Eighty years ago, Japanese writers, journalists, and photographers, under the guise of "military service," constructed a false "narrative of warmth" to cover up the atrocities and massacres committed by the Japanese army during its invasion of China. After the war, they faced no form of trial. This "Pen Butai" subsequently infiltrated Japan's cultural circles and, through certain right-wing forces, continued to spread militaristic ideology, perpetuating their propaganda control.
On July 22, 2009, 95-year-old Kashiwahara of Nara, Japan, passed away. A few months before his death, he specifically instructed his family to make public the seven private photo albums he had preserved. As a result, the world gained access to nearly 800 photographic images from the period of Japan's invasion of China. During the war of aggression against China, Japan implemented a "total mobilization of the cultural sphere" across the entire nation. The Army Information Department organized a group of war correspondents, photographers, writers, and even painters to form a "Pen Butai" that followed the Japanese army into China, engaged in propaganda aimed at beautifying the invasion.
Kashiwahara was one of them.
On the title pages of the seven albums published on the website of Japan's Toyo Bunko Media Repository, Kashiwahara wrote in Japanese: "It's a pity to throw them away. I've kept them cherished at the bottom of a chest since 1943—15 years. Sometimes I recall life on the front lines and in the Army Information Department. I was very fortunate to experience the hardships of the front line. Those five years have always been hidden in my heart. The life and scenery of Hankou can never be forgotten for life. Even now, 15 years later, I still cannot forget them. While grateful for our survival, I also offer deep mourning for the souls of the deceased."
In these seven albums, the majority of Kashiwahara's photographs depict the daily life and training scenes of the Japanese invading forces in China. In these photos, the Japanese soldiers mostly appear "smiling and amiable," and the occupied towns also seem "orderly" and "peaceful and prosperous." However, a small portion of the photos show the rubble and broken walls under the iron heel of the Japanese army. Even in a photo of a campus dance, the disgusted expressions of the female students are hard to conceal, let alone the scenes of Japanese soldiers swaggering on armored vehicles.
On page 39 of the second album, details from two photos at the top. One vaguely shows a person dressed in Chinese clothing, their head covered with fabric, sitting or squatting on the ground, seemingly lifting their clothes. The other photo shows several Chinese people gathered in front of a building suspected to be a private residence, with a woman looking sideways at a man beside her. Puzzlingly, the lower halves of these two photos and the other image content on the page are missing, appearing pitch black, suggesting data loss or deletion.
Japanese neighbor
The "Army Information Department" mentioned by Kashiwahara on the album's title page was a formal military propaganda and management organization within the Japanese army system during World War II, specifically responsible for news censorship, directing, or coordinating the work of the accompanying "Pen Butai" members. Although the "Pen Butai" had no official designation, its personnel, funding, and tasks were directly controlled by the military.
"During the War of Resistance, a member of the Japanese army's 'Pen Butai' lived upstairs in our building. They were very, very bad!" Wuhan citizen He Bing told Wen Wei Po during an interview. He said that when he was a child, his aunt often shared her childhood memories related to the Japanese army. "They often forced my grandfather to kneel over minor matters." He said that once, when his young aunt pushed a Japanese child during an argument, his grandfather was hung up and beaten all night.
After watching the film Dead To Rights, He said, "The Japanese man upstairs also frequently used a camera to film the streets and alleys of Wuhan. He was very similar to the Japanese army photographer Ito in the movie." He said that in 1938, the three towns of Wuhan fell under Japanese control. The "Pen Butai" that entered with the Japanese army occupied the best Western-style buildings in Dingxinli, Hankou, while those members and their families lived in Bao'anli across the street.
At that time, the Japanese army's "Pen Butai" had a publication called "Osaka Mainichi Shimbun Extra." The newspaper published photos of Japanese soldiers giving candy to Chinese children. "They wrote about aggression as 'friendship' and portrayed plunder as 'construction.' But the elders in my family said that outside the lens of the Japanese army, what left the deepest impression were those wooden fences, barbed wire, and the Chinese people, often hanging alive or dead unknown from the utility poles on Jiqing Street outside our door."
"They fell silent"
He's aunt and family spent the War of Resistance in constant fear. In August 1945, people in Hankou heard the news of Japan's surrender from the radio, while the Japanese living in Wuhan were thrown into panic.
A few days later, Jiqing Street suddenly sprouted many street stalls. "They (the Japanese) were selling off the camphorwood chests, kimonos, and enamel basins they couldn't take with them. They even wanted to make one last bit of money! My aunt was less than ten years old that year and joined the whole street in rushing over to overturn these stalls."
He said that as the enamel basins clattered into the gutters, those formerly well-dressed, domineering "Pen Butai" members were, for the first tim,e cowering in the corners, silent.
"Even now, I still cannot specifically determine who the Japanese man who once lived upstairs in my house was." He paused. "I don't know if he reflected on his actions in China during the rest of his life, but I hope he could recognize the wrongs of Japan's war of aggression against China."
Faithful reporting brings trouble
The renowned Japanese writer Ishikawa Tatsuzo, who won Japan's first Akutagawa Prize in 1935 for his novella Sōbō and was even expected to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, arrived in Nanjing in January 1938 as a "special correspondent" for the magazine Chūō Kōron. The bloodshed of the great massacre had not yet dissipated, and he interviewed Japanese soldiers still immersed in the excitement of war and slaughter.
Returning to Japan from his "campaign with the pen," wrote Ikite iru Heitai (means "Soldiers Alive") based on his observations and ample material. The work described the real scenes on the battlefield and revealed the distortion of humanity within the Japanese invading forces. On February 17, 1938, the editorial department of Chūō Kōron, after deleting the final two chapters of the novel and obscuring sensitive parts, printed it in the March issue. The very next day, it was banned from sale for "containing anti-military elements and not conforming to the current situation."
The chief editor of Chūō Kōron was suspended, and Ishikawa himself was investigated. A Japanese scholar evaluated that Ishikawa's writing was not intended to encourage anti-war or war-weariness but rather to rebuild national consciousness to support the war after understanding the true situation. Japanese critic Nakano Yoshio also believed that Ishikawa did not have the intention to deliberately expose the cruelty of the Japanese army. However, in August, Ishikawa was indicted and ultimately sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for three years, in an incident that shocked the Japanese literary world at the time, known as the pen trouble incident.
After being sentenced, Ishikawa decided to "atone for his crimes by meritorious service." He went back to the front, this time as a special correspondent for Chūō Kōron with the army in the Wuhan campaign. Soon after, he published the long work Wuhan Operation. This time, he "redeemed himself by performing meritorious service," focusing on describing how "civilized" the Japanese army was and how well they treated prisoners, filling the entire work with affirmation and praise for Japan's war of aggression against China.
(Source: Wen Wei Po; English Editor: Darius)
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