵然只有一杆竹枪，也会毫不犹豫地投入战斗。同样，只要是天皇下令，也会立即停止战斗。”“如果天皇下诏，日本在第二天就会放下武器。”“连最强硬好战的满洲关东军也会放下武器。”“只有天皇的圣旨，才能使日本国民承认战败，并情愿为重建家园而生存下去。”

对天皇无条件的无限忠诚，对天皇以外的一切人和集体则加以批判，这两者形成了鲜明的对比。在日本的报刊杂志或战俘的供词中，有不少对政府和军部领导人的批判。对他们前线的指挥官，尤其是那些不能与部下一起共命运的人，战俘们破口大骂；对那些坐飞机逃跑，而撇下士兵让他们顽抗到底的指挥官更是倍加痛恨。他们常常对一些军官加以赞扬，对另一些军官严厉谴责，这说明他们并不缺乏辨别善恶的能力。甚至日本国内的报纸、杂志也在指责“政府”，他们要求更加强有力的领导和更大的协同努力，并指责政府不能令人满意。他们甚至抨击政府限制言论自由。1944年7月，东京一家报纸刊登的一篇有新闻记者、前国会议员、日本极权主义领导人和皇家顾问参加的座谈记录，便是最好的一例。其中有位发言者说：“我以为振奋日本民心的方法很多，但其中最主要的一条就是言论自由。近几年来，日本国民不敢直言不讳地说出自己心里想说的话。他们害怕讲了些什么后会受到责怪。他们满腹狐疑，只是表面应付，变得胆小如鼠。这样，绝不可能谈什么发挥全体国民的力量。”另一位发言者对此更加以发挥道：“我几乎每天晚上都和自己的选民座谈到深夜，就各种事情征求他们的意见。但他们却唯唯诺诺不肯开口。言论自由完全被否定了。这确实不是一种激发人们斗志的好办法。在所谓战时特别刑法和治安维持法管制下，国民深受限制，变得胆小如鼠，简直像封建时代的老百姓一样。因而能够发挥的战力，现在却仍然没有发挥出来。”

可以说，即使在战时，日本人对政府、对帝国大本营，以及对他们的直接上司都进行了批判。他们并没有无条件地承认等级制的优越。然而，唯独天皇不受批判。天皇的至高无上性在近代才得以确立，为什么会如此受到尊重？日本人的性格中有什么怪癖会使天皇获得这种神圣不可侵犯性？只要天皇一声令下，日本人就会“挥舞竹枪”，战斗至死。同样，只要敕令一下，日本人也会老老实实承认战败，接受占领。日本战俘的这些话是真的吗？会不会是故意欺骗我们的无稽之谈？或者确实是真的？

有关日本人作战行动的这些重要问题，从反物质主义的偏见到对天皇的态度，不仅关系到前线，也关系到日本国内。还有一些其他的态度，则更与日本军队有着关系。其中之一是对日军战斗力消耗的态度。当美国把海军勋章授给台湾海峡机动部队指挥官乔治·爱斯·麦汉将军时，日本的广播电台对此表现极大的惊讶，其态度与美国人截然相反。广播内容如下：

乔治·爱斯·麦汉受勋的官方理由并不是他击退了日军。对此我们深感疑惑，因为尼米兹的公报已宣称他击退了日军。麦汉受勋的理由是，他成功地救了两艘损坏的美国军舰并把它们安全地护送到基地。这件小报道的重要性在于它是实实在在的事，而不是虚构的。我们并不怀疑麦汉将军确实救了两艘军舰。我们希望你们了解的只是这一奇特事实：在美国，救了两艘军舰就能受勋。

美国人对一切救援行动，对陷入困境者的一切帮助都深为感动。如果使受难者获救，勇敢的行为就更加是英雄行为。日本人的勇敢则排斥这类救援。甚至我们在B-29型轰炸机和战斗机上配备救生器具，日本人也斥之为“胆怯”。他们的报纸、广播反复谈论这个话题，只有视死如归的冒险才是最髙尚的，而小心谨慎则是无价值的。这一态度在对待伤病员和疟疾患者的时候，也反映得很明显。这些士兵在他们看来是废物。医疗服务非常不足，甚至不足以维持正常的战斗力。时间一长，补给上的困难使本来就匮乏的医疗设施更加难以维持。但这还不是事情的全部。日本人对物质主义的蔑视在这里起了重大作用。

日军士兵被教导说，死亡本身就是精神的胜利。而我们这样对病患者的照顾，好比轰炸机上的安全设备一样。反而成了对英雄主义的干扰。首先，在日常生活中，日本人也不像美国人那样惯于光顾内外科医生。在美国，对伤病患者的怜悯要远远地胜过对其他福利设施的关心，这一点几乎连和平时期来美国旅游的欧洲人也经常谈论。这些在日本确实是陌生的。总而言之，在战争中，日本军队中没有一个受过训练、能够在战火中搬运伤员进行抢救的救护班，也没有系统的医疗设施，如前线救护所、后方野战医院，以及远离前线的康复医院。对医疗品补给的关注就更加令人慨叹了。在某些紧急情况下，伤病员干脆被杀掉。尤其是在新几内亚和菲律宾，日本人常常不得不从有医院的地点撤退，他们却根本没有在有条件时就预先转移伤病员的习惯。只是在部队真正执行所谓“有计划的撤退”时，或是敌人已经出现在眼前时，他们才想到采取一些措施。那时，负责的军医往往在临走时，先将伤病员全部枪杀，或是伤病员自己用手榴弹自杀。

