Autorentext

Victoria Eaves-Young is a University Associate at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. Victoria was educated at The Australian National University in Canberra, and received her PhD in Japanese Literature from the University of Tasmania. Victoria has spent a number of years teaching in Japan. She has been the recipient of two Japan Study Grants at the National Library of Australia and has undertaken extensive research of captured Japanese Army documents at the Australian War Memorial. Her research focus has been the study of Japanese soldier diaries in the Pacific War.

Klappentext

Tamura Yoshikazu is destined to die on the alien shores of the New Guinea warzone. Devoid of family contact, perplexed by the unfamiliarity of his environment, deprived of even meagre amenities and faced with the spectre of debilitating illness and starvation, this solitary soldier commenced a diary in the early part of 1943. Employed in the hard labour of building airstrips, he is ground down by tedium, disheartened by the now dysfunctional military hierarchy, consumed by grief at the meaningless deaths of comrades, and stripped of any chance of being involved in an aspect of war that he considers heroic and meaningful. Profoundly unsettled by all that appears to be at odds with the kokutai ideology, Tamura employs strategies through the vehicle of his diary to enable him to remain committed to the pathway of death on behalf of the Emperor.

Inhalt

Prologue, Background, The Role of ATIS in Intelligence Gathering Methodology, Author's Note, Acknowledgements, 1. Setting the Scene, 2. An Extraordinary Diary of an Ordinary Soldier, 3. Priming the Country for War: Imperial Rescripts as Fortifiers of the Kokutai, 4. Out of Landscape, 5. The Landscape of Deprivation, 6. Creating an Idealized World, 7. Re-creating an Emotionally Accommodating Landscape, 8. Death as Man's True Calling, 9. Challenges to a Resolve to Die, 10. Reconciling Death, Epilogue, List of Images, Glossary of Terms, Abbreviations for sources held at the Australian War Memorial (Canberra, ACT), Bibliography, Index