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Bezig met laden... The Bone Man of Kokoda - The Extraordinary Story of Kokichi Nishmura and the Kokoda Trackdoor Charles Happell
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Summary: "Kokichi Nishimura was a member of the 2nd battalion, 144th Regiment of the Japanese Imperial Army. In 1942 he fought along every foot of Kokoda as the Japanese attempted to take Port Moresby. He was the only man from his company to survive the campaign. As he was evacuated to safety he made a promise that one day he would return to his comrades and bring them home to Japan for proper burial. After the war, Nishimura prospered. But under the surface, the driving ambition of his life was to fulfil his promise. In 1979, he shocked his family by returning to New Guinea to search for the remains of Japanese soldiers. For the next 25 years, Nishimura lived alone along the Kokoda Track. Armed only with a metal detector, a mattock and a shovel, he searched for his dead comrades. Over the years he found hundreds of them and some he was able to identify and return their bones to their families; others were unknown, and their remains were sent to Japan's official shrine for its war dead in Tokyo. In 2005 Nishimura, now in his mid-eighties and seriously ill, was forced to return to Japan. His story is an incredible adventure that gives us a radically different viewpoint on a battle that has become part of our national myth. Nishimura's life and quest above all offer a poignant reminder of the futility of war."--Publisher description. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)940.5426516History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- Military History Of World War II Campaigns and battles by theatre PacificLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3.6)
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This is a fabulous book. Its hero swam against the main current of history by living with extraordinary loyalty to his comrades in a lost cause. Having made a solemn promise in his early 20s, he dropped everything in his 60th year, not to go into comfortable retirement but to devote the next 26 years to keeping his promise. When his wife and sons objected, he gave them everything – the house, his thriving business, even his antique samurai sword – and set out on his mission, never to speak to them again. His daughter, who understood something of what drove him, remained in touch and now looks after him in his old age.
What drove Kokichi Nishimura was the horrendous experience of being part of the Japanese invasion of New Guinea, seeing all his comrades killed in the jungle, mainly on the Kokoda Trail, and returning as part of a defeated force, despised in some quarters for not having suicided according to the code of bushido, and suspect in others because of the well-publicised atrocities committed by the Japanese forces. What do you do with the rest of your life after that? How do you live when you have fought in the battle of Brigade Hill at the age of 22, in kill-or-be-killed hand-to-hand combat?
Some survivors committed ritual suicide. Many, possibly the mainstream, embraced the new pacifist Japan and tried to forget the war. Some foment rightwing nationalist politics. Nishimura's path is strikingly individual. He promised his dead companions that he would return to honour their remains, and since 1966 his life has revolved around an uncompromising quest to keep his word, to restore to the families of the slain, if not the remains of their bodies for burial, then emotionally significant mementos – a lunchbox, a flag, in one case a rusty pump. As a corollary, he invested his time and resources into projects to help the locals in the places where he conducted his search – building a school, bulldozing roads, helping people get training and set up enterprises.
He's a fascinating man, a lesson in integrity. And the book is all the more fascinating because written by an Australian. Maybe the ghosts of the Pacific War are on the way to being laid to rest. (