对日本人来说，伤病员是累赘，是废品。对待美军战俘，他们也是同样的态度。以我们的标准，日本人对美国战俘，对自己的同胞，都是犯了虐待罪的。前菲律宾上校军医哈鲁得·W·格拉特里说，他作为战俘在台湾被监禁三年期间，“美军战俘所受到的医疗护理超过了日军士兵。俘虏营中的盟军军医可以照顾盟军俘虏，而日本人却一个军医都没有。有一段时间，日军给他们自己人治病的唯一的医务人员是一个下士，后来升了中士。”这位上校一年只能看到一两次日本军医。

日本这种关于兵员消耗理论的最极端的表现就是他们的不投降主义，西方任何军队在尽了最大的努力而面临寡不敌众、毫无希望时便向敌军投降。他们仍然认为自己是光荣的军人，而且根据国际协议，将通知本国，使其家属知道他们活着。无论是作为一个军人或平民，或在他自己的家庭中，他们都不会因此而受辱。然而，日本人对此则不同。荣誉就是战斗到死。在绝望的情况下，日本士兵应当用最后一颗手榴弹进行自杀，或者赤手空拳冲入敌阵、进行集体自杀式的进攻，但绝不应投降。万一受伤后丧失知觉而当了俘虏，他就会感到“回国后再也抬不起头来了”。他丧失了名誉，对于从前的生活来说，他已经是个“死人”了。

日本军队明文规定：严禁投降，所以在前线显然用不着对此进行特殊的正式教育。日军忠实实践这条军纪，以至在北缅会战中，被俘与战死者的比例为142比17166，也就是1比120。而且，这142名被俘者中，除少数以外，在被俘时都已负伤或已昏迷。一个人单独或两三个人一起来“投降”的就更少了。在西方国家的任何一支军队中，阵亡者如果达到全军兵力的四分之一或三分之一时，该部队罕有不停止抵抗的。投降者和阵亡者的比率大约是4比1。而在霍兰迪亚，日军第一次大规模投降，其比率为1比5，这与北缅的1比120相比，已经是巨大的进步了。

所以，对日本人来讲，那些成了战俘的美国人，光是投降这件事就够可耻的了。即使没有受伤、疟疾、赤痢等等，也已经是个“废物”而被排除在“完好的人”的范畴之外。许多美国人都曾谈到，在俘虏营里，美国人发笑该是多么危险，又是如何刺激了日军看守。在日本人看来，当了战俘就已经是奇耻大辱，美国人却居然不懂得，这对他们来讲，简直无法忍受。在美国战俘必须服从的命令中，有许多是日本军官要求俘虏营的看守们也必须遵守的。急行军或是乘坐拥挤得像沙丁鱼罐头般的运输船转移，对日本兵说来已成家常便饭。有些美国人还说，日本哨兵反复地严格要求他们隐瞒自己的违章行为，而最大的犯罪则是公开违抗。在俘虏营，战俘白天外出筑路或上工厂做工时，禁止从外边带回食物，但这个规定常常是一纸空文。因为只要把水果、蔬菜包起来就行。但是，如果被发现，那就是猖狂的犯罪，就意味着美国人蔑视哨兵的权威。公然向权威挑战，哪怕是一句“顶嘴的话”，也要受到严厉惩罚。即使是在日常生活中，日本人也严禁顶嘴，在军队中，对顶嘴一定要严惩。俘虏营中确实存在许多暴行和虐待。我们把作为文化习惯结果的行为和暴虐行为加以区分，并不是对暴虐行为加以宽宥。

开战初期，日军士兵确信敌军将虐待并杀掉一切战俘，因而更加以投降为耻。有一个谣言在日本各地广为流传，说美军用坦克碾死了瓜岛上的俘虏。有些日军士兵打算投降，但我军很怀疑，因审慎而将其杀害，而这种怀疑常常并不是没有道理。一个除了死亡以外别无其他选择余地的日军士兵，常常以与敌人同归于尽作为自己的骄傲，甚至在被俘后也常常这么干。就像一个日军战俘所说：“既然已下定决心要把自己献给胜利的祭坛，如果不是壮烈牺牲那才是奇耻大辱。”这种可能性使我军倍加警惕，这也减少了日军投降的人数。

