When I was given the subject of "Rita (altruism) arising from ‘things’," I was somewhat perplexed because of the goals of my research and teaching. I have been attempting to show how historical episodes connected to various objects can be unverifiable, and how rare it is to find objects which can truly describe the reality of their times. After pondering for a while, I decided to write about an episode regarding an object which I use in my lectures as an example of the fleeting nature of "historical documents."

Figure 1. An ammeter found at Tokyo Institute of Technology

An ammeter which was supposed to have been destroyed but was kept

　"This is an object found in Tokyo Tech. What does this historical document tell us?"

　I ask this question in a Humanities and Social Science Course class for 2nd year students titled "Special Lecture: History of Universities," which is co-organized with the Tokyo Tech Museum and Archives. What’s captured in the photograph is an old ammeter, now archived in the Noborito Laboratory Museum for Education in Peace at Meiji University Ikuta Campus. According to the catalog it was a DC ammeter manufactured by Tokyo Shibaura Denki (current TOSHIBA, which used the "Tokyo Denki" logo at the time) in May 1945, and it was found in a storage room of Tokyo Tech. Why is this ammeter archived at Meiji University’s Ikuta Campus?

　In fact, this ammeter indirectly proves that Tokyo Tech was involved in the development of special weapons during World War II. Here is a quote from the comment on the reference attached to the catalog:

The Japanese character "TA 63" (タ63) is written on the surface of the ammeter. "TA" is an indication for equipment used in the first department of the Japanese Army Noborito Laboratory (later re-located and re-named as the Japanese Army Tama Technical Research Laboratory), whose mission was to develop special weapons, especially balloon bombs and radio waves weapons. The first department of the laboratory developed and launched the balloon bomb by March 1945, then moved to Matsukawa village in Nagano Prefecture so as to avoid air raids. Since the ammeter was manufactured in May 1945 it is natural to imagine that it was used by the staff after they had moved to Matsukawa village. The existence of the Noborito Laboratory and its purpose was strictly confidential even within the army, and its destruction was ordered as soon as the war ended. The laboratory was erased from history. The Ikuta Campus of Meiji University is where its headquarters was until it was moved, and there the building is still preserved as the Noborito Laboratory Museum for Education in Peace.

　Why was the equipment found in Tokyo Tech, though the institute was supposed to have been destroyed? It was Mr. Kenji Watanabe who donated the ammeter, after it had been given to him by Mr. Toru Inoue. Mr. Watanabe explained as follows:

Mr. Watanabe says it is not only in Tokyo Tech that you would occasionally find such army laboratory’s equipment in universities [3]. The discovered ammeter is just circumstantial evidence connecting Tokyo Tech and the Japanese Army Noborito Laboratory. No matter how hard you look, you cannot trace it back to the person who brought it to Tokyo Tech or who was using it to develop the weapons that were hidden and vanished from history. However, you can imagine the erased side of history from the very few remaining objects such as this ammeter. Since almost nothing else has been found, it was impossible to look further into the story that the ammeter indirectly tells us.

How was the ammeter brought to Tokyo Tech?

　I had almost given up investigating who brought the ammeter to Tokyo Tech, and how, for two main reasons: First, the personnel of the Japanese Army Noborito Laboratory is still unknown. Among the faculty of Tokyo Tech, there are some researchers who remarked in their memoirs that they did commissioned work for the Noborito Laboratory. Those researchers include Toshio Hata (1913-2009), a researcher of konjac glue, Chihiro Kawashima (1905-2003), a researcher of ceramics, and Shu Kanbara (1906-1999), a researcher of synthetic rubber. Their names cannot be found in the few surviving documents of the Noborito Laboratory’s commissioned researchers lists. Second, it is hard to find any memoir directly referring to the weapons development during the war. I was fortunate to have come across the memoirs of Hata, Kawashima and Kanbara, which were narrated in their late years to their pupils and junior researchers. (I would like to introduce their memoirs and war experiences on another occasion.) To find further evidence among the countless books and articles by the Tokyo Tech faculty, not knowing who to look for, let alone whether they really exist, was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

　For this article, I revisited the Noborito Laboratory Museum for Education in Peace and reviewed the previous studies on the Noborito Laboratory. As for balloon bombs, lists of commissioned researchers were recently discovered [4]. Those lists were dated September 21st 1944, the business year of 1945, and January 1st 1945, all of which mention Hidetsugu Yagi (1886-1976), a former President of Tokyo Tech, as a consultant (general advisor) [5]. The last list, dated January 1st 1945, has the name of Kiyoshi Morita (1901-2005), a professor at Tokyo Tech, whose work order was issued on July 12th 1944. Morita is known as a pioneer of super high-frequency technology. From searching the titles of his publications, it seems left no memoir. However, when I searched for articles written by his pupils just to make sure, I came across some unexpected descriptions.

