Interview with Colonel Liao Jiwei

I had the great pleasure of interviewing Colonel Liao Jiwei, who served as the advance team of the Chinese occupation forces in Japan (after Japan's surrender, in response to the order of the Allied forces that "China, as the victorious country, should send 50,000 occupation troops to Japan".

In particular, I asked Mr. Liao Jiwei to share his impression of being stationed in Japan as a Chinese occupation force after Japan's surrender.

Mr. Liao Jiwei is a very calm person, he is deep, quiet, unhurried, and tepid.

Mr. Liao introduced himself as having studied at the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School in 1933 and returned to China in 1936. Immediately, he engaged in research work at the Military Command Department of the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government. He said that their research reports should often be submitted to Chiang Kai-shek, He Yingqin, and other high-ranking generals for reference. I quietly observed by myself, although Mr. Liao was serious and rigorous when he was young. But, now, after all, the years are unforgiving; Memory declines, and there is a sparse situation, and it is inevitable that there will be a scene of Zhang Guan Li Dai.

However, the unique experience of a first-class anti-Japanese war soldier like him is really one in a million, and it is really precious.

Mr. Liao Jiwei saw that I was asking questions and taking notes at the same time, so he said in a hurry: "I am a staff officer with the rank of colonel, and if you record like this and publish it again, I am still worried that you will misinterpret what I mean." So, I'll write it down for you, how about miscounting me? ”

As soon as I heard it, I was happy. I thought to myself, "Interviewing intellectuals is different. Not only is it detailed and informative, but it also saves trouble. ”

After Japan's surrender, Mr. Liao Jiwei, the advance team of the Chinese occupation forces stationed in Japan, recalled:

(At the invitation of the author, this article was written by Mr. Liao Jiwei himself.) The author is just reading from the book and entering the text. In addition, the photo was added by the author. Photo source: Remade in "The History of Showa for 100 Million People" published by Japan. ）

Mr. Liao Jiwei wrote: In 1945, after Japan's surrender, the Allies decided to dispatch the "occupation forces stationed in Japan" and form the "Allied Control Committee against Japan" in accordance with the decision of the "Potsdam Proclamation" to supervise Japan's elimination of all war-making industrial systems, the complete elimination of the remnants of militarism, the punishment of war criminals, the return of plundered land and materials, the compensation of the losses of the victim countries, and the establishment of a peaceful and democratic new Japan.

At that time, the Kuomintang government organized the "Chinese delegation to Japan" to Japan to participate in the Allied control of Japan. The author was assigned by the Military Command Department of the Military Commission of the Kuomintang Government to serve as the advance officer of the occupation forces stationed in Japan, and was later transferred to the colonel staff officer of the first group (military group) of the Chinese delegation to Japan. From 1946 to 1948 he worked in Japan for 3 years. Based on what I learned at that time, such as the chaos and depression after Japan's defeat in World War II, the suffering of the Japanese people, and the occupation and control of Japan by the Allied Forces, I have written this article for the reference, quotation, and reprint of Mr. Fang Jun, who came to interview.

The main elaboration: the chaos after the defeat of Japan and the suffering of the people

During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears that the Japanese army invading China was vicious, brutal, arrogant, and arrogant to our people, which was truly outrageous. After Japan's surrender, I was sent to Japan as a member of the Chinese government's delegation to Japan, and I was able to bet on the post-war situation in Japan. At that time, I was very happy and thought that this was the fate of the Japanese invaders. It should be our victors who are raising their eyebrows. But at the same time, I also felt that most of these Japanese who suffered were innocent ordinary people, which made people feel pity.

(1) The Japanese people were depressed and humiliated

When I first arrived in Japan, I was on the streets of Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, etc. When I saw the Japanese coming and going, most of the men were wearing yellow military uniforms, and they had a depressed look on their faces with no smiles. When they saw the officers of the allied countries, they were so inferior that they did not dare to face them. Japanese women generally bow their heads and walk forward in small steps, or bow to us as a sign of respect.

The American officers and soldiers who first landed were very hated the Japanese soldiers because they had fought with the Japanese army many times on the battlefield, and most of their comrades and comrades-in-arms were killed by the Japanese army. Especially when he saw that they were still wearing military uniforms, he was even more disgusted, and he wanted to beat them if he didn't like it. These occupations were also revealed in the Japanese film "Human Witness", and that was the real fact. The short movie shot is just an understatement of the situation at the time, but it is actually more than that.

