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Sakae Oba: The Fox of Saipan

If you’ve been watching a lot of Japanese TV lately, you’ve probably noticed that there are many commercials for a new war movie, Taiheiyō no kiseki –fokksu to yobareta otoko ( 太平洋の奇跡−フォックスと呼ばれた男−, or, Miracle of the Pacific: The Man Called Fox). It’s based on the story of Sakae Oba, a Japanese officer who refused to surrender when American forces captured Saipan in 1944:

On 7 July, Captain Ōba and his men participated in the largest banzai charge of the war in the Pacific. After 15 hours of intense and unrelenting hand to hand combat, almost 4,300 Japanese soldiers were dead. Allied forces declared the island secured on 9 July 1944. By 30 September 1944, the Japanese Army made an official presumption of death for all personnel of unknown status and they were declared killed in action. That included Captain Ōba, and he was awarded a “posthumous” promotion to Major.

In reality, Captain Ōba survived the battle and took command of 46 other soldiers. Ōba then led over 200 Japanese civilians deeper into the jungles to evade capture. He and his men organized the civilians and placed them in mountain caves and hidden jungle villages. When the soldiers were not assisting the civilians with survival tasks, Captain Ōba and his men continued their battle against the garrison of U.S. Marines. Ōba used Mount Tapochau as their primary base; at 473 meters (1,552 ft), the peak offered an unobstructed 360-degree view of the island. From their base camp on the western slope of the mountain, Ōba and his men occasionally conducted guerilla-style raids on American positions. Due to the speed and stealth of these operations, and the frustrated attempts to find him, the Marines on Saipan eventually referred to Ōba as “The Fox”.

Captain Ōba and his men held out on the island for 512 days, or about 16 months. On 27 November 1945, former Major General Umahachi Amō, commander of the 9th Independent Mixed Brigade during the Battle of Saipan, was able to draw out some of the Japanese in hiding by singing the anthem of the Japanese infantry branch. Amō was then able present documents from the defunct Imperial General Headquarters to Captain Ōba ordering him and his men to surrender themselves to the Americans. On 1 December 1945, three months after the official surrender of Japan, the Japanese soldiers gathered once more on Mt. Tapochau and sang a song of departure to the spirits of the war dead. Ōba then led his people out of the jungle and they presented themselves to the Marines of the 18th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Company. With great formality and commensurate dignity, Captain Ōba surrendered his sword to Lieutenant Colonel Howard G. Kurgis, and his men surrendered their arms and colors. They were the last organized resistance of Japanese forces on Saipan.

The movie seems to place emphasis on how Oba saved the lives of civilians by helping them hide in the jungles. Considering the fact that many other Japanese civilians died in the battle and thousands committed suicide rather than face capture, Oba’s actions probably did save some from such a fate.

Here’s a couple trailers for the film (which demonstrate how the f-word is perfectly okay in Japanese movie previews):

From the trailers, we can see that Oba gets major hero treatment in the movie. In addition to saving babies and convincing his fellow Japanese keep living, he also seems to earn the respect of his American foes.

There are also a few seconds of footage that show Toshiaki Karasawa’s character:

Karasawa plays an ex-Yakuza who fights alongside Oba. He shaved his head and bulked-up for the role, making him look very different from his typical appearance.

According to the Saipan Tribune, the film is expected to help the island’s tourism industry:

The movie has also sparked interest from tour agency Kinki Nippon Tourist (KNT), which is developing a special tour package to Saipan, with Japanese tourists expected to visit the major sites shown in the movie. KNT’s tour also offers a 300 Yen Discount coupon to view the movie.

“Despite our limited resources, we agree this tour program is a worthwhile promotion and are allocating a portion of the Japan office’s baseline budget to support its development,” said Bateman.

The film hits theaters across Japan on February 11th. I haven’t seen any information about an international release date, but its IMDB page shows that the film has been given the English title of “Oba: The Last Samurai” (based on a book of the same title).

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28 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - February 6, 2011 at 12:11 pm

Categories: Films Tags:

Tony D

Sounds interesting, I hope it treats the subject matter with respect.
boddah

I imagine this movie is gonna annoy quite a lot of Koreans/Chinese. I know it’s a story about a man protecting civilians, but it’s still a story making a hero out of someone fighting for a Japan that was slaughtering civilians abroad…If you kept the same basic story but replaced Japanese soldier with Nazi soldier I imagine a lot of people in the west would be annoyed too

Bob

Nah, I’m sure movies that show WWII from the German military’s perspective have been made.

