[The single most morally and politically difficult issue related to World War II for Japanese is the wartime attitudes of the general population. When the Pacific War began in December 1941, most Japanese approved and expected to prevail, although some well- informed people immediately suspected that the government had initiated a fight that it could not win. By the last year of the war, however, soldiers in the field could no longer expect reinforcements or even basic supplies. Scores of thousands of soldiers nevertheless unquestioningly followed orders to sacrifice their lives even after they knew it was for a doomed cause. The most famous such individuals were the kamikaze pilots, but many less glamorous foot-soldiers also chose death, often in an obviously ineffectual military action, over surrender. On Saipan, many local Japanese and native civilians also took their own lives when they realized that the Allies would soon win control of the island. Arakaki Saburo, a technical school student from Okinawa who was studying on Saipan and is the subject of this memoir, shared this attitude.