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this episode mainly tells how popular imamura hitoshi is in java, as well as various anecdotes

the former residence of the governor of the dutch east indies was used as the office building of our army headquarters. it was the most spacious venue in jakarta, with a square of 600 to 700 meters in the middle, facing west and east. when i went out to do business, i usually took a car. after get off work at around 4 pm, i would ride a horse with three guards, practice horsemanship for half an hour along the tree-lined avenue around the square, and then slowly watch the street scene for more than an hour. (i was so envious that i cried. i was a local tyrant in the richest occupied area, lived in the dabieye, and got off work at 4 o'clock every day. i didn't want to go to rabaul island to be the commander of the front.)

photo of imamura riding a horse in front of the official residence

i don't know when, six or seven children, each holding a five-foot bamboo stick in their hands like a rifle, were waiting for me on the roadside. when i rode past them on horseback, one of them shouted "present your guns", and they raised their bamboo sticks and saluted me.

children from all countries are the same. they are curious about soldiers and look forward to seeing them riding tall horses. indonesian children also get close to japanese soldiers who have the same skin color as themselves (????). except when it rains, the children line up to salute me almost every day. i don’t know who takes the lead. by the end, there are already 14 or 15 people in the line. whenever i raise my hand to salute back, most people smile happily. after the salute, the children will line up in two rows and practice marching behind my horse.

the chief corporal of the guard said to me, "don't let the kids follow you."

"why...isn't it cute?"

"that would be ridiculous and undermine the commander's dignity."

"really? then when i pass by tomorrow, i'll ask the translator at the agency to tell them not to do that again."

i asked the people in the dormitory to pack fourteen or fifteen bags of snacks. the next day, i rode my horse as usual, and asked the children who followed me to come to my dormitory. i asked the young man zhengyuanji (17 years old) to translate and said to them:

"you are all good kids. when you grow up, you must become soldiers to protect java. i have decided to start patrolling other roads, streets and suburbs every day from tomorrow. i rarely walk this street, so please don't come out and line up to wait for me..."

young shogenji was born in java and his indonesian was better than his japanese.

the boys seemed to understand, so each of them took a snack bag and went back.

in my military propaganda class, only the class leader, lieutenant colonel machida keiji, was a soldier. the other dozen or so people were celebrities active in the literary and artistic circles. they worked hard for the integration of the japanese and indonesian peoples and achieved great results. i had dinner with these people two or three times and we had a lot of fun together.

one of them once said to me:

"how about it? do you want to come to the japanese language elementary school where our promotional class is held? the children learn the language and songs very quickly, and they are so innocent and cute."

so we agreed on a time, and around ten o'clock in the morning, the adjutant and i went to the elementary school.

it is said that there are quite a lot of people who sign up for admission, but among the soldiers of various troops, very few have been primary school teachers before joining the army, so there is a shortage of teachers, and the number of students is limited to about 150, most of whom are naturally children from good families.

the entire primary school is divided into four grades and eight classes.

at that time, we had not yet started learning chinese characters, only kana, and reading, writing, arithmetic and singing were mainly based on japanese.

i was amazed at the scene. in just three or four months, these children's japanese level has reached such a level. when they sing, as long as you close your eyes and listen, you will feel that they are japanese children singing. after watching eight classes, the teacher asked me to stand in the middle of the students and say something to everyone.

"you are all very cute children. you all remember japanese very well. you can sing very well. you should study hard in the future. please raise your hands if you understand what i said."

"i understand." everyone raised their hands.

"you are all good children. as a reward, i will send delicious snacks to school before lunch and ask the teacher to share them with everyone. do you understand?"

"so happy! so happy!" the children raised their hands and laughed out loud.

a photo of me surrounded by children was published in a tokyo newspaper. i don’t know who took the photo, but it was later banned…

this photo is hard to find.

when i left the japanese language elementary school, i remember the person in the publicity class... i think it was the poet ms. oki atsushi, maybe i remembered it wrong... i entrusted her with the following:

"i have five japanese junior high school graduates in my dormitory. i want to select two more indonesian teenagers to stay with me at night and go to school during the day. please choose from friendly japanese families."

after four or five days, someone from the yichuan class came with four children, and i guess he wanted me to choose two people.

so i said, "each child is good, please recommend two."

he looked a little confused and said, "is that so? can we accept all four of them? in fact, during the dutch era, this official residence did not allow indonesians to enter except for hired cleaners. now that the dutch have finally been driven away, parents are curious whether their children will be lucky enough to be selected. there are so many applicants, and after fierce competition, it is finally limited to four people. if two of them are rejected, not only they themselves, but also their parents will be very disappointed."

