Japanese War Poem

I just read a beautiful Japanese war poem. I don’t know who it is by. It was in an collection of essays by the scholar 田中正俊 called 『戦中戦後』

敗戦の祖国へ

君にはほかにどんな帰り方もなかったのだ。
−海峡の底を歩いて帰る以外。

To the motherland that lost the war

For you there was no way to return,
Except to walk the channel’s deep.

(As always feel free to email me suggestions to improve the translation) I discussed this poem with Sayaka, I kind of feel like there is an interesting potential ambiguity in the title here which changes the answer of “Who is the you?” Reading this I picture the dead soldiers returning home, but if the you is the motherland this poem is then about Japan itself.

6 thoughts on “Japanese War Poem”

  1. Hello nice poem I found it by doing a search for Japanese war poems, maybe you can help Im trying to find poem from ww2 Japanese Pilot he talks about flying over the sea and bombing, any direction you can give?

  2. Your (and Sayaka’s) Japanese is obviously better than mine, and I know that adding には is common when addressing others, but in this case, couldn’t the に possibly also be indicating direction, and thus imply something like “As for returning to you, there was no other way, except to walk the bottom of the straits.” ? In this case, the “kimi” would be referring to the fatherland, and the speaker would be the soldier.

  3. In any case, I would think that you almost certainly have to translate 海峡 as “straits”, as it is clearly referring to the Korea and Tsushima straits, which are called 海峡 in Japanese.

  4. Ya, you might be right, especially since the title is addressed to the motherland.. in which case I would probably change the first line to “There was not way to return to you…”

    I wouldn’t use “As for returning to you”

  5. My translation would be something like:

    It was just that there was no way to return to you,
    other than walking the bottom of the straits.

    I would try to capture the explanatory sense of the のだ.

  6. Hello,

    I have a small poem book hand made and written in I think Japanese.

    My father brought it back from New Guinea at the end of WW2.

    He told me it was part of the contents of a small wooden Japanese officers case,I have the case as well.

    This case was in a bunker at Wewak PNG.

    Can you please tell me where I can have the poetry translated to english?

    Regards.

    Stan Hannaford.

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