LONDON -- Forward-thinking programs drawn up during World War II gave opportunity to many non-Japanese young people to become specialists in Japanese studies. An undergraduate at that time, Ian Nish joined the ranks of those who embarked upon sterling work that turned them into Japan experts. He speaks of his career of 30 years spent in "the widening of the frontiers of knowledge, especially my own." These words reveal his long-term steadiness, reliability and modesty.
He says that his first encounter with Japan came when he was still an Edinburgh schoolboy. His school announced a government program for volunteers who wanted to learn difficult Oriental languages. He was too young then to apply. Three years later, however, not yet 18 but in the army and, with infantry and artillery training, posted to India, he put in for a crash course in Japanese and was accepted.
He reported: "I carried all my baggage and my rifle to Simla, where the School of Japanese Studies had been reopened in an old mansion. We stayed at the Simla YMCA, and were the only British Other Ranks in the hill station. The school moved to Karachi. We had strong courses in the language, but nothing in Japanese history or the nature of Japanese society. When we graduated in 1946, the school was wound up and the library divided among the avaricious students. My share was a wartime edition of Kenkyusha, Arthur Rose-Innes' character dictionary and Creswell's dictionary of military and naval terms."