Originally posted on July 4, 2019.
Continuing from the previous chapter, this piece responds to Shiro Suzuki’s essay, “The Falsehood of the Nanjing Massacre and Memories of Repatriation: My Innocent Father Was Captured in China…,” published in the June 30, 2018 issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument.
It explains in concrete terms why Japanese soldiers did not rape women, focusing on the sanitary conditions and realities of the time, while also addressing fabricated photographs related to the Nanjing Incident, the shifting of Chinese soldiers’ crimes onto Japanese soldiers, and the brutal experience of repatriation after the war, thereby calling for the restoration of the honor of Japanese soldiers and for historical truth to be known.

2019-07-04
The reason Japanese soldiers did not rape women was not only because they were highly disciplined.

The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Was a false charge being imposed?　
The reason Japanese soldiers did not rape women was not only because they were highly disciplined.
In fact, the sanitary conditions on the ground were by no means good.
There were also concerns about venereal diseases and infectious diseases.
That is why comfort stations were necessary and were established.
Since there was also more than enough risk of contracting syphilis through sexual intercourse, rape was absolutely out of the question.
Japanese soldiers had no interest in rape, and in the first place they did not do such things.
Stories have spread that when Japanese soldiers saw women, they assaulted them indiscriminately, and even now there are Japanese who believe such tales, but the Japanese soldiers of that time were in fact extremely cautious.
Their sense of hygiene was thorough.
That is why, to those who knew that era, such stories are utterly absurd and impossible.　
Rather, there are many cases in which things done by Chinese soldiers have been switched and presented as things done by Japanese soldiers.
Professor Shūdō Higashinakano has conducted photographic examinations of the Nanjing Incident.
Among those kinds of fake photographs, for example, there were some in which photographs of Japanese people killed in the Tongzhou Incident were treated as if they were proof photographs showing Chinese people brutally murdered in the Nanjing Massacre.
There are also photographs of mounted bandits and brigands being executed.
Looking at the method of execution, they are photographs that, no matter how one sees them, appear to show a Chinese-style method of execution, yet some of them have been presented as massacres committed by Japanese soldiers.
I believe that, to a considerable extent, acts committed by Chinese soldiers have been pinned on them.　
I remained in China until the end of the war.
I often heard talk about the war situation, but I never once heard any story saying that Japanese soldiers had massacred residents in Nanjing.
If there really had been a massacre in Nanjing, one would surely have detected at least some fragmentary trace of such a thing, but there was none.
I believe that is because the so-called massacre now being spoken of as having occurred in Nanjing was a complete fabrication, and while I am still alive, I wish to clear the dishonor placed upon Japanese soldiers.
The repatriation was terribly hard.　
I was seven years old when the war ended.
I was in the second grade of elementary school.
It was heartbreaking.
Rather than shock, my mind went completely blank.
What had happened?
What did it mean for Japan to lose?
That was how it felt.
At any rate, it did not feel real to me.
However, I do remember that the attitudes of the Chinese people and those of Korean descent around us suddenly changed.　
The change in the people of Korean descent in particular could well be called a complete transformation.
Some suddenly began acting arrogantly.
Some became overbearing and outrageously high-handed in their behavior.
There were even times when, upon seeing Japanese people, they threw bamboo spears at them.
Fortunately, because I was a child, I myself was not attacked, but I had many unpleasant experiences.
Among my classmates, there were those who were beaten for no reason.　
My father ran a trading company and employed Chinese people to work together with him, and because of that there were also Chinese who came and said, “Hand over all your family’s property.”
Our family was well-off, after all, and we had things like a chauffeur-driven car.　
However, my father treated his Chinese employees with great care.
Because he had been engaged in work related to military procurement, my father was nearly brought to trial as a war criminal and was once taken into custody, but it was also Chinese people who helped him at that time.
My father’s subordinates and the people who had worked with him appealed in various places, saying, “Suzuki is not a bad man.
We will prove it,” and because of that, my father was released.
Because my father had been detained in that way, it was extremely difficult for us to repatriate from the Chinese mainland.
My mother and I, leading my four-year-old and three-year-old younger sisters and carrying our luggage, walked 120 kilometers from Beijing and Tianjin to the port.
That was hard.　
Repatriates were repeatedly put into facilities like “internment camps.”
Chinese officials would say, “We are going to inspect your luggage,” but in reality they were plundering it.
Before reaching the port of Tangku, we were put into such “internment camps,” and each time valuables were taken from us.
We were ordered, “Come here,” and taken into the facilities.
That alone was unpleasant enough, but then my mother, my two younger sisters, and I were made to stay for two or three days in ramshackle barracks-like facilities and were held up there.
Cold winds came in mercilessly.
And so our luggage was taken, and every valuable thing was stripped away.　
My mother treasured a pair of boots that had been given to her by my father.
They were splendid boots made in Europe.
My father must have been in captivity then.
My mother probably did not want to part with them, so she said to me, “Shirō, I’m sorry, but please wear these.”
“Wear them home for me.”
If I was wearing them, the Chinese would not take them.
But they were women’s boots with fur on them.
I walked across the Chinese mainland in silence wearing them.　
At one point along the way, we were also crammed in, piled on top of one another, into an open freight train car.
It was not something that could be described as “riding” or “being allowed on board.”
We were “packed in” as cargo.
Strong men would go in first, supporting from below like a base, and the women would then be packed on top of them.
It would only run for a short distance, but even a short distance meant that we did not have to walk that much.
The conditions were dreadful.
If it had rained, it would have been the worst.
I think it is a wonder we did not fall ill.　
On the way, my two little sisters often cried and fussed.
That is only natural.
No one could possibly walk 120 kilometers.
I think my mother must already have been nearly exhausted.
My younger sister was three years old, so she had to be carried, and on top of that there was luggage as well.　
I too had to walk while holding the hand of my other little sister, because otherwise we would not survive, but even I was close to giving up.
At any rate, I was told, “Shirō, you are the only man here.
Your father is interned now, so do your best,” and so I thought only, “I am a Japanese boy.
I will not be defeated.”
That was all.
There was no longer any room even to think of hardship.
In a state where I hardly felt alive, I was simply desperate.　
At last, we somehow reached the port and were put aboard an American ship.
I was reunited with my released father just before the ship departed from the port.
My father, having cleared his dishonor, rushed to the port in a car driven by a Chinese man and apparently arrived at the very last moment just before departure, but I was utterly exhausted and must have felt my burden finally lifted.
I had fallen asleep like a log, and in truth I do not remember it very well.　
After that, there were times when I went out onto the deck of the ship and looked at the sea.
I remember being astonished when the bright yellow sea changed into a blue sea.
The sea in China really is yellow, just as it is called the Yellow Sea.
Until then, I myself had thought that the sea was yellow, so when I saw a blue sea for the first time, a sea I had never seen before, I was honestly frightened.
When we arrived at the port of Nagasaki, it was the season when the cherry blossoms were in bloom.
In China it had been a strangely cold season, but in Japan it was mild spring.
When I saw the cherry blossoms, I thought, how beautiful they were.
I thought this must be heaven.