Description
The Emperor’s Soldier is a collection of striking and evocative images recording the career of an identified imperial Japanese Army (IJA) officer serving in the 50th Infantry Regiment (50IR) over approximately ten years up to the start of the Pacific War. Unearthed from obscurity at a downtown Tokyo flea market, the album would have been passed over had the rotting backing pages not crumbled in the author’s hand, loosening some of the photographs to reveal, on their reverses, names, dates, locations, and even some personal comments by a young lieutenant.
Digital restoration has breathed new life into these snapshots. Annotations have been translated, so revealing the “who, what, and where” behind some rare and candid pictures of cadet induction, winter training, route marches, weapons training, graduation, family scenes, relaxation with comrades, farewell dinners, pre-deployment parades; and quiet, fateful reflection in the tense hours before combat. (Selected images have also been colorized.) Also included is a translation of the regimental song as well as a chronology of deployments from 50IR’s establishment in 1905 until its destruction in combat against US forces in June 1944. A background essay discusses Japanese society in the 1930s, IJA recruitment policy, training priorities, and an outline of a junior officer’s typical duties.
The Emperor’s Soldier will be of use to military historians and social studies professors, museum and library curators and archivists, educators, students, writers, movie and/or TV costume and props specialists, fans of vintage photography, Pacific War reenactment groups, as well as private collectors of IJA uniforms, medals, badges, and weapons.
Stephen B. Connor is the author of Mountbatten’s Samurai: Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Forces under British Control in Southeast Asia, 1945-1948.
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