The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army's Elite Intelligence School

by Stephen C. Mercado

Despite impressive exploits during World War II, Imperial Japan's military intelligence services remain virtually unknown. Stephen C. Mercado has written a pioneering study of the Imperial Japanese Army's elite Nakano School, which trained more than 2,000 men from 1938 to 1945 in the arts of espionage, propaganda, and irregular warfare.
Working in the shadows during World War II, these dedicated warriors of the Nakano School executed a range of missions. They played major roles in attempting to subvert British rule in India, captured oil fields in the Dutch East Indies, fought U.S. forces in the Philippines and on Okinawa, and organized Japanese guerrilla units that could have made the invasion of Japan a bloodbath.
In the postwar period, Nakano veterans became valuable U.S. allies by providing American intelligence with a wealth of information on the Soviet Far East, China, and Korea. Many would also influence postwar Japan through prominent positions in the government and the private sector.
Based on archival research and the memoirs of Japanese veterans, The Shadow Warriors of Nakano sheds much-needed light on Japan's wartime military and intelligence history as well as postwar Japanese affairs.

Genres: Japan, History

331 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2003

Reviews

[Russell Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Providing insightful coverage of a subject little addressed elsewhere, Mercado largely relies on telling the tales of those who founded, taught at, or graduated from Nakano training programs. The approach is largely an effective one though on occasion the reader might thirst for greater detail regarding the planning and conduct of specific operations, training procedures, or insights into the motivations of those involved during their behind-the-scenes activities. The last of this trio hints at the most significant shortfall in the author's analysis: a soft-pedaling of the more unsavory of these individuals' actions during the war.

[James Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book about Japan's Intelligence School to train spies and saboteurs for war. It covers the time from the start of the school on through the end of the war and afterwards. I'll note a few of the most interesting things.

Even though Japan lost WWII, many of the countries of Asia did benefit somewhat from their actions, as growing independence movements helped free many countries from the “ownership” by Western nations like England, the Netherlands, etc.

One of the purposes of the Nakano school was to help control any domestic opposition to the war. Japan was at the time under very, very strict censorship, and almost everything the public had available as far as information goes was controlled by the government which gave the civilians only what they wanted to give them as far as information went. Those who choose to speak out against the government were dealt with harshly, if not permanently.

Some of the things the students at the school studied were ideology, propaganda and intelligence theory. They also studied the activities of Lawrence of Arabia. Other subjects included pharmacology, psychology, aviation and marine navigation.

They were also taught how to use bacteria to poison the wells of a city.

A lot of people in Latin America were happy when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

One early idea was to present Japan's efforts in other countries as helping to free them from Western colonialism.

Trying to get enemy troops to surrender and broadcasting false information were two other things the school graduates did.

There were plans for an actual invasion by Japan of northeast India.

The book talks about how things changed over time, and how the school graduates were to help Japan make its last stand, assuming the U.S. actually invaded Japan itself. They helped prepare civilians for attacking U.S. troops.

The book tells how young girls and boys were prepared for aiding the war effort. Other preparations for war are discussed.

Atrocities against American fliers are discussed.

The book also has a whole lot more in it.

[Ellis Amdur · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of Japan’s espionage school and service. What is ironic in the extreme is that although they fought in the service of empire, they were a faction within the Japanese military government that truly did have a goal of liberating Asia from European colonialists, and – they essentially did. The author concludes that had they also succeeded in taking a leading rather than subsidiary role vis a vis the “operations” branch of the army, Japan may never have gone to war at all, and surely, in that event, would have behaved more as liberators themselves, rather than as brutal colonialists in turn.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely well sourced examination of a young but extremely influential intelligence service school in late Imperial Japan. The best parts of it are actually about the lingering postwar influence the school had on the Cold War, East Asia, and even US intelligence.