The Memoirs of a Japanese Nurse on the Western Front (pt 2)
Hajimeko Takeda’s Notes by a Japanese Nurse Sent to France
Translated by Paul Carty & Eiko Araki, edited by Freddy Rottey & Dominiek Dendooven
In Stand To! 122 (April 2021), the introduction, context and postscript of Hajimeko Takeda’s memoirs as a Japanese nurse in France were published. This is the first part of the translation of her account, as originally published in the local newspaper Fukuoka Shimbun from May 25 to June 6, 1919.
[1]
It was on November 3rd, 1914 when I received a summons: “Order of Dispatch to France as a relief nurse in the Japanese Red Cross (JRC) contingent”. As far as I remember, it was in the autumn evening when tinged maple leaves seemed to measure the loneliness of the passing season while people were talking about the chrysanthemums just beginning to bloom. I had become a member of JRC nurses hoping to contribute my life to humanitarian and philanthropic work and to the relief of suffering patients. I did not expect to receive this summons, and I was filled with a surprise and happiness which I had never experienced before. Strange emotions stole upon me, ruffling the blood flowing through my heart.
I went to the Kumamoto Branch of JRC without delay, and was warned not to tell anyone about this mission, and these warnings were delivered in great detail. As the nurses were summoned to the Tokyo headquarters of JRC, I hurriedly packed my wicker trunks to travel to France. It is easy to say “packing wicker trunks”, but I was very anxious about traveling to Paris far away from Japan, crossing many miles of blue seas, and did not know how to begin packing. Members of Kumamoto Branch and my friends helped me pack, and on November 8th my heavy wicker trunks were sent from my house.
I had already experienced relief work in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 as a member of Nisseki Relief Corps. My father told me that this new mission would be a great honour not only to myself but also to our family, the Takedas, for many generations to come. He also said that it would be gratifying to work behind the scenes of the Great War, an unprecedented event in history. Encouraged by his words, I took the first step toward France from Kumamoto Station at four o’clock in the late afternoon of that day.
The autumn sun, setting early, started to lean toward Mt. Hanaoka, and the treetops of colored leaves were brightened by the evening sun. Even the sight of a few mussels moved me with a sense of pathos. When I thought of leaving my beloved hometown Kumamoto for a strange foreign land, tears welled up in my eyes.
At Kumamoto Railway Station, I was sent off with a shout of “banzai” [cheers] and blessings from people of Kumamoto Branch of JRC and its prefectural hospital. Encouraged by their words, I was filled with hope, but at the same time was overwhelmed with emotion when I heard the steam whistle of the train. All I could do was silently nod my head in assent.
At eleven o’clock on the 10th of the same month I safely arrived at Tokyo Station, and visited the main branch of JRC to find the details of the dispatch. The JRC contingent to be dispatched to France consisted of one head doctor, two assistant doctors, and twenty nurses. We were to board the ship “Fushimimaru” from Yokohama Port on December 16th. Until December 15th, we prepared for departure and learned some French. At 8:00 a.m. on the 16 th seen off by many people including members of the nobility, we boarded our boat “Fushimimaru” due to depart at 10:00 a.m.
That day as the howling north wind mixed with snow, we looked at the flag of the Rising Sun fluttering on the ship as if it were the only living thing. Mr. Torayoshi Irisawa (Irie?) was going to be the captain on the Fushimimaru’s maiden voyage. In fact, the ship just recently had its launching ceremony. The paint was so fresh that it seemed as if our fingers would stick to it if we touched it. It was really comfortable to be on board the ship. Captain Irisawa was very pleased to have this rare occasion, on the maiden voyage of the ship, to transport Japanese nurses to Europe where they were going to serve.
At last the whistle of departure blew in the snowy sky. The sound of the engine made us sad, and our team of maidens, with a twenty-one-year-old as the youngest, started on a long journey. We all felt the sorrow of leaving the mountains and rivers of our country, though our cheeks were hot with excitement.
[2]
The ship began to sail slowly and smoothly. Closing my eyes, I remembered my father’s remonstrations, the image of my mother, and the warm-heartedness of my friends. These memories were inscribed indelibly on my mind at this solemn departure. On the other hand, when I imagined the big city of Paris and the background of the Great War, I was filled with hope, satisfaction and curiosity, and could not sleep soundly on the first day on board. The sound of the waves lapping against the side of the ship often broke our dreams. Other members seemed not to have slept either, and we sat up the first night talking, with bright eyes, about Paris, which none of us had seen yet.
