Inspired by the True Events of World War II
by Yasuyuki Kasai
(Tokushima, Japan)
Dragon of the Mangroves
Genre: Historical Fiction
On February 19, 1945, when World War II was about to end, saltwater crocodiles killed nearly a thousand Japanese infantrymen trying to break through the siege of the Allies in a mangrove around Ramree Island, Burma (Myanmar). And by the next morning, no more than twenty men had survived.
It was not until when I read this article in Guinness World Records that I learned the Ramree crocodile attack case. I felt it gruesome and sought after a book detailing the event but couldn't find anything. So I finally understood I had no way but writing it by myself.
The story is hardly circulated among the Japanese; we have no record verifying this in Japan. It was proven that no less than 450 soldiers made a safe return from the island to the continent, according to official war reports and many personal memorandums. This means almost half the garrison was alive after the battle, which simply makes the casualties by crocodiles doubtful. But I do not believe the whole story is a downright falsity. During the World War II, Japanese occupation area was called the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, and it was largely overlapped with the habitat of saltwater crocodiles; we have many reports of crocodile attacks, not only in the Burma Campaign but also in other southern fronts.
I finished a Japanese draft after three years of collecting materials, and one year of writing. In 2006, it was selected as one of last five nominees for 7th Library Novel Prize of Shogakukan, one of the biggest publishing companies in Japan, among more than 600 submitted manuscripts. It wasn't satisfying enough. My readers were limited. To deliver it to more people, I thought, English would be better. But English is not my native tongue. In short, my English is poor, and writing idiomatic text was always a problem. I was born and raised in Japan and has never visited at any countries where English speakers live. I had nobody who could help me out with translating the Japanese draft into good English. Still I thought I had better write the draft by myself anyway as I had no money to hire a translator nor time to take up a matter with the person. However, I contacted a POD publishing company and hired an American professional editor to correct the text before publishing. It took me one year for translating and one more year for publishing at a rough estimate. Nearly seven years had passed since the beginning.
We tend to forget this kind of tale, compared with other atrocities of war. Still, I think this story tells of war and symbolizes it effectively. War is becoming more mechanized and computerized, but its core is unchanged. That's why I wrote and published this book, Dragon of the Mangroves.
In the nineteenth century, my great-great-grandfather was ordered by his feudal lord to go a long way to Edo (now Tokyo) to defend the coast against the oncoming American fleet, with only his ancient sword and armor to rely upon. When the Pacific War broke out in 1941, my father and one of my uncles were conscripted and became an Army artilleryman and a Navy airman, respectively. Both fought against the United States forces. My ancestral history shows that some part of my family was dedicated to fighting against foreigners. Of course, I have never fought with foreigners, apart from some fencing bouts and PC games. I appreciate this peace, and hope that it lasts forever.
Visit Dragon of the Mangroves.
