<p>The only excerpts from his personal diary were published and publicly available are in <em>Zero!</em> by Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi (with Martin Caidin).</p>
<p>However, there is a very notable but separate piece (i.e., not an actual diary entry) that he wrote after the war is a piece known as the &quot;War End Diary/Journal&quot;. It is believed to be at the request of a magazine editor. This was displayed in an exhibition on the Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Museum in 2013 featuring the life of Jiro Horikoshi. You can find photos of the exhibits <a href="https://iwasashougo.com/zero/blg20130828_1.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/fz7rdqq6.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/fz7rdqq6.jpg" alt="Tokyo Shimbun Saitama Edition August 1, 2013" /></a></p>
<p>It's contents are reproduced in its entirety:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>終戦日誌</p>
<p>八月十五日</p>
<p>正午ラジオが天皇が重大な放送をされると告げた時、私は突嗟に終戦の詔勅に違いない、と悟った。録音を再生しての放送は、お声がかすれて所々しか聞きとれなかったが、天皇の悲しい御言葉の一つ一つを聞き分ける必要はなかった。しかし、徐々に開戦も已むを得ないような雰囲気が作り上げられた四年前、さて現実に戦かいが起こってみると、敗戦までいかぬうちに何とか政府は手を打つのだろうと、漠然と考えてきた国民大衆はこれを聞いて何と感じたであろうか。</p>
<p>戦いは終わった。日本がすっかり消耗し尽くした後の、初めて経験する現実の敗戦。明日からわれわれは何をしたらよいのだろう。飛行機を造ることが終ったという以外現実には何も分らない。分らないが考えなければならぬ。社会的訓練の未熟、過剰な人口と狭い国土。自力では解決できぬ致命的な経済上の問題を抱えているこの国に、数年前のような文明国らしい生活が帰ってくるだろうか。</p>
<p>われわれに国際間の自由な交易を世界が許してくれなければ、疲弊から立ち直ることはできない。そもそも先進欧米諸国のブロック経済主義がこの戦争の根本原因ではなかったか。日本が、否日本の軍部とそれと結ぶ政治家が、外交で平和的に打開することをせず、武力に訴える所まで短気を起したことが戦争の近因ではなかったか。戦勝国民にも日本国民にもこの反省がなければ、日本の前途には長期にわたる経済および道徳の混乱がつづくだろう。それは日本人にはもとより、世界人類にとっても得策ではないはずである。</p>
<p>日本に壊滅をもたらした政策を指導してきた者が全部去らなければ、腐敗の種は残る。「誠実にして叡知ある、愛国の政治家出でよ。」　これが願いである。</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-11T07:10:46.200Z
2024-11-12T10:52:02.603Z
2024-11-12T10:52:02.603Z
кяαzєя
<p>This is cross-posted from <a href="https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/76993/jiro-horikoshis-full-personal-diary">History Stack Exchange</a>, since I suspect that I have a better chance of finding an answer here.</p>
<p>Jiro Horikoshi, the constructor of A6M &quot;Zero&quot;, was one of the most prominent Japan's aeronautical engineers immediately before and during WWII, his life being dramatized in a (relatively) recent Hayao Miyazaki's anime &quot;The Wind Rises&quot;. In the accompanying materials to the film, Miyazaki constantly references a quote from Jiro Horikoshi's diary, the same quote being present on the English Wikipedia page dedicated to the man. However, I wasn't able to find anything but a few excerpts from this diary, covering exclusively the last 9 months of Japan's participation in WWII (the excerpts can be found in the last chapter of &quot;Zero: The Story of Japan's Air War in the Pacific - As Seen by the Enemy&quot;, 2002, which is a slightly updated version of the 1956 book &quot;Zero!&quot;). I also wasn't able to find a dedicated biography of Jiro that would be longer than several A4 pages, besides, different accounts of his life contradict one another. From this stem my following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Was the full diary of Jiro Horikoshi ever published?</li>
<li>Is there a book-length biography of Jiro in any language? Or at least some biography that is substantially more complete than the one found on Wikipedia.</li>
</ol>

<resources><hayao-miyazaki><the-wind-rises>
Jiro Horikoshi's Full Personal Diary
# Jiro Horikoshi's Full Personal Diary
Posted by: username_0 on 2024-11-11
This is cross-posted from [History Stack Exchange](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/76993/jiro-horikoshis-full-personal-diary), since I suspect that I have a better chance of finding an answer here.