On board the ship we continued to study French. In our leisure time we enjoyed playing cards and karuta [Japanese card game]. When the sea was calm we almost forgot that we were out on the sea, but one time, struck by a strong wind, the ship rolled heavily. As we were not used to sailing, we grew pale and thought we were done for. To show our resolve we tied towels around our heads, but even then, we vomited. Despite our best efforts, we actually were a comical scene. When the sea was calm again, we forgot our recent suffering. We sang songs or like children romped about on the deck. When the ship was passing the Suez Canal, several nurses on the deck who had been singing ‘Hato Poppo’ [a song from school] rushed to the cabin. We asked them what had happened. They said they had heard the rumble of a cannon and seen an airplane in the sky. At this we all went on deck attracted by these fearful scenes. To be sure, we clearly saw the skillful piloting of planes and heard the distant roaring of guns. We all were hushed and the ship anchored temporarily in a bay out of harm’s way.
Though shuddering at the rumbling sound of the cannon, we relied on the Red Cross flag hoisted high up at the bow. The ship endeavored to pass through the turmoil of war, and finally after fifty-one days of sailing we reached the port of Marseilles in the dawn of February 4 th, 1915. We were all eyes and ears at the exoticism of the city we saw for the first time. The Japanese Embassy, local officials and the people of Marseilles gave us a hearty welcome. The city prepared a special train for us to go to Paris. At eight o’clock on the morning of February 5 th, we arrived at Lyon Station, Paris.
Here again we were greeted with a firm handshake by many people including the staff of Japanese Embassy and a baroness so-and-so. We departed in a long string of cars to Hotel Astoria[1] near the Arc de Triomphe, which was appointed as a Japanese Hospital. When we finally arrived after a long journey, all the members of the contingent were allocated to the rooms on the 6th and 7th floor of the main building. After a little rest, we began unpacking our wicker trunks.
Feeling happy that we all arrived safe and sound, I renewed my firm resolution to do my duties of philanthropy in this unfamiliar country. I passed the first night in Paris, dreaming of my hometown and praying (to God) that we would fulfill our responsibilities.
[3]
Hotel Astoria where we were stationed had been used by the British Red Cross for treatment before they went up to the front line. This hotel was situated on the left of la Place de l’Étoile where the uphill Champs-Élysées , starting from la Place de la Concorde in front of le Palais du Louvre, reached. The hotel, having eight stories, towered above the rest of the surrounding buildings, but was not equal to the height of the Tour Eiffel. As the hotel was on higher ground, we could have a good view, from our sitting room on the eighth floor, not only of the whole city of Paris but of the surrounding hazy mountains. This hotel was the subject of gossip among Parisians. The hotel, which had been run by Germans before the war, was rumored to install wireless telegraphy on the rooftop which was causing inconvenience to the French government. Another rumor was that the German Kaiser, after the defeat of Paris, planned to have a dinner party at this hotel, even arranging its date and menu.
On February 14th in the 4th year of Taisho (1915), two poles were hoisted resolutely on the rooftop of the hotel; on one pole was fluttering the flag of the Rising Sun and that of the Red cross, and on the other the tricolor flag of France and the flag of the Red Cross. The four flags fluttering from these two poles could be seen from l’Arc de Triomphe and also as far as la Concorde. Our fellow countrymen looking at these flags must have felt overjoyed. These flags invoked in us compatriots some pleasant feelings which were hard to explain and they seemed to give good impression beyond description to French people.
The opening ceremony of our hospital was held in the name of His Excellency Ambassador Ishii and our senior doctor, Dr. Shioda. Many important officials and people including Japanese residents came to the ceremony. Its grandeur reminded me of the annual celebration of the first Emperor Jinmu held in Nara on April 3rd.
