Around the Time of the War End (by Katsurame)

In March, 1945, in order to encourage as many youngsters as possible to participate in the battle lines, an advanced graduation took place at junior high schools throughout the country. We the fourth year students were forced to graduate from the school without ever going up to fifth grade.

We left the school; nevertheless we remained as mobilized students and continued to live in the school dormitory, this time as members of the special course. We were also engaged in the manufacture of aircraft parts in the same factory. Those military songs ringing out from the loud speakers of right wing campaigners nowadays were originally created to inspire the mobilized students and working students like us.

In compliance with the policy of my farther who was concerned about possible airborne attacks by the enemy, I resigned from the factory simultaneously with final graduation from school. I found a job as a substitute teacher of a branch school in a poor village in the mountain side of Shikoku Island. This branch school was located in one of the peaceful communities which are dotted along the river. It had less than 30 children and was like a toy box, completely free from threats of air raids.

The village did not have much rice field, so the meals I cooked for myself were not rich, but still better than the food I used to have in the city where people suffered from food shortage. Our life was such that we drank river water and used lamps and lanterns for lighting. Raccoon dogs and rabbit, and even bears at times, made appearances on the narrow mountain road that run 8 kilometers to the main school.

The things that I brought from the city to the school in such a peaceful village were fierce and hysteric ideas of the final days of the War; namely Hakkou-Ichiu (the world under one roof, Daitoa-Kyoueiken (The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere), Kichiku-Beiei (Devils are the US and Britain), Uchiteshi Yamanu (Fight to the death) and Ichioku-sougyokusai (Death for honor by 100 million people). The children were even taught to wave wooden sticks in the air, pretending they are bamboo spears, and to shout If we ever have to fight in the mainland, -----! The children accepted my words very sincerely; they were so smoothly affected by what I said that it was like dropping black ink on the clean sheet of paper. It was impressive that they were influenced by the words of immature person like me.

And came the end of the War; August 15. Days of confusion continued when we daubed pages of text books with black ink and destroyed reference materials. Completely reversing what we teachers had been saying to the children, we now had to admire and talk about democracy and peace and equality. I do not remember what I was then thinking about and how I looked like as I stood on the platform during those long days before I gave up my position as a substitute teacher when the demobilized male teachers returned to teaching duties.

Although I was later asked to obtain official teachers license and to come back to the school, I had by that time completely lost interest to get on such invitation and my long time dream to become a teacher was miserably shattered. Every time I think back of my younger days, I feel so ashamed, so frightened and so sorry for the children that I would not volunteer to talk about those days for the last 60 years with anybody.

At the time of the war end, my elder sisters of 22 and 24 years old were both certified teachers and I was only a substitute teacher of 16 years old who had just finished a junior high school at the fourth grade.
End of the story of the three sisters who desperately tried to defend the home front at the tiny branch school, believing that the war was a holy war.

Katsurame