Scott Harrington

Clarification - Shioda was born in 1915, started training Daito ryu in 1932 and did not enlist in the Army because he was a spy. Not because he was too young.

One of the reasons you didn't hear much from the Japanese 'old-timers' was they were in places where bad things happened.

A great account by Amleto Vespa tells all. An Italian official located in China, he gives up Italian favors and becomes a Chinese citizen. With the invasion of the Japanese, he is corralled to work for the Japanese. In his book "Secret Agent of Japan" published in 1938, he states on page 33,

No sooner had the Japanese troops set foot on Manchurian soil than any sort of common Japanese who could jabber a little Chinese or Russian was made "adviser." And what were these Japanese doing in Northern Manchuria? Most of them were criminals: crooks and adventurers; smugglers; sellers of narcotics; brothel-keepers. This underworld gentry constituted 95 per cent. of the Japanese in Manchuria. Protected by their own flag and extraterritorial rights, they were beyond the reach of Chinese laws. For this reason, the Chinese authorities, eager to avoid "incidents' with the Japanese, had instructed the Police to close their eyes to what was going on.Thus unrestrained, the Japanese stopped at nothing.

Vespa then tells other tales of complicit Japanese military officials involved in a host of illegal crimes of extortion, kidnapping, and murder.

Am I badmouthing such people as Ueshiba, Tomiki, and Shioda who spent time there (some quite long)? No. They were fantastic martial artists but directly connected to the military process going on. Telling a little might mean telling a lot. They let the past be the past.

Scott Harrington