The Min Min Semi Punishment
On a summer day, one can hear the chorus of the cicadae reverberating throughout the Japanese countryside as they cling heads up to a tree branch or trunk. The singing or crying of the cicadae ("semi" in Japanese) is actually a droning "min min" sound; more correctly a buzzing sound made by rubbing its wings together. To the Japanese ear, this "min min" drone has been regarded as an onomatopoetic music from ancient times and as a forecast of hot weather coming. Even today when the "min min" cry is heard the old people in the country would say, "Listen to the cicadae crying. It's going to be a hot day."
But, now, we're in the army, the invincible Japanese army, where there are no seasons, hot or cold, for training and punishment. And there is nothing poetic nor onomatopoetic when one's turn came to perform the "Min Min Semi" act. It is not a matinee but a soiree when the "min min" cry can he heard interspersed with bursts of laughter. This act is a simple one, requiring no theatrical flair. The hero-actor is the poor green enlisted man or draftee made to climb a post in the barracks, stay put and cry out "min min" repeatedly until ordered to come down.
The Min Min Semi Punishment
However, no matter how hard one tries to cling to the post tightly, using all four limbs wrapped around the post, the force of gravity catches up quickly to pull you down to the floor before being able to cry out "min min" once or twice. Then up you go again, cry "min min" and down again. This is repeated until all energy is sapped from your system. One finds out two things: one, respect for the cicadae, and two, Newton was always right.
Sometimes, to make you really try hard to stay put on the pole, a bayonet is placed under you with its sharp end pointed upward and toward your soft spot.
While the cicadae are crying or sobbing, the neighboring platoon would be performing the Grand Soiree titled "Uguisu-no Tani-watari" ("Flight of the Bush Warbler Across the Valley").
The Uguisu or the Japanese bush warbler is a brownish-green colored bird about one size larger than a sparrow. Its cry is an enticing onomatopeic "Ho ho-kekyo". When this cry is heard it is a sign that Spring has come. Also the Uguisu flies in a peculiar way. It would start flying downward, then zoom up and then glide downward, repeating this flight pattern as it crossed the valley.
Like the "min min semi" act, some smart alec in the Japanese army, years ago, packaged these traits of the warbler into a torture game which every Army greenhorn, like it or not, had to participate and enact the leading role as the warbler.
Japanese Army Barracks At Nights, Showing Barracks Table
The stage property consisted only of 5 or 6 tables in the barracks used for eating meals, studying, cleaning weapons, etc. They measured about 5 feet wide and 20 feet long, and they were placed each about 3 feet apart, this gap representing the "valley".
Lined up before the first table were the performers or "uguisus". At the sergeant's order "Fly!", the warblers had to get down on hands and knees, clamber under the table, raise their heads up at the "valley" and warble "ho ho-kekyo". Just at that very moment they would get banged on the head by senior soldiers sitting on top of the tables with sticks, books or whatever they happened to have in their hands at that time. Then the warblers had to dive under the next table, raise their heads, sing "ho ho-kekyo", get banged on the head again and again until they finished crossing the last valley, with a bump or two on their heads. The greenhorn slowest in crossing the val would have to repeat the flight, with more bumps on his head.
The "min min semi" and "ho ho-kekyo uguisull acts were enacted more as entertainment for the senior soldiers than punishment, but for the new and forlorn soldier it was very debasing and humiliating, being reduced to an insect or bird, and made fun of.
On the other hand, the "hob nailed slipper" treatment was not for entertainment; it was sheer punishment.
The Hob Nailed Slipper Treatment
The entire platoon would be punished for some mistake no matter how small or made by even one single member of the platoon. "Line up in single file, all of you" would bark the sergeant, who would then take off one of his slippers made out of army combat shoe with the sides cut off to form a slipper. And "wham, wham" he would go down the line hitting us on the cheek with this slipper, the hob nails on the soles eating into our facial flesh, making a tatoo-like geometric pattern on one side of our faces. To make it worse we had to treat our pock-mark wounds with iodine.
For punishment another tool was often used, and that was the Army service belt made out of thick horse hide with a large brass buckle attached to one end. It was brandished and used whip-like so that the buckle would catch us behind our ears, the sting from it remained for days.
Another weapon, more civilized, was the plain fists.
"Line up single file, take off your glasses, clench your teeth, legs apart!" Then "pow, pow" the sergeant would go down the file methodically hitting our faces with his fists. Some would fall backwards with the blow, some spitting out blood from cuts inside their mouths. We could feel our faces swell up fast and then go numb. It even hurt to grin, seeing each others' faces in lopsided shape.
