Question WWII IJA Surrender leaflet translation

[bldrhouse]

the front has:

While the verso is a lot of text, and while I would greatly appreciate as much translation as anyone wants to provide, I would very much like to have the main headings since I understand it lists Allied victories against the Imperial forces.

Thank you as always...

Zigy

 

[Majestic]

This isn't a list of allied victories. It is a pamphlet critical of General Yamashita's decision-making in the South Pacific, particularly in the Philippines, and it is blaming him for the high casualty count of the Japanese army. The title of the pamphlet is taken from classical Chinese

一将功成万骨枯
Isshō kō narite ban kotsu karu

 It means: One general reaches glory, ten thousand bones are left to dry

 

[bldrhouse]

Majestic, thanks again for your always-great help...

curious: does the list of Yamashita's errors name any specific battles?
The Battle of Manila was a nightmare for all, including the civilians who bore the brunt of the IJA's frustrations and fury.....even tho the IJA had been ordered to retreat to the hills and not fight in the city...

the Chinese quote is powerful: I imagine the results of some battle out defending the Great Wall, with carrion birds circling overhead...

z

 

[Majestic]

No, it just mentions that in just two months the US army was able to roll back all of the gains that the IJA made in the Philippines, and that now the IJA had been pushed back farther and farther into the north islands. At the end, it asks the IJA soldiers (rhetorically) why they have to die all alone and like dogs in places like the Solomons and in New Guinea (at the direction of reckless and irresponsible generals).

 

[mdchachi]

You can use the Google translate app to get a good gist of the text. They mention the defeat in the Solomon's and New Guinea.

 

[bldrhouse]

No, it just mentions that in just two months the US army was able to roll back all of the gains that the IJA made in the Philippines, and that now the IJA had been pushed back farther and farther into the north islands. At the end, it asks the IJA soldiers (rhetorically) why they have to die all alone and like dogs in places like the Solomons and in New Guinea (at the direction of reckless and irresponsible generals).

Thanks again. The tragedy of the corruption of Bushido. I imagine the IJA troops were glad to get the thousands of pieces of fine American toilet paper....(as the Allies used similar Axis air-dropped flyers). Z

 

[Dentanmono]

Saw this leaflet for auction recently, some of the leaflets went for crazy prices. One of the leaflets you could find Ebay for 1/4 the price. Anyways I think people here have given you the gist of the leaflet. Here's a link that has the government documents and a bit of the history behind the leaflet. 'One General' propaganda leaflet · heritage Some of the government document translations leave stuff out or even embellish their translations. So I can't speak to the accuracy without comparing the two but it'll give you a gist of the leaflet.

 

[bldrhouse]

thank you... and thanks for the link; I always find such propaganda -- surrender leaflets -- fascinating. The German ones were often written by Germans who studied British English rather than American and it shows in their choice of certain words...

 

[Dentanmono]

If you're interested in propaganda leaflets, I would recommend checking out Psyop Links. It is a fantastic site and has tons of in depth information.

 

[bldrhouse]

Dentamono, THANK YOU! I had not followed the link you posted until just now and am very pleased to have the translation for my records.
Had no idea that was Yamashita on front; assumed it was an anonymous IJA soldier.

Thanks also for psyop links -- great stuff. FYI, the National Records Administration has enormous quantity of US documents of this time also.

Z

 

[Dentanmono]

Dentamono, THANK YOU! I had not followed the link you posted until just now and am very pleased to have the translation for my records.
Had no idea that was Yamashita on front; assumed it was an anonymous IJA soldier.

Thanks also for psyop links -- great stuff. FYI, the National Records Administration has enormous quantity of US documents of this time also.

Z

Happy to help! Yeah funny enough I'm actually within a reasonable drive of the national archives and currently have the academic credentials for access but still haven't made it out there haha

 

[Toritoribe]

Here's a result of Google OCR and Google Translate.

one general success
Since the landing of the U.S. forces in the Philippines, you have been able to fight back.
As you are all well aware, the outcome of the Battle of the Philippines will influence the course of the war in the future and will have great significance.
In order to break through this difficulty, the Japanese military department appointed General Yamashita, who was a famous general at the time, to this, but it did not have any effect. be.
If General Yamashita planned the battle carefully from the beginning and thought about the soldiers, he would not have been able to remain calm after building such a huge mountain of sacrifice.
As it is said that one success is all that goes to waste, even your precious lives are worth nothing in front of the shogun's own ambitions.
That is why he was able to carry out such a wild and reckless operation, and to blame his own failures as if they were someone else's fault.
Why do you, like Solomon and the New Guinea Front, have to wait for death in a lonely place in a foreign land because of the incompetence and irresponsibility of the military?

Both, Google one and the one in the site Dentanmono-san provided, are incomplete. For examples, the last half of the first sentence is not translated in Google translate, and the second paragraph 比島會戰の勝敗は如何に將來の戦局を左右し重大な意義を有するものかは既に諸君の御承知の通りである。is not in the site.

 

[bldrhouse]

Happy to help! Yeah funny enough I'm actually within a reasonable drive of the national archives and currently have the academic credentials for access but still haven't made it out there haha

I imagine it would be less satisfactory unless there were some specifics you wanted to see... everything (?) is on line and I get a lot of info about documents from them that way... in any case, thanks for your help -- and service to the site.

 

[Dentanmono]

I imagine it would be less satisfactory unless there were some specifics you wanted to see... everything (?) is on line and I get a lot of info about documents from them that way...

I've done some searches on their site and haven't found any digitized leaflet collections but I haven't really looked for the U.S. government documents associated with them, which might be more fruitful. I'll have to poke around more and see what I can find. Thanks for mentioning that.

 

[bldrhouse]

I've not searched for surrender leaflets, but if you find any, please send links.
What I have found are documents -- such as the original German and Japanese surrender docs, scanned.

Surrender of Germany (1945)

EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Act of Military Surrender; 5/7/1945; Instruments of German Surrender, 5/4/1945 - 5/10/1945; Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Record Group 218; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View...

www.archives.gov

Surrender of Japan (1945)

EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Instrument of Surrender; September 2, 1945; Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Record Group 218; National Archives. View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View Transcript Aboard the USS Missouri, this instrument of surrender was signed on September...

www.archives.gov

Warning: I've gotten lost in there finding all sorts of great stuff for my research on my own collection.

World War II Records

For a comprehensive overview, see: Selected Finding Aids Related to NARA's World War II Holdings African Americans Records of Military Agencies Relating to African Americans from the Post-World War I Period to the Korean War , Reference Information Paper Casualty Lists and Missing Missing Air...

www.archives.gov

 

[bldrhouse]

Note that under the scanned initial document it says
View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog. -- that will lead you to all the pages of that document.

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