Description
Object description
Japanese officer served with Headquarters, 27th Infantry Bde, Sixteenth Army, Imperial Japanese Army on Java, Dutch East Indies, 1/1944-8/1945; prisoner of war in Dutch East Indies, 1945-1947
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Japan, 1922-1942: family; education; reaction of parents to his joining Japanese Imperial Army, 10/1942. Recollections of period as supply officer with Headquarters, 27th Infantry Bde, Sixteenth Army, Japanese Imperial Army in Dutch East Indies, 1/1944-8/1945: sketch of army career prior to posting to Dutch East Indies, 10/1942-12/1943; food supplies available in Singapore, Malaya on route to Dutch East Indies, 12/1943; arrival on Java and assignment to 27th Infantry Bde as supply officer, 1/1944; reasons why posting was good; contacts with Indonesian civilians; attitude of his military superiors to contact with civilians; his work training members of the Java Homeland Defence Volunteer Army (Sukarela Tentara Pembela Tanah Air); question of quality of Javanese who enlisted in Japanese Imperial Army; attitude of Japanese Imperial Army to prospect of Indonesian Independence; problems of defence of Java after American capture of Saipan Island, Mariana Islands, 7/1944; changes in attitude of Japanese Imperial Army to Indonesian Independence, 9/1944.
REEL 2 Continues: preparations for prolonged defence of Java; sight of Allied prisoners of war in Java; attitude towards condition of prisoners of war; memories of Major-General Itsuo Mabuchi and his attitude to Indonesian Independence; Japanese attitude towards Indonesian civilians; his role obtaining supplies on Java; instances of revolts in Java, 1945; attitude towards personal security, 1944-1945; reaction to Japan's defeat, 8/1945; display of Chinese national flags in Bandoeng, Java, 15/8/1945.
REEL 3 Continues: suicides of some Japanese officers after surrender 15/8/1945; demand of Indonesian nationalists for Japanese Imperial Army equipment, 8/1945-10/1945; clash between Japanese Imperial Army and Indonesian nationalists at Bandoeng, Java, 10/10/1945; opinion of what Japanese Imperial Army should have done with it's weapons; arrival of British occupation forces, 17/10/1945; meeting with British officer parachuted into Bandoeng, Java, 17/9/1945. Aspects of period as prisoner of war in Java, Dutch East Indies, 1945-1947: behaviour of British occupation forces; British demands for supplies autumn 1945; circulation of Japanese occupation banknotes until 1946; British policy of repatriation of Japanese prisoners of war.
REEL 4 Continues: his own repatriation to Japan, 1947. Refletions on service with Japanese Imperial Army, 1942-1945: attitude to atomic bombing of Japan, 8/1945; question of Japan being forced into Second World War; question of sending Japanese Self Defence Force to Gulf War, 1990-1991; concern about anti-Japanese feeling in GB because of Japanese behaviour in Second World War; degree of casualties amongst Japanese in Java, Dutch East Indies, 15/8/1945.