Asia Sentinel

Toshio Tamogami

Japan's Rightists Have New Hero

Japan once again is left in the painful position of having to examine its 60-year-old World War II record and the country’s ultra- rightists have a new hero/martyr in Toshio Tamogami. The chief of staff of Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, Tomogami on October 31 was abruptly fired from the air force's top position after an essay he wrote defending Japan’s motives and actions in World War II appeared on a public website.
Major Japanese military figures have been quoted before as blaming everybody else but the Land of the Rising Sun for the war. But beyond Tamogami’s actions, however, Japan has been freaked out by the fact that dozens of other air force officers entered the contest that Tomogami won and wrote similar essays. A Ministry of Defense probe revealed that of 235 entries to the contest, run by a prominent real estate tycoon with ultra-rightist connections, 94 were submitted by air force officers, suggesting to some the existence of a radical cabal in the air force.

For his part, Tomogami remains defiant. Hauled before a committee of the opposition-controlled House of Councilors, the upper house of Japan’s bicameral parliament last week, the former air force chief, whose reduction in rank to lieutenant general preceded his retirement, said he had committed no indiscretions.

“I do not think there was anything wrong with what I wrote,” Tomogami told the House of Councillors, and went on to call for revision of Japan’s pacifistic constitution, arguing also that members of the military should be free to express their opinions in public.

His demotion automatically put him below the mandatory retirement age of 60 for air force officers, and he left the service two days after his sacking. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada suggested that he voluntarily forfeit his retirement package worth about ¥60 million ($600,000). In a polite Japanese way, the general said “fat chance”. He also pockets the ¥3 million ($30,000) prize he won from the essay contest.

The contest Tamogami won and that the other officers entered was sponsored by the APA Group, a real estate concern. The contestants were to write on the seemingly innocuous topic: “The True Outlook for Modern and Contemporary History.” The word “true,” however, is understood to be a code for a revisionist/nationalist interpretation of history.

The general argued in his essay that Japan was never an “aggressor nation” because Japanese troops were stationed in China and Korea in accordance with treaties and agreements. Japanese troops were drawn deeper into China because of terrorist acts and provocations by Nationalist Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, he wrote.

The Nationalists in China, he wrote, were theoretically in turn manipulated by the Comintern, an international Communist organization led by the former Soviet Union. The communists wanted the Chinese and Japanese to fight each other in order to give Mao Zedong control of China, he argued.

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