The Insubordinate Imperial Japanese Military

That’s “Imperial” as in the Japanese military forces during World War II. The officer corps of the Imperial Japanese Army was completely out of control, and the naval officers weren’t much better. It’s always amazing to me, because “insubordinate” and “disrespectful” and “disobedient” are not words that one would usually use in connection with Japanese individuals who were lower in status than the other person in the interaction.

Considering the Army? Forget about it! One need only recall that low level officers in the Manchurian garrison started the entire disastrous invasion of China on their own motion. The brass in Tokyo, and the Emperor, went along after the fact.

The further down the Army chain-of-command you went, the worse the behavior became. The more that I read about that war, the worse the insubordination of the Japanese officer corps seems to get.

The navy was not immune. I recently read of an incident involving Captain Yonosuke Murakami.* I took particular note of it because our own Haruki Murakami is a favorite author of mine (and not in the least insubordinate, to my knowledge). This event took place during the six month contest for Guadalcanal, running from August, 1942 to February, 1943.

Captain Murakami was in charge of a division of four destroyers under the command of Admiral Raizo Tanaka, an extremely talented and justifiably famous destroyer admiral. The admiral was a brilliant tactician with nerves of steel. (See “Battle of Tassafaronga.”) The admiral ordered Murakami to take his destroyers and make a night attack on an American resupply convoy to Guadalcanal. Murakami gave the admiral the old “hell, no.” He flat refused.

“Full moon,” said Captain Murakami, “we’ll get dive bombed.”  They knocked it back and forth for a couple of minutes, and finally Admiral Tanaka backed off and rescinded the command. No disciplinary action was taken, nor any report made.  

There have been several new books about the Pacific war in the last few years, and it’s amazing how much new information the historians can access as time goes on. Every year there are new documents; new personal records and diaries; new translations. More documentation has only led to more examples of these kind of disciplinary, ah, problems.

Please note, for the record, that I am not criticizing the Japanese military at the time. History is history, and the events of a particular time and place must always be judged by the prevailing mores and realities of that time and place. They were who they were; they did what they did. And speaking of the record, the record still shows that the average Japanese soldier or sailor or airman was an incredible font of courage and dedication, while acknowledging the perhaps too frequent moral lapses. It’s that “particular time and place” thing again. Not everything can be judged by the same yardstick.

But really, the discipline in the Imperial Japanese forces in WWII was spongy, and that’s putting it mildly, at least in the officer corps.

(Photographs show two classes of Japanese IJN destroyers that were active early in the war. These ships were very capably employed by talented officers and crews and they were very effective.) 

*Episode with Captain Yonosuke Murakami and Admiral Raizo Tanaka from “Neptune’s Inferno,” by James Hornfischer. 

Shopping In Asia For Books In English

Yesterday I was over at my local mall, the Mall Bangkapi, here in my Bangkok neighborhood at the eastern edge of the city, slightly off the grid but still totally of the city. They have a show-space on the first floor, next to the four story waterfall that is a feature of this mall. The show rotates. Sometimes food; sometimes watches; sometimes appliances; sometimes bras; sometimes stuff for cars; sometimes toys; and sometimes books. Yesterday it was books.

The whole idea of books is a dubious concept over here, so I didn't pay much attention. I know that the displays always feature mostly graphic novels, and shortish books about famous monks, famous aristocrats, or international personalities, like Hitler. At the last minute, a display area for Asia Books caught my eye. They're the big purveyor of books in English at malls, one of the few, so I went over to take a look. They had a discount table, always good.

Right away I found a book that I wanted, and the price was right. Haruki Murakami's first two novels (both short) in a hard cover version, with a new introduction by the author about how he came to novel writing in the first place. Half price at 399 Baht (about twelve dollars). Okay, I'll take that. I glanced over the rest of the table and it was all crap, so I went over to pay.

The guy smiled and said, "two for one! Pick another one!" Well, okay, I'll invest a couple of minutes scanning this crap. Almost all of the books were in less-than-great shape, they looked like they had been in a box in the garage for ten years or so. Musty, let's say. I looked over the collection of less-than-best-sellers, obscure wanna-be bestsellers, spy shit; detective shit; mystery shit. Some bullshit history books. I was about to give up and take a book by an American comedic TV personality that would certainly not have been worth the effort to open it, when low and behold, I saw a book about the Rolling Stones.

And not just any book, it was the True Adventures of The Rolling Stones, by Stanley Booth. Original price, 595 Baht, but today marked on this discount table at 399 Baht, so I could walk away with it totally free, because it was the same price as the one that I wanted in the first place. Several hundred books on the table, and I'd found a good one. Probably the only good one! Amazing! Ross Dress For Less is like that, back in Los Angeles. You can find some nice shirts, very nice shirts, but you need to look through about a thousand shirts to find two good ones.

Mr. Booth's book is not the typical book about celebrities. He's a thinking man, and a pretty good writer. His conceit in the book is to write every sentence "as if it had been spoken by Philip Marlowe." The Raymond Chandler private detective. It is a little distracting to know that in advance, but at the same time, it kind of works. Besides, that kind of ennui suites the Rolling Stones. Maybe they are the Philip Marlowe of rock bands!

I'm a hundred pages in by this time and the book is great. Good info, well written, and fun. I'm underlining. I was a Rolling Stones fan from the get go, actually. I'd been loving the kind of American music that they covered since the late 1950s. Chuck Berry; New Orleans music; Bo Diddley! So I recognized them as brothers right away. I liked their attitude, too. Boy, I hated authority and conformity like the Jews hate Hitler (that's two Hitler mentions in one blog post!).