投降是可耻的，这已深深地烙在日本人的思想深处。这与我们的战争惯例根本不同，而他们则视为理所当然。我们的行为在他们眼里也同样不可理解。有些美国战俘要求把自己的姓名通知本国政府以便家属知道自己还活着，他们大吃一惊，并非常蔑视。巴丹半岛的美军会向他们投降，至少日本一般士兵是想不到的，他们以为美军会像日军一样奋战到底。他们实在无法理解，美国人为什么会丝毫不以被俘为耻。

西方士兵和日本士兵之间一种最戏剧性的差别，莫过于日军被俘后竟与盟军合作。他们头脑中根本没有适应这种新环境的准则。他们丧失了名誉，也就丧失了作为日本人的生命。直到战争快要结束的前几个月，才有极少数人要求回国，不论战争结局如何。有些人要求处决自己，说：“如果你们的习惯不允许这么做，那么我就做一个模范战俘。”他们比模范战俘还要好。有些老兵和多年的极端国家主义者给我们指出弹药库的位置，仔细说明日军兵力的配置，为我军写宣传品，与我军飞行员同乘轰炸机指点军事目标。好像他们在生命中翻开了新的一页，其内容与旧的一页完全相反，但他们却表现出同样的忠诚。

当然，并不是所有战俘都是这样。有少数人顽梗不化。而且，无论如何，必须先提示一些有利条件，才可能有上述行为。有些美军指挥官很警惕，不敢接受日本人表面上的协助，以至有些战俘营根本未打算利用日军战俘可能提供的服务。但在接受日军战俘合作的战俘营中，原先的怀疑则必须消除而日益代之以对日军战俘的信赖。

美国人并没有预料到战俘们会做出如此180度的大转变，这与我们的信条是格格不入的。但日本人的行为则好像是：择定一条道路便全力以赴，如果失败，就很自然地选择另一条道路。他们这种行为方式，我们在战后能否加以考虑利用？或者这只是个别士兵当了俘虏后的特殊行为？恰如日本人在战争期间的其他行为的特殊性强迫我们思考一样，日本人这种行为方式向我们提出了许多问题，这些问题关系到他们的整个生活方式（他们被这种生活方式所制约）、各种制度的作用方式，以及他们所学到的思维和行动的习惯等等。

IN EVERY cultural tradition there are orthodoxies of war and certain of these are shared in all Western nations, no matter what the specific differences. There are certain clarion calls to all-out war effort, certain forms of reassurance in case of local defeats, certain regularities in the proportion of fatalities to surrenders, and certain rules of behavior for prisoners of war which are predictable in wars between Western nations just because they have a great shared cultural tradition which covers even warfare.

All the ways in which the Japanese departed from Western conventions of war were data on their view of life and on their convictions of the whole duty of man. For the purposes of a systematic study of Japanese culture and behavior it did not matter whether or not their deviations from our orthodoxies were crucial in a military sense; any of them might be important because they raised questions about the character of the Japanese to which we needed answers.

The very premises which Japan used to justify her war were the opposite of America's. She defined the international situation differently. America laid the war to the aggressions of the Axis. Japan, Italy, and Germany had unrighteously offended against international peace by their acts of conquest. Whether the Axis had seized power in Manchukuo or in Ethiopia or in Poland, it proved that they had embarked on an evil course of oppressing weak peoples. They had sinned against an international code of 'live and let live' or at least of 'open doors' for free enterprise. Japan saw the cause of the war in another light. There was anarchy in the world as long as every nation had absolute sovereignty; it was necessary for her to fight to establish a hierarchy-under Japan, of course, since she alone represented a nation truly hierarchal from top to bottom and hence understood the necessity of taking 'one's proper place.' Japan, having attained unification and peace in her homeland, having put down banditry and built up roads and electric power and steel industries, having, according to her official figures, educated 99.5 per cent of her rising generation in her public schools, should, according to Japanese premises of hierarchy, raise her backward younger brother China. Being of the same race as Greater East Asia, she should eliminate the United States, and after her Britain and Russia, from that part of the world and 'take her proper place.' All nations were to be one world, fixed in an international hierarchy. In the next chapter we shall examine what this high value placed on hierarchy meant in Japanese culture. It was an appropriate fantasy for Japan to create. Unfortunately for her the countries she occupied did not see it in the same light. Nevertheless not even defeat has drawn from her moral repudiation of her Greater East Asia ideals, and even her prisoners of war who were least jingoistic rarely went so far as to arraign the purposes of Japan on the continent and in the Southwest Pacific. For a long, long time Japan will necessarily keep some of her inbred attitudes and one of the most important of these is her faith and confidence in hierarchy. It is alien to equality-loving Americans but it is nevertheless necessary for us to understand what Japan meant by hierarchy and what advantages she has learned to connect with it.

Japan likewise put her hopes of victory on a different basis from that prevalent in the United States. She would win, she cried, a victory of spirit over matter. America was big, her armaments were superior, but what did that matter? All this, they said, had been foreseen and discounted. 'If we had been afraid of mathematical figures,' the Japanese read in their great newspaper, the Mainichi Shimbun, 'the war would not have started. The enemy's great resources were not created by this war.'

