Hasuda Zenmei
Hasuda Zenmei was a Japanese nationalist, Shinto fundamentalist, and scholar of kokugaku as well as classical Japanese literature. He was also a historian, author, and military officer.
Biography
Hasuda was born in 1904 into the family of Hasuda Jizen, abbot of the Ōtani Jōdo Konrenji temple in the town of Ueki. His father possessed a sword that once belonged to Katō Kiyomasa.In 1918, he contracted pleurisy and took a leave of absence from school until the following year. Around this time he wrote one of his early poems, People Are Made to Die. Pleurisy haunted him for the remainder of his life, and several years before his death he was found to have lesions in his hilar nodes.
He was known for his simultaneous pursuit of literature and martial arts.
After entering college in 1923, he became influenced by Prof. and developed an interest in kokugaku, by that time a mostly abandoned discipline, and studied the writings of Motoori Norinaga. Hasuda was strongly impressed with the book by historian Ishihara Shiko'o on the Shinpūren Rebellion, League of the Divine Wind: A History of Blood and Tears. Ishihara elaborated upon the teachings of the nativist Hayashi Ōen, according to whom the affairs of government ought to be entirely subordinated to the affairs of Shinto through systematic divination, a position that Hasuda respected.
Through, Hasuda became acquainted with the young Hiraoka Kimitake, later known as Yukio Mishima. On October 25, 1943, Hasuda was called to active service in the Imperial Japanese Army. Before his departure for Southeast Asia, he reportedly said to Mishima, "I entrust the future of Japan to you". recalled Hasuda raging as he prepared to leave, saying "Those American bastards...".
In 1945, Hasuda's platoon advanced to Shōnan where he was assigned to a mortar regiment headquartered at the Royal Palace of Johor. Immediately after Hasuda and his men arrived in Singapore, one of his subordinates got into a fight with an officer of the Kenpeitai and injured him. When the subordinate was about to be punished by the regimental authorities, Hasuda suggested that he, as the platoon commander, was responsible for the subordinate's negligence, and he and his Captain went to personally apologize. The subordinate's punishment was dropped.
At the time of Hirohito's order to surrender, Hasuda had a conversation with another an officer named Takagi. Takagi said, "Now , in the future when Japanese children are asked 'Who is the most important man in Japan?' they will say either Roosevelt or Chiang Kai-shek." Enraged, Hasuda shouted, "That is an idiotic thing to say. As long as Japan exists, as long as the Japanese race exists, the Emperor will be supreme, and no matter who teaches them, the children of Japan will always revere him as supreme." Takagi said, "That's merely an ideal." Still fuming, Hasuda said, "Just because we were defeated doesn't make it any less crucial." Takagi shot back, saying, "What a joke. We don't even know whether or not we'll make it home alive. As the regiment commander suggested, instead of wasting time with useless ideology, shouldn't we be figuring out how to get back alive in the fall?" Hasuda replied, "Whether we return alive or dead, we must never abandon the Japanese spirit!"
Hasuda's regiment commander Colonel Nakajō Toyoma announced that the division would surrender immediately to British forces. Upon hearing Nakajō's statement, Hasuda flew into a rage. By that point, Hasuda had already become convinced that Nakajō was in fact a Korean spy who had sabotaged the division and whose real name was "Kim". Hasuda had brought his father's sword with him, and wanted to use it to kill Nakajō. However, he was unskilled in kendō and hesitated, deciding to use his Nanbu pistol instead. When Nakajō was proceeding to Shōnan Shrine in order to burn the regimental flags prior to surrender, Hasuda ambushed his entourage. Accusing the others of treason, he shot Nakajō to death and then immediately put the pistol to his own temple and pulled the trigger. The pistol misfired, but bystanders did not interfere. Hasuda manually cycled the pistol to clear the jam and shot himself in the head. After his death, a postcard was found on his person into which he had written "For the sake of Japan, I am left with no choice but to cut down these wicked traitors and become a sacrificed stone of the Empire". He was cremated by Japanese personnel in Johor Bahru.
After the war, the Allied powers did not allow Hasuda's remains to be returned to Japan. As a result, his bones were disposed of in an unmarked grave in a rubber tree orchard near Singapore.