August 5, 1945: The Day I lost my loving grandparents

Today, May 15, Okinawa marks 50 years since reversion from U.S. rule, inviting Prime Minister Kishida, despite its long-stated hope of becoming a peaceful island free of military bases. It is 87 years after Japan’s unconditional surrender of war by the calamitous two atomic bombs felled on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).

I was 14-years old in 1945, living in “Imabari”, 2nd largest city - facing Seto Inland Sea in Ehime Prefecture. My town is known for quality towel producing mills. My father was just over 40-years old and was drafted into the army. My younger brothers and sister evacuated to an off-shore island where my mother was born. I lived with my grandparents and my mother. I was a student worker and started to work at one of the mills converted into an airplane wing manufacturing plant.

On August 5 around 11PM, 64 Boeing 29 Bombers came (US Op #316, 58th US Squadron) carrying 500-pound M19 incendiary cluster bombs (2,449 pcs) and 56 T4E4 and 32 AR-M64 regular cluster bombs. Incendiary cluster was set to release at 160m and regular at 900m height.

The raids started with 4 parachute flares to defy blackout enforcement kept by Imabari citizens with numberless showers of incendiary bombs. A total of 66 B-29 Bombers took turns dropping incendiary bombs for another two hours. Reported 80% of the city houses perished and was reduced to ashes. 454 persons were dead, including my grandparents, and 150 were heavily injured. Total house loss by fire was 8199. Victims numbered 34,200, including us.

Prior to the heavy air-raids, Imabari had a few minor bomb attacks by Boeing B-29s, including time bombs and rare low flying Grumman fighter machine gun attacks in 1944 and 1945.

My grandparents used to seek shelter at the nearest forested park. We searched for them in vain. They did not return. We concluded that the bomb hit them. Mom and I fled out of the burning streets to the rice paddies, found an irrigation gutter and crouched there breathless until dawn.

All we had were padded hoods. We lost everything. We did not know how to continue living. We were eventually assigned to a barn in a nearby village farm until the end of war.

We heard rumors about a new bomb dropped in Hiroshima but there were no details.

Recently I obtained a copy of the newspaper and saw a photo of an incendiary bomb for the first time. My recollection of the bomb was a metallic sheathed bomb, about less than a meter, uncovered from the ruins after the fire.

In regards to the Boeing B-29 bomber, I learned that my son-in-law’s father Raymond, a Carnegie Tech graduate, was a navigator during World War II. He told me his first assignment was to take a brand-new B-29 to Manila from Texas. It took three stops to the Philippines, including Hawaii. Japan could be reached from Manila. Panhu Islands or Pescadores are the boundaries.

He once took me to one of the old bombers to show where he sat, among the crew of 10 to 12. We became good friends since the wedding ceremony of my daughter and his son. He lived in Riverdale, California. We share our great grandchildren. RIP.

In June 1943, US defeated Japan at the battle of Saipan in the Mariana Islands, leaving Japanese archipelago within reach of the B-29 bombers. We used to look up high 10,000 meters to see them in formation, shining in the blue sky without being challenged. I heard a dozen stories of Japanese fighter planes ramming into them, especially in Kitakyushu and wondered how the small fighter planes could climb so high.

I learned that San Diego, where I spent 20 years, was heavily involved in airplane manufacturing, particularly the Boeing 29s, under Lockheed Martin. Americans produced a total of 18,482 B-29s, possibly in Nebraska, Kansas, Florida, Texas or California. Montgomery Airport in Kearny Mesa may have been a possible production site, the backyard of 3611 Balboa Avenue. My salute to all involved, regardless of enemy or ally.

Samurai Missionary

”I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

- John 12:24

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It was close to my retirement when browsing the UCSB Library, I found the book titled Samurai Missionary published in 1985. While perusing the book, the name "Imabari" jumped out at me and caught me by surprise.

This is the city in Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku Island where I was born and raised. I never imagined Imabari as a stage for international drama for the scriptures. The book was written by Rev. Jiro Nakano, an MD and Hawaiian pastor, in memory of Rev. Shiro Sokabe (1865-1949), the Samurai Missionary himself.

