One of the most necessary requirements leading to victory in warfare is a knowledge of the potentialities of the enemy: his arms, his methods, and his leaders. Looking into the Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima, we can uncover the Substance of which the Japanese naval leader is made, and something of his methods.
It was upon the dissolution of the feudal System in Japan in 1867, the overthrow of its enforcement body, the Shogunate, and the commencement of the Meiji era that Japan entered upon a period of intensive westernization. One of the first fruits of this era was to conscript an army and navy, and to establish military and naval academies, inaugurating the policy of drawing the officers from the Population rather than from the ancient Samurai caste.
The Naval Academy at first was located at Tokyo, but in 1888 was moved to the island of Etajima. Like most state institutions set up during that period, Etajima was modeled on a western pattern, and it was natural to look to the British for advice. The Japanese requested, and got, a naval mission of 34 British officers who organized and directed the Academy for several years.
Etajima’s location is remote from Tokyo and the other large spheres of western influence in Japan. It lies on the Inland Sea, just across the Hiroshima Bay from Kure, where the great naval base is located.
The island on which the Academy is located is roughly Y-shaped, with the college situated at the base of the fork. It is dominated by the massive Furutaka mountain. Outside the Academy grounds, rice fields and cherry tree groves make up a typical Japanese landscape.
The layout and general appearance of the Academy itself does not appear to differ widely from what one might expect at any occidental military or naval academy. It has the usual brick buildings, drill field, and stadium. Also, typically western, it has a 400-meter running track, with a 200-meter straightaway.
Inside the dormitories the Spartan simplicity is impressively Japanese. The cadets sleep in long rooms resembling hospital wards. Each cadet has a metal cot, and a wooden sea chest in which he keeps all his belongings.
We of democratic countries have always prided ourselves on the equality with which we all stand when competing for any sort of job or career, especially in the government, and we have come to expect that under a dictatorship, such equality cannot exist. Yet in Japan, a totalitarian state, the examinations for Etajima are completely public, and any Japanese male citizen between the ages of 16 and 19 may attend. This is actually the purest kind of equality of opportunity, and the successful candidates are truly a representative cross section of the Japanese people. Following the written examination is a very rigid physical examination. This part of the selection is necessarily discriminating because only the most fit can hope to endure the four-year athletic program at Etajima.
The incoming cadets are assigned to groups known as “buntai.” There are ordinarily about 32 students in each buntai, 8 from each class. The buntai is the basic unit for all intramural athletics, dormitory assignments, and evening study periods. There is an officer in charge of each, usually a lieutenant commander, and also a head cadet who does the actual work of administering the buntai in its activities.
Lieutenant Flynn majored in English at Ohio University and was awarded his A.B. in 1939. Before entering the Naval Reserve he was with the R.C.A. Manufacturing Co. This article is the result of extensive research on the subject of the Japanese Naval Academy.
The curriculum at Etajima is, for most subjects, approximately what one would expect to find at a naval academy, with the exception that the subject of marine engineering is conspicuously absent. The reason is that in the Japanese Navy, the engineer is a member of a separate corps, and is educated at a separate naval academy. There is a third naval academy preparing cadets to be officers in the supply corps.
I think it might be said that the study of foreign languages is given a little more weight at Etajima than at the naval academies of other countries. English is given great prominence. Prior to 1940, it was required that all cadets study English for four years, and either French or German for two. Since that time, however, and at the present time, all first year cadets study English. For the following three years, 60 per cent of the class study English alone while the rest of the class is divided equally among French, Russian, German, and Chinese.
In addition to their naval training, the cadets also undergo some military training. The necessity for this arises out of the fact that there is no Marine Corps as a separate unit of the fighting forces, and therefore a Japanese naval officer must also be capable of performing the duties of an officer in the marines.
An idea of the program may be gathered from studying the daily schedule which the cadets follow:
5:30 a.m.—Reveille. After only the briefest period to wash and dress, the cadets march to the parade ground for morning calisthenics. Back they go then to the dormitories to make the beds and wash up, and then they are off again for the morning hour of exercise. This is usually Judo or Kendo. In the winter, however, this hour is spent rowing the cutters around the bay.
7:00—Breakfast
8:10-12:00—Classes
12: 10 p.m.—Lunch
1:10-2:00—Classes
2:10-3:20—Free period. This hour is the only time during the day when the cadet can do what he likes, and when he is not engaged in some sort of supervised activity. The college catalog states that this hour is to give the cadet a chance to take up work in which he may be interested: sports, handicraft, reading, gardening, etc. The idea is to develop the cadet’s power of decision. Some of the more energetic ones have been seen outside playing tennis or the like, but the majority, if they do pick up a book, generally drop right off to sleep.There has never been a case witnessed of anybody gardening!
3:30-4:30—General exercise period. This is the hour when the cadets get their most intensive athletic training in one of the several major Japanese sports.