Due to the end of the war, especially the military discipline of the US troops stationed in Japan was also very lax, so they drunkenly beat people and robbed people from time to time. Of course, there are also some Japanese girls who are willing to get close to the US military in order to eat chocolate candy from the US military or achieve other **, etc., which is not prohibited by the US military. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the streets and parks, Japanese girls and US military officers and soldiers are paired and shoulder to shoulder. I remember that in August 1946, I saw a news report in a Japanese newspaper that said: "In the year since the US troops were stationed, several black dolls have been born in Japanese hospitals, and this is the first generation of black people in Japan." Because there are some black officers and soldiers in the U.S. military.

Since the war against Japan was won, the vast majority of US officers and men hoped to be demobilized and returned home soon, rather than staying in Japan for a long time. Those who are waiting to be demobilized and return home are really living like a year. Therefore, he often uses alcohol to vent his frustration. Of course, the object of venting is towards the Japanese.

At this time, the Japanese also felt that they were the people of the defeated country, and they did not dare to fight back against the Allied forces, and they did not scold them back, so they could only accept it. The senior personnel of the Allied Headquarters did not put a stop to this, and also disguised it: "This is an incident that happened because of the epidemic of homesickness and bad mood in the army." It was not until June 1946 that the United States changed its policy toward Japan, unwilling to excessively irritate the Japanese people, withdrew most of its troops, demobilized some officers and soldiers who did not want to stay in Japan, or transferred them back to Japan, recruited new recruits to supplement them in the country, reorganized military discipline, executed several US soldiers who committed murder and robbery in Japan, and sentenced other US soldiers to prison for committing crimes. Since then, the US military discipline has become more serious.

In addition, in 1941, I saw wooden signs inserted near some US military bases and barracks, which read: "Anyone who enters this line will be killed!" Probably this is a secret location of the US military.

(2) After the war, Japan was in ruins and uninhabitable

Many of the major cities and regions I have visited in Japan have been scorched in patches, most of the houses have burned down, and the few high-rise buildings have survived, and all of them have become dangerous buildings. If there is no danger in the demolition, the Japanese government will be ordered to repair and supply the U.S. military, and the 40-kilometer-long Keihin National Highway from Tokyo to Yokohama is an industrial area in the past, and the buildings are connected to Tokyo. Now the national highway is lined with rubble. The most remnants are the safes of various sizes, standing on the ground and not burned, there are always thousands of them, which are the old traces left by the prosperous area in the past. In terms of the extent of the destruction, as far as I can see:

Tokyo City accounts for about 50%, Osaka 60%, Nagoya 50%, Yokohama about 70%, Kobe 30%, Hiroshima 90%, Nagasaki 60%, and Ogura 80%. There are other places that are not large cities, but have military installations and important factories, which have also been damaged to varying degrees.

Hiroshima was the most devastated, as all buildings within a diameter of about two or three kilometers from the center of the atomic bomb were razed to the ground and destroyed in the heat of the nuclear explosion. Elsewhere, it was destroyed by the shock wave. At that time, in addition to more than 200,000 deaths, more than 100,000 people were injured in the city, all of whom were killed by light radiation, and many of them died one after another.

There are many Japanese people who have picked up the remnants of the hot melt in the ruins and sold them as souvenirs. Out of curiosity, I also bought a few as souvenirs. It was a spectacle to see steel, cement, and glass dissolve into one and become another mixed substance. It can be seen that the temperature at the time of the nuclear explosion is unimaginably high.

However, among the buildings in the major cities, only Kyoto and Nara remained intact and were not bombed. Is this an intentional preservation of their cultural monuments? It is said that this was spared by the appeal and request of Professor Liang Sicheng, an ancient Chinese architect, to the Allies.

I remember that in July 1946, the first issue of the Asahi Pictorial Newspaper contained a large format, two pages in an eight-folio edition. This image is a bird's-eye view of the devastation of Japan after the bombing. His title is "The Country Breaks the Mountains and Rivers". I saw that he really used Du Fu's poem, so I bought a book to appreciate. Unfortunately, it was not preserved and lost.