In wartime Paris banquets or dancing parties went out of fashion among society circles. Instead, those society ladies were keen on doing jobs related to the war, especially tending the honorably wounded. They prided themselves doing service for the country, which prompted every society lady to be engaged in such relief work as a voluntary nurse. To our hospital too many ladies applied for nursing. Dr. Shioda seemed to have a very hard time choosing as he did not know their ranks in society. As the reputation of our hospital was affected by that of the ladies working there, he asked so-and-so baroness who was well acquainted with the situation in Paris to select suitable persons. Among those ladies who wanted to extend a warm helping hand in relief work were those who had a long experience of working as a nurse and also those rich ladies who taught nursing as a retirement job because they enjoyed teaching. Nevertheless, almost all the rest were those who got a license only after doing a brief course lasting a few months.
Observing these things every day we were deeply impressed by the fact that we shared the same feelings both in the East and the West. Is it not praiseworthy that all men should render devoted service to the country by going into battle while we women who are not permitted to be at the front devote ourselves to the relief of wounded soldiers?
[4]
The four flags hoisted high on the building have been bathed in light from both the rising and setting sun. Time has passed; we have gradually settled down in our new circumstances. As I wrote before, it is praiseworthy how the French ladies who had volunteered were so enthusiastic about nursing. Even fifty- or sixty- year old ladies, who were as rich as Croesus and waited upon by many servants, came to our hospital early in the morning and went home when the stars were out, commuting to and from the hospital without the use of a vehicle. We were very worried, as some slipped down on the icy streets of a winter morning when the wind was piercing cold, and some lay down from exhaustion on a bench where many people were passing by. These were not rare events.
We finally made an arrangement like this: We, the Japanese trained nurses, would do the nursing work for the patients, while the society ladies would attend to their meals and comforts. As a result, it so happened that there were some graceful young ladies working in a dimly lit pantry and other ladies carrying a plain tray with many dishes; each dish had a piece of meat and a bit of salads. We were moved to tears when we saw those ladies taking every care to comfort solitary patients who had few to rely on, or to wash their feet, or help them put on the shoes.
Another impressive thing is that the French Red Cross employees including the staff, doctors and nurses are all working unpaid. When they went as far as Africa or Greece, they were unpaid though provided with travelling expenses, bed and meals. It seemed that there were no rules about allowance or compensation if they were injured or died. Taking all this into consideration, these people engaged in relief work had not only a certain amount of property, but were filled with a philanthropic spirit of sacrificing themselves for the love of others to help the weak. This was always the topic of our conversation, and we Japanese all renewed our wish to have the same philanthropic spirit.
By the way, there appeared a novel which had a Japanese woman called Madame Chrysanthème or Madame Kikuko as a heroine.[2] Entitled as “At a Japanese hospital on Champs-Élysées”, it explains in detail how our hospital impressed the author, admiring the cleanliness of our operation room, tidiness of our stock rooms of medical stuff. It also praises our senior surgeon’s adroitness at operations comparing it with cutting jewelry and polishing ivory. After this there are some comments on us nurses, so I will write a little about them in passing…
[5]
On May 25th, 1916, the newspaper Figaro published the following article:[3]
When I entered the bandage preparation room, I saw a Japanese nurse. She was dressed in nursing clothes, wearing a big cap like Savoie confectionary and seemed to be preparing bandages. When I said “Hello”, she paid monotonous respect with a smile. She had a round face and very dark eyes. Whenever she smiled, her false teeth twinkled golden. She looked very young, but when I asked her if she had experienced aid work in the Russo-Japanese War, she said yes. This explains she must be more than thirty years old, though she really looked like a young girl.
“She is very different!” said Mr. Girard, an aviation officer, who was hospitalized here five times due to a variety of wounds. I also asked him what feelings these women had when they left home: Did they feel compassion common to women all over the world or did they have patriotic feelings and self-confidence? Do they want to share with French people the advancement of Japanese medicine as an intelligent nation, or did they want to satisfy their curiosity for academic reasons? He guessed they had some of all these feelings anyway. He continued as follows: “What we should not forget about these women is that they are professional nurses paid about six hundred francs (two hundred yen) a month. They are delegated from the Japanese Red Cross as the most valuable medical workers representing Japan. They also had a firm belief in their mission as well as duty and patriotic feelings. The fact that they did not even have a look around the city of Paris even after living here for one year explains their sincerity and lack of any frivolous curiosity.”