As a new Doshisha University graduate, Rev. Sokabe answered the call from the Hawaiian Board of Missions to work with struggling immigrant Japanese plantation workers and their families on the Big Island. This was not exactly a trip to paradise. He overcame poverty, prejudice and rigid social class systems to raise hundreds of plantation children, teach them about Jesus, and show them how to fit into the community. His inner strength and his countenance made him an effective communicator in the Japanese community and to plantation managers. Not only did he educate and raise hundreds of children, but he helped the immigrants make the transition to their new country of residence. His ministry here began only a few short years after Hawaii was annexed by the United States. Meanwhile, a woman named Shika Nakagawa, an acquaintance of Shiro, who had been trained as a nurse at Doshisha University, was courted, and brought over for marriage to work together with him. Shika became a mother figure for many of the children, especially the girls.

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By now you are probably wondering how Imabari figures into the story. Kenjiro, aka author Roka Tokutomi (1968-1927), was a friend of Rev. Sokabe – a friendship fostered during their Imabari days in 1885. Both were disciples of Rev. Tokio Yokoi, the first pastor of the Imabari church, which was the very first church which opened in 1880 in Shikoku. Rev. Yokoi is the son of Shonan Yokoi, a scholar and political reformer of the Meiji Government, who was unfortunately assassinated in Kyoto. Kenjiro, who was just baptized in his native city of Kumamoto, wanted to work under his cousin Rev. Yokoi in Imabari.

Shiro Sokabe had been with Rev. Yokoi since 1883, as an active and devoted minister. He was popular in the church as a good singer. Nicknamed "Koya", Shiro was described as a high-cheeked boned and a peach-complexioned young man with downcast eyes. These were the distinct features of the Samurai Missionary as per the author Rev. Nakano.

The book details their youthful daily routines they took together along with another disciple Hayashi. The three of them went out preaching (neighbors called them "the three fanatics") to the area that had a thriving towel manufacturing industry as well as poor fishing villages. They often met with disappointment, going back to their commissioned off-school building upstairs room they shared to sleep. They made their beds on a big table and slept with kaya (mosquito net) over the beds. Even with three square meals a day, they had big appetites and energy, and used to pawn their belongings to buy more food, fruits - watermelons in particular, and cheap sweets. One night, they bought plenty of beef, ate it all and slept. When Kenjiro woke up in the morning, he found Shiro was missing and he didn't come back until the next day.

Shiro, upon returning, told friends that he fasted all day, spent the night in meditation and prayer, on top of Mt. Chikami. I, as an Imabarian, cannot count the number of times I climbed Mt. Chikami (244 meters) in my childhood. Now, a park today, the mountain was my backyard. That's how Shiro was nicknamed Koya. While three quarreled and grappled, their friendship grew and Kenjiro gave advice and even pawned his silk Kimono for Shiro to travel to Kumamoto to join the Oe Gijuku (School) built by Soho Tokutomi, Kenjiro's brother. Via Matsuyama, Shiro walked all the way to Sata Point, crossed the Inland Sea by fisherman's boat to Kyushu and walked again to Kumamoto.

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Thus, reading such detailed descriptions of Imabari in the Samurai Missionary, I suspected the author Rev. Nakano may have been influenced by the work of novelist Kenjiro Tokutomi, who left many tales of his youth, such as "My Memoirs", "Shadow of Death", "Fuji" (the incomplete posthumous work) etc. because Rev. Shiro Sokabe wanted everything he had written destroyed upon his death. He was a man of integrity who desired no fame.

During the past 10 years, I searched in vain for Kenjiro Tokutomi's writing where he might have mentioned Shiro Sokabe. When I did a search on his name on the Internet upon my return to Japan, all that came up was: "Shiro Sokabe, born in Fukuoka Prefecture, descendent of Sokabe clans in Tosa Province".

A few weeks ago, I Googled Shiro Sokabe and found his digitized book online in the National Diet Library in 2002, since his copyright expired. The book title was $3000 Short! I was finally able to discover Kenjiro Tokutomi's preface, which was his "Imabari Memoir" I had been looking for. $3000 Short! was written in 1926 by Rev. Shiro Sokabe to raise funds to build a new church and school called Honomu Gijuku (after Oe Gijuku in Kumamoto) in Hawaii, in memory of the past Shika Sokabe. He wrote in the book that $6000 had been raised but the project required $3000 more. Apparently Rev. Sokabe sent a letter to ask Kenjiro Tokutomi for financial assistance. Inasmuch as Kenjiro wished to help his lifelong friend (he had not seen Shiro for 30 or more years), he was not in a position to pawn all his belonging as he did in his younger days.

He saluted, however, the Sokabe couple’s lifework to help and educate 1500 Japanese American children in Hawaii and thanked Honomu Gijuku for modeling themselves after Oe-Gijuku. Kenjiro wrote about all the episodes that took place in Imabari. Rev. Nakano quoted Kenjiro’s reply in an English translation in his book Samurai Missionary. $3000 Short! is roughly 100 pages long, consisting mainly of Rev. Sokabe's sermons, including "Addressing all the youths, boys and girls, born in Hawaii" (Chapter 1). The book, written in Japanese, was originally printed in Tokyo.

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Hilo Coast United Church of Christ is the name given to Sokabe's chapel. Headstones of most Japanese Americans at the Melany Cemetery nearby face Mauna Kea, but Shika and Shiro Sokabe's headstone face the Pacific Ocean (see photo). Honomu's current population is 600 as of 2007, of which Japanese Americans make up approximately 100, less than 20%. The scholarship foundation started by Sokabe's good will is still going strong. Some of the Nisei children disciplined by Rev. Sokabe went on to enlist and fight in the 442nd Battalion.

The homepage of Hilo Coast United Church of Christ shows in its heritage page l) Imabari Church where Rev. Sokabe was baptized; and 2) Doshisha University Church, known as the first church in Japan funded by American money, where the reverend was educated.

Important, Very Important History

Let me start with an excerpt from Wikipedia about the flight of B-29 Bockscar, loaded with the second A-Bomb called "Fat Man" on August 9, 1945. On my way back from Washington D.C. in August 2006, I stopped at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Pattterson Air Force base and saw the Bockscar on display. I saw Enola Gay at the Smithonian Institute.

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"Kokura was the primary target, but when Bockscar arrived at its rendezvous point off the coast of Japan the third aircraft of its flight was not present. After fruitlessly waiting 40 minutes, Sweeney and Bock proceeded to Kokura but found it obscured by clouds. Sweeney had orders to drop the atomic bomb visually if possible, and after three unsuccessful passes over Kokura, conferred with weaponeer Commander Frederick Ashworth (USN). They agreed to strike the secondary target, Nagasaki.

A combination of factors including confusion about a malfunctioning transfer pump made fuel consumption a critical factor. Ashworth did not want to be forced to dump the bomb into the sea and decided to make a radar bombing run if necessary. However, enough of an opening appeared in the cloud cover to allow Bombardier Kermit Beahan to confirm Nagasaki and the bomb was dropped, with ground zero being about 3/4 mile from the planned aiming point. This combined with Nagasaki's position on the foothills (as opposed to Hiroshima's mostly flat terrain) resulted in lower overall casualties than in Hiroshima, with much of the blast confined in the Urakami Valley.

Because of the delays in the mission, the B-29 did not have sufficient fuel to reach the emergency landing field at Iwo Jima, so Major Sweeney flew the aircraft to Okinawa, where, despite being unable to make contact with the control tower, he made a safe landing with virtually empty fuel tanks."

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Yes, the primary target of the Bockscar mission was Kokura and not Nagasaki! VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOW THIS! Bockscar had given up bombing on Kokura because of cloud cover. How fortunate Kokura was and how unfortunate for the Nagasakians.

Recently I read a book written by one of the Kokuranites who was 12 years old then. This person remembered the clear morning sky on August 9, seeing a lone B-29 high above gradually shadowed by the dusky clouds. It then turned and flew away from Kokura. She thought the B-29 she saw must have been Bockscar that dropped the Fat Man in Nagasaki and had been puzzled since that day about the sudden change of weather at the time. She thinks she had her long time riddle solved from reliable sources that the dusky cloud cover was a man-made smoke screen. Per Wikipedia, Enola Gay deployed and flew over Kokura as the weather observation plane. The writer might have seen Enola Gay and not Bockscar. Another explanation is as follows. Yahata Iron & Steel in Kokura was air-raided the night before. The Tinian Bockscar and the air-raid bombers of August 8 had not talked to each other. Kokura was covered with smoke from the raid the night before. The Bockscar was given orders directly from President Harry S. Truman and even General Douglas MacArthur was not notified of his decision until the last minute.

My city, Imabari, was air-raided on the night of August 5. I thought it had no relation to the bombing of Hiroshima which took place on August 6; but there was! To isolate the A-Bomb target city from surrounding cities for food supplies and rescue efforts, Himeji, Tokuyama, Ube, Shimonoseki and Moji were raided in July. Imabari, along with Uwajima, Fukuyama were raided just before Hiroshima.

The Tinian based A-Bomb B-29s, meanwhile, were on their decoy flights for meteorological observation for 15 days prior to the day of attack. Every morning one B-29 flew at exactly the same time without escort fighters as if it was there only to monitor the weather. This was done not to alert and provoke defense from the ground forces and it tricked both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Residents of Hiroshima saw the bomb parachute coming down after the air-raid warning cleared.

All the air-raided cities were said to have read the warning bills. I hadn't seen any. Cities warned were raided as warned, except Hiroshima, Kokura and Nagasaki. Reportedly, a few wise men sensed something was wrong and felt uneasy.

Hiroshima, the target city of the first A-Bomb, "Little Boy" three days earlier, was the home base of the Japanese Imperial War Headquarters, and the 5th Army Squadron. Kokura had the Imperial Army Arsenal and Ordinances. The main Kyushu Army Squadron once stationed in Kokura was relocated to Kurume years ago. Kokura made most of the army weaponry and also balloon bombs.

After my return from the U.S. and having settled down in Kitakyushu in the mid l990s, I spent many days at the Central Library to learn about Kitakyushu, my new adopted city after Imabari, Osaka, Tokyo, New York, San Diego. I was able to find the air raid records of Yahata Iron & Works but not of any Kokura Arsenal and Ordinance. I befriended someone my age who graduated from Kokura high school and was able to read his school alumni bulletin. This friend had worked at the Kokura Arsenal in his school days. His information was helpful. It is shocking to discover Kokura was the first target and its epicenter could have been the library where I was currently sitting. Kokura had extensive underground passages and shelters but nobody knew how effective they were.

NAGASAKI AND NAGASAKIANS WERE MARTYRED ON BEHALF OF KOKURA RESIDENTS.

As of August 9, 2007, 143,124 Nagasakians were on the death toll; Hiroshima close to 200,000. We have about 250,000 victims alive who hold certified entitlements to receive medical aid under the Government's A-Bomb Survivors Law. One feature of the A-bomb is that the statistic is open ended. The A-Bomb changed the war. An atomic bomb eliminates the city, history and blood lineage. What happens when humans know they have no future. It becomes meaningless to live, to work, to learn, or to try anything.

Enola Gay carried the gun assembly Little Boy that used highly enriched uranium. Bockscar carried the implosion assembly Fat Man that used plutonium. There was no 3rd bomb in existence but the Allied Forces hinted "more to come and soon" as further threat against Japan if necessary.


Another August 6 is approaching. Just behind the Central Library of Kokura is a miniature Nagasaki bell and a small memorial built for Nagasaki victims of the A-Bomb attack. Leis of a "thousand origami cranes" were wet when I visited on a rainy day a week ago. Agapanthus were in bloom in white and purple. Kokuranites are to gather here to pray at 11am on August 9 and I will also be there.

Last One To Go

I treasure John Dower's book Embracing Defeat and I keep it at my elbow for frequent reference. For one thing, it helps remind me of the hardship days of Japan's defeat, and for another, it helps me to accept the loss of my grandmother. I still pray for my grandmother, who has been missing since August 5, 1945, the night an air raid dropped incendiary bombs on Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, my hometown in Shikoku. The A-bomb exploded on Hiroshima the following morning, but my family had no way of knowing, because we lost our home and turned adrift.

Now, thumbing through the book, it has quite a few postwar episodes; but the most unforgettable and intriguing one is about a Japanese scientist who handwrote a message in English on a piece of paper on the day the U.S. Occupation Forces showed up, and thus saved his marine biological lab.

He wrote:
"This is a marine biological station with its history of sixty plus years. If you are from the East Coast, some of you might know Woods Hole or Mt. Desert or Tortugas. If you are from the West Coast, you may know Pacific Grove or the Puget Sound Biological Station. This place is a place like one of these. Take care of this place and protect the possibility for the continuation of our peaceful research. You can destroy the weapons and the war instruments, but save the civil equipment for Japanese students. When you are through with your job here, notify the University and let us come back to our scientific home." He signed it, "The last one to go."