Houses in Japan's major cities were bombed in large areas under the bombardment of the Allied counteroffensive. The surviving high-rise buildings, such as department stores, banks, large corporations, hotels, etc., were occupied by the US military. The surviving residences, whether public, private, or noble, as long as they were Western-style, superior, or slightly better, could be requisitioned if the Allied forces and Allied officials had families in need of housing, and they were free of charge. For example, the residence of the head of the Chinese delegation was the official residence of the Japanese Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. The office building of the Chinese delegation in Japan is a memorial hall for the requisitioned imperial family, Prince Arisugawa. and the building of the Cabinet Statistics Bureau of Japan.

According to Japanese statistics at the time, more than 9.75 million houses were burned down in the air raids. As a result, millions of Japanese expatriates who have returned from various places have no housing to live in. Most people were forced to move to small cities or rural areas. At that time, in Tokyo, a 4-tatael half-wide hut (about 6. 8 square meters). They also have to live in a family of four or five people, and even divide the time and take turns to sleep, and their living is so tense.

There is very little housing in the city, and most of the staff working in various parts of Tokyo live far away, so the traffic is congested. In addition, many vehicles at that time were blown up, and the vehicles driving were also dilapidated, and there were few cars and many people, and the order was also very chaotic. Regardless of the route, there were special Allied vehicles, and the Japanese were not allowed to go up regardless of whether they were riding or not. As for the private car, it has long been extinct. The main thing is that there is no gasoline.

(3) After the war, the Japanese people were starved of food and clothing, and suffered unspeakably

Japan's land is mostly mountainous and hilly, and there is very little arable land. The people's livelihood depends on foreign food supplies in peacetime, but in wartime it becomes a big problem. It was even more difficult when sea transport was blocked by the Allies. In 1943, the Japanese government had already introduced food rationing. After 1944, as food became more and more difficult, all grain businesses, restaurants, and food stores ceased to operate, and rations gradually decreased. Before and after the surrender of Japan, only 0 rice was rationed per person per day. 2 kg. After the war, restaurants in Tokyo were almost extinct, and occasionally there was a noodle restaurant labeled as a substitute. As for what substitution, it is not known because it has not been tried. After 1946, overseas Chinese gradually opened restaurants in Yokohama, but the prices were very expensive. As for confectionery pastries, there are none. The sugar, which is the favorite and inseparable of the Japanese, used to be transported from occupied Taiwan. After the war, it was difficult to buy it even at a high price, so saccharin had to be used as a substitute. The average Japanese laborer eats a few potatoes or a few sweet potatoes to satisfy their hunger at lunch. Therefore, many people are yellow and thin, and malnourished, which is due to the long-term failure to eat enough.

At that time, many people in the flower beds, lawns, and courtyards of Tokyo's parks planted their own vegetables and potatoes. The zoo animals, lions, tigers and other animals were killed and eaten because of the lack of feed.

In 1945, shortly after the arrival of the U.S. military in Japan, the Allied Headquarters ordered the Japanese government to requisition a number of Japanese laborers to serve the U.S. military. Among them, there are more than 1,000 boys between the ages of 15 and 17. There are more than 1,000 girls between the ages of 18 and 20. Wages are paid by the Japanese government, and meals are paid by themselves. It is not a problem to recruit young men, and the Japanese government is quite spicy about recruiting young girls: because Japanese girls have been rumored by extremists that they are being recruited as prostitutes, and they have fled one after another. Later, after many explanations and persuasions, the solicitation task was barely achieved. The girls who are recruited are assigned to the officers' guest houses (dormitories) as entertainers or cleaners. The young men were assigned to the US military camps to polish shoes, make beds, clean and clean, and serve American GIs. Although the salary is not high, there are leftovers to eat, and it is Western food, which is delicious. Later, the Japanese still thought that this job was a poor beauty, and some wanted to go, and they had to intercede and plead in every way to do it, which shows the extent of the decline in life in Japan at that time. It was not until after the fall of 1946 that the United States allowed the sale of some surplus grain to meet 40% of Japan's food supply by means of billing, and the supply situation gradually eased.