Even when she was winning, her civilian statesmen, her High Command, and her soldiers repeated that this was no contest between armaments; it was a pitting of our faith in things against their faith in spirit. When we were winning they repeated over and over that in such a contest material power must necessarily fail. This dogma became, no doubt, a convenient alibi about the time of the defeats at Saipan and Iwo Jima, but it was not manufactured as an alibi for defeats. It was a clarion call during all the months of Japanese victories, and it had been an accepted slogan long before Pearl Harbor. In the nineteen-thirties General Araki, fanatical militarist and one-time Minister of War, wrote in a pamphlet addressed 'To the whole Japanese Race' that 'the true mission' of Japan was 'to spread and glorify the Imperial way to the end of the Four Seas. Inadequacy of strength is not our worry. Why should we worry about that which is material?'

Of course, like any other nation preparing for war, they did worry. All through the nineteen-thirties the proportion of their national income which was devoted to armament grew astronomically. By the time of their attack on Pearl Harbor very nearly half the entire national income was going to military and naval purposes, and of the total expenditures of the government only 17 per cent were available for financing anything having to do with civilian administration. The difference between Japan and Western nations was not that Japan was careless about material armament. But ships and guns were just the outward show of the undying Japanese Spirit. They were symbols much as the sword of the samurai had been the symbol of his virtue.

Japan was as completely consistent in playing up non-material resources as the United States was in its commitment to bigness. Japan had to campaign for all-out production just as the United States did, but her campaigns were based on her own premises. The spirit, she said, was all and was everlasting; material things were necessary, of course, but they were subordinate and fell by the way. 'There are limits to material resources,' the Japanese radio would cry: 'it stands to reason that material things cannot last a thousand years.' And this reliance on spirit was taken literally in the routine of war; their war catechisms used the slogan-and it was a traditional one, not made to order for this war- 'To match our training against their numbers and our flesh against their steel.'

Their war manuals began with the bold-type line, 'Read this and the war is won.' Their pilots who flew their midget planes in a suicidal crash into our warships were an endless text for the superiority of the spiritual over the material. They named them the Kamikaze Corps, for the kamikaze was the divine wind which had saved Japan from Genghis Khan's invasion in the thirteenth century by scattering and overturning his transports.

Even in civilian situations Japanese authorities took literally the dominance of spirit over material circumstances. Were people fatigued by twelve-hour work in the factories and all-night bombings? 'The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.' Were people cold in the bomb shelters in winter? On the radio the Dai Nippon Physical Culture Society prescribed body-warming calisthenics which would not only be a substitute for heating facilities and bedding, but, better still, would substitute for food no longer available to keep up people's normal strength. 'Of course some may say that with the present food shortages we cannot think of doing calisthenics. No! The more shortage of food there is, the more we must raise our physical strength by other means.' That is, we must increase our physical strength by expending still more of it. The American's view of bodily energy which always reckons how much strength he has to use by whether he had eight or five hours of sleep last night, whether he has eaten his regular meals, whether he has been cold, is here confronted with a calculus that does not rely on storing up energy. That would be materialistic.

Japanese broadcasts went even farther during the war. In battle, spirit surmounted even the physical fact of death. One broadcast described a hero-pilot and the miracle of his conquest of death:

To Americans, of course, this is an outrageous yarn but educated Japanese did not laugh at this broadcast. They felt sure it would not be taken as a tall tale by listeners in Japan. First they pointed out that the broadcaster had truthfully said that the captain's feat was 'a miraculous fact.'

But why not? The soul could be trained; obviously the captain was a past-master of self-discipline. If all Japan knew that 'a composed spirit could last a thousand years,' could it not last a few hours in the body of an air-force captain who had made 'responsibility' the central law of his whole life? The Japanese believed that technical disciplines could be used to enable a man to make his spirit supreme. The captain had learned and profited.

As Americans we can completely discount these Japanese excesses as the alibis of a poor nation or the childishness of a deluded one. If we did, however, we would be, by that much, the less able to deal with them in war or in peace. Their tenets have been bred into the Japanese by certain taboos and refusals, by certain methods of training and discipline, and these tenets are not mere isolated oddities. Only if Americans have recognized them can we realize what they are saying when, in defeat, they acknowledge that spirit was not enough and that defending positions 'with bamboo spears' was a fantasy. It is still more important that we be able to appreciate their acknowledgment that their spirit was insufficient and that it was matched in battle and in the factory by the spirit of the American people. As they said after their defeat: during the war they had 'engaged in subjectivity.'

