Gremlin Factory

A Japanese soldier's usefulness to the Emperor is not ended when he is killed. According to the nationalistic Nipponese religious teachings, soldiers slain in battle become minor deities and go right on fighting the enemy in gremlinesque fashion. They foul up his radio equipment, make his detachments fire at each other, worry and scare his troops to the point of suicide.

This kind of spiritual guerrilla warfare has been solemnly credited with helping last summer's Jap evacuation of Kiska, in the Aleutians, after U.S. forces had mopped up the garrison on nearby Attu. A copy of the Government-owned Japan Times and Advertiser cited four "miraculous'' incidents:

P: On July 26, Jap radio detector instruments on Kiska picked up "two masses of steel" approaching from east and west. In the thick northern fog a terrific cannonading broke out, then the masses of steel moved away. Later a Jap evacuation fleet entered the harbor unscathed. "Thus the soldiers from Kiska believe that the souls of the deified heroes of Attu had lured the enemy over the sea and made them fight each other by tampering with their wireless instruments."

P: For the evacuation, "the guardian deities of Attu" also calmed the seas and temporarily hoisted the fog to provide a convenient 15 feet of perfect visibility.

P: As the departing force passed south of Attu, some of the men suddenly saw the heroes of Attu coming out to give them a sendoff, waving Rising Sun flags from small boats. Others heard a distant roar of "Banzai!"

P: Even though Kiska was cleaned out to the last carrier pigeon, "foreign reports" indicated that the occupying Americans had to fight bitterly for three weeks against a spirit army which moved in from Attu. In the South Pacific, too, Japanese spirits "have tangled with the enemy, causing many of them mental derangements and others to kill themselves as a result of nervous breakdown and morbid fear."

Only malevolent Jap spirit yet reported by U.S. Marines in the Pacific Theater: captured sake.

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