SDHF Newsletter No.112 The Greater East Asian War 4

The Greater East Asian War: How Japan Changed The World
By Kase Hideaki
(Published by KK Bestseller in Japanese, 2015)
Chapter 4 – The Noble Spirit Which Inspired the People of Asia

March 22, 2016

This link is to Chapter 4.
This Chapter details the Battle of Imphal, the Indonesian volunteer army Defenders of the Homeland (PETA) and the “Rose of Bokor” a drama produced by King Sihanouk of Cambodia.
The battle of Imphal has been chastised as a foolhardy battle because numerous soldiers were killed. However, this battle, a joint effort between the Japanese Army and the Indian National Army (INA), actually brought about the independence of India. Eric Hobsbawm was a prominent British professor of history at the University of London. In his magnum opus, a reflection on the twentieth century entitled “The Age of Extremes,” Hobsbawm argued that Indian independence was not the work of independence activists like Gandhi and Nehru but rather was sparked by the attack on India by the Indian National Army and the Japanese during the Battle of Imphal.
Indonesian independence was achieved after five years of severe fighting against the Dutch colonialists. It can be said that this would not have been possible without PETA, the Defenders of the Homeland, the Indonesian volunteer army, which had been nurtured by the Japanese Army. Another important factor of Indonesia’s victory over the Netherlands was that nearly 2000 Japanese soldiers joined the Indonesians in support. About half of them died in battle.
King Sihanouk of Cambodia presented the author a video of the film, “Rose of Bokor,” when he came to Japan. The film is quite unique. It was made in a Pyongyang film studio. The King plays Colonel Hasegawa Ichiro, a Japanese Army unit leader, and the King’s real-life wife Queen Monique appears as Hasegawa’s lover, the beautiful daughter of a powerful local man. The movie portrays the Japanese Army as a highly disciplined force. The many Japanese soldiers appearing in the film were members of the North Korean Army, mobilized as extras. When the Japanese Army came to Bokor, cheering crowds greeted them as “liberators”. The film conveys the message that, even though Japan was defeated in war, the noble spirit of the Japanese people remained unaltered.

URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/652/
PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater4.pdf
Author profile: https://www.sdh-fact.com/auther/kase-hideaki/

*For your reference; Chapter 1. Up to the Day Japan Surrendered
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/The-Greater1.pdf
　　　　　　　　　　Chapter 2. The Trap Laid by the United States
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater2.pdf
Chapter 3. The Greater East Asia Conference and the Dream of Racial Equality
https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Greater3.pdf

Questions are welcome.

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact