Tango no sekku, a 1944 US leaflet that speaks to Japanese soldiers about their sons

Tango no sekku (Boys' Day) is a 1944 Japanese-language leaflet, I07-J-1, catalogued under the Psychological Warfare Branch of U.S. Army Forces, Pacific. Two carp streamers fly over a village, and the text recalls the Boys' Day custom and closes with sympathy for the reader's love of his children.

The leaflet

Two carp streamers fly from a pole over a village drawn in yellow-green line. The heading names the Boys' Day festival of 5 May. Below it are four short paragraphs of Japanese. The face carries no surrender instruction and no sender's name.

端午の節句

日本の國民が昔から子供に對し非常に大きな愛情を持つてゐる事は全世界の人々に良く知られてゐます

[...]

さて現在の烈しい戰の混亂の中にあつても此の美はしい物語りは皆さんの故國に於ける幾多の記憶を呼び起すのに充分でしよう、我々は皆さんの子供に對する限り無き愛情に對し深い理解と同情を持つものであります

The archive's English version is a machine reading and translation by Claude from the Library of Congress image, not checked by a fluent reader. In it, the leaflet opens by saying the whole world knows the Japanese people's great love for their children. The middle paragraphs tell how, from the early Tokugawa period, families raised carp streamers on 5 May, and how the commoners' paper carp outshone the banners and weapons of the warriors. The close reads: "Now, even amid the confusion of the present fierce war, this beautiful tale should be enough to call up many memories of your homeland. We have deep understanding and sympathy for your boundless love for your children."

Who made it

The Library of Congress files the leaflet under the Psychological Warfare Branch of U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, and the archive lists the audience as enemy forces. The archive also classes the source as unidentified, its category for a blurred source, and its description notes that no sender appears on the face. The English text on the back is not on the archive's image.

A leaflet that asks for nothing

The archive tags transfer: the warmth of a family festival is carried over to whoever sent the paper. That is the whole of the technique. There is no threat, no instruction, and no claim about the war except that it is fierce.

Its quiet line of argument is in the middle. Commoners' carp, flown for children, outshine the warriors' banners and spears. A soldier reading it is invited to set his family above his army without being told to.

The unsigned face is the point to weigh. A reader who does not know the sender cannot judge the sender's motive, and this leaflet leaves him to guess. That is fair to note in any propaganda. Measured against the rest of a shooting war, though, a message that appeals to a man's love for his sons is a humane way to speak to an enemy. Compare Yesterday's Enemy Is Today's Friend, which put the Geneva convention in front of the same readers, and Japan's Life Line, which argued from a map.