ChefKilleenit
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Question Surrender leaflets info
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Dentanmono
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811, the bottom one is probably one of the most common, if not the most common "surrender" leaflet around nowadays. It was made for the battle of Okinawa towards the end of the fighting. J 208 is definitely rarer, FELO stuff doesn't come up that often, at least in the U.S. The "I Cease Resistance" Safe Conduct Passes to the Japanese of WWII has info and translations of the leaflets, though it's missing the second part of your top leaflet. I'll try to track that bit down through the Australian War Memorial Database tomorrow.
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ChefKilleenit
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Thank you so much for that info. I love being able to track down the story of all of these things that are tangible pieces of history.
Dentanmono
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Yup, no worries. Funny as those leaflets were probably one of the most numerous things produced during WW2, in the hundreds of millions, but there's really only one or two easily accessible resources on them, psywarrior and there's an instagram account on them.
ChefKilleenit
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I have a few others
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Dentanmono
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Those are Japanese propaganda leaflets aimed at Chinese people. Psywarrior has a little blurb on that one "
No Sooner has one of us Fallen…
This Japanese leaflet clearly shows the Chinese soldiers that the British see them as nothing better than shields to be used as protection against Japanese fire. The British soldier hides behind the bodies of two dead Chinese soldiers. He lives as the soldiers are shot to pieces. The text on the front is:
No sooner has one of us fallen than another enters the breach!"
Wish I could help with the rest of it but can't translate Chinese.
No Sooner has one of us Fallen…
This Japanese leaflet clearly shows the Chinese soldiers that the British see them as nothing better than shields to be used as protection against Japanese fire. The British soldier hides behind the bodies of two dead Chinese soldiers. He lives as the soldiers are shot to pieces. The text on the front is:
No sooner has one of us fallen than another enters the breach!"
Wish I could help with the rest of it but can't translate Chinese.
- 22 Feb 2008
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the front
漁翁兵説
我是'前仆後継'的啊
An old fisherman soldier said
"I'm like Zenfukōkei*, ah..."
*Zenfukōkei is a four kanji idiom, meaning "climbing over the corpses of predecessors and going forward."
the back(your picture is up-side-down.)
The left side of the vertical line is the Japanese translation of the the first two lines of the Chinese text.
此の伝単携行者は捕虜として取扱はず新中国の建設の志士として優遇す。希望者は給与豊富な南京国府軍に編入す、或は蘭貢及広東経由にて故郷に送還せしむ。
(I changed katakana and traditional kanji to hiragana and modern kanji, respectively.)
Those who carry this leaflet are not treated as POW, but are favorably treated as patriots to build the new China. If you want, we transfer you to the Nanjing Government Army who has a high wage level, or send you back to your home town via Rangoon and Guangdong.
The Chinese version has instructions how to surrender.
ChefKilleenit
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Thank you very much for the insight onto what the back of the leaflet says. How interesting that I found this in the United States as I didn't really expect to see it outside of China or Japan. Such a fragile item lasting this long I think says a lot. I is a cherished piece of history in my collection.
- 22 Feb 2008
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They misinterpreted the third line 天道は人を殺さない。. This sentence just means "Heaven doesn't kill people", and not "It is Heaven's gift that your life has been spared.(This expression indicates that there is always a way out.)" as in the given translation.
- 22 Feb 2008
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The surrender instructions #1~3 are very common ones, such like "when you come to a Japanese military camp, show a white flag", but I found that #4 is interesting.
若将英美将士殺了、拿有重要文献来投的人、即刻回國、任新中國的重要官職。
If someone kills American or British officers or soldiers, or has important documents to hand over, they will be returned to China immediately, and be appointed to an important official position in the new China.
I don't know if a similar kind of deal was also written in American leaflets for Japanese soldiers.
ChefKilleenit
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Si vid pacem, para bellum
wow, that is fascinating. Thank you for the info. I can't wait to put this in a display so that others can enjoy it as well.
- 22 Feb 2008
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What comes to my mind is Keanu Reeves's film
ChefKilleenit
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Forgive my ignorance, but what are FELO items?
Dentanmono
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To be honest that doesn't surprise me. It's not uncommon for "official" government translations to have errors or greatly paraphrase sections, which is interesting to me as I had originally thought they would care about quality the most but I guess it's one of those "good enough for government work" things haha
Dentanmono
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Far East Liaison Office, to greatly generalize they were kind of the Commonwealth equivalent of the Office of War Information. Random note, FELO like most psy op organizations in the Pacific War had Japanese POWs working with them but only at FELO did the POWs have executive say, over even Allied personnel, on language issues involving leaflets.
