Aftermath

Japan and India today

“INA officers have assumed roles of political rather than military significance in independent India.” (Page 166 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“After the war most INA officers and men were interrogated, tried and dismissed, leaving the pre-war military structure otherwise intact.” (Page 172 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“Some INA veterans have been elected to Parliament, others have received high-level diplomatic appointments, and still others have entered the lower echelons of the bureaucracy. Some have also gone into labor union leadership.” (Page 173 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

Japan and Southeast Asia today

“Officers and men trained in these Japanese-fostered armies and units, far from being vilified for collaboration, have risen in the vanguard of political and military leadership after the war.” (Page 18 of Japanese-trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“Japan won in Asia through trade and aid a position of influence that today far outstrips that of any of the region’s former European masters,” said Mercado. “Japan long ago lost its wartime empire, but Japanese influence throughout Asia is now paramount in industry, commerce, and technology.” (Kindle Location 57 from The Shadow Warriors of Nakano)

“The Burma Revolutionary Party has been staffed since 1962, then, not by the original ‘thirty’, with the exception of Ne Win, but rather by the ‘second generation’ officers of the BDA phase. These include some officers who studied at Mingaladon, a few who went on in addition to the Shikan Gakko in Japan. As with the INA, many of this group have been given ambassadorial appointments. Some have served also as military attaches in Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Japan and Washington.” (Page 176 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“Ex-Peta officers are still the most significant segment of the political-military elite in Indonesia.”

“According to the most authoritative estimate, however, three-fourths of the top ranks in the Army are still (in 1971) staffed with ex-Peta officers.”

“Some of them have additionally served in ambassadorial posts, which appears to be a common career pattern among the most important Japanese-trained army veterans. Among the seventeen Indonesians sent to the Shikan Gakko, one, Gen. Yoga Sugomo, has the highest position in military intelligence (1971). Another, Omar Tusin, has since the war left the army and become a prominent public figure and businessman trading with Japan.” (Page 176 to 177 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“In post-war Sumatra, as in the rest of Southeast Asia, Japanese-trained officers have risen to prominence in political and military roles. Lt.-Gen. Maraden Panggabean, present (1973) Indonesian Minister of Defense, is a Toba Batak from Tapanuli trained in the Giyugun in that area. Similarly, Maj.-Gen. Ahmad Tahir, presently in the diplomatic corps, was between 1969 and 1972 military commander of all of Sumatra.” (Page 177 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

One of Indonesians who underwent the training was Bambang Sugeng who, in the years after the war, would become the Chief of Staff of the Indonesian army. Later on, he would become the Ambassador to Japan. The most well known graduate of the training program has to be Suharto, who would later become the President of Indonesia. (Page 106 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“Another aspect of the Japanese military contribution to post-war Southeast Asia is that many Japanese soldiers remained behind in Southeast Asia after Japan’s defeat” (Page 170 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

“Kawashima Takenobu and Takahashi Hachiro, who were associated with the BIA until the end of the war, are still employed by the Burmese Government in the Burma Mission in Tokyo.” (Page 179 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)

The last word

James C. Hsiung, a professor at New York University, referred to the war Japan fought as a hegemonic war.

“A ‘hegemonic war’ is defined as one which” redefines “the power distribution and values in the world system,” he said. (Page 302 of China’s Bitter Victory)

“If the second half of the twentieth century is the age of decolonization, then the Pacific War, which Japan started by its invasion of China, and which later spread to Southeast Asia, was indeed a ‘hegemonic war’ that engendered systemic changes of revolutionary proportions.” (Page 303 of China’s Bitter Victory)

The war “proved to be a turning point in modern history, notwithstanding Japan’s defeat.” (Page 303 of China’s Bitter Victory)

“Japan left more of an impact on world politics--changing its very fabric on a global scale--than did Germany from its role in World War II.” (Page 303 of China’s Bitter Victory)

“No nation has done so much to liberate Asia from white domination, yet no nation has been so misunderstood by the very people whom it had helped either to liberate or to set an example to in many things,” said Ba Maw. “No military defeat could then have robbed her of the trust and gratitude of half of Asia or even more. Even now, as things actually are, nothing can ever obliterate the role Japan has played in bringing liberation to countless colonial people.” (Page 325 of Japan Examined)

“Whatever Japan's faults as a nation between 1942 and 1945, history will restore that trust and gratitude,” said Louis Allen. “In the long perspective, difficult and even bitter as it may be for Europeans to recognize this, the liberation of millions of people in Asia from their colonial past is Japan's lasting achievement.” (Page 330 of Japan Examined)

“My six children in Bandung became fifty people, then a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand,” said Yanagawa. “Those who fought in the war of independence scattered as flowers, fought to the last, and won Indonesia merdeka. For this achievement I still feel proud.”

“I don’t feel that the Pacific War was useless.”

“It achieved the great aim of emancipation of the people.” (Page 175 to 176 of Japanese-Trained Armies in Southeast Asia)