I'm sure that the Murakami will be great, too. I've read a half a dozen or eight of his mature novels, and it'll be interesting to see what he did with his first  two novels. If I were a Murakami reviewer on American Bandstand, I'd say, "well, I'll give it a 95%, because it's a great song, it's fun, it's an intellectual challenge, and you can dance to it." How many authors can you say that about? (Read the Wind Up Bird Chronicle to see what I'm talking about.)

So, a good day at the old fashioned book fair. Success!

What Happened?

Something happens to all of us, but exactly what happens usually remains a mystery.  Joseph Heller wrote a novel on the subject, “Something Happened.”  Famously, not much happens in the novel at all, until the end. 

Even if we achieve some understanding of what has happened to us, it usually remains impossible for us to explain it to others.  Few such enlightened individuals even attempt to speak of it.  This is a recurring theme in the novels of Haruki Murakami, notably in “The Wind Up Bird Chronicle.” 

There is the great “what happened?” and the small “what happened?”  The great question is: how did our particular combination of personality, temperament and experience make us the people that we turned out to be?  That’s a whopper, I get dizzy even to consider tackling it. 

The small questions relate to the life-altering situations that we encounter along the way.  Considering those things is somewhat less of a challenge, at least in the attempt. 

For example, I was married for forty-four years; technically I am still married, but the matter is before the court as we speak.  The first ten years were dodgy, and the success of the enterprise was often in doubt.  The next fifteen were generally very good, with two wonderful children, a good relationship and moderate prosperity.  After that it was all downhill relationship wise, with the slippery slope achieving victory in the end.

By what mechanism did this tragedy unfold?  It would be something of a comfort to know.  Several major problems appear immediately.  They are:

1.  The self-serving lie (the “Rashomon” issue);

2.  The avoidance issue; and

3.   Mere misapprehension.

Ignoring for now the full scope of the Rashomon problem, I may be selective in my analysis of the evidence.  I may prefer explanations that make me appear blameless. 

I could even embrace a version of events that is actually delusional.  Some cheerful fairy tale that eschews reality altogether and allows me to keep my pride and my peace of mind.  I would chose this one if the choice were mine, but it is denied me by the little clarity that I have achieved in life.

An even greater problem for me is that of avoidance.  I don’t really want to think about it too much.  Even if I did wish to consider it, I wouldn’t want to share the result in writing.  It is better for some things to remain mysterious, even to ourselves. 

I may have been encouraged in this attitude by my ten years in Thailand.  Thais have wonderfully flexible minds, they are fully capable of knowing something and not knowing it at the same time.  They can also stop a thought process short of its inevitable conclusion, in order to spare themselves actual knowledge.  These are useful skills. 

The Big Picture

These mysteries play themselves out on the larger stage too.  Should it be any easier to understand what is happening to a country, or a society?  All of these effects are manifest in America these days.  Certainly things are happening, on both the great and small scales described above.  And in response we see the self-delusion, the knowing and not knowing, and the same misapprehension that we see in our own lives, played out on a national scale. 

“Something is happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”  (Apologies to Bob Dylan.)

I’ll spare you a reading of the charges, but a lot has happened to America in the last fifty years, and little of it could by any stretch of the imagination be labeled “progress.”  America is not well these days.  The economy is in taters; politics has become a shouting match between two right-wing cliques who share a belief in the supremacy of cost-benefit analysis; the social contract has been breached; and prospects for the future are dimmer than they’ve been since about 1805. 

(Historical footnote: in 1805, America had a deeply divided and poverty stricken government, a struggling economy and no armed forces to speak of, a tiny, ill-equipped army and a small navy confined almost entirely to rivers and lakes.  Things have gotten better since then, in fits and starts.)

People are certainly anxious, but the leap to understanding the reasons for their anxiety, and the leap to an appropriate fear for the future, are as obscure on the national level as they are on the personal level.

Most people much prefer to believe the old myths.  America is the fountainhead of democracy in the world; America is somehow exceptional, somehow more beloved of God than other countries; America is the best country to live in; America has the best health care system in the world; there’s no freedom in the world like American freedom.  It’s all about the freedom!  Not so much, if you’ve been paying attention.

The typical attitude is to focus on the distractions posed by the media and politicians.  The dog-and-pony show that takes up so much of people’s precious Internet time.  Certain demonized groups, or even some ideas, are imagined to be destroying America, whether it be immigrants; homosexuals; socialism; college professors; activist (Liberal) judges; unions (especially public employees’ unions); abortion; gun rights; minorities; or the Federal Government itself.  If only we could restore America!  Take back our country!  Constitutional values!  Family values! 

Delusional beliefs are rampant.  Some believe that there is a Homosexual Agenda and "they" want to take over the country. Others are certain that President Obama and his “Wookie” wife want to a) take our guns; b) declare martial law and remain in the White House forever; c) use Homeland Security to stage a coup and put us all in FEMA camps; d) make slaves of all the white folks; etc.  If we could only eliminate corporate taxes and Federal regulations, the free market could raise us up to new heights of prosperity.  (Guess whose idea that last one is.) 

Oh yeah, something is happening in America, and the psychological situation mirrors the one that we face as individuals.  It’s all very difficult and uncomfortable, so we misread the signs, we force the analysis that we most desire, and all the while we cannot really grasp, or do not wish to grasp, the mystery of it all.  So we substitute talking points for evidence and seek simple solutions.  Please God, anything would be preferable to weighing the easily discoverable evidence and facing the obvious problems head on.  “Sleep!” most people say, “please, God, grant us the blessing of sleep!” 

Well, friends and neighbors, that’s not going to work.  We’re going to have to do better than that.