me: "really? i thought that coming to such a grand and unfamiliar place would make the children nervous, so i thought that among the 150 students, there would always be one or two willing to come. (i didn't expect so many people to want to come), so i accepted all four children. in order not to worry their parents, they will go home to see their parents after school on saturday, stay at home at night and on sunday, go to school from their respective homes on monday, and come back to me on the same day. the room they live in is next to my attendant soldiers, and they eat with the soldiers. they are disciplined by a rural model youth named corporal kono, and there will be no beatings. please tell the parents. when parents want to see their children, they can ask sergeant kono for a meeting, and they will meet in the children's room when they arrive."

he: “then i feel relieved.”

in this way, the four teenagers were handed over to captain kono.

the army stipulated that in order to avoid officers withdrawing combat troops to do service, the army would hire logistics personnel. when my 16th army went to the expedition, the army adjutant went to tenri junior high school in tamba city, nara prefecture, and entrusted them to recruit volunteers (military dependents). they selected dozens of people and landed together in java.

there were many guests coming and going in my dormitory. five boys aged 16 or 17, kondo, mori, yoshida, ozeki, and fukushima, were assigned to sergeant kono. they were boys with good temperaments and physiques, and lived next door to my soldier, corporal kono yoshitada.

the new boys (14-year-old rahmaso, 13-year-old smano, 12-year-old harry, 11-year-old uslan)... he said that the names were hard to remember, so they agreed to be called ichiro, jiro, saburo, and shiro in order of age. ... the four of them could speak japanese fluently, and soon became good friends with the five japanese waiters. before dinner, they wrestled sumo on the sumo ring in the corner of the yard. after dinner, the nine people, centered around the kono soldier, played together on the lawn.

everyone sat together, singing military songs and popular songs to each other. this scene looked very warm and gave me great comfort.

when dining with guests, we are usually taken care of by indonesian teenagers in white coats and white shorts, and most of the guests like them very much.

i was in charge of supervising the military administration in java, and i gathered hundreds of dutch citizens and prisoners, including technicians who had been involved in these tasks before joining the army, to quickly restore railways, communication networks, oil refining facilities, and salvage sunken ships. on the basis of guaranteeing the safety of their lives and their families, i promised to provide them with housing and wages, and let them work under the supervision of the japanese. i believe this has greatly helped maintain public order in java and restore industry. inspectors who came to java from tokyo or other places saw these dutch people going to get off work as usual, and they took a walk with their families after dinner.

"why should the dutch be allowed so much freedom?" they complained, which is why they blamed the military regime in java. but i still did not change my policy.

whenever i visited railway and power-related construction sites and factories that employed a large number of dutch people, when i asked the officers in charge of these places about the dutch people's work performance and attitude, they almost without exception said:

"these white people are now working for the enemy country japan, and they have no sense of shame and do not cut corners at all. it's incredible. their concept is "i don't need to please the japanese at all, and i don't want the japanese to think i'm good. we must be clear that we get this salary and we have to do the corresponding work." they didn't do anything rude to us, but they definitely wouldn't do anything funny."

every morning and evening, when i rode or took a car into the city, i saw young dutch girls riding bicycles or walking with their heads held high when they met the enemy japanese. i encountered this several times.

whether it is the dutch workers mentioned above or the girls seen on the street, they all make people feel that "this is the national pride of the dutch people."

the greater east asia war was finally lost, japan's territory was occupied by the united nations forces, and germany suffered its second major defeat and was ravaged by the enemy's army.

at the end of world war i, several compatriots who had lived in germany returned home and wrote in detail in newspapers and magazines about the heroic spirit of the people who, after being defeated, still loved their country and did not give up their national pride at all.

as i sat in jail in jakarta, i recalled the proud attitude of the germans thirty years earlier after their defeat in world war i, and the pride of the dutch who had fought us in world war ii.

"then, what kind of national self-esteem will our yamato nadeshiko, the japanese people whom i miss so much, maintain in front of the allied officers and soldiers?"

i spent dozens of minutes guessing.

(this chapter is basically finished. it mainly talks about how imamura governed java. i think most of it is a long-winded account. only the last few paragraphs, about the issue of national self-esteem, can be regarded as a bit philosophical. the officials in tokyo are dissatisfied with imamura for a reason. these defeated technicians are still living a life of luxury. why don’t you, imamura, arrest their families and force them to work? their young girls dare to be arrogant in front of the locust army. why don’t you, imamura, arrest them all and make them comfort women? and national self-esteem, isn’t it all because of you, imamura?

however, after imamura was transferred, his successor, harada kumakichi, rarely did anything and was eventually sentenced to death by hanging. it is said that 3 million people were killed during the entire period of the japanese occupation of java. i guess the young girls who dared to walk on the streets with their chests puffed out at that time were all sent to the comfort station of the second division. as for how the yamato nadeshikos who imamura was thinking about maintained their national dignity in front of the allied forces, we all know it.

。）

to be continued...