Japanese ways of saying all kinds of things during the war, not only about the necessity of hierarchy and the supremacy of spirit, were revealing to a student of comparative cultures. They talked constantly about security and morale being only a matter of being forewarned. No matter what the catastrophe, whether it was civilian bombing or defeat at Saipan or their failure to defend the Philippines, the Japanese line to their people was that this was fore-known and that there was therefore nothing to worry about. The radio went to great lengths, obviously counting on the reassurance it gave to the Japanese people to be told that they were living still in a thoroughly known world. 'The American occupation of Kiska brings Japan within the radius of American bombers. But we were well aware of this contingency and have made the necessary preparations.' 'The enemy doubtless will make an offensive against us by combined land, sea and air operations, but this has been taken account of by us in our plans.' Prisoners of war, even those who hoped for Japan's early defeat in a hopeless war, were sure that bombing would not weaken Japanese on the home front 'because they were forewarned.' When Americans began bombing Japanese cities, the vice-president of the Aviation Manufacturer's Association broadcast: 'Enemy planes finally have come over our very heads. However, we who are engaged in the aircraft production industry and who had always expected this to happen had made complete preparations to cope with this. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about.' Only granted all was fore-known, all was fully planned, could the Japanese go on to make the claim so necessary to them that everything had been actively willed by themselves alone; nobody had put anything over on them. 'We should not think that we have been passively attacked but that we have actively pulled the enemy toward us.' 'Enemy, come if you wish. Instead of saying, "Finally what was to come has come," we will say rather, "That which we were waiting for has come. We are glad it has come.' "The Navy Minister quoted in the Diet the teachings of the great warrior of the eighteen-seventies, Takamori Saigo, 'There are two kinds of opportunities: one which we chance upon, the other which we create. In time of great difficulty, one must not fail to create his opportunity.' And General Yamashito, when American troops marched into Manila, 'remarked with a broad smile,' the radio said, 'that now the enemy is in our bosom....' 'The rapid fall of Manila, shortly after the enemy landings in Lingayen Bay, was only possible as a result of General Yamashito's tactics and in accordance with his plans. General Yamashito's operations are now making continuous progress.' In other words, nothing succeeds like defeat.

Americans went as far in the opposite direction as the Japanese in theirs. Americans threw themselves into the war effort because this fight had been forced upon us. We had been attacked, therefore let the enemy beware. No spokesman, planning how he could reassure the rank and file of Americans, said of Pearl Harbor or of Bataan, 'These were fully taken account of by us in our plans.' Our officials said instead, 'The enemy asked for it. We will show them what we can do.' Americans gear all their living to a constantly challenging world-and are prepared to accept the challenge. Japanese reassurances are based rather on a way of life that is planned and charted beforehand and where the greatest threat comes from the unforeseen.

Another constant theme in Japanese conduct of the war was also revealing about Japanese life. They continually spoke of how 'the eyes of the world were upon them.' Therefore they must show to the full the spirit of Japan. Americans landed on Guadalcanal, and Japanese orders to troops were that now they were under direct observation 'by the world' and should show what they were made of. Japanese seamen were warned that in case they were torpedoed and the order given to abandon ship, they should man the lifeboats with the utmost decorum or 'the world will laugh at you. The Americans will take movies of you and show them in New York.' It mattered what account they gave of themselves to the world. And their concern with this point also was a concern deeply imbedded in Japanese culture.

The most famous question about Japanese attitudes concerned His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor. What was the hold of the Emperor on his subjects? Some American authorities pointed out that through all Japan's seven feudal centuries the Emperor was a shadowy figurehead. Every man's immediate loyalty was due to his lord, the daimyo, and, beyond that, to the military Generalissimo, the Shogun. Fealty to the Emperor was hardly an issue. He was kept secluded in an isolated court whose ceremonies and activities were rigorously circumscribed by the Shogun's regulations. It was treason even for a great feudal lord to pay his respects to the Emperor, and for the people of Japan he hardly existed. Japan could only be understood by its history, these American analysts insisted; how could an Emperor who had been brought out from obscurity within the memory of still living people be the real rallying point of a conservative nation like Japan? The Japanese publicists who again and again reiterated the undying hold of the Emperor upon his subjects were over-protesting, they said, and their insistence only proved the weakness of their case. There was no reason, therefore, that American policy during the war should draw on kid gloves in dealing with the Emperor. There was every reason rather why we should direct our strongest attacks against this evil Fuehrer concept that Japan had recently concocted. It was the very heart of its modem nationalistic Shinto religion and if we undermined and challenged the sanctity of the Emperor, the whole structure of enemy Japan would fall in ruins.

Many capable Americans who knew Japan and who saw the reports from the front lines and from Japanese sources were of the opposite persuasion. Those who had lived in Japan well knew that nothing stung the Japanese people to bitterness and whipped up their morale like any depreciatory word against the Emperor or any outright attack on him. They did not believe that in attacking the Emperor we would in the eyes of the Japanese be attacking militarism. They had seen that reverence for the Emperor had been equally strong in those years after the First World War when 'de-mok-ra-sie' was the great watchword and militarism was so discredited that army men prudently changed to mufti before they went out on the streets of Tokyo. The reverence of the Japanese for their Imperial chief could not be compared, these old Japanese residents insisted, with Heil-Hitler veneration which was a barometer of the fortunes of the Nazi party and bound up with all the evils of a fascist program.