The only pleasure they had, I have heard, is that in the evening after they are off duty they change from European nursing uniforms they don’t like into Japanese kimono and play with dolls they brought from Japan. These things, however, cannot possibly be enough to judge Japanese women. Those child-like women are very intelligent, know their duties as nurses, and are strict, devoted and faithful. They are always kind and gentle to patients.
Sometimes, however, they are not suited to those bearded soldiers cracking jokes, because they do not understand innocent jokes. If patients should make flattering jokes, those ‘musume’ [young women] did not pay any attention, which took away all the fun. They had the character of young girls reared in the countryside.”
“Patients’ fiancées and sweethearts living in France must be worried about their lovers being tended by beautiful nurses in a Paris hospital, but those fears are utterly ungrounded when the patients are under the care of Japanese nurses. Japanese women seem to despise those who cannot tolerate pain. Those wounded, who scream and wail seeking the mother’s fond love must be unhappy indeed. Japanese women respect those patients who quietly tolerate pains ‘like a man,’ while they struggle to manage their own mental strain. One such nurse, I have heard, wrote to her mother quoting an old saying ‘It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country.’”
[6]
Thousands of miles from the skies of hometown we have been sleeping, thinking it good to die or perish for our country. We were called together by our Emperor to the war front, just as dewdrops on leaf tips; sadly we were not as tough as stones. As is usual with war it is not rare to find bodies growing cold in an instant or disabled with wounds, but I have heard that in this war there were a greater number of more seriously wounded than before.
As I wrote before, I was dispatched to the Russo-Japanese War to engage in relief work. Comparing the wounds of the casualties of these two wars, in this war we found more evidence of atrocities. We felt a shudder come over us when we thought of the ferocity of the Germans, and this happened to us countless times.
The French Red Cross used dogs to search for the wounded soldiers at the front: those dogs were far cleverer than Japanese police dogs. Once the dogs were unleashed at the site of the battlefield, they found the wounded wherever they lay hidden, and came back to their masters to lead them back by the sleeves to the wounded. The intelligence of the dogs always amazed people who were watching them. All the wounded from Russia, Italy, Britain or France were sent to Paris thanks to the contribution of these dogs.
At the Paris station, there were army surgeons who sent the wounded soldiers, according to their conditions, to various relief corps delegated from various countries. The French army surgeons sent the most seriously wounded to the Japanese relief corps. I want to share with our readers our happiness that they had such confidence in our group. At first the president of the JRC ordered us to ask for the presence of French doctors when operating on any patient, but they came only for the first two or three times and never came afterwards. This is after they witnessed Dr. Shiota, our chief surgeon, performing an operation and the nurses tending the wounded. All of us, not only Dr. Shiota but our distinguished nurses from the Japanese medical world, felt very proud that the progress of medicine in our country was thus highly appreciated in the West, the greatest authority in the medical world.
Many wounded soldiers arriving at the Paris station want to be accommodated by the relief corps of their own country, which is quite understandable human nature, but they are obliged to be divided into that of every country. One of those patients confessed that he was greatly disappointed to find he would be sent to the Japanese relief corps. He said he complained about his unhappiness to be hospitalized into the Red Cross of a strange foreign country, even though the Red Cross advocates philanthropy. As he got used to our nursing, he felt very happy to find that our Relief Corps was kind. This is what every patient in our hospital says. When we addressed a patient as Monsieur, he said, “Japanese nurses are mothers. Call me ‘my son’.” So I said, “You are my son,” and he rejoiced, clapping his hand like a small child.
We accommodated patients from every country, and they each boasted about the place they had come from. When the topic shifted to the war, they got excited with their faces flushed with anger. Sometimes they tried to stand up with their maimed legs and attempted to throw anything at hand or began to fight about childish things, which amused us.
Another amusing thing is that patients from every country burst into tears when they feel pain at the time of operation or while their dressing was being changed. “You are a man and a soldier. What a weakling you are, weeping with such a small pain! Japanese soldiers bite their lips and never cry in a case like this”, I often chided them about this. At this they defied me saying, “We are soldiers. On the battlefields we never flinch no matter what happens. To tolerate pains on the battlefields is our duty. There is no loss of honour and we are no less courageous if we cry on the operating table.” It seems that they are making an excuse for their lack of toughness.
