'A Day in the Life of a Japanese
Soldier'
TONIGHT'S TALK will be broadcast by a speaker who wishes to remain anonymous. In discussing the daily life of the Japanese soldier, he makes an interesting comparison between Japanese soldiering and our own.
The British recruit says ' So long, mother ' travels on a warrant to the nearest depot, and becomes a Tommy ; but it is not so in Japan. His family go with him, the villagers wave them to the station with flags, a sort of garden party follows at the barracks, where he changes into uniform and becomes at once a member of the most honoured profession in Japan. His Company Commander tells his admiring relations that he himself will be an elder brother to their boy. What would the British Tommy say to that ?
But with the departure of his relations, life is very strange to the young Japanese. On all occasions he has sat on the floor he must now sit on a bench ; he has slept on the floor, he must now sleep on an iron bed-cot.
Football and cricket take no place in his recreations; the wrestling and fencing he has been taught on parade he indulges in on warm summer evenings ; his officers speak to him roughly, he answers in the most polished manner. He may drop out on a route march and be left to die-he has failed in his duty, and his relations will approve ; or for minor offences he may be appealed to with the greatest kindness-there is no C.B. His iron rations are not biscuit and bully beef, but cold boiled rice kneaded into a cake with a pickled plum in the centre, and it stays him for hours. How these, and other characteristic differences, are the reasons contributing to the conscript Japanese army being one of the most efficient and mobile in the world will be shown in this interesting talk.