War is hell. Everyone did “regrettable” things during the war – some more than others.

Piglet

I’ve never seen any German movie showing Nazi soldiers in a positive light, unless they are resisting against their own army. There is definitely more restrain on the German media to avoid showing this period in a positive way.
However, I am looking forward to watching this movie with an open eye.

http://tepido.org/ LB

Das Boot? Great movie. Not a “positive” movie overall, but its depiction of the sailors is pretty positive.
Piglet

Yes, I agree with you. In the boot, the Nazis are not shown in a good way (there is only one fervent Nazi in the submarine, the only other real Nazis appear when they stop in Spain, if I remember correctly) , but the average soldiers were pictured as apolitical. It is a rare German war movie humanizing the German army during WW2 (even though it is mainly an action movie).
http://www.billowykimono.com Senor Science

“I’ve never seen any German movie showing Nazi soldiers in a positive light, unless they are resisting against their own army”

Are we talking about Germans in the Wehrmacht, or Nazi party members in the SS or serving in the army?

Because if it’s the former, there are plenty of movies portraying them positively in spades.
Zen

I am guessing no one watched the The Cross of Iron (1977); great movie actually, show you the real horrors of war instead of trying to preach any nationalistic bullcrap into it (something many war movies failed to do).
Aceface

Hey,Just saw “The Eagle Has Landed”last night.German soldiers not only save Jewish girl in Poland,but also a kid in English village…..

fish taco

I doubt many Chinese or Koreans will watch this movie unless they subtitle it and release it outside Japan.

Anonymous

I’m not sure about Korea, but I’m pretty sure someone in China will pirate it, subtitle it and distribute it, even with its subject material.

anonymous1337

Well, maybe you don’t know about allied warcrimes. Acting like the Japanese soldiers of world war 2 were nothing but killers, is completely insulting and not totally correct. Allied warcrimes committed against the Japanese would include: “Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ” allied sailors shot a estimated over 100 Japanese sailors in the water, many of whom were trying to surrender, Battle of Bismarck sea U.S airplanes were strafing hundreds of Japanese soldiers in the water, November 1942 U.S marines shot alittle over 70 surrendering Japanese in the llu river ( they were apart of the Kuma Battalion that withdrew to Koli point after Kawaguchi’s failed assault on september 12th-14th ), Killing of untold numbers of Japanese surrendering all throughout the Pacific theatre, sending home Japanese skulls ( life magazine posted a article of this at the time ) unfairly trying many Japanese after the war including General Yamashita and Kawaguchi, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in firebombing attacks with the expressed purpose of burning down citys and causing as much civilian casualtys as possible. Also, it should also be noted that within the first months of occupation, that the number of Rape cases reported on Honshu alone raised 300 percent. Japanese committed some terrible warcrimes throughout the war, but there are also MANY examples of kindness showed by individuals towards the enemy. A hero in the Japanese Imperial Army is no different than a hero in the U.S army, and a Japanese hero should not be critisized just because his side lost.

Texas John

Saipan natives aren’t ethnically Japanese. Considering the Japanese army’s treatment of foreign nationals in general, and even of nominally Japanese civilians in Okinawa, I’m dubious that its soldiers were so solicitous of Saipanese civilians

http://www.japanprobe.com James

There were also tens of thousands of Japanese civilians who lived on Saipan in 1944.

It is well-documented that Oba did in fact help a group of such civilians hide in the mountains.
http://tepido.org/ LB

Saipan was a trust territory of Japan from 1922 until 1945 (in actual practice, however, it was Japanese from World War I until 1944). There were over 25,000 Japanese living on the island in 1941, not counting troops, as opposed to only a few thousand Chamorro. So during the period in question, the vast majority of civilians on Saipan were ethnically Japanese.

Hamachiman

The article clearly states Japanese civilians.

Is ‘Texas John’ even reading the same article?

thedude

my thoughts exactly

DavePos

That whole concept is pretty flawed, considering US forces weren’t targeting civilians to begin with.

If anything hiding them just made the more likely to become collateral damage when US forces were hunting down resisting Japanese soldiers.

http://tepido.org/ LB

That whole concept is pretty flawed, considering US forces weren’t targeting civilians to begin with.

Not in ground campaigns, true, but the air war was far less discriminating. And regardless of what US forces were actually doing, that was not what Japanese officialdom was telling people US forces were doing. If you are told over and over that anyone caught by the other side will be raped or tortured or killed, you probably are not going to be too eager to surrender to those forces, civilian or not.

