Recording and Interpreting the World War II Suicide Squadron Legacy in Japan: Tadamasa Itatsu and the Chiran Peace Museum

• In Event: Reflecting and Shaping: traditional and new techniques in oral history to collect and share the military experience

Abstract

Tadamasa Itatsu (1925-2015) was an accidental survivor of a World War II suicide squadron (tokko-tai) that trained at Chiran base in Kagoshima, Japan, in 1945. In his post-war life, he suffered survivor’s guilt while working as a civil servant in Nagoya. After taking an early retirement in 1979, he devoted himself to collecting and preserving Chiran pilots’ legacies, which led to the creation of the Chiran Peace Museum in 1984. Itatsu became the first president of the museum and, at the same time, an active speaker travelling throughout Japan to recount the history of Chiran pilots. He remained active until close to his death at age 90.

Chiran started as an airfield in December 1941 at the southern tip of Kyushu Island to train army pilots. But, in the spring of 1945, as Okinawa became a battle ground, Chiran was chosen as a secret base for the tokko-tai squadrons. Because of its proximity to Okinawa, Chiran became the main airfield for tokko death flight departures; it accounted for almost half of all tokko deaths. Long repressed from public memory, Chiran’s history became known as a result of Itatsu’s effort and the creation of the Chiran Peace Museum, followed by oral history interviews, movies, TV documentary films and internet sites.

The paper will examine Itatsu’s contributions to the preservation of tokko history and the creation of the Chiran Peace Museum, while evaluating his oral history narratives, his messages, and how society is responding to Chiran. The tokko-tai experience and history are now used in two different ways: One is to honor the tokko pilots and to show the cruelty of war and the importance of peace, whereas the other is to glorify those pilots as heroes and kindle patriotism among younger generations of Japanese who have never experienced war.

Author

• Eriko Yamamoto, Aichi Mizuho College