About the author: Takeuchi Tatsuji (1904 ?). In his Editor’s note introducing the diary, historian Theodore Friend wrote,
Professor Takéuchi was born in Kobé in 1904. He received his primary and secondary schooling in Japan. His college and postgraduate training was in the United States, 1921-1931, at Weslet College, the University of Texas, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago. After receiving his Ph.D. in Political Science at Chicago, he joined the faculty of Kwansei Gakun University, near Kobé, in 1932. He became Professor of Political Science and International Relations in 1946 and has served two terms as Dean of the School of Law. During World War II, after serving as deputy member of the Research Commission on the Philippines, Professor Takéuchi was attached, 1944-45, to Dr. Ogawa Gōtaro, supreme civil advisor to the Burmese government.
Professor Takéuchi has taught at Columbia and Duke, at Macalester Cillege, and at the Universities of Minnesota and Hawaii. He is the author of War and Diplomacy in the Japanese Empire (Garden City, Doubleday Doran, 1935) and numerous articles in Japanese and English.
About the diary: Published as “Manila Diary: Dec. 1942-0ct. 1943” as Appendix A, The Philippine Polity, by Royama Masamichi & Takeuchi Tatsuji (Yale, 1967). In his Editor’s Note, historian Theodore Friend wrote,
Several years ago I learned of the existence of Professor Takéuchi’s translation of Part II of the Report of the Research Commission on the Philippines, a translation done for his own satisfaction during a lull in his wartime duties. After I persuaded him that it should be edited and published, I eventually learned that he had kept a diary of his experiences in Manila, which he tumbled onto the table one day, several small pocket volumes wrapped in a blue bandanna.
The job of persuading Professor Takéuchi that this too should be published was more difficult, but he finally, generously, consented. Generously, because this meant a fresh work of translation for him, and selection –eventually one-third of the total– from a considerable quantity of material. I believe he has chosen here the passages with the most value in demonstrating the activities of the Research Commission, and in illuminating still further some of the many subjects upon which the Commission formally reported.