Why were so few Koreans enlisted in the Japanese Army before conscription was introduced in 1944?
score:8
The reason is simple: those were the allocated quotas[3].
The apparent contradiction observed in the question stems form the fact that Japan was not as politically united as is often assumed. The recruitment of "volunteers" was carried out by the colonial administration of Korea, where there was significant support for the idea.
Aside from some Koreans who thought they could leverage service into more political rights, Japanese officials in the General-Governerate, as well as officers of the Korean Army, had been enthusiastic advocates of enlisting Koreans. They conceived military service as both a demonstration of, or alternately a vehicle for, promoting Korean integration, which was incidentally also their jobs.
(What seems to be not mentioned yet is that the volunteers were sent to training centres for "re-education" into loyal imperial subjects).[2]
It's also worth noting that, even though racism was pervasive and deeply ingrained even among advocates, many Japanese thinkers and colonial officials were ideologically committed to racial equality.[1] Recruitment of Korean volunteers was thus in no small part a propaganda campaign to persuade ethnic Japanese into accept Koreans as equals.
The actual decision to accept volunteers into the Imperial Army, however, rested with the military in Tokyo, where the Special Volunteers program was conceived of merely as a trial[1]. Thus, regardless of how many "volunteers" the colonial administration was churning out to impress metropolitan Japan, the War Ministry never planned on accepting more than a handful in the first place - the quota set for the first year was 400.[3]
In any event, most recruits probably wouldn't have qualified. Besides physical requirements, the Imperial Army insisted on proficiency in the Japanese language as a measure of "recruit quality", since the Koreans were to serve in integrated units.[4] For obvious reasons, this disqualified most volunteers: the General-Govenerate of Korea estimated in 1937 that only 5.85% of young Koreans were able to converse in Japanese.
Furthermore, the recruits were also screened for ideological fitness. Many applicants were thus rejected for personal or familial sympathies towards Korean nationalism, or communism.
Note:
[1] Fujitani, T. Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during WW2. UoC Press, 2011:
"[E]ven after July 1937 War Ministry officials still overwhelmingly believed that the recruitment of Koreans was premature. However, considerable effort on the parts of the Korean Army's high officers and the Government-General alleviated their fears . . . the military authorities inaugurated the new system on a trial basis, [so] the number of Korean volunteers initially accepted was very small."
[2] 小野田求「日本の戦時朝鮮植民地統治:「陸軍特別志願兵制度」 の法的分析を中心にして」『 大阪外国語大学論集』 9 (1993)
[3] 神戸大学経済経営研究所 新聞記事文庫 軍事(国防)(45-009) 満州日日新聞 1938.4.4 (昭和13):
"六、本年度志願兵採用数 本年度は現役として三百名第一補充兵として百名計四百名を採用することになっている"
[4] 和泉司「日本統治期台湾の徴兵制導入時に生じた 「国語能力」 問題」『日本語と日本語教育』39.123144 (2011):
"このように, 朝鮮の志願兵においても, 小学校程度, 原則「国語理解者」と認定しうる学歴が要求されて"
Upvote:2
The book Divine Work, Japanese Colonial Cinema and Its Legacy at page 87 cites the same statics as the OP and then states:
Brandon Palmer comments that unwilling applicants were rejected in favour of those who had demonstrated clear patriotism and a real willingness to join (Palmer 2013: 70–1). There is also the factor that the army offered financial incentives and, therefore, those from the poorer end of the economic spectrum would be more likely to apply. However, as a result of their socio-economic background, they potentially suffered from ill helath, thus leading to a higher rate of rejection. Rather obviously, the later soldiers who came from conscription tended to be far less 'satisfactory' than the volunteer brothers. Often lacking Japanese language skills and in poorer physical health than the previous Korean volunteer recruits (Utsumi 2005: 85), many performed badly. Many tried to desert and those caught would usually be executed as a warning...
Palmer (at page 77 of the linked edition) has further statistics and explains that, for example in 1941, only about 50,000 of the ~145,000 applicants were true volunteers.
More post
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great change his daughters' title to Tsesarevna?
- 📝 How public was sex in 1800s America?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 What are some symbols representing peasants/oppressed persons fighting back?
- 📝 Why does the Great Wall of China follow such a bendy route?
- 📝 Why has Hatutu's population never returned to the island?
