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1943 Japanese suicides on Attu...
1943 Japanese suicides on Attu...
Item # 722186
February 01, 1944
THE SPRINGFIELD UNION, Mass. Feb. 1, 1944
* Battle of Attu - Aleutian Islands campaign
* Japanese Imperial Army soldiers suicides
* Surgeon Paul Nobuo (Nebu) Tatsuguchi diary
Near the bottom of the front page is a two column heading: "Diary Tells How Japs Killed Selves on Attu" with subhead. (see images)
Complete with 16 pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins, generally nice.
AI notes: A 1944 diary found on Attu—one of several personal journals recovered by U.S. forces after the Battle of Attu (May 1943)—offered a stark, firsthand record of the desperation among Japanese troops during the Aleutian Islands campaign. The diary described the final days of the isolated garrison as starvation, exposure, disease, and dwindling ammunition left soldiers with no hope of reinforcement. It detailed how officers encouraged, and in some cases ordered, men to commit suicide rather than surrender, reflecting the Imperial Army’s doctrine that capture was dishonorable. Entries recounted suicides by grenade, coordinated last charges meant to guarantee death, and the psychological unraveling of troops trapped in the brutal Aleutian cold. When U.S. investigators translated the diary in 1944, it became a significant document illustrating the extreme conditions and indoctrination that produced mass suicides on Attu, one of the most tragic episodes of the North Pacific war.
Category: The 20th Century
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