The Japanese War: London University’s WWII Secret Teaching Programme and the Experts Sent to Help Beat Japan

Shortly after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the author was a junior Japanese officer serving in Java waiting to be repatriated by the advancing British-Indian army. When the allied troops arrived, he was astonished to find that there was not a single Japanese-speaking British officer. Thirty years later, now serving with the Mitsui trading company in London, Sadao Oba encountered several British Japanologists who spoke fluent Japanese. Asked how such language skills were acquired, he was informed of the special intensive language courses which were organized at the School of Oriental Studies (now SOAS), University of London, from 1942-1947 - which, in five years, produced a total of 648 experts in Japanese. This book documents the story of how the brightest students in the country’s grammar schools were recruited to learn in 18 months or less what was then considered the most difficult language in the world, in order to become translators, interpreters and interrogators for the allied effort in the Pacific War.