Colonel Tsuji of Malaya (part 7)

Wrote another report on likelihood of WWIII, a manual on cold- weather operations, a basic training manual, a manual on "strategic uses of topography," and lectured on WWIII to Defense Dept officers. Spent six months translating Japanese manual of 1924 about fighting Soviet Union in Siberia.

"As long as the Chinese Nationalists felt that a man was useful to them, they detained and used him." Notes that a Major Kanda sent home toward end of 1946 because he was sick. A visitor from Manchuria told him that 100,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians were held there.

Refers to his outfit as Third Research Group, aka The Bamboo Shelter. It was, he says, "a miserable intelligence unit." They call him Mr Tsuji. Greatly upset when he missed dinner and went off on his own to eat. He and Lt Gen Tsuchida only Japanese officers, but joined in May 1947 by another general and two colonels hired from Japan. In July 1947 asked to be returned to Japan; refused on the grounds that the British were still looking for him. "Our treatment was equivalent to detention."

Received a letter from his son, followed by a later one from his wife, detailing their hardships during the war and now in defeat.

War crimes trials going on in Nanjing. Three generals and several lesser officers executed for their part in the 1937 Rape of Nanjing. A general he identifies as Isoya (and Bergamini as Isagai Rensuke), who'd mentored Lt Tsuji 20 years before, c/o 7th Infantry Regt 9th Division serving a life sentence for the same crime. Tsuji visited him, emaciated and in dirty quilted garments of a Chinese soldier, in prison, and took credit for having him transferred to better quarters in Shanghai.

In Oct 1947 began work translating a multi-volume Japanese manual on Soviet war potential. Submitted resignation Feb 1948 and in April granted two months' leave. May 15 bade goodbye to his orderly, who of course wept bitter tears, and to Col Okawa and his men and took the train to Shanghai. Most Japanese now gone home, except for technicians and convicted war criminals, which in Shanghai included Gen Okamura (B. says first name Yasuji) former commander of Jap Exped Forces in China, sick with TB. May 16 board ship w/ 150 Jap civilians and 50-60 war crimes suspects being returned to Japan for trial. Same pier at which he'd landed 16 years earlier. Stopped in Taiwan, where another 300 Japs boarded: war crimes suspects, professors, detained technicians, merchants, and artisans, with most of the voluntary repatriates alarmed by the Feb massacre of Taiwanese and Japanese by the Nationalist Chinese. Tsuji recognized several of the military men, including Gen Fukuyama, a classmate at the Army University, and Kodoya Hiroshi whom he'd known in at Supreme Hq in Nanjing; he played "go' with both men, but they did not recognize him.

Landed at Sasebo May 26, 1948. He kissed the earth: "Though the country was defeated, the hills and the streams were still left, together with the Emperor."

Elected to Diet 1952 "and twice thereafter"; wrote numerous books & articles. In UNDERGROUND ESCAPE, published in 1952, he ranked the fighting qualities of all the armies he had opposed. The Japanese of course were highest, with one Japanese soldier the equivalent of 10 Chinese--the army he rated second, given equivalance in equipment and training. Following in order were 3) Russians, 4) Ghurkas in British service, 5) Americans, 6) Australians, 7) Indians in British service, 8) British, 9) Filipinos, 10) Burmese, 11) Thai, 12) Vietnamese, and 13) French.

Even after he returned to public life in Japan, writing several books about the war, "he still lived mysteriously, travelling on secret missions, and in April, 1961, he went to Vietnam," as a British military historian told the story in 1968. "Since this date he has not reappeared but information reaching the author from Japan indicates that he is back in uniform and serving as an Operations Staff officer under Vo Nguyen Giap. When one considers the ruthless and brilliance of the North Vietnamese operations, the hand of Masanobu Tsuji can be seen clearly."

[I posed the question of Japanese advisors to the Vietnamese to a Vietnamese professor at Harvard. She was very skeptical, given the hatreds left over from the Japanese occupation.]

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