Gibney, Frank (ed). Translated by Beth Cary. Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.

327 pages
ISBN 1-56324-589-2

Introduction; index.

In 1986 and 1987 the Japanese newspaper "Asahi Shimbun" as part of a regular feature received thousands of letters about memories of World War II. These came from former soldiers and from civilians, from men and women, from those who were grown and from those who were only children during the war years. Selected letters were published in the newspaper over the span of more than twelve months, then collected and published as a book entitled Senso ("The War").

In 1995 this translated, abridged edition of Senso was published in the US. It has also been rearranged into chapters of related stories: The Road to War, Life in the Military, The China War, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, The War in the Pacific, The Home Front, The Bombing of Japan, "We Are All Prisoners", Japan Under the Occupation, Rethinking the Wartime Experience. To the heartfelt, painful, and sometimes chillingly confessional memories Frank Gibney has added introductory and explanatory material for each chapter for the American reader who may be unfamiliar with certain aspects of the war and wartime Japan. Such material is helpful, but the memories can usually stand on their own:

"The [Chinese] prisoners were blindfolded and tied to the post. A circle was drawn in red chalk around the area of the heart on their grimy clothes. As the bayonet training began, the instructor bellowed out, 'Ready? The red circle is where the heart is. That's the one place you are prohibited to stab. Understood?'

"I had thought that the instructor had marked the area to make it easier for the new recruits to stab the heart. But that was my misunderstanding. It was to make the prisoners last as long as possible."

In print and available through mail order booksellers and local book stores, or directly from M. E. Sharpe for $59.95 in hardcover or $19.95 in paperback.

Thanks to M. E. Sharpe for providing this review copy.