Tetsuko Making Balloon Bomb Essay

The effects of militaristic totalitarian rule strongly permeated World War II-era Japan, spanning all aspects of society, both civilian and military. Careful consideration of the first-hand accounts “Making Balloon Bombs” by Tanaka Tetsuko and “Playing at War” by Satō Hideo reveals the true extent of the total indoctrination and militarization of the education system that took place and the effects those practices had on the children of that era.
In her statement, Tanaka Tetsuko describes her experience making paper for the so-called “balloon bombs” for the military as a student. She begins her narrative by describing her samurai heritage, saying that “My grandmother used to tell me, ‘You must behave like the daughter of a warrior family’”
(188). She continues, “Father was a schoolteacher, one of those teaching militarism, and I received a militaristic education” (188), and in doing so directly relates her familial history to the militaristic attitude of wartime Japan. As she was taught from a young age, militarism was not just an element of war, but rather a fundamental element of being Japanese.
This sense of militarism fully enveloped her worldview, as she describes her reaction to hearing of Japan’s declaration of war with America not as one of fear, but rather that it was “Amazing [that it was with] such a large country” (188).
Even as she is asked to perform physical labor, she “never thought of it as hardship…[and] nobody complained about it…[because] the whole Japanese race was fighting a war” (188). This sense of loyalty to one’s race and to the Emperor, loyalty at the expense of one’s own self, would form the fundamental tenets underlying her perspective on the war. She proceeds to describe her and her classmate’s pleas to be transferred to the Kokura military arsenal, to the extent of cutting their fingers and writing in blood (189), pleas that are ultimately successful. As a sixteen-year old, she clearly understood the concept of death, going so far as to leave her last will and testament pressed in a book before departing for the arsenal. Surprisingly, she does not describe this moment as tragic or horrifying, but rather that they were in “high spirits”
(190).
The actual conditions at the arsenal would be horrid, and she complains of filthy bathrooms and constant hunger.
Yet, as the war ended, her immediate reaction she would have towards these lost years was one of an “overwhelm[ing]…sense of emptiness,” that “all that effort…had been in vain” (192); her sadness arose not out of the loss of her childhood per se, but that she was unable to contribute enough to save her country from defeat.
Tanaka’s testimony brings to light just how all-encompassing and convincing the militaristic spirit was for children of that era. Though she looks back now with “embarrassment….at how [she]’d been” (192), it is clear that, within the fog of wartime Japan, she felt a militaristic way of life was natural and even obvious given her heritage.
The younger perspective shown in Satō Hideo’s “Playing at War” gives further insight into the effects of war on the children of this era. While Tanaka had just entered high school when the war began (188), Satō was a second-grader (229). Despite their age difference, Satō received an equally militaristic education, in one instance recalling his principal proclaiming, “full of exhilaration that…Japan…had entered a great war…at last!”
(229).
As he recollects his elementary school life, some parts seem surprisingly normal, like his run-ins with bullies, which he describes in depth. Yet others are tinged with militarism, from the relatively innocent tactic of treating students with rubber balls after a military visit (233), to the shocking description of him and his classmates dodging American planes strafing toward them (237). The nonchalant juxtaposition of the strikingly militaristic and the mundane problems of student life exhibits just how normalized militarism became for these children. In Satō’s words, “children can easily adjust to war. It’s just an extension of naughty games they all play anyway” (238).
Like Tanaka, Satō’s worldview was centered around the exaltation of the Emperor. Though he describes the army as “dirty, full of fleas, [with loose discipline]” (238), “the Emperor remained special. [His] image…never flickered” (238). This reverence did not simply exist on a spiritual level, but on a regulatory one as well, in the form of prohibitions on disrespecting the Emperor’s image (239). His reaction to “picture[s] of the Emperor riding his white horse” seem almost automatic, like an ingrained reflex rather than one made out of rational thought.
While Tanaka ends her story with a sense of regret and sorrow toward her actions during the war, Satō instead concludes with an air of almost indifference: “When the war ended, we just turned around almost without even noticing it. Overnight. I experienced no real inner conflict” (239). His claim that “war is fun” (239) seems scandalous at face value, yet given the context of militaristic indoctrination, it is not so surprising. Children adapt to what they are exposed to and to what they are taught; to play and to follow orders from authority is natural. When the war is framed within the context of education, within the context of school and everyday life, it is rapidly normalized and ingrained within the consciousness of the students. As Satō states, he “was born in war” (239), born a casualty of the militaristic complex that manipulated the school system and the children of the era for its own means.
Both Tanaka and Satō survived the war as children, victims of a system that exploited fundamental aspects of Japanese culture for militaristic gain. Though they look back with drastically different perspectives, their collective accounts reveal the overwhelming militaristic presence that permeated nearly every aspect of their education and childhood.