Japan Press Weekly

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2016 February 17 - 23 [POLITICS]

Maritime workers stand up to gov’t policy to mobilize them for wars

As part of the moves to turn Japan into a war-fighting nation, the Abe government is attempting to designate civilian sailors as “reserve members” of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in order to mobilize them for U.S.-led wars abroad. In opposition to this move, sailors and dockworkers are taking action.

At the end of January, the All Japan Seamen’s Union (JSU) issued a statement in protest against the government move. The statement referred to the fact that during World War II, 15,518 civilian vessels commandeered by the Japanese Imperial military were attacked and sunk, and 60,609 civilian crew members were killed. Noting that the policy will lead to de facto conscription, it states that the union is adamantly opposed to the plan.

In the international port city of Kobe, there is the War Memorial Maritime Museum. A museum staff member, Okamura Sekiichi, 75, explained, “19,048 people, or one out of every three civilian seamen who were killed during the Pacific War, were under the age of 20. Nearly 1,000 were only 14 years old. Civilian sailors account for 43% of the Japanese who were killed in combat situations during WWII, while army soldiers and navy men make up 20% and 16%, respectively.”

As the U.S. military gained control of the sea and air, non-military ships were forced to carry soldiers and war materials to islands across the Pacific Ocean where Japanese troops were deployed. Those vessels, without the escort of battleships, were sunk one after another under fierce air and torpedo attacks by U.S. forces.

The documentary records compiled by the Japan Maritime Officers’ Association show that in November 1942, the civilian transport vessel “Sangetsu-maru” managed to land army troops on the island of Guadalcanal under heavy concentrated fire, but it was grounded on the beach. On the South Pacific island, 75 civilian sailors died due to various diseases, starvation, and U.S. attacks. Only three crew members were able to make it back to Japan alive.

In October 1945, two months after the war ended, civilian sailors formed the JSU under the slogan, “We won’t become victims or participants again in war.”

Taniguchi Toshiyuki, the leader of a dockworkers’ union at Kobe Port, said, “Workers and citizens in Kobe take pride in the fact that they created the so-called Kobe system, which requires every vessel visiting the port to submit an official certificate stating that it is not carrying any nuclear weapons. By further increasing our joint efforts with the general public, I’ll work to foil the Abe regime’s attempt to change Japan into a nation which can wage wars abroad.”

Past related article:
> Historical facts testify civilian ships in ‘rear area support’ targeted for attack during Pacific War [July 5, 2015]