The endless search for dead men

In 1977, Second World War veteran and author Funasaka Hiroshi published a book titled Gyokusaisen no kotō ni daigi wa nakatta [No good reason for a battle to the death on a solitary island] (republished in 2000 as Hiwa Parao Senki), in which he recounted his search for the truth about the death of a young sergeant, Takagaki Kanji, near the island of Peleliu, sometime late in 1944. ¹ The narrative of Funaska’s investigation into the circumstances of Takagaki’s death was interwoven with recollections of his own wartime experiences. It also recounted his post-war efforts to gather the remains of fallen soldiers in the Pacific and to console their souls with the erection of memorials. This concern with memorialisation meant that the narrative was embedded within a broader condemnation of post-war Japan’s inability to appreciate the wartime sacrifice of soldiers.