I had heard the story that intellectuals' pronouncements turned 180 degrees between the war years and after the defeat, and I had assumed that was how it went.
But when I actually read and checked what intellectuals wrote during the war and after the defeat, while there certainly are people who changed, there are also a fair number who did not change at all. As one of those who did not change, let me introduce Hakuun Karo, who edited a gas industry trade journal. He was 62, incidentally — an old man by the standards of the time.
The eve of defeat
In July 1945, just before the defeat, the Japan Gas Engineering Association had escaped war damage, but the printing house and the bindery had burned and were not operating. The house of one of the association's directors had burned to the ground, and one of the clerical staff had lost his life in the bombing. The director built a dugout shelter and stayed on in Tokyo. The supporting member companies had been damaged one after another, and the gas companies around the country were somehow managing to keep operating.
Hakuun Karo, editor-in-chief of the *Journal of the Japan Gas Engineering Association*, held to the conviction that "the first principle is to fight on to the very end," and he kept issuing the journal on a mimeograph until the paper on hand ran out. In the editor's note for the July issue, Hakuun Karo wrote something along these lines.
*He cannot hold back his anger that although "the whole strength of the Imperial Land of Japan, which holds a loyal hundred million people and boasts a peerlessness unmatched among all nations, is charging ahead at increasing aircraft production," there are "not enough weapons." What is needed now is "one man who acts in the spirit of the special attack corps, rather than ten thousand men of the tongue."*
*"Our daily life is a matter of threading our way from bomb to bomb," and whether we live or die is unknown. In the end it is fate, so all we can do is "fight on prepared to take the bombing." His resolve: "the truth of life is that what will be will be — this is not desperation, not escape, it is doing all one can and following the providence of heaven."*
*Japan has "the words nani kuso" (damn it all, no you don't). Lately a mood of resignation has been drifting among the Japanese, but "is this good enough at such a grave moment?" Hang on with "nani kuso"!*
He is trying to solve everything with "nani kuso," which is completely absurd, but since the man himself was very nearly killed in the bombing and still kept putting the journal out on a mimeograph, it is hard to argue with him.
Just after the defeat
The war ended; what did Hakuun Karo write in the September 1945 issue? Perhaps he was confused, or perhaps he felt some guilt — there is a good deal of wavering in the prose, so I have reconstructed it after tidying it up a little.
*What is the reason we lost the war? People speak of the repentance of the hundred million, of the responsibility of the military and the militarists — but is there nothing we regret when we look back at ourselves?*
*"Japan's defeat is the result of being caught up in what was right before our eyes and neglecting to think far ahead." During the war, "few words and much action" was prized, but in reality "orders are absolute" was the rule and "silent forcing-through" was rampant. And when we were given orders that were not realistic, we responded with silence and no action at all.*
*The gas business during the war was the same. Its work was certainly "remarkable, but the gas business could not truly bring its full strength to bear without reserve." The reason is one thing: "poverty of technology." Was there not the fact that "because of poverty of technology, what should have lived did not live, and we stood with folded arms to no purpose"? Was this not caused by being caught up in short-term goals and failing to hold a long-term view?*
*Not only the gas business — the operating companies, the national polity, individual proprietors, all are equally guilty. Our mistake was thinking, in the spirit of "the people may be made to follow a path, but not made to understand it," that it was enough to make them obey. Unless you convey the reasoning of things and act according to that reasoning, "true strength cannot be brought out."*
*At this rate "the road to building a new Japan" is far off. What is needed is "the resolve to settle the past cleanly and not to repeat the same error (tsuigo — repeating the same mistake)." So for the sake of "a rebuilt Japan," I will stop looking for shortcuts, and instead "cry out for the raising of our technology."*
What changed and what did not
Hakuun Karo's character had hardly changed at all.
His wartime attack on "men of the tongue" and his anger at the fact that, himself included, they could not see ahead and so "stood with folded arms to no purpose" are the same thing. The wartime "nani kuso" and the postwar "I want to see you rouse yourselves" are the same too; the only difference is whether or not a war is on.
During the war, though he might die the next day, he screamed on his mimeograph to "fight on prepared to take the bombing"; after the war he pressed people not to shove the responsibility onto someone else, to make up their minds. It is exactly the same.
Hakuun Karo, so hard on other people — what did he do after the war?
While continuing the gas journal, he grew alarmed that no one from the gas industry was standing in the 1947 House of Representatives election, so he ran and lost; and, his health having also failed, in 1948 he handed the publishing company over to the Japan Gas Association. He then decided to devote his life to compiling a *History of the Development of the Japanese Gas Industry*. Sadly he fell ill and the *History of the Development of the Japanese Gas Industry* was never finished, but Hakuun Karo's resolve was the real thing.
Hakuun Karo, real name Toyoshima Yoshiaki. White cloud, snail's hut. At the Japan Gas Association he was famous as a stubborn old man.
Sources*Journal of the Japan Gas Engineering Association* 15(6), Japan Gas Engineering Association, Japan Gas Engineering Association, 1945 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1551058/1/9)
*Journal of the Japan Gas Engineering Association* 15(4/5), Japan Gas Engineering Association, Japan Gas Engineering Association, 1945 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1551057/1/9)
*Journal of the Japan Gas Association* = Journal of the Japan Gas Association, Japan Gas Association, Japan Gas Association, 1950 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2338039/1/15)