Certainly the testimony of Japanese prisoners of war bore them out. Unlike Western soldiers, these prisoners had not been instructed about what to say and what to keep silent about when captured and their responses on all subjects were strikingly unregimented. This failure to indoctrinate was of course due to Japan's no-surrender policy. It was not remedied until the last months of the war, and even then only in certain armies or local units. The prisoners' testimony was worth paying attention to for they represented a cross-section of opinion in the Japanese Army. They were not troops whose low morale had caused them to surrender-and who might therefore be atypical All but a few were wounded and unconscious soldiers unable to resist when captured.

Japanese prisoners of war who were out-and-out bitterenders imputed their extreme militarism to the Emperor and were 'carrying out his will,' 'setting his mind at rest,' 'dying at the Emperor's command.' 'The Emperor led tho people into war and it was my duty to obey.' But those who rejected this present war and future Japanese plans of conquest just as regularly ascribed their peaceful persuasions to the Emperor. He was all things to all men. The warweary spoke of him as 'his peace-loving Majesty' ; they insisted that he 'had always been liberal and against the war.' 'He had been deceived by Tojo.' 'During the Manchurian Incident he showed that he was against the military.' 'Tho war was started without the Emperor's knowledge or permission. The Emperor does not like war and would not have permitted his people to be dragged into it. The Emperor does not know how badly treated his soldiers are.' These were not statements like those of German prisoners of war who, however much they complained that Hitler had been betrayed by his generals or his high command, nevertheless ascribed war and the preparations for war to Hitler as supreme inciter. The Japanese prisoner of war was quite explicit that the reverence given the Imperial Household was separable from militarism and aggressive war policies.

The Emperor was to them, however, inseparable from Japan. 'A Japan without the Emperor is not Japan.' 'Japan without the Emperor cannot be imagined.' 'The Japanese Emperor is the symbol of the Japanese people, the center of their religious lives. He is a super-religious object.' Nor would he be blamed for the defeat if Japan lost the war. 'The people did not consider the Emperor responsible for the war.' 'In the event of defeat the Cabinet and the military leaders would take the blame, not the Emperor.' 'Even if Japan lost the war ten out of ten Japanese would still revere the Emperor.'

All this unanimity in reckoning the Emperor above criticism appeared phoney to Americans who are accustomed to exempt no human man from skeptical scrutiny and criticism. But there was no question that it was the voice of Japan even in defeat. Those most experienced in interrogating the prisoners gave it as their verdict that it was unnecessary to enter on each interview sheet: 'Refuses to speak against the Emperor' ; all prisoners refused, even those who co-operated with the Allies and broadcast for us to the Japanese troops. Out of all the collected interviews of prisoners of war, only three were even mildly anti-Emperor and only one went so far as to say: 'It would be a mistake to leave the Emperor on the throne.' A second said the Emperor was 'a feeble-minded person, nothing more than a puppet.' And the third got no farther than supposing that the Emperor might abdicate in favor of his son and that if the monarchy were abolished young Japanese women would hope to get a freedom they envied in the women of America.

Japanese, commanders, therefore, were playing on an all but unanimous Japanese veneration when they distributed cigarettes to the troops 'from the Emperor,' or led them on his birthday in bowing three times to the east and shouting 'Banzai' ; when they chanted with all their troops morning and evening, 'even though the unit was subjected to day and night bombardment,' the 'sacred words' the Emperor himself had given to the armed forces in the Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors while 'the sound of chanting echoed through the forest.' The militarists used the appeal of loyalty to the Emperor in every possible way. They called on their men to 'fulfill the wishes of His Imperial Majesty,' to 'dispel all the anxieties of your Emperor,' to 'demonstrate your respect for His Imperial benevolence,' to 'die for the Emperor.' But this obedience to his will could cut both ways. As many prisoners said, the Japanese 'will fight unhesitatingly, even with nothing more than bamboo poles, if the Emperor so decrees. They would stop just as quickly if he so decreed' 'Japan would throw down arms tomorrow if the Emperor should issue such an order' 'Even the Kwantung Army in Manchuria' -most militant and jingoistic- 'would lay down their arms' 'only his words can make the Japanese people accept a defeat and be reconciled to live for reconstruction.'

This unconditional and unrestricted loyalty to the Emperor was conspicuously at odds with criticisms of all other persons and groups. Whether in Japanese newspapers and magazines or in war prisoners' testimony, there was criticism of the government and of military leaders. Prisoners of war were free with their denunciation of their local commanders, especially those who had not shared the dangers and hardships of their soldiers. They were especially critical of those who had evacuated by plane and left their troops behind to fight it out. Usually they praised some officers and bitterly criticized others; there was no sign that they lacked the will to discriminate the good from the bad in things Japanese. Even in the home islands newspapers and magazines criticized 'the government.' They called for more leadership and greater coordination of effort and noted that they were not getting from the government what was necessary. They even criticized the restrictions on freedom of speech. A report on a panel of editors, former members of the Diet, and directors of Japan's totalitarian party, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, printed in a Tokyo paper in July, 1944, is a good example. One speaker said: 'I think there are various ways to arouse the Japanese people but the most important one is freedom of speech. In these few years, the people have not been able to say frankly what they think. They have been afraid that they might be blamed if they spoke certain matters. They hesitated, and tried to patch up the surface, so the public mind has really become timid. We can never develop the total power of the people in this way.' Another speaker expanded the same theme: 'I have held symposiums almost every night with the people of the electoral districts and asked them about many things, but they were all afraid to speak. Freedom of speech has been denied. This is certainly not a proper way to stimulate their will to fight. The people are so badly restricted by the so-called Special Penal Law of War Time and the National Security Law that they have become as timid as the people in the feudalistic period. Therefore the fighting power which could have been developed remains undeveloped now.'

