Send-off Rally for Departing Student Soldiers

As the war situation worsened, the Tojo cabinet issued an imperial ordinance in early October 1943 (the Temporary Special Measure on Deferment of Conscription for Students) ending draft deferment for students in the humanities and social sciences at universities, higher schools and vocational colleges. Students in science, engineering, medicine and teacher training remained deferred.

On 21 October 1943 a send-off rally organised by the Ministry of Education and others was held at the Meiji Jingu Gaien Stadium. Students from 77 schools in the Tokyo area marched in the rain carrying rifles before tens of thousands of spectators, many of them schoolgirls and family members mobilised to attend. Prime Minister Tojo Hideki gave an address and Ebashi Shinshiro of Tokyo Imperial University replied on behalf of the students. No official count of the marching students survives and figures given in later accounts vary widely.

Similar rallies were held elsewhere in Japan and in Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria. After conscription examinations the students entered the Army on 1 December and the Navy on 10 December 1943. Many became junior officers and aircrew, including members of special attack units.

The total number of students mobilised is not known precisely; estimates commonly cited range from about 100,000 to 130,000 or more. The stadium was later demolished to build the National Stadium, where a monument to the departing students was erected in 1993.