TOKYO — “Tomorrow a liberal will leave this world. He may look lonely from behind, but his heart is filled with deep contentment.”

This was part of a letter from Ryoji Uehara, a young kamikaze pilot who perished as part of Japan’s “tokko” suicide attack forces, before leaving the Imperial Army base in Chiran, Kagoshima Prefecture, on May 11, 1945. He headed for Okinawa, where the American military had advanced.

Uehara was drafted into the military in 1943 when he was a student at Keio University. His writings, published after World War II in the book “Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices of the Sea)”, which compiles letters, diaries and poems written by kamikaze pilots, have moved many readers to this day.

But there’s still a lot unknown about him — like how he grew up before he died at age 22 and the struggles he faced coming to terms with his death.

Although he wrote in his letter that he was filled with satisfaction, Uehara had sent a message to his family that was forbidden in Imperial Japan at the time: “We will lose this war.” He also boldly criticized the unreasonable orders that went against his belief in liberalism, against the military norm of “absolute obedience to superiors”.

The Imperial Japanese Navy began a “strategy” in the Philippine campaign in which aircraft loaded with bombs rammed into enemy ships, along with the crew aboard. This “special attack” – “tokko”, better known globally as kamikaze attacks – was also adopted by the Imperial Army. Many young men lost their lives through this so-called strategy, where the odds of survival were zero.

Uehara was among them. The war dead were enshrined by the state as “heroic spirits” at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

But Uehara had told his sister, “Even if I die, I will not go to Yasukuni. I will go to heaven.”

Kamikaze pilots are sometimes seen as heroes who sacrificed themselves for their country and family. But the testimony of Uehara’s family paints the picture of an ordinary young man who struggled with love and enjoyed peaceful days with his family.

(Japanese original by Toshio Kurihara, Cultural News Department)

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The Japanese version of this article was originally published on October 21, 2023, the year marking the 80th anniversary of the student mobilization in which young men at universities across Japan were drafted into military service.