Page 98 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

600 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

kept away from the privileges.
Furthermore, preparatory military drill became compulsory for students under the con-
scription age. For this training, active-duty officers of the Army were assigned to junior and
high schools. Now, the privilege had changed its nature from a measure to attract the upper-
class into the military to the one to effectively acquire the reserve officers as had been the
original purpose.

estabLishment of officer candidate system: students as a
resource of reserve officers
In 1927, the one-year volunteer system was abolished and officer candidate system was
introduced. Under this system, students, after graduating vocational schools or equivalent
ones, could be appointed to reserve second lieutenant after 11 months training, if he had
already passed the preparatory military drill.
The content of privilege did not change widely, still exempting students from the
draft while at school. However, Note that the officer candidate system was established by a
complement act of army, not a military service law. This meant that students’ fates were at
the hand of the military, and the Diet could not intervene it. Students were now considered to
be a part of potential army trainee and reserve officers.
Needless to say, students had an option not to choose the officer candidate system.
But in that case, they had to serve for the military for three years as private. The original
purpose of the military, making students as a resource of reserve officers, was accomplished
in this way.

the wwii in asia and the pacific: students mobiLized to the fronts
Just before the Pearl Harbor attack, extension period of student conscription could be ab-
breviated or suspended due to the imperial decree. The decree could be issued not by a Diet
approval, but according to the prerogative of supreme command which was believed to be an
exclusive possession of the military. This means that the military could control the student
privileges as it wished, and the students’ destiny was at the military’s hand.
On October 1943, the extension of conscription for the students at school was suspended
except science major students. Many students hereafter were called and dispatched to the
battlefields. Some Students were called to the military with holding student status, and oth-
ers were forced to shorten the period of school attendance by 6 months. Full scale “student
mobilization” was finally realized in this way. Taking an example of 1943, it is estimated that
nearly 50,000 students from colleges and vocational schools were mobilized.
How did such student fight? Those qualified for aviation were ordered to be pilots. Stu-
dents were not allowed to turn down this order. Approximately 3,000 in the army and 5,000
in the navy were assigned to pilot courses in the year of 1943 only. They were deployed in
operational units after no more than 10 months flight drills. Their technique was, not to men-
tion, far from perfect, and many of them lost their lives (40% in the army and 30 % in the
navy in 1943) . Some of them died in suicide attacks.
Many of those who were not qualified for aviation received quick drills for reserve of-
ficers and were sent to most disparate fronts to supplement shortage of element leaders. Only