“Standing watch”, 2nd Sino-Japanese War, c. 1940.

Dear Father:

Autumn is here. I was startled by the cool autumn wind after suffering from the well over one-hundred-degree temperatures we’ve been experiencing until now.

The skies are beautiful too and are filled with stars. Insects are singing around us. In this alien land of China any insects — whether they are kôrogi or matsumushi (a kind of cricket), or just about any type of autumn insect that we used to hear in Japan — make us soldiers feel nostalgic about home. So, whenever we get together and talk, our conversations are always limited to the mountains and rivers of home, and also to the food we enjoyed at home.

Father, our Yamamori Squad is now in Hankou [major city in Hubei Province]. Our several months’ training in that severe summer heat will now be tested, we hope successfully, during this autumn season.

… It turns out that we are now about to embark on a ship, and with no idea of our destination. In any event, we really have no other choice than that of continuing to follow the imperial orders.

– Meguro Akira, letter to his parents, September 16, 1941