As this daily punishment went on, some of us smarter ones would line up at the end of the line where the sergeant's blow would have weakened. The sergeant, however, would then outsmart them by starting at the end of the file to commence his barrarge of punches.
Punishments being strictly prohibited they were meted out at night after meals and during the two hours or so before the bedtime bugle sounded off and the lights went out. Officers who happened to pass by while the punishments were going on usually looked the other way, pretending not to notice.
There were punishments on a lighter, comic side. For instance, when one dropped a rifle bullet while cleaning his rifle, he was made to stand with his Model 38 Arisaka rifle in "Present Arms" position but semi-crouched with the knees apart.
The dropped ammo was then placed on the tip of the barrel, and then you had to say, "Sir, Model 38 Arisaka rifle bullet. I apologize for dropping you from sucl a high place. It must have hurt very much. I assure you it will not happen again."
But before one got through reciting this expression of apology and remorse, the bullet, which was placed upright on the tip of the barrel would lose its balance and drop to the floor. Holding a heavy rifle in such position, and semi-crouched, would make anyone wobbly from the outset, guaranteeing the shell would not stay put for long on the tip of the barrel. This comedy would be repeated and repeated until you sincerely hopedSir Model 38 Arisaka Rifle Bullet really would forgive you, even if it didn't hurt.
Such corporeal puynishments and humiliations were nothing compared to having one's meal denied as penalty for not being able to recite correctly, or not at all, some passage in the Senjin-kun (Combatant's Code) or Gunjin Chokuyu (Emperor Meijils Instructions to the men of the Fighting Services).
Usually, before evening meals, one was chosen at random to recite from memory one of the passages in these documents, which were written in Imperial Court language and thus difficult to read and understand, much more so memorizing it.
If the unfortunate one chosen made a mistake or failed to remember in reciting, he was ordered to forgo his dinner. This was by far the greatest torment of all the punishments. After a hard day of training one returned to his barracks so hungry that he could hardly wait to gobble down any edibles put before him, even without tasting or chewing them properly. But now he was denied his morsel of food and forced to sleep on an empty stomach, an intolerable punishment for the mind and body. His squad, however, would save his meal, hide it from the sarge, smuggle it in and give it to the hapless comrade after the lights went out. We took turns saving and smuggling meals as we knew that some night our turn would come for sure.
After 6 months of absorbing such daily punishments and total neglection of one's free will, we came out with our bodies and minds tempered as hard as steel but without realizing that we had been reduced to zombies, willing and eager to go foreward into battle as ordered, come hell or high water. And to a great many of us fighting men both hell and high water did come to plunder our one and only precious life.
Not all of us in the barracks could endure the barrage of inhuman treatment. In our squad of 15, 3 could not bear the pressure. All 3 broke down, their minds shattered, perhaps never to regain normalcy. Others in our platoon succumbed also and did not show up during our boot-camp training.
In hindsight, however, when one is now able to contemplate about these heinous treatments from the broader point of view of having to train civilians and to mould them into tough, fighting men of the Army in a short period of time, these acts, horrible and inhuman as they were, may well be exonerated from their ignominy as certainly they were an effective means of instilling the all-essential discipline and spirit required of a soldier, in face of the enemy, to fight to the bitter end.
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MK Notes:
1. Some of us had sworn to God they would get even with these mean, vicious drill sergeants and corporals for their demonic acts. In time of battle when bullets whizzed back and forth, it was said that not a small number of rifle barrels were pointed at the backs of these punishers instead of at the enemy.
In fear of such "accidents" happening to them, the sergeants and noncoms managed with the medics to get "sick and be hospitalized when war preparation began, thus depriving their victims of getting revenge.
In a real case there was a soldier in our platoon who could not wait for a battle to begin to get even with his drill sergeant.
With basic training finished, time had come for us to be sent to Officers' Candidate School. We had all lined up ready to march to the railroad station to take the train to Nanking where the school was located. However, one of us by the name of Chihara was missing. The Lieutenant in charge of putting us on the train asked us where Chihara was. Not one of us knew. We had seen him all dressed up in new uniform like us, eager to leave this torture camp.
Then we heard a rumpus going on inside the barracks, and soon Chihara came running to join our ranks but with the drill sergeant in hot pursuit with sword drawn and yelling "I'll cut you to pieces!" The Lieutenant ran and stepped in between the two, ordering the sergeant to stop and drop his sword. Chihara was allowed to take his place in the line and soon we were on the train.