If anything hiding them just made the more likely to become collateral damage when US forces were hunting down resisting Japanese soldiers.

Of course no other army, when confronted by an invading force, has ever attempted to move its civilian population to the rear or protect those civilians from the enemy, right? They always ran and left their civilian population to their fate. Riiiiight.
Zen

@DavePos

“That whole concept is pretty flawed, considering US forces weren’t targeting civilians to begin with. If anything hiding them just made the more likely to become collateral damage when US forces were hunting down resisting Japanese soldiers”

As much as Americans don’t want to face it, most ww2 American commanders will blast their way through places where they know contain heavy enemy resistance, even if there is civilians there. (I recall a joke from a Canadian veteran from European Theater complained that when the Canadian were doing the bombing, the Germans hide; when the Germans do their bombing, the Canadians hide. But when the Americans are doing the bombing, everyone have to hide.)

@Lb

“Of course no other army, when confronted by an invading force, has ever attempted to move its civilian population to the rear or protect those civilians from the enemy, right? They always ran and left their civilian population to their fate. Riiiiight.”

Actually Japan did not left their civilian population to their fate. Hirohito issued an order (not sure did the emperor came up with it himself or his advisers told him to) for Japanese civilians in Saipain to commit mass suicide if Saipan was to fall (saipan being one of the first place Allies conquered with huge Japanese civilian population, there were rights for the Imperial Japanese leadership to fear the impact on morale if it was to fall with a large amount of civilians alive.) It was said even Tojo was shocked at this order and hesitate in delivering the message, so the message arrived too late to be implemented. And I am pretty sure this fact will not be in the movie given the politics involved.

kotaor

If you want to learn about true war of Saipan,
I suggest you should find and read this book.
(sorry,written in Japanese.)

http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000J7B2LK/

The author of the book is Captain Oba’s fellow Lieutenant Norisuke Tanaka.
In that book, he writes horrific experience that Saipan’s civilian experienced.
so scary..

I think, this fact never written on history textbook in American school..
thx

http://aki-akiaki.blogspot.com Aki

Thank you for telling us about the book. It is out of print but I could find on the web some quotes from the book. They were scarier than I expected. I wish to find and read the book.
fish taco

The description for the book seems a little confusing. Is it fiction or biography?

http://aki-akiaki.blogspot.com Aki

According to the review on Amazon’s page, the book was written by Lieutenant Tanaka just after the war. It was based on the real record that he had kept writing during the war. He wished to publish it just after he returned to Japan, but it could not pass censorship by GHQ at the time.

hoihoi

it is as same as palau

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTRfPNEPR-A&playnext=1&list=PL5AEB4391B7E0638D
Porco

Not much fantasy in poster ^^

http://www.posters.ws/images/937294/saving_private_ryan.jpg
anonymous1337

Also, it should be noted that before the battle for Saipan, the Japanese attempted to re-locate all the Japanese civilians on the island ( which was a vast majority ) but the ship carrying the first load of civilians was sunk by U.S submarines, with almost no survivors.
Jfpollard54

During WWII, my father was a U.S. Marine on Saipan. He and his friend, Don Jones, were involved in the initial invasion by sea, and later pursued Oba in the jungle. Jones had a gift for languages and picked up Japanese quite easily. After the war, Jones remained in Japan as a writer and married a Japanese woman. In the 1980′s, out of curiousity, Jones tracked down the location of Oba, They had many conversations. It was during these conversations that Jones learned of Oba’s autobiography. Oba wrote it for himself and his family. At that time, Japan as a nation did not discuss the war and Oba made no attempt to publish. Eventually, Jones convinced Oba and his wife that the story needed to be told and that he would help. With Oba’s permission, Jones added a few U.S. Marine characters to make the story appeal more to American readers (my father was Geo. Pollard, and is one of these characters). I met Oba and his wife during their book tour to the U.S.. Oba, Jones, and my father spent time together, exchanging memories and toasting one another as old soldiers sometimes do. Unfortunately, Oba was nursing a heart condition and was often short of breath. He died not many months after the book tour. . Jones died a few years later and my father died in 2007. I found an old news clipping my father had saved from 1945 depicting Oba surrenduring his sword. It was clear to me that my father admired Oba as a fellow soldier for many years before meeting him in person. It may be possible to look all this up in the archives of the Kenosha News. The Chicago Tribune also ran an article about all of them.

Sakae Oba: The Fox of Saipan

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