Language at War: U.S. Marine Corps Japanese Language Officers in the Pacific War

This essay analyzes the origins, training, experiences, and recollections of Caucasian American Japanese language officers in the Pacific War of 1941-45. It focuses on the problems that they and the Marine Corps as an institution faced in trying to achieve effective cross-cultural communication in battle. It shows how their function shifted from simply translating so as to facilitate life-taking, to life-saving activities that helped bring the fighting to an earlier and less costly end. The essay challenges earlier portrayals of Marine behavior in the Pacific War as simply inhumane and emphasizes the necessity of the armed services' maintaining effective foreign language training programs in peace and war.