The 1945 Pocket Diary of Ryoji Uehara's Father, Who Died in a Special Attack

2025/07/10

There is a small pocket diary from 1945. Its owner was Torataro Uehara. He is the father of three brothers, all Keio University alumni who died in the war, featured in the exhibition "Modernity and War for One Family: Yoshiharu, Tatsuo, and Ryoji Uehara and Their Family" (running until August 30) currently held at the Keio History Museum.

This family has preserved everyday items from the early Showa era with extraordinary density. Even small things like commuter passes, student IDs, and exam admission slips remain. Furthermore, they were very diligent writers. There are no fewer than several hundred letters exchanged between the children in Tokyo studying at Keio University and their parents at the family home in Azumino, Nagano Prefecture. Diaries, school notebooks, and even scratch paper used for exam calculations have been preserved.

As for why they were kept—one can only imagine the hearts of the parents who lost three of their children to the war.

The fact that the density of this family's materials is so high actually makes the blanks stand out more. Although diaries written densely by the father, Torataro, remain from the Taisho era, the diaries from the end of the war are missing. His second son, Tatsuo, who became a Navy medical officer in 1943, had already died in action when his submarine sank. His third son, Ryoji, who became an Army pilot, visited his family home for the last time in early April 1945 before his special attack mission, but there is no mention of it in the father's diary. On May 21, Ryoji's belongings arrived from the "Chofu home unit" packed in an "officer's trunk." Then, on the 25th, Ryoji's "personal effects arrived." These were the belongings left behind when Ryoji departed from Chiran Base on a special attack mission on May 11. The wrapping paper for these mailed items also still exists. The diary for this year ends on this day and is blank thereafter. Words disappear from a family that had left such dense traces of daily life.

The war ended, and Torataro's diary, which begins again in 1946, starts on New Year's Day with: "Did not go for New Year's greetings. Praying for Yoshiharu's safety." Communication from the eldest son, Yoshiharu, who was in Burma, had been cut off for some time, but reports of repatriates returning from the south one after another were the family's hope. However, on July 16, news arrived that Yoshiharu had died of illness in the war in September of the previous year. "Truly a bolt from the blue." "I can only curse the trickery of the god of fate." This family's habit of daily expression quietly conveys the cruel history of the three brothers who died in the war to us 80 years later.

(Takeyuki Tokura, Professor, Keio University Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies)