Students Intensively Studied Japanese Language to be Naval Language Officer in Pacific War; Second-Generation Japanese Americans Recruited by U.S. Army
At the time, it was imperative for the U.S. military to understand the Japanese people and military, which was the enemy to the United States.
'When it came time to fight Japan, I heard that there were only about 50 Americans who could read and write Japanese,' Keene wrote in his autobiography in Japanese.
Immersed in Japanese
Keene enrolled in the Navy Japanese Language School, which opened at the University of California, Berkeley, in February 1942, about two months after Japan's Pearl Harbor attack. Most of the teachers were second-generation Japanese Americans who had been born in the United States and educated in Japan before returning to the United States.
In June 1942, the school was relocated to the University of Colorado, Boulder, due to the forced relocation of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to inland areas.
The students lived a life immersed in Japanese. Classes were held six days a week, with two hours of reading, one hour of conversation and one hour of writing every day. It took about the same amount of time to prepare for the classes.
They spoke Japanese during meals, watched Japanese movies and read children's stories written in Japanese. Although the school was established because of the war, it was a paradise for Keene.
'[It felt] strangely detached from the war,' he wrote. 'I was able to devote myself entirely to learning Japanese.'
Keene had no feelings of hostility toward the Japanese people. He was moved to tears by the tragic scenes in Japanese films and thrilled by samurai movies.
Keene graduated at the top of the class in January 1943 and delivered the valedictorian speech in Japanese. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in Hawaii as a language officer in the Intelligence Division.
Same human beingsThe U.S. Navy harbored prejudice and distrust toward Japanese Americans and recruited qualified white Americans from universities across the country to serve as language officers. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army actively recruited second-generation Japanese Americans who could speak Japanese as language soldiers.
According to Nisei Veterans Legacy, which chronicles the history of Japanese Americans who served in World War II, approximately 6,000 Japanese Americans served as language soldiers in the U.S. Army Intelligence Service.
The U.S. Army and Navy language specialists gathered in Hawaii and worked together in the same room in Honolulu. Their tasks included translating Japanese military documents and diaries of Japanese soldiers captured on the front lines.
Chikara Don Oka, a second-generation Japanese American Army language soldier who died in 2015, was one of those who knew Keene at the time.
In his autobiography, written in English, he wrote: 'All were truly officer and gentleman. Mr. Donald Keene was one of them. He was very quiet and hard-working officer.'
Keene led a group of second-generation Japanese American language soldiers in Okinawa in April 1945, with the mission of calling on Japanese soldiers to surrender. One of his subordinates, Jiro, had roots in Okinawa and suggested they have lunch at his relative's house, even though the Battle of Okinawa was in full swing. Keene went to the house and was warmly welcomed by the family.
Keene, who had also interrogated prisoners of war in Hawaii, enjoyed talking with them about music and literature, and at their request, he held concerts at the camp, where they listened to Beethoven's 'Eroica' together.
After the war, Keene reflected: 'I didn't think of the prisoners as enemies. I thought of them as the same human beings as me.'
These interactions with second-generation Japanese Americans and prisoners of war deepened Keene's feelings for Japan.
Contributions to postwar Japan
Many former language specialists made important contributions to postwar Japanese society by utilizing their language skills, just like Keene.
Otis Cary, who served as the commander of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Hawaii and died in 2006, became a professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto after the war.
Edward Seidensticker, who died in 2007, translated the works of Japanese writers such as Yasunari Kawabata and contributed to Kawabata receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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