Sold by Bernett Rare Books, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
Association Member:
AbeBooks Seller since 19 August 2019
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Four documents, comprising fifteen total pages of dense typescript, containing English-language translations of Japanese prisoner-of-war diaries and military orders. Quarto and legal-sized sheets, mostly on onion-skin paper. Paper-clipped, loose as issued. Some sections a little hard to read, a few paragraphs typed over in one section, light handling wear and minor chipping, overall very good. 1942-1943. During World War II, many Japanese-speaking Americans who enlisted in the armed forces were sent to military language schools and were utilized for their fluency in both Japanese and English in areas like censorship and interrogation of Japanese prisoners of war. One of these men was Captain John A. Burden (1900-1999), the son of missionary parents who attended a Japanese school in Tokyo until he was 14 and was fluent in Japanese. In 1936 he got a medical degree and joined the Army Reserve, and in 1937 took a job as a plantation doctor in Hawaii. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was ordered to report to military intelligence for a class in military Japanese. He was the sent to Fiji and then to Guadalcanal where he led a team of linguists in combat intelligence against the Japanese - interrogations, document translation, and preparing and broadcasting materials regarding surrender. Burden was responsible for getting the first POWs to surrender on Guadalcanal and used the captives to help encourage others to surrender. His team helped demonstrate the value of keeping prisoners alive as well as the value of Japanese-American Nisei translators. Captain Burden eventually used captured documents and interrogation reports to write a history of the Guadalcanal campaign from the Japanese point of view, and later became head of military intelligence, assigned to the northern army in China where he worked with Mao Zedong and Choi Enlai. He retired from the military as a colonel in 1946. Burden's typewritten name appears on the longest document in this collection, along with other named translators including Captain Eugene Boardman, Captain H.D. Pratt, and First Lieutenant D.H. Shively. The first collection of documents is a set of eight pages of translation attributed to Capt. Burden. Divided into sections, this document includes an excerpt "Translated From Diary of Dead Jap", dated January 1943; several prisoner-of-war interrogations from various dates in January 1943; a translation of artillery firing date from January 17, 1943; and a section of a secret captured document from the 38th Division. Also included in this collection is: three pages translated by Capt. Boardman, including a Hayakawa Operations Order and an interrogation report; a confidential two-page document with a translated enemy order of battle from Guadalcanal; and an additional two-page document containing translations of diary entries, this one from November 1941 and January 1942. The last item is a small printed Japanese booklet whose title translate as "salary payment certificate". The prisoners' diaries mention eating ants to stay alive, enemy fighting, and low morale. The prisoner interrogations also discuss sickness, lack of rations and supplies, commanders and their fellow troops, and military logistics. The content of the documents is fascinating, and their historical importance is unquestionable. A captivating collection.
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