　His pupil Kunihiro Suetake (1920-2017), in Historical Notes on Tokyo Tech (1995), a compilation of documents about honored teachers in Tokyo Tech, has an interesting recollection of Morita [6]. Suetake says he helped Morita to develop anti-B29 rockets as a special researcher after he had graduated early in 1944. Morita’s lab and its members moved to Matsukawa village in Nagano Prefecture after the Great Tokyo Air-raids on March 10th 1945. Suetake shows his surprise by writing: "I did not expect the place next door to be the lab of Major Otsuki [Toshiro Otsuki], who was in charge of the development of balloon bombs." It seems he was aware of neither the fact that his mentor Morita himself had been one of the commissioned researchers for balloon bombs, nor that the whole first department of the Noborito Laboratory had been moved to Matsukawa village. He unpacked the equipment delivered to the new address and was eager to start the research. However, the next day was August 15th 1945, so the war was over. I quote his recollection of what happened right after that:

Suetake was almost attacked by a diligent army officer with a sword for trying to bring the equipment back to Tokyo Tech. He then writes of an episode that happened soon after that: Some American soldiers appeared on a jeep in the middle of the packing up, and Morita himself argued with them in English so that nothing was confiscated. The members of Morita’s lab overcame many obstacles and took the equipment used in Matsukawa village back to Tokyo Tech.

　It is highly possible that they brought the ammeter back to Tokyo Tech. However, it could equally well have been other unlisted researchers of the Noborito Laboratory such as Hata, Kawashima, or Kanbara. Or it could have been through another route entirely. One thing we can be sure of is the cumulative effort made by many people that lies behind the few objects that remained. That is particularly true in the case of the equipment that was supposed to have been destroyed. Otsuki did not follow the order from the Japanese Army to destroy all the evidence. Suetake wanted some “evidence” equipment purely for future research. Morita negotiated with American soldiers. So many actions went against the tide of the times. Although Tokyo Tech has a tendency to throw old equipment away in pursuit of cutting-edge technology, it is quite surprising that an ammeter was preserved for about 50 years, from 1945 to 1994. Mr. Inoue found it and gave it to Mr. Watanabe. Mr. Watanabe kept it with local high school students for 15 years. Meiji University built the Museum for Education in Peace in 2010. All these fortunate events occurred as a kind of domino effect, thanks to which we are now able to see this ammeter.

Rita (altruism) as preservation of objects and documents, from the point of view of an ammeter

　Objects and documents will not remain unless we make efforts. "Negative history" such as the development of weapons is more often than not likely to be erased. Yet the negative history of Tokyo Tech is not only limited to being involved in weapons development; another example that people still do not like to talk about is an infamous episode in the history of industrial pollution, namely, the involvement and responsibility of university staff for the cause of Minamata disease as well as the spread of the illness [8].

　Leaving objects behind as historical reference materials, especially if they are left for others after you are gone, is an action of rita (altruism) in its broad sense. Certainly, it is a selfish (riko) action when the documents are selected or altered unnaturally with the intention to conceal their contents to the enemy or ensure that they will be regarded by future generations in a certain way. On the other hand, we need motivation beyond temporary interests in order to preserve for posterity documents that are at risk of being destroyed. Museums and archives are organizations that display aspects of rita (altruism), because they collect, preserve, study and exhibit objects as historical documents. Once the objects are collected and preserved, it is up to future generations to decide in what contexts they are going to study and exhibit them.

　I have been thinking about the role I should take in Tokyo Tech all through four years of co-administering the "Special Lecture: History of Universities" class with the Tokyo Tech Museum and Archives. Now I assume that my role for the students is to give them some real sense of how difficult it is to preserve objects and documents, to inform them of how important it is to look at the past closely, and to transmit my wish that they will take the side of preserving objects and documents in the future [9]. Through the activities of the Future of Humanity Research Center, my goal from now on is to analyze that role more systematically and strive to be able to verbalize it fully.

Notes