[7]
What perplexed us most was the language. We learned the French language for the first time in a classroom in the JRC Hospital soon after we were summoned, and practiced it a bit on board the ship. Our teacher praised our remarkable progress and hoped we would go on improving.
After we arrived in Paris, we could somewhat understand what the patients were saying, perhaps better than mothers who had to guess their babies’ talk, it seems. What was difficult was to make ourselves understood in French. Some of us could speak English, but there were not many.
We wanted to continue practicing French, but we were too busy to find time to do so. In the meantime, we got used to speaking French, and patients began to guess what we wanted to say. Patients from big cities in France, Parisians especially, could guess our feelings and promptly understood us, which we greatly appreciated. On the other hand, newly hospitalized patients, particularly from the countryside, were hard to understand, because they had broad accents and dialects. Senior patients, accustomed to us, who shared a sickroom with the new patients took the trouble to translate for us what they wanted to say.
Our French conversation was also very poor to the extent that our maid at the hospital was chided by her mother at home because her way of speaking French had become very strange. There can be no wonder why. When she thought about this, she realized that she had become used to articulating her thought word by word instead of speaking sentences.
The inability to communicate is troublesome to medical people who should understand the subtleties of their patients’ minds. We can tolerate the inconvenience as long as we get what we need in time, but to patients it is a pity indeed that they cannot make themselves understood. To the slightly wounded, our strange language may have become a topic of conversation or even a charm, but to the seriously wounded, who have to put up with intense pain, it must be another burden to communicate to us what they want. We really felt sorry for them.
The lack of language which pained us most is when we encountered mentally deranged patients or heavily wounded and exhausted patients. We thought it all the more necessary to practice the language especially when taking care of mentally deranged patients. To those who were noticeably deranged, the lack of language on our part was not a big problem, but when it came to those whose mental disorder was not so severe, we had to understand what they were saying and if they were speaking normally or deliriously. This was the most difficult problem we encountered in attending to patients.
For this difficulty, French volunteer nurses gave a generous helping hand, which encouraged us all. Those ladies gave patients many comforting words which were far more effective than ours, and relieved the patients’ tedium by chatting and reading to them. They also wrote letters for the patients who had difficulty in writing. Dr. Shioda said that without the help of those volunteer ladies our hospital life would have been insipid. Our spoken French is largely single words instead of sentences, but it is enough for daily life.
The chief doctor and other people have said that our nursing skills are excellent and that we could work perfectly anywhere in the world as JRC nurses. They explained that even though we have poor physiques, our conduct is orderly and meticulous. It has also been said of our Japanese nursing group that we value cleanliness and are kind, which are all virtues necessary for nurses. In this manner we continued for seventeen months, working for fourteen hours a day, and we were able to complete our active military service. The praises given by our chief doctor and other people were a great satisfaction and joy to us all.
To be continued …
**********************
1 Hotel Astoria, on the corner of the Champs-Elysées and the rue de Presbourg, housed the Japanese hospital
2 The entrance to the Japanese hospital (Albums Valois, La Contemporaine, Paris)
3 The storage room of the Japanese hospital (Albums Valois, La Contemporaine, Paris)
4 Japanese nurses preparing bandages, 3 September 1915 (Albums Valois, La Contemporaine, Paris)
5 The operation theatre of the Japanese hospital, 3 September 1915 (Albums Valois, La Contemporaine, Paris)
6 A ward in the Japanese hospital (Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris)
7 A group of Japanese nurses and their French assistants on the balcony of Hotel Astoria (Musée Carnavalet, Paris)
8 Decorative plate with the flags of the Allied countries: the United Kingdom, Belgium, Russia, Italy, Japan, Serbia and France. (IFFM)
IFFF000106
Japanese officers visiting the Belgian front, 1916 (IFFM)
67_Sgt Marine JAPAN
Eugène Burnand : A Japanese sailor (from: Les Alliés dans la Guerre des Nations. Paris, 1922)
[1] Located at 133, Avenue des Champs Elysée the building later became the famous Publicis Drugstore. Gutted by fire in 1972, it was replaced by a modern structure.
[2] We were not able to trace this book. Obviously, it is not the eponymous novel by Pierre Loti, published in 1887 which is said to have inspired Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly.
[3] There is indeed an article on the Japanese hospital in this issue in Figaro, but it does not have the content quoted by nurse Takeda.
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