Masayuki Takayama’s Shukan Shincho column uncovers the concealed history of U.S. Black regiments from the Spanish-American War to the Pacific War and the Korean War. Through eyewitness accounts from Saipan and Peleliu, the essay reveals how Black soldiers served as vanguard troops, committed atrocities, and operated under an unwritten “battlefield Jim Crow system.” The narrative connects these events to the Kokura Incident and the deeper racial hierarchy of the U.S. military—facts omitted by mainstream media such as the Asahi Shimbun. Takayama’s essay illuminates hidden truths and challenges the historical narratives surrounding race, war, and military conduct.

The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s serialized column, which appears at the end of today’s newly released issue of Shukan Shincho.
Few would dispute that one of the essential roles and purposes of an artist is to shine light upon hidden truths and reveal what has been concealed.
It is a well-known fact that South Korea and China—alone in the world—have continued to practice a form of Nazism under the name of “anti-Japan education,” the former since the postwar era and the latter since the Tiananmen Square incident, all to maintain their regimes even in the 21st century.
That the United Nations continues to tolerate this is, without exaggeration, one of the great spectacles—and great defects—of the world.
If the world possessed reading and writing abilities—and reading comprehension—equal to those of the Japanese people, and if we assume that in other countries only a tiny minority sympathizes with these two nations and adopts anti-Japan ideology to conceal their own faults…
And if the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the figure who most perfectly embodies the nature of art as defined above…
Then the only person worthy of next year’s Nobel Prize in Literature is Masayuki Takayama.
This essay proves that point.
Even readers of Takayama—including myself—cannot help but exclaim, after reading this piece, “Takayama is incredible!”

The Backside of “The Black Canvas”

To establish bases from which to bomb Japan, the U.S. military chose Saipan and Tinian, and in June 1944 attacked Saipan first.
Before the Marines landed, they fired nearly 14 million pounds of shells—140,000 rounds—but Japanese forces survived and mounted substantial resistance.
Even so, holding out beyond two weeks was impossible, and the island was subdued.
One defender, Teruki Okazaki, was knocked unconscious by shell fragments.
When he awoke, he was in a U.S. medical facility.
Okazaki observed the U.S. landing closely and was astonished that “the first landing units were all Black soldiers.”
He said he did not see White soldiers until around the tenth day, after the outcome was already decided.

Three months after Saipan fell, the U.S. Navy attacked Peleliu.
On Saipan, 3,500 Americans died.
This time, they poured 70,000 tons of shells onto tiny Peleliu—just one-tenth the size of Saipan.
Major General Rupertus, estimating only a handful of defenders remained, predicted the island would be secured in four days.
But the ten thousand Japanese defenders were still healthy.
They repelled the landing forces, and resistance continued not for four days but two months.
Even after the island fell, 34 men continued guerrilla activity and only surrendered after the war.
Their testimonies remain:
“On the first day alone, six waves landed, all Black soldiers.”

When were Black soldiers assigned to protect White soldiers?
Their first appearance came thirty-five years after the abolition of slavery.
During the Spanish-American War—when the U.S. loudly proclaimed the “liberation of Cuba”—the existence of four Black regiments, including the 24th Infantry Regiment (3,000 men), was officially acknowledged.
Their first battle was the fight for San Juan Hill, which decided Cuba’s fate.
The U.S. won overwhelmingly due to the fierce fighting of the Black regiments.
Yet the credit was given to their master, Theodore Roosevelt.

The “strong Black regiments” were soon sent to their next task: the final hunt for the remaining Native American tribes.
Their ferocity earned them the nickname “Buffalo Soldiers.”
When that was done, the 24th Regiment was sent to the Philippines.
In truth, the U.S. shouted about liberating Cuba, but its real goal was to seize Spanish-ruled Philippines.
They issued a fake promise to Filipinos—“We will grant you independence”—and had them attack Spanish forces from behind.
After winning the war, the U.S. declared, “You are unfit to govern yourselves. Become a U.S. colony,” and entered a war with General Aguinaldo.
The 24th Regiment entered Manila and, serving as the vanguard for White soldiers, killed anyone who resisted.
On Samar and Leyte Islands, the entire populations were killed.
This tradition continued into the Pacific War and then the Korean War.

Recently, the Asahi Shimbun’s Sunday column “Thoughts on Sunday” discussed the Kokura Incident.
Behind it also lies the 24th Infantry Regiment.
The regiment, stationed in Gifu, was ordered two weeks after the outbreak of the Korean War to relocate to the Jonai Base in Kokura.
From there, they were to be shipped to Busan.
The division originally stationed at Jonai had already gone ahead to Korea—and was annihilated.
Everyone knew the coming battle would be worse than Peleliu.

On the second day after relocation, festival drums from the town could be heard.
Some 200 soldiers deserted, went into town, drank heavily, caused disturbances, and hunted for women.
Seicho Matsumoto’s novel Kuroji no E (“The Black Canvas”) refers to the tattoo of an eagle and female genitalia carved on the back of a Black soldier who rapes a wife in front of her husband.
These tattoos were used to identify dismembered bodies on the battlefield.

Armed deserters committing outrages.
When morning came, the MPs arrived.
They gently persuaded the men to return to base and brought them back.
Cause trouble for the Japanese?
So what?
These men had a mission to go to the battlefield.
They would not be allowed to die here, nor be put in the stockade.
And in fact, two days after the incident, they were sent to the battlefield—and were annihilated soon afterward.

The husband whose wife had been raped later took a job applying makeup to the corpses of fallen soldiers.
It was there that he encountered once again that tattoo of female genitalia—and stabbed it repeatedly with his knife.
Corpses were prepared in this way not only at Tokorozawa Base but everywhere.
It was, if anything, a miracle that he encountered the same tattoo again.

Behind all of this lies the “Jim Crow law of the battlefield”—unknown to the Japanese people.
The Asahi column omits that crucial fact entirely.