5:30—Supper
6:30-9:00—Evening study period. The cadets assemble by buntai in their various study rooms for supervised study. The head cadet makes sure they do not fall asleep or daydream. There is a 15-minute break at 8:00 o’clock.
9:30—Lights out.
On Saturdays, the routine is slightly different. Classes finish at noon, and in the afternoon there is some form of group athletics lasting most of the afternoon, followed by a clean-up period, in which all the cadets roll up their trousers and “swab down” all buildings on the campus. Saturday evening is spent at study as usual.
The cadets, therefore, are confined within the walls of the academy for six days out of the week, with only one free hour of each day. Sunday then, though still rather demanding from our point of view, is their day of recreation. During the Sunday morning exercise period, they have their only freedom of choice of athletics. Generally they pick one of the western style games such as rugger, soccer, tennis, or baseball. From 9:30 A.M. till 5:30 p.m. they are free. This is the only time during the week that they are allowed to go outside the grounds. Each buntai has its own little club over in the village, and most of the cadets go there on Sundays where they can sleep, eat candy, play ping- pong, or listen to music—in other words, all the things they are not permitted to do inside the grounds. Sunday evening is spent studying as usual.
One cannot overemphasize the importance of the physical training program in the curriculum at Etajima. At least half of the stress at the Academy is laid on physical fitness. The cadets spend 2¼ hours every day at hard exercise—each period putting them to another test, and each day finding them stronger, or bringing them nearer to exhaustion and expulsion. It is in effect a weeding out process, and perfectly in step with a law which we regard as primitive but which the Japanese regard as practical—“Only the strong may survive.”
The new cadet, upon entering, is given his choice of specializing in either Judo or Kendo during his stay at Etajima. Whichever he picks, he practices every day for the entire four years. There are, of course, many other forms of athletics in which they also frequently engage.
Judo, as it is popularly known, is the tricky art of self-defense resembling wrestling, which may be loosely translated as meaning to conquer by yielding.” This is actually what is done. It is the art of exploiting the weight and strength of one’s opponent in order to overcome him. It is very good exercise and produces very good all-round physical development, and in addition agility and quickness of eye. The main value of Judo, however, is its character building influence. Emphasis is placed on form rather than the outcome of the contest.
Kendo appears to the western eye to be somewhat like saber fighting. It is a modern version of the swordplay of the old Japanese warrior. To the Japanese it has a great deal more significance than fencing has to us; for it must be remembered that while gunpowder has been used predominantly in European wars for hundreds of years, the long sword was the foremost weapon in Japan until approximately 1860.
In Kendo, the “sword,” a two-handed instrument like its ancestor, is a bamboo stick about 4 feet long. The contestants wear protective equipment about the face and body. Upon the signal, they rush upon each other striking out furiously with their sticks. The object is to strike the opponent a clean blow on one of five places: the top of the head, the throat, the right or left sides, the right arm. It is supposed that in actual combat, a blow in one of these places would prove fatal. One does not aim at wounding, but tries to kill the adversary with one blow.
Kendo is not as good a physical build-up as Judo, but it has a deep inspirational influence on the cadets. The Kendo drills take them back to the world of the ancient Japanese knighthood, and they leave the field aglow with patriotism and the yearning to go out and die for the Emperor.
The most strenuous of their athletics is the summer swimming program. Many cadets, when they first report to Etajima, do not know how to swim, but with the completion of the first summer, even they are experts. Swimming for sport begins with the beginning of the warm weather season, but the real swimming training takes place in the month of July. During the entire month, the cadets are in the water for three hours every afternoon. In the last week, the whole student body migrates to Miyajima Island to a swimming camp. Miyajima Island lies between Etajima arid the other side of Hiroshima Bay, a distance of about 10 miles from Etajima. Tents are set up on the beach, and for the whole week, the cadets live in their swimming attire. The evenings are spent around the camp fire singing college songs.
The grand finale of the week at the swimming camp is the mass swim by the entire student body back to Etajima, 10 miles away. Here too, with typical Japanese precision, they swim by buntai, in well-formed lines, and at approximately equal intervals. They are followed by a galaxy of small boats from which onlookers shout encouragement to them, throw them food, and pick up those who weaken. It is true that they do not all make it, but those who fail have to be lifted bodily from the water after becoming completely and utterly exhausted. The swimmers enter the water about 7:00 a.m. and climb out at Etajima, blue with cold, and spotted from jellyfish stings at about 8:00 p.M. after 13 hours in the water.
This swim puts a terrific physical strain on the cadets. Of the 10 per cent of each class which have to withdraw from the Academy for ill health, it is this swim which accounts for the greater number.
Of the western sports, track is the one held in highest regard by the Japanese policy makers. In track, too, the accent is on self' discipline, and the Japanese see to it that it bears fruit. The field events in particular are exercises in form.