Chihara was a quiet, normally behaved soldier, but for some unknown reason he was picked on by the non-coms, and especially by his drill sergeant. In college he had been a varsity black belt judo champion. Safe on the train, we all wanted to know what went on in the barracks. Having regained his composure, Chihara told us that he wanted to get even with the drill sergeant on this last day in boot-camp, and was on the lookout for him, forgetting it was time to depart.
When all of us had gone outside to line up, the Sarge emerged from his quarters in the barracks. The sarge seeing Chihara coming at him tried to run. But Chihara already had him by the collar and said "Excuse me". And then he dumped the hated sergeant hard onto the floor with his favorite judo throw.
Hearing this report, we all gave Chihara three cheers for getting even for us all. We also admired his courage, reckless as it was, as he could have been court martialed and languished in jail.
Chihara managed to survive the war, and, back in civilian life, became a very successful executive at Japan's top advertising agency
2. In the early fifties when I visited my mother in the hospital outside Osaka, I saw a small man leaning over the engine of an ambulance. As I passed by the man happened to look up, and although his face was smudged with grease it was a familiar one. It belonged to the ex-drill Sergeant Tsuge whom Chihara had taken revenge.
"Sergeant Tsuge?" I asked.
"Yes, who are you?"
He did not remember me because I was in another squad. But when I mentioned Chihara's name his face lit up, surprisingly, into a broad nostalgic smile.
When I told him Chihara was an up-and-coming businessman now in Tokyo, ex-Sergeant Tsuge said, "I tell you, if we had more officers with Chihara's guts we'd perhaps have won the war. Please tell him so, and to all of you we trained that I am confident you guys will fight to rebuild Japan into a peaceful country where you don't need sergeants like me any more".
We both laughed, shook hands and parted. Back in Tokyo, I met Chihara and told him of my chance meeting with Sergeant Tsuge, and the message to him. From the expression then on Chihara's face I could sense a feeling of painful remorse over his behavior toward his drill sergeant at that last day in boot camp in Nanchang.
But soon his facial expression had changed to one of determination, rekindling of that fighting spirit instilled in us at boot camp and keeping true to Sergeant Tsuge's conviction.
3. On the first night in the barracks near Osaka, we were given initiation to the knuckle treatment, followed every night with other kinds of punishment. As we were going to be shipped overseas in the second week of our induction, we were allowed an afteroon off so that our close ones could come and see us in the barrack grounds, for some, for the last time.
I recognized my parents in the throng of anxious people coming to see their beloved ones now in the Army. I went up to my parents and said "Hello Dad, hello Mom!"
Both of them could not recognize me as my face had ballooned as a result of the "treatments" and looking miserable in my ill-fitting baggy uniform with a miserly single star on my collar rank-badge. Certainly, I did not look anything like the snappy soldier my parents had expected to see.
"You couldn't be my son, Minoru?" mother cried out.
"Yes, of course I am your son, Minoru."
"What ever happened to you?"
"Mom, I'm in the Army now and there's lots of hard training."
"Hard training, eh." said my father, shaking his head in disbelief.
Then I introduced a buddy of mine in the same squad. His parents could not come because they lived very far away, and I didn't want him to feel lonely. My parents could see also that he too had a swollen face, a lopsided one and looking haggard as can be.
Mother and Dad kept silent watching us eat like starved waifs the basketful of goodies my mother had prepared and brought. I occasionally stole a glance at my parents and I could see they were trying hard to hold back their tears at the sight of their tortured son, and the son of another family who were spared this sight. They were brave, as what parents would show their tears in public under such circumstances, and especially in front of their proud sons whose lives were now out of reach in the hands of the Emperor.
After the war ended, and I was able to make my way home, mother told me that both Dad and she noticed immediately that we were being punished badly. The shape of our black and blue swollen faces they saw that afternoon was evidence enough.
And she added, lowering her voice, that for the first time ever she damned the Emperor for allowing her son to be mistreated in such a way that even she could guess. By the tone of her voice then, I think she never did forgive the Emperor for this, and now I have no way of finding out.
Bless her soul.
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KAWAMOTO Minoru, 17 March 1998
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MF Note: The drawings used in this article are part of a larger group decpicting life in the 218th Infantry Regiment of the 34th Division of the Imperial Army. The entire set is exhibited on this site, and may be accessed through the WW II Exhibit Hall.
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This article © 1998 Minoru Kawamoto, it may be reproduced on web sites or other use only with express written permission.
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