Even during the war, therefore, the Japanese criticized the government, the High Command, and their immediate superiors. They did not unquestioningly acknowledge the virtues of the whole hierarchy. But the Emperor was exempt. How could this be when his primacy was so recent? What quirk of Japanese character made it possible that he should so attain a sacrosanct position? Were Japanese prisoners of war fight in claiming that just as the people would fight to the death 'with bamboo spears' as long as he so ordered, they would peaceably accept defeat and occupation if that was his command? Was this nonsense meant to mislead us? Or was it, possibly, the truth?

All these crucial questions about Japanese behavior in the war, from their anti-materialistic bias to their attitudes toward the Emperor concerned the homeland Japan as well as the fighting fronts. There were other attitudes which had to do more specifically with the Japanese Army. One of these concerned the expendability of their fighting forces. The Japanese radio put well the contrast with the American attitudes when it described with shocked incredulity the Navy's decoration of Admiral George S. McCain, commander of a task force off Formosa.

The official reason for the decoration was not that Commander John S. McCain was able to put the Japanese to flight, though we don't see why not since that is what the Nimitz communique claimed....Well, the reason given for Admiral McCain's, decoration was that he was able successfully to rescue two damaged American warships and escort them safely to their home base. What makes this bit of information important is not that it is a fiction but that it is the truth... .So we are not questioning the veracity of Admiral McCain's rescuing two ships, but the point we want you to see is the curious fact that the rescuing of damaged ships merits decoration in the United States.

Americans thrill to all rescue, all aid to those pressed to the wall. A valiant deed is all the more a hero's act if it saves the 'damaged.' Japanese valor repudiates such salvaging. Even the safety devices installed in our B-29's and fighter planes raised their cry of 'Cowardice.' The press and the radio returned to the theme over and over again. There was virtue only in accepting life and death risks; precautions were unworthy. This attitude found expression also in the case of the wounded and of malarial patients. Such soldiers were damaged goods and the medical services provided were utterly inadequate even for reasonable effectiveness of the fighting force. As time went on, supply difficulties of all kinds aggravated this lack of medical care, but that was not the whole story. Japanese scorn of materialism played a part in it; her soldiers were taught that death itself was a victory of the spirit and our kind of care of the sick was an interference with heroism-like safety devices in bombing planes. Nor are the Japanese used to such reliance on physicians and surgeons in civilian life as Americans are. Pre-occupation with mercy toward the damaged rather than with other welfare measures is especially high in the United States, and is often commented on even by visitors from some European countries in peacetime. It is certainly alien to the Japanese. At all events, during the war the Japanese army had no trained rescue teams to remove the wounded under fire and to give first aid; it had no medical system of front line, behind-the-lines and distant recuperative hospitals. Its attention to medical supplies was lamentable. In certain emergencies the hospitalized were simply killed. Especially in New Guinea and the Philippines, the Japanese often had to retreat from a position where there was a hospital. There was no routine of evacuating the sick and wounded while there was still opportunity; only when the 'planned withdrawal' of the battalion was actually taking place or the enemy was occupying was anything done. Then, the medical officer in charge often shot the inmates of the hospital before he left or they killed themselves with hand grenades.

If this attitude of the Japanese toward damaged goods was fundamental in their treatment of their own countrymen, it was equally important in their treatment of American prisoners of war. According to our standards the Japanese were guilty of atrocities to their own men as well as to their prisoners. The former chief medical officer of the Philippines, Colonel Harold W. Glattly, said after his three years' internment as a prisoner of war on Formosa that 'the American prisoners got better medical treatment than the Japanese soldiers. Allied medical officers in the prison camps were able to take care of their men while the Japanese didn't have any doctors. For a while the only medical personnel they had for their own men was a corporal and later on a sergeant.' He saw a Japanese medical officer only once or twice a year.[ Reported in the Washington Post , October 15,1945.]

The furthest extreme to which this Japanese theory of expendability could be pushed was their no-surrender policy. Any Occidental army which has done its best and finds itself facing hopeless odds surrenders to the enemy. They still regard themselves as honorable soldiers and by international agreement their names are sent back to their countries so that their families may know that they are alive. They are not disgraced either as soldiers or as citizens or in their own families. But the Japanese defined the situation differently. Honor was bound up with fighting to the death. In a hopeless situation a Japanese soldier should kill himself with his last hand grenade or charge weaponless against the enemy in a mass suicide attack. But he should not surrender. Even if he were taken prisoner when he was wounded and unconscious, he 'could not hold up his head in Japan' again; he was disgraced; he was 'dead' to his former life.

