Tetsuko Making Balloon Bomb Essay

The effects of militaristic totalitarian rule strongly permeated World War II-era Japan, spanning all aspects of society, both civilian and military. Careful consideration of the first-hand accounts “Making Balloon Bombs” by Tanaka Tetsuko and “Playing at War” by Satō Hideo reveals the true extent of the total indoctrination and militarization of the education system that took place and the effects those practices had on the children of that era.
In her statement, Tanaka Tetsuko describes her experience making paper for the so-called “balloon bombs” for the military as a student. She begins her narrative by describing her samurai heritage, saying that “My grandmother used to tell me, ‘You must behave like the daughter of a warrior family’”
Even as she is asked to perform physical labor, she “never thought of it as hardship…[and] nobody complained about it…[because] the whole Japanese race was fighting a war” (188). This sense of loyalty to one’s race and to the Emperor, loyalty at the expense of one’s own self, would form the fundamental tenets underlying her perspective on the war. She proceeds to describe her and her classmate’s pleas to be transferred to the Kokura military arsenal, to the extent of cutting their fingers and writing in blood (189), pleas that are ultimately successful. As a sixteen-year old, she clearly understood the concept of death, going so far as to leave her last will and testament pressed in a book before departing for the arsenal. Surprisingly, she does not describe this moment as tragic or horrifying, but rather that they were in “high spirits”
Yet, as the war ended, her immediate reaction she would have towards these lost years was one of an “overwhelm[ing]…sense of emptiness,” that “all that effort…had been in vain” (192); her sadness arose not out of the loss of her childhood per se, but that she was unable to contribute enough to save her country from defeat.
Tanaka’s testimony brings to light just how all-encompassing and convincing the militaristic spirit was for children of that era. Though she looks back now with “embarrassment….at how [she]’d been” (192), it is clear that, within the fog of wartime Japan, she felt a militaristic way of life was natural and even obvious given her heritage.
The younger perspective shown in Satō Hideo’s “Playing at War” gives further insight into the effects of war on the children of this era. While Tanaka had just entered high school when the war began (188), Satō was a second-grader (229). Despite their age difference, Satō received an equally militaristic education, in one instance recalling his principal proclaiming, “full of exhilaration that…Japan…had entered a great war…at last!”