In 1947, the same year that Edinburgh started a festival to rekindle the human spirit following the war, (see previous post, Fringe History) a Canadian citizen was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death. How did that happen?
In the First World War, during which Canada and Japan were allies, a Japanese immigrant named Tadashi Inoue enlisted in the Canadian Army, served overseas, won the Military Medal for bravery in the field, was severely wounded in the final weeks of the war, but returned to his wife and five children in Kamloops, BC.
Inoue’s youngest child and only son, Kanao, was born and raised in Kamloops. As a young adult, after his father had died, Kanao went with his mother to Japan to further his education during the mid 1930s.
Being a nation of limited resources, Japan had sought to expand its territory and had long been in conflict with Russia and China for control of Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese military was accountable to the Emperor rather than to the civilian government. From era to era the Emperor’s role alternated between figurehead and absolute ruler. Either way, dictates by the Emperor or in the Emperor’s name were not subject to checks and balances. In the 1920s and 1930s, Japan became increasingly nationalistic and militaristic. Training and treatment of enlisted soldiers within the Japanese military was brutal.
Whereas in WW1, prisoners of war in Japan were treated well and many German POWs, for example, chose to remain in Japan after the war ended, in WW2 treatment of POWs in Japanese camps was often savage. Camp commandants operated with great independence so long as they achieved assigned objectives. Of 1,973 under-trained, ill-equipped, inexperienced Canadian troops sent to defend Hong Kong (which Churchill had rightly deemed indefensible), 25% died (of starvation, disease, abuse, execution) while held as POWs. One of the prison camp interpreters at Hong Kong was Kanao Inoue.
This play, Father Hero Traitor Son, aims not to open old wounds and it is not, in its current form, a historical account. Although many incidents and lines in the script are based on or taken from historical accounts, I have fictionalized the immigrant’s “old country” and named it Ozerland, to focus not on blaming nations but on the actions of individuals. The characters of the Father and the Son, although based on the lives of historical figures (who are ancestors of a dear friend of mine) are products of my imagination.
This is a play about choices, fate, and identity. What defines a person as a Canadian, a hero, a traitor, a father, a son? Most accounts written in English assert that Kanao Inoue, who was dubbed “the Kamloops Kid”, voluntarily enlisted in the Japanese Imperial Army. In this play, I question that assertion. In no way do I want to make an apology for the brutal actions of “Canada’s war criminal”. I wanted to examine the possibilities of what such a man and such a father as he had would have said to each other if they’d had the chance.
Please post your thoughts and comments, and please come see “Father Hero Traitor Son” which opens on August 21st.
Father Hero Traitor Son, by Evan Andrew Mackay (poster by Tim Maloney)
Father Hero Traitor Son 