Jiro Horikoshi, the constructor of A6M "Zero", was one of the most prominent Japan's aeronautical engineers immediately before and during WWII, his life being dramatized in a (relatively) recent Hayao Miyazaki's anime "The Wind Rises". In the accompanying materials to the film, Miyazaki constantly references a quote from Jiro Horikoshi's diary, the same quote being present on the English Wikipedia page dedicated to the man. However, I wasn't able to find anything but a few excerpts from this diary, covering exclusively the last 9 months of Japan's participation in WWII (the excerpts can be found in the last chapter of "Zero: The Story of Japan's Air War in the Pacific - As Seen by the Enemy", 2002, which is a slightly updated version of the 1956 book "Zero!"). I also wasn't able to find a dedicated biography of Jiro that would be longer than several A4 pages, besides, different accounts of his life contradict one another. From this stem my following questions:

1. Was the full diary of Jiro Horikoshi ever published?
2. Is there a book-length biography of Jiro in any language? Or at least some biography that is substantially more complete than the one found on Wikipedia.
**Tags:** resources hayao-miyazaki the-wind-rises
---
## 1 answers
### Answer by username_1 on 2024-11-11. Score: 2
The only excerpts from his personal diary were published and publicly available are in *Zero!* by Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi (with Martin Caidin).

However, there is a very notable but separate piece (i.e., not an actual diary entry) that he wrote after the war is a piece known as the "War End Diary/Journal". It is believed to be at the request of a magazine editor. This was displayed in an exhibition on the Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Museum in 2013 featuring the life of Jiro Horikoshi. You can find photos of the exhibits [here](https://iwasashougo.com/zero/blg20130828_1.html).

[![Tokyo Shimbun Saitama Edition August 1, 2013](https://i.sstatic.net/fz7rdqq6.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/fz7rdqq6.jpg)

It's contents are reproduced in its entirety:

> 終戦日誌
>
> 八月十五日
>
> 正午ラジオが天皇が重大な放送をされると告げた時、私は突嗟に終戦の詔勅に違いない、と悟った。録音を再生しての放送は、お声がかすれて所々しか聞きとれなかったが、天皇の悲しい御言葉の一つ一つを聞き分ける必要はなかった。しかし、徐々に開戦も已むを得ないような雰囲気が作り上げられた四年前、さて現実に戦かいが起こってみると、敗戦までいかぬうちに何とか政府は手を打つのだろうと、漠然と考えてきた国民大衆はこれを聞いて何と感じたであろうか。
>
> 戦いは終わった。日本がすっかり消耗し尽くした後の、初めて経験する現実の敗戦。明日からわれわれは何をしたらよいのだろう。飛行機を造ることが終ったという以外現実には何も分らない。分らないが考えなければならぬ。社会的訓練の未熟、過剰な人口と狭い国土。自力では解決できぬ致命的な経済上の問題を抱えているこの国に、数年前のような文明国らしい生活が帰ってくるだろうか。
>
> われわれに国際間の自由な交易を世界が許してくれなければ、疲弊から立ち直ることはできない。そもそも先進欧米諸国のブロック経済主義がこの戦争の根本原因ではなかったか。日本が、否日本の軍部とそれと結ぶ政治家が、外交で平和的に打開することをせず、武力に訴える所まで短気を起したことが戦争の近因ではなかったか。戦勝国民にも日本国民にもこの反省がなければ、日本の前途には長期にわたる経済および道徳の混乱がつづくだろう。それは日本人にはもとより、世界人類にとっても得策ではないはずである。
>
> 日本に壊滅をもたらした政策を指導してきた者が全部去らなければ、腐敗の種は残る。「誠実にして叡知ある、愛国の政治家出でよ。」　これが願いである。
---