In a war involving only countries of our own occidental civilization, I do not believe that we would ordinarily inquire very deeply into the religious background of an enemy officer in weighing his military potentialities. The great difference between our own religion and that of the Japanese, with its well-known national character, however, at least gives us cause to consider this matter.
In order to understand what religion means to the Japanese naval cadet, we must first know something of what it means to the Japanese people. Statistically, the two dominant forms of religion in Japan are Buddhism and Shintoism. Christianity has a following of only about one-half of 1 per cent. The Japanese version of Buddhism teaches only simplicity of life, discipline of mind and body, and concentration on thought. Shinto is a polytheism even more complicated than that of ancient Rome. The average Japanese are not devout followers of either religion. From our own point of view, they appear to be extremely broadminded on the subject. They adhere to no hard and fast moral code, nor do they regularly perform the rites of any one sect, but all Japanese believe fervently in the Emperor.
Shinto is closely connected with Japan’s national existence. It explains creation, and it teaches that the living Emperor of Japan, a direct descendant of Amaterasu, the sun goddess, is the first god of the universe. Shinto makes no appeal to reason or emotion. It has no moral code. While we have our familiar Ten Commandments, Shinto effectively commands only,
“Thou shalt worship thy Emperor.”
“Thou shalt not do anything at which thou allowest thyself to be caught.”
At Etajima, there are no religious ceremonies, as we know them. There is a small Shinto shrine, but it was built as late as 1928. Religion to the cadet means simply loyalty to the Emperor, and loyalty to his family. However, it is this loyalty to the Emperor which forms the spiritual life of the college. The Japanese naval cadet is taught to believe that his sole purpose in life is to enhance the glory of the Imperial House his noblest end is death in battle for his Emperor. In the negative sense, there is no religious scruple which forbids immorality.
Thus it is the Japanese religion, which, more than any other factor, inspires the fighting man to die rather than surrender, and which permits him to be brutal and fanatical in his treatment of the conquered. I believe if the influence of their religion were removed, the Japanese would neither be our enemies, nor would they be very potent.
Leadership at Etajima is taught, one might say, through the buntai system. Discipline comes natural to the Japanese naval cadet. Foreign observers have always commented favorably on the discipline existing in the Japanese Navy. This is no doubt a product of the practices born during the centuries of feudalism and carried on till the present day. Discipline is acquired long before the students enter the Academy, and therefore the military way of life comes much easier.
The main guide for the conduct of the Japanese warriors, both army and navy, is the document known as the Imperial Rescript. This document is familiar to every member of Japan’s fighting forces. It is carried on his person wherever he goes. It is read at all parades and national ceremonies. It is the Japanese fighting man’s bible. It is brief, but it is a masterpeice of prescribed rules for military conduct. The loophole in it, though, is that it is not entirely specific, and any crime may be committed in its name on the excuse of “loyalty.”
As would be expected, everything at Etajima is done with utmost military precision. The sound of the bugle rules the cadets’ day from dawn till dark. They march to class, march to games, and even march from locker rooms to athletic fields.
There is a great deal of saluting. Officers playing tennis have been seen to stop and salute a passing admiral although he too was in athletic uniform.
The significant thing at Etajima, however, is not so much the external indications of discipline as the spirit of discipline which permeates the academy and shows itself in the cadets. The cadets have a pretty rugged time of it during these four years. They are virtually confined for the entire time. They undergo an enormous amount of physical exercise and academic study. They are not permitted to drink, smoke, or eat candy while at the academy, and “dating” as a custom does not exist in Japan. Yet despite these rigid regulations, violations are almost non-occurrent. Punishment practically does not exist, and insubordination, even within the buntai ranks, just does not occur. These cadets are almost mechanically conscientious in the way they do things. For example, during the 15-minute breathing spell in the middle of the evening study period, when one would normally expect the cadets to relax, walk around, or engage in conversation, they often go out on the parade ground and practice shouting their commands.
In drawing a picture of the graduating cadet, it is appropriate to refer again to the Imperial Rescript. From it we may read the qualities which he has tried to cultivate, and his rules of conduct.
- Loyalty to sovereign and to country is the chief duty of the soldier.
- Soldiers must be courteous in their demeanor.
- Courage is essential to soldiers.
- Soldiers must be faithful and conscientious.
- Soldiers must be simple and frugal in their habits.
The cadet, upon graduation, is a magnificent physical specimen. He has undergone a course in physical training which for strenuousness is second to none. He possesses the capacity for enduring almost any hardship without cracking.
It is not unwise to look upon these facts. We are faced, in the Pacific, by an entirely competent enemy. He is rugged, well trained, and extremely conscientious. In addition, he is sustained by a burning devotion to his Emperor that it is difficult for us to conceive.