- 📝 Do we consider Carthage as belonging to a different civilization from the Phoenician one?
- 📝 Synagogue Scene in Der Ewige Jude: Looking for more information
- 📝 How old is the day of 24 equal hours?
- 📝 Where is the bloodiest square mile on Earth?
- 📝 Did Mithridates VI ever lead 500,000 soldiers?
- 📝 What proportion of the population of Soviet Union were taken into custody by the state during Stalin's time?
- 📝 Why was the Cornish Militia stationed in Devon in late 18th Century?
- 📝 Why did Hideyoshi invade Korea?
- 📝 Why was there a surge in the US incarceration rate during the 1990s?
- 📝 How was the ceremonial mace presented to unruly members of the US House of Representatives?
- 📝 Josephus' writings about Kafr Yasif
- 📝 How did the Swedish soldiers pray during the Thirty Years' War?
- 📝 What was this small state in the south of France in 1789?
- 📝 What is the true origin of Capri's "Scala Fenicia" ("Phoenician Steps")?
- 📝 What title did the merchants permitted to deal with Canton's 13 Factories carry?
- 📝 When was the concept of Europe as a singular political unit conceived?
- 📝 How does it arise that there are two Colorado rivers, and how does one distinguish between them?
- 📝 What are the immediate legal effects of rendering a royal branch illegitimate?
- 📝 What was the exact path of the Doolittle Raid?
- 📝 Is there a study about what would have happened if Khmer Rouge remained in power in Cambodia?
- 📝 Did the Moors and Arabs, "Muslims," who invaded Europe, ie "Spain," help the evolution of civilizations of Europe?
- 📝 What were the required conditions to be accepted by a university in Medieval times?
- 📝 Why bother attacking castles at all? Why not go around?
- 📝 Why was Hannah Ocuish believed to have been mentally disabled?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why were so few Koreans enlisted in the Japanese Army before conscription was introduced in 1944?
- 📝 Why was the Red Army successful against the Japanese in 1939 but perform poorly against Finland 1939-40 and early part of WW2?
- 📝 In Europe, why were there few portraits showing a real likeness of the subject before the 15th century?
- 📝 Before entering WW II, why was the US so against Japanese aggression in China but did nothing about Germany in Europe?
- 📝 Why were the 8th Route Army better at fighting the Japanese than the Nationalists were?
- 📝 Why was the Japanese Army's fatalities inflicted:suffered ratio so low in the Pacific theatre?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 Why was PTSD not written about as much before the 20th century?
- 📝 Why were the Irish exempt from conscription during WWI?
- 📝 Why were there so few American deaths in the Bataan Death March?
- 📝 Why were troops with bayonets often effective against enemy cavalry even though the bayonet was a "secondary" weapon?
- 📝 Why was the US so pro-China and so anti-Japan before WW2?
- 📝 Why were kitchen work surfaces in Sweden apparently so low before the 1950s or so?
- 📝 Why was the Israeli army strong enough to win the 1948 war?
- 📝 Why were so few Luftwaffe attacks flown against the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944?
- 📝 Why was the British army so short of rifles after Dunkirk?
- 📝 During World War I, why were church bells stopped until the war was over?
- 📝 Why was the US army slow to adopt the use of radar prior to Pearl Harbour?
- 📝 Why Antarctica was never conquered before the advent of the modern men?
- 📝 Were B-17s (rather than B-29s) ever used to bomb mainland Japanese territory during WW2 (at least before the capture of Okinawa)?
- 📝 Why were Japanese submarines not able to defend in the Battle of the Philippine Sea?
- 📝 What were the incentives for joining the Roman army before the Marian reforms?
- 📝 Why was the Records of the Three Kingdoms composed before that of the Later Han?
- 📝 Why were there so many Japanese Prime Ministers before and during WW2?
- 📝 Were there attempts to rename the French language Prussian order Pour le Mérite, why was it never Germanised?
- 📝 Why did Uesugi Kenshin never marry? Was it common practice for Japanese Buddhists of the time?
- 📝 During World War II, were there any parts of the Japanese overseas empire that was capable of local re-supply?
- 📝 Why were the Japanese so much better at night flying early in WWII?
- 📝 Why were Japanese escort ships not numerous at the battle of Bismarck Sea?
