'By running.../ by fighting.../ by dying...': remembering, glorifying, and forgetting Japanese Olympian war dead

During World War Two, 35 Japanese Olympic athletes, including seven medalists, died while serving as members of the Imperial military. This essay reconstructs the memorialization of several track-and-field athletes and traces how their military service was remembered and how it was linked during the war to their athletic performances. Just as government and private voices celebrated their athletic performances as heroic, their enlistment, service, and deaths were glorified as selfless acts for the nation. Memories of Japan's Olympic victories and wartime experiences continue to shape national memory, but they are often remembered as if they are entirely unrelated. This paper seeks to reconstruct representations of these athletes' sporting and martial deeds to show how they became tightly intertwined during the war and how they have been remembered and forgotten in the over six decades since the war ended.