is a Japanese journalist and author most famous for his writing on the

Nanjing Massacre The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Ba ...

. During the 1970s he wrote a series of articles on the atrocities committed by

Imperial Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

ese soldiers during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

called "Chūgoku no Tabi" (中国の旅, "Travels in China"). The series first appeared in the ''

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition and ...

''. Honda also worked as a war correspondent in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, an experience which, according to some historians, contributed to stoking his interest in Japanese wartime history.

Career

Early career

Honda was a war correspondent in

from December 1966 to 1968. He published a book on the

titled ''Vietnam War: A Report through Asian Eyes'' in 1972.

"Travels in China"

During the 1970s Honda wrote a series of articles on the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II (including the Nanjing Massacre) called "Chūgoku no Tabi" (中国の旅, "Travels in China"). The series first appeared in the ''Asahi Shimbun''. The U.S. Occupation authorities in Japan at first banned the teaching of Japanese history. After the ban was lifted in November 1946, school textbooks referred routinely but briefly to the Nanjing Massacre. These references disappeared from about 1955 with the stigmatizing of Marxist historians who were critical of "imperial myths and morals" during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

.Fogel, Joshua A. ''The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography''. 2000, page 75-6 The "spirit of patriotism" was to be written into school textbooks, to take the place of the "red textbooks" which were critical of the state and the Emperor. The Nanjing Massacre was written out of Japanese textbooks completely from the 1950s to 1970s, until disgust with the Vietnam War led Japanese society to rethink Japanese militarism in the World War II period.Fogel, Joshua A. ''The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography''. 2000, page 78-80 Katsuichi Honda's 1971 "Travels in China" was a keystone of this reexamination of the war era. Just as Honda, in writing about the Vietnam War, had sought to narrate the war "through Asian Eyes", his scholarship on Imperial Japanese action in China sought to depict Japanese aggression from a Chinese perspective. The text stimulated much interest and debate, and had both supporters and detractors. Among the more intense rebuttals to the text was that of , a World War II veteran and popular commentator, who attacked in particular an account recorded by Honda of a contest to kill Chinese people using swords. The contest would become a favorite target of revisionist writers in regards to the Nanking Massacre, in later years. Tomio Hora answered skepticism of the account with subsequent scholarship. Detailed research by Wakabayashi subsequently claimed that the competition was indeed a press fabrication of the time.

Later career

1999 saw the English language publication of Honda's ''The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame''. The book was principally a translation of Honda's ''The Road to Nanjing'' (南京への道, ''Nankin e no michi'', 1987) but was also supplemented with excerpts from his "Travel to China" and ''The Nanjing Massacre'' (南京大虐殺, ''Nankin Daigyakusatsu'', 1997). The book, translated by Karen Sandness, was published by M.E. Sharpe in connection with the

Pacific Basin Institute Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became t ...

. Pacific Basin's founder,

Frank Gibney Frank Bray Gibney (September 21, 1924 – April 9, 2006) was an American journalist, editor, writer and scholar. He learned Japanese while in the American Navy during World War II, then was stationed in Japan. As a journalist in Tokyo, he wrote ''F ...

, also edited the book, writing an introduction critical of

Iris Chang Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, '' The Rape of Nanking'', an ...

and her popular treatment of the massacre, '' The Rape of Nanking'', which had been published two years prior. Other works by Honda available in English include ''The Impoverished Spirit in Contemporary Japan: Selected Essays of Honda Katsuichi'' and ''Harukor: An Ainu Woman's Tale''.

Lawsuit

On August 23, 2005 a Tokyo District Court presided over by Judge Akio Doi ruled against the families of

Toshiaki Mukai Toshiaki is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Toshiaki can be written using many different combinations of kanji characters. Some examples: *敏明, "agile, bright" *敏朗, "agile, clear" *敏晃, "agile, clear" *敏章, "agil ...

and Tsuyoshi Noda, Japanese soldiers who had participated in a "killing contest", to see who would be the first to kill 100 Chinese, in 1937. The families had sued the ''

Mainichi Shimbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (previ ...

'', whose predecessor, the ''

Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.4 ...

'', covered the story in 1937, as well as the ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Honda for his stories in 1971 and (in book form) 1981.

References

External links

''Harukor''
at the

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honda, Katsuichi 1932 births Living people Japanese editors Japanese pharmacists Japanese war correspondents Japanese writers The Asahi Shimbun people Kyoto University alumni Nanjing Massacre People from Nagano Prefecture War correspondents of the Vietnam War Year of birth uncertain Chiba University alumni