REVISIONIST HISTORY
Japanese general loses job over essay
Air force chief claims country was not an aggressor in Second World War

SHINO YUASA

Associated Press, with a report from the Guardian

November 1, 2008

TOKYO -- Japan's Defence Minister dismissed his air force chief yesterday for writing an essay that claims the country was not an aggressor in the Second World War and was trapped into getting involved by the United States.

Toshio Tamogami's essay will likely upset relations with China and South Korea, which remain bitter about Japan's wartime occupation and say Tokyo has failed to properly atone for its invasion of the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan and China.

The claims drew a swift rebuke from politicians, and Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said he would dismiss the general. "I think it is improper of the air force chief of staff to publicly state a view that clearly differs from the that of the government," he told reporters after the essay was made public yesterday.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, a nationalist who has upset Japan's neighbours with ill-judged comments about the war, described Gen. Tamogami's views as "inappropriate, even if they were made in a personal capacity."

Gen. Tamogami was not available for comment late yesterday.

In the essay, titled "Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?" Gen. Tamogami says it was "certainly a false accusation" to say Japan was "an aggressor nation" during the Second World War.

"Even now there are many people who think that our country's aggression caused unbearable suffering to the countries of Asia during the Great East Asia War." Japanese nationalists use the term the Great East Asia War to support their view that Japan entered the conflict to free Asian countries from Western colonialism.

"But we need to realize that many Asian countries take a positive view of the [war]. It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor," he writes.

He also claims life under Japanese occupation was "very moderate" and cites a rise in the population on the Korean Peninsula during Japan's 1910-1945 occupation as "proof that Korea under Japanese rule was also prosperous and safe."

Gen. Tamogami also claims that Japan was tricked into attacking Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

Japan was "snared in a trap that was very carefully laid by the United States in order to draw Japan into a war," he writes. "Roosevelt had become president on his public pledge not to go to war, so in order to start a war between the United States and Japan, it had to appear that Japan took the first shot. Japan was caught in Roosevelt's trap and carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Gen. Tamogami ends his essay saying Japan should reclaim its glorious history.

Japan renounced its right to wage war in its 1947 U.S.-drafted Constitution. Tokyo has repeatedly expressed remorse to its neighbours for its colonial rule and wartime aggression.

But Japan has struggled to convince Asian critics - and victims - of its contrition because of a strong nationalist presence in the Japanese government. Last year, a group of nationalist lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party angered China by saying the death toll in the Rape of Nanking was grossly inflated.

Gen. Tamogami's essay won a writing competition organized by a hotel and condominium developer, Apa Group, which published the article.