Tank Tracks to Rangoon Read Free

genius and natural aptitude for war. In fact, those most deeply concerned with these events saw them from a rather different viewpoint, and knew that their defeat was the result of overwhelming naval and air superiority at the point of contact, and to a refusal of the enemy to stick to rigid tactical concepts of mechanized war which had their roots firmly implanted in a European landscape; to which, of course must be added the years of political ineptitude which had ensured that the Great Powers’ Far Eastern possessions could never be adequately defended with the forces made available for the task.
    So, in a little over twenty-five years, the world had given threeimages to the Japanese soldier; first, the plucky little Jap, then the sadistic moron who took his pleasure in torture and mutilation, and finally, the military superman, the little man with the long bayonet against whom none could stand.
    There are thousands of men alive today who will never have any other feeling for the Japanese than pure hatred, but there are very few of them who will deny that the Japanese soldier was the bravest man he ever met. In the attack he would come on and on over the bodies of his comrades until he was himself killed, and then he would expect more like him to run over his body in turn. In defence he had to be exterminated before the position was taken.
    The word fanatical is most often used to describe this approach to war, but it is not quite the right word. Certainly he believed in his Emperor, his Country and his Cause, and his belief was unshakable, but he was no more immune to fear than any soldier of any other army, whereas the fanatic is anaesthetized by the very power of whatever drives him. What, then, kept him running forward in the hopeless attack, and why did he stay in his bunker knowing that he would be burned alive?
    The answers lie in a complex amalgam of iron discipline, national tradition, religion and philosophy, all of which were utterly alien to Western thought. The discipline of the Imperial Japanese Army could not have been borne by any other army in the world, and the intention of that discipline was to reduce the individual to an automaton who would obey his orders absolutely and to the letter. It was a discipline in which physical violence featured prominently, and this violence could be administered for the most minor infringement and on the spot. Sometimes, mere hard repeated slapping across the face would suffice, but fists, boots, clubs and the flats of the officers’ swords were quite commonplace instruments for emphasizing a point of view. Such punishments could be administered by anyone to another soldier provided he was junior in rank, but even these faded into triviality in comparison with the expert treatment handed out by the military police to those who crossed their path.
    However, discipline alone did not make the Japanese soldier the formidable opponent he was. His tremendous devotion to duty came from deep within himself, and had been implanted there since boyhood. During her long centuries of isolation, Japan’s history had been one long brawl between war-lords, andin this troubled story the dominant figure in Japanese life was the
Samurai
, the professional fighting caste which lived by a code known as
bushido
, a concept similar to Chivalry in that the primary virtues were bravery, loyalty, benevolence, good manners, and the unimportance of the individual in relation to the cause. The code demanded that failure in any martial undertaking could have but one ending, and that was death, either in combat or through the revolting ritualistic suicide known as
hara kiri
, in which the principal, after due spiritual preparation, slashed open his own belly with a horizontal stroke, ending with an upward slice. Either form of death was considered honourable and carried much face, and in the latter case the victim was even permitted to shorten his agony by blowing his own brains out. To fall alive