There were Army orders to this effect, of course, but there was apparently no need of special official indoctrination at the front. The Army lived up to the code to such an extent that in the North Burma campaign the proportion of the captured to the dead was 142 to 17,166. That was a ratio of 1:120. And of the 142 in the prison camps, all except a small minority were wounded or unconscious when taken; only a very few had 'surrendered'singly or in groups of two or three. In the armies of Occidental nations it is almost a truism that troops cannot stand the death of one-fourth to one-third of their strength without giving up; surrenders run about 4:1. When for the first time in Hollandia, however, any appreciable number of Japanese troops surrendered, the proportion was 1:5 and that was a tremendous advance over the 1:120 of North Burma.

To the Japanese therefore Americans who had become prisoners of war were disgraced by the mere fact of surrender. They were 'damaged goods' even when wounds or malaria or dysentery had not also put them outside the category of 'complete men.' Many Americans have described how dangerous a thing American laughter was in the prison camps and how it stung their warders. In Japanese eyes they had suffered ignominy and it was bitter to them that the Americans did not know it. Many of the orders which American prisoners had to obey, too, were those which had also been required of their Japanese keepers by their own Japanese officers; the forced marches and the close-packed transshipments were commonplaces to them. Americans tell, too, of how rigorously sentries required that the prisoners should cover up evasions of rôles; the great crime was to evade openly. In camps where the prisoners worked off-bounds on roads or installations during the day the rule that no food be brought back with them from the countryside was sometimes a dead letter-if the fruit and vegetables were covered up. If they could be seen, it was, a flagrant offense which meant that the Americans had flouted the sentry's authority. Open challenging of authority was terribly punished even if it were mere 'answering back.' Japanese rules are very strict against a man's answering back even in civilian life and their own army practices penalized it heavily. It is no exoneration of the atrocities and wanton cruelties that did occur in the prison camps to distinguish between these and those acts which were the consequences of cultural habituations.

Especially in the earlier stages of the conflict the shame of capture was reinforced by a very real belief among the Japanese that the enemy tortured and killed any prisoners. One rumor of tanks that had been driven across the bodies of those captured on Guadalcanal spread through almost all areas. Some Japanese who tried to give themselves up, too, were regarded with so much suspicion by our troops that they were killed as a precaution, and this suspicion was often justified. A Japanese for whom there was nothing left but death was often proud that he could take an enemy with him when he died; he might do it even after he was captured. Having determined, as one of them put it, 'to be burned on the altar of victory, it would be a disgrace to die with no heroic deed achieved.'such possibilities put our Army on its guard and diminished the number of surrenders.

The shame of surrender was burned deeply into the consciousness of the Japanese. They accepted as a matter of course a behavior which was alien to our conventions of warfare. And ours was just as alien to them. They spoke with shocked disparagement of American prisoners of war who asked to have their names reported to their government so that their families would know they were alive. The rank and file, at least, were quite unprepared for the surrender of American troops at Bataan for they had assumed that they would fight it out the Japanese way. And they could not accept the fact that Americans had no shame in being prisoners of war.

The most melodramatic difference in behavior between Western soldiers and the Japanese was undoubtedly the cooperation the latter gave to the Allied forces as prisoners of war. They knew no rules of life which applied in this new situation; they were dishonored and their life as Japanese was ended. Only in the last months of the war did more than a handful imagine any return to their homeland, no matter how the war ended. Some men asked to be killed, 'but if your customs do not permit this, I will be a model prisoner.' They were better than model prisoners. Old Army hands and long-time extreme nationalists located ammunition dumps, carefully explained the disposition of Japanese forces, wrote our propaganda and flew with our bombing pilots to guide them to military targets. It was as if they had turned over a new page; what was written on the new page was the opposite of what was written on the old, but they spoke the lines with the same faithfulness.

This is of course not a description of all prisoners of war. Some few were irreconcilable. And in any case certain favorable conditions had to be set up before such behavior was possible. American Army commanders were very understandably hesitant to accept Japanese assistance at face value and there were camps where no attempt was made to use any services they might have given. In camps where this was done, however, the original suspicion had to be withdrawn and more and more dependence was placed on the good faith of the Japanese prisoners.

Americans had not expected this right-about-face from prisoners of war. It was not according to our code. But the Japanese behaved as if, having put everything they had into one line of conduct and failed at it, they naturally took up a different line. Was it a way of acting which we could count on in post-war days or was it behavior peculiar to soldiers who had been individually captured? Like the other peculiarities of Japanese behavior which obtruded themselves upon us during the war, it raised questions about the whole way of life to which they were conditioned, the way their institutions functioned and the habits of thought and action they had learned. GTAt7zQRVADVygRAi0Jb5rsjkc1mGLsiLa4YkW9S64wz9mZl1C7Ex6K8RWoAKkbN