Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

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Hama
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Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#1

Post by Hama » 06 Mar 2017, 18:24

Does anyone know if there have been any books published in English that include personal accounts or biographies of junior officers or ratings from the Imperial Navy, from any time between Meiji to 1945?

I've seen a few accounts and biographies of IJN aviators (from WW2), but not much from ships crews, at least not translated to English. I realise personal accounts, particularly from ratings, might not be easiest to come by (especially from earlier years), but I'm interested to see any snippet of what life was like for these guys on a personal level, or even a book that might describe daily life for ratings or junior officers during any period up to 1945?

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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#2

Post by ijnfleetadmiral » 07 Mar 2017, 06:57

One book from a junior officer's perspective is Requiem for Battleship Yamato by ENS Yoshida Mitsuru.
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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#3

Post by Wellgunde » 08 Mar 2017, 11:37

There are a couple of Japanese language books which cover everyday life in the IJN. I don't think there are any in English. A Tomb Called Iwo Jima by Dan King recounts the experiences of IJN/IJA survivors of Iwo Jima. First hand accounts of junior IJN personnel are rare in any language.
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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#4

Post by Eugen Pinak » 09 Mar 2017, 15:05

Hama wrote:Does anyone know if there have been any books published in English that include personal accounts or biographies of junior officers or ratings from the Imperial Navy, from any time between Meiji to 1945?
"Suicide Submarine" by Yokota, Yutaka - some interesting info on kamikaze and "Kaiten" training and service life.
Wellgunde wrote:First hand accounts of junior IJN personnel are rare in any language.
AFAIK, there are a lot of accounts of IJN veterans of all ranks, published in Japanese. In Yushukan archive reading room there was a whole shelf, filled with just memoirs by ex-IJN servicemen in small "ranobe" paperback format - from ships' COs to ordinary sailors.

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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#5

Post by Wellgunde » 10 Mar 2017, 05:47

Eugen Pinak wrote:AFAIK, there are a lot of accounts of IJN veterans of all ranks, published in Japanese. In Yushukan archive reading room there was a whole shelf, filled with just memoirs by ex-IJN servicemen in small "ranobe" paperback format - from ships' COs to ordinary sailors.
Amazing! Thanks for the info, Eugen. Did these appear to be privately published? If so, they must be in limited editions because not much on this topic shows up on the various Japanese bibliographic sites. Various IJN veterans groups have published books and pamphlets but these appear to be closely held and sold to members only.

[note for all: ranobe is short for "light novel" (raito noberu) which are usually published in a format called bunkobon and which is printed in the A6 international paper size (10.5 cm × 14.8 cm)]
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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#6

Post by Eugen Pinak » 10 Mar 2017, 14:49

Wellgunde wrote:
Eugen Pinak wrote:AFAIK, there are a lot of accounts of IJN veterans of all ranks, published in Japanese. In Yushukan archive reading room there was a whole shelf, filled with just memoirs by ex-IJN servicemen in small "ranobe" paperback format - from ships' COs to ordinary sailors.
Amazing! Thanks for the info, Eugen. Did these appear to be privately published? If so, they must be in limited editions because not much on this topic shows up on the various Japanese bibliographic sites. Various IJN veterans groups have published books and pamphlets but these appear to be closely held and sold to members only.
No. Privately published books are held in the storage rooms and only issued to readers on request. And hand-written memoirs are not even issued to readers - only copies (though high-quality) are given to readers. I was talking about mass-published paperbacks like "Navy Yomoyama story" (海軍よもやま物語) series and so on. There are a lot of ex-IJN servicemen memoirs on Japanese Amazon, even though publishers certainly prefer memoirs of naval flyers. And they are really cheap to boot - makes me sad that I'm too lazy to learn Japanese :(

Wellgunde wrote:[note for all: ranobe is short for "light novel" (raito noberu) which are usually published in a format called bunkobon and which is printed in the A6 international paper size (10.5 cm × 14.8 cm)]
And a small addition: unlike usual "bunko" paperback, that has only text (though historical books can have photos and drawings), "ranobe" always has purpose-made illustrations.

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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#7

Post by Wellgunde » 12 Mar 2017, 02:17

Thank you very much, Eugen. What search terms did you use on Amazon.jp? Where is the Yushukan? It's never too late to start learning Japanese! I started to learn Italian and German in my sixties.
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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#8

Post by ijnfleetadmiral » 13 Mar 2017, 11:04

Which ship COs wrote memoirs? Be interesting to see if there's a list somewhere.
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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#9

Post by Hama » 22 Mar 2017, 03:01

Thanks all for the suggestions.

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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#10

Post by Eugen Pinak » 22 Mar 2017, 15:44

Wellgunde wrote:Thank you very much, Eugen. What search terms did you use on Amazon.jp? Where is the Yushukan? It's never too late to start learning Japanese! I started to learn Italian and German in my sixties.
You're welcome!
I've used "海軍" for search and than simply browsed through translated book titles. Also books in "Customers who bought this product also bought" gives you new leads as well.
Yushukan is to the right of Yasukuni shrine. Note, that I was wrong: name "Yushukam" belongs only to the museum, while archive is called "Yasukuni Kaikou Bunko" - see: http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/archives/index.html
As for the Japanese - I've started to learn it several years ago, but progress is still minor :(
ijnfleetadmiral wrote:Which ship COs wrote memoirs? Be interesting to see if there's a list somewhere.
So far I've managed to find memoirs of COs of "I-176" and "Amatsukaze", but surely were are more of them.

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Re: Personal Accounts of IJN Sailors 1860s-1945?

#11

Post by ijnfleetadmiral » 22 Mar 2017, 16:40

I knew about Hara and Tanabe, although Tanabe's was more of a 'reminiscence' than an actual memoir, as he just spoke about his sinking of Yorktown and not his entire naval career.
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