Reference / Special Presentations | WITNESS TO WAR Aug 17, 2007

Journalism in the service of war authority

by Setsuko Kamiya

Kanji Murakami began his reporting career in January 1941, joining the Asahi Shimbun's bureau in Seoul, or Keijo as it was then known, when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. At that time media censorship was strong. A 1909 law imposed many restrictions ...

Reference / Special Presentations | WITNESS TO WAR Aug 16, 2007

'War orphan' recounts feeling of abandonment

by Akemi Nakamura

It was a rainy day in mid-August 1945. World War II was about to draw to a close, but nobody in the tiny Chinese village knew it. All they knew was that chaos was breaking out, and that the Russian military was approaching from ...

Reference / Special Presentations | WITNESS TO WAR Aug 15, 2007

Surrender spared a young, doubting kamikaze

by Eric Prideaux

If Masamichi Shida, 80, had known a bit more about the world back in 1942, he might never have become a kamikaze.