Those who first arrived in Japan after the war were amazed. For most Japanese men in both the city and the countryside wore yellow cloth uniforms, and they only pulled off their cockades and collar badges to look as if they were all soldiers: but they looked very depressed on their countenances, as if they were captives. Some of them were prisoners, but they were all "imperial soldiers" who used to show off their might, and although they still wore the shabby uniforms of the "imperial army", they no longer had the fierce and ugly image of the past, but became shabby and pitiful. They were survivors of the war, and they weren't proud to wear the old uniforms, they had no clothes to wear. There are also people who wear kimonos and suits, but after all, they are a small number of active public servants. Most of the women wore so-called "wartime uniforms", and I can't name the style, in short, they were both out of place and worn. The reason for this phenomenon is that after the beginning of the war of aggression, the production of munitions overrode the production of all means of subsistence, so there was a shortage of cloth. In addition, thousands of families were affected by the fires in the war, and many clothes were lost. The demobilized soldiers also have two sets of military uniforms each, and some of them have to be shared with their families. Rationing of cloth.

Before Japan's surrender, each person was only 50 centimeters per year (1 or 5 feet in China), which could only be used to make up for the old age. Clothes and fabrics are sold on the black market, but they are very expensive. It wasn't until the summer of 1946 that women's clothing changed slightly, probably because it didn't take much money.

(4) After the war, the Japanese market was depressed and the stalls prospered

The big department stores in the big cities have long since closed because the houses have long been requisitioned. Although the small shop is open, the goods are pitiful, and it is not easy to buy a bar of soap or a toothpaste. They generally sell some light industrial products and handicraft products, and the most common ones are folk crafts and Japanese-style handicrafts, which are mainly sold for foreigners' money, and they are also relatively easy to sell. Although there are few shops, the stalls are thriving. There are many places in every ward of Tokyo. They mainly sell used clothes and household items, books, calligraphy and paintings, art, antiques, and so on. There are also clothing, high-end liquor, foreign cigarettes, and other miscellaneous things. It can be said that as long as you have money and can pay a high price, you can still buy what you want to buy. In other words, this is the big black market, the way the unemployed make a living. This type of market is the largest in Tokyo, with Shibuya, Shimbashi, and Meguro as the largest. But they are all controlled by the leaders of the underworld, and each gang has its own territory, just like the docks of the green and red gangs in China in the past. If you want to set up a stall to sell things, you must live with the leader, otherwise you will be beaten to pieces.

After Japan's surrender, Allied officers and soldiers mostly collected Japanese command knives as trophies. It is said that the American troops who returned home would be disgraced if they did not bring back a captured Japanese saber, as if they had not participated in World War II.

After Japan's surrender, except for the immediate family members of Emperor Hirohito, all other imperial families and nobles with titles such as dukes, marquis, uncles, sons, and barons were abolished, and their special treatment was abolished. Therefore, these collapsed royal families and nobles lost their status at once, and they were cut off from economic resources. They only make a living by selling privately owned antiques, calligraphy and paintings, books, jewelry, ornaments, etc.

For example, I know a Japanese named Shiuichi Rinbian, and once he brought in a Japanese man surnamed Terasaki to meet me, who was originally a nobleman, about a marquis. There are many ancient Chinese and Western paintings in his family's collection, and I was invited to his house to appreciate them. And want me or other Chinese to buy. At the time, I didn't understand it and was not interested. Although I read it, I couldn't tell the truth from the fake, so I had to ignore it. Later, when he knew that I didn't like calligraphy and painting, he came to me again, and gave me a picture of Lao Song, a prince of the Qing Dynasty, and asked me to convey it to the Chinese delegation, and he was willing to sell all the more than 20 ancient Chinese paintings in his house to China at a low price. At that time, I asked Zhang Fengju, the leader of the fourth group of our delegation, and Mr. Qian Tieyan, a painter, to see it together, and they both thought it was a treasure and asked him to list it for review. Later, because the price was too high, he ignored him. Another example is the Prime Minister of the Prime Minister in the early days of the surrender, the Imperial Family Higashikure Palace, who was also the son and daughter of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, and after his fall, he was fortunate not to be treated as a war criminal, so he opened an antique store in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Many other royal families and nobles also lived like this.

At that time, because I was a Chinese official, I was unable to personally observe and investigate in depth, and there may have been more tragic things among the Japanese people after the war, which I did not hear or see.