Perfect English. The appendix of Dower's book noted that the scientist was Katsuma Dan (1905-1996), an eminent Japanese biologist. I searched the Internet and found Katsuma Dan was an American trained biologist and had worked at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Station. No wonder he was good at English. That English note was picked up by the U.S. Squadron, and the commander sent it to the Woods Hole Marine Station in MA. The Woods Hole Station kept the paper. You can read the paper in his own handwriting at this Web site.

I found out the facility where Dr. Dan left his message is the Misaki Marine Biological Institute which belonged to the University of Tokyo. The Japanese Navy set up its submarine base there and the entire area became a hidden fort. His Institute had to live with the Navy during the war. Thanks to the quick wit of Dr. Dan, the facilities were kept intact. The institution celebrated its
100th anniversary a few years ago.
A little more history on Dr. Dan. He was the second son of Baron Takuma Dan. Takuma Dan (1858-1932) was an MIT graduate and mining major, involved in Mitsui Mining in Miike, Kyushu. In 1931, the baron was assassinated by the "Ketsumeidan" terrorist group. Ikuma Dan (1924-2001), the famous opera composer of "Yuzuru", the "Evening Crane", is Katsuma's nephew. Ikuma died on his performance trip in Beijing, China.

Katsuma Dan married his colleague Jean Clark while working at Woods Hole, and upon their return to Japan, both Jean and Katsuma worked at the Misaki Lab, leaving many papers drawn from their accomplishment in embryological fields. Misaki maintains a microscope used for discovery by Jean Dan for public display. Katsuma served Tokyo Metropolitan University as President (1965-1973), and Jean taught at Ochanomizu University. The couple founded the Jean and Katsuma Dan Fellowship Programs, which have assisted about 80 biology students to date. The Dans most likely loved the ocean wherever they were. It is recommended that this story be included in grade school textbooks.

As a youth fresh from school and a new Tokyoite, I explored the ocean around Tokyo. One summer I extended my trip to Kamakura further south to Miura Peninsula. I'm sure I passed through Misaki on the way to offshore Jogashima Island. I think the Misaki Marine Biological Station is a little south of today's famous Aburatsubo Yacht Marina. Today, a bridge connects Misaki City and Jogashima Island.

In my day, we had to take a boat to see the stone monument of Hakushu Kitahara's poem. The poem, written by Hakushu (1885-1942), is now sung by children as a sailors' song. I still remember the tasty top shell dish I enjoyed on the island, with sea food cooked in its own shell.

Here's a rough translation of the Hakushu's poem.

"It keeps drizzling.
O'er the rocky shore of Jogashima.
The rain of the Rikyu Gray (Rat).
Is the rain pearls,
or fog of dawn,
or my subdued sobbing.
A ship sails
around the tip of a Tohria.
Your ship hoisted wet sail.
I row a ship.
I pull an oar to a song,
the song - the captain's spirit.
It keeps drizzling."

As a returnee myself back from the U.S., I am fascinated with Dan's story. In the U.S. I spent 10 years on the East Coast and 20 years on the West Coast. During my stay, I had a chance to travel to Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Chesapeake Bay and Puget, Oregon shores, Pismo Beach, Morro Rock, La Jolla, etc. My memories run like revolving lanterns, just as I drove on the coastal routes, either east or west, and each memory brings back very special colorful scenes of family and/or friends.

One of my favorite passages from literature on the subject of ocean scenes is this quotation from Anne Morrow Lindberg's book, Gift from the Sea. "No man is an island, said John Donne. I (Anne Morrow Lindberg) feel we are all islands in a common sea." This is the very thought I have these days, as one who was raised living by the sea, and as a devoted ocean lover. I would wish to be engaged in the ocean related job like Drs. Dan if I were ever to be reborn.

P.S.
While net surfing, I discovered the Web site of Dr. David Colman, Professor at McGill University which has pretty much the same information as reported above. (There is also a piece written in Time Magazine dated December 10, 1945, entitled, "Appeal to the Goths".) Dr. Colman adds:

"Professor Katsuma Dan went on to become the resident of Tokyo Metropolitan University from 1965-1973 and continued to publish superb science well into the 1980's, and the Misaki Marine Biological Station is a thriving research facility today. Dr. Dan inspired generations of students and scholars with his work and, as evidenced by this story, tapped into a fundamental respect for the importance of scientific research that crossed political and cultural boundaries."

Please send any comments about the Director's Corner to david.colman@mcgill.ca. I contacted Dr. Colman and exchanged email a few times. He was very pleased to hear from me.