Etajima Museum of Naval History
The Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, founded in Tōkyō in
1876, moved in 1888 to the island of Etajima in the Inland Sea near the coast
of Hiroshima City. The Allied Forces closed the school in 1945, but the base at
Etajima was reopened in 1956. Etajima now serves as the location for the First
Service School and Officer Candidate School of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense
Force. The Museum of Naval History opened in 1936 from donations of Naval
Academy graduates who wanted to preserve the history of the Imperial Japanese
Navy. The museum has two large rooms with exhibits related to the Navy's
special attack forces (tokkōtai) of planes, midget submarines, and manned torpedoes.
The museum covers Japan's naval history chronologically from
the late 19th century to the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1945. The
exhibits focus on Japan's naval accomplishments and victories, such as Admiral
Tōgō's defeat of the Russian fleet in 1905 in the Russo-Japanese War. Other
than the role of the special attack forces in World War II, no mention is made
of the Navy's disastrous defeat at Midway in 1942 and the series of naval
losses suffered by Japan up to the sinking of the battleship Yamato in
April 1945 and the loss of Okinawa in June 1945.
The first room dedicated to the Navy's Special Attack Corps
has a long bronze tablet on one wall, and the placard in front says that
inscribed on the tablet are "2,633 names of members of the Kamikaze
Special Attack Corps and the kaiten 'human torpedo' force who died a heroic
death." The Imperial Japanese Navy considered the young men who piloted
planes, submarines, and torpedoes in suicide attacks to be part of the same
general group of special attack forces. The tablet includes the names of 80
pilots of kaiten (manned torpedoes) and 28 pilots of midget submarines,
including the nine crewmen who died in the five midget submarines that participated in
the attack on Pearl Harbor. Curiously, the bronze tablet and the rest of the
museum's exhibits make no mention of the over one thousand men who died as part
of the Navy's Shin'yō Special Attack Corps in suicide attacks using explosive
motorboats [1]. In addition to the bronze tablet, the first room
has several exhibits of last letters, photos, and newspaper articles about the
pilots of kaiten torpedoes and midget submarines.
The second room on the Navy's special attack forces presents
the leaders of the kamikaze operations and about 100 last letters and wills
written by Kamikaze Corps aviators. The room has large photos of the following three
naval officers who played significant roles in the kamikaze attacks:
- Vice
Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi - organized first official Kamikaze Corps in October 1944
in Philippines
- Vice
Admiral Masafumi Arima - prior to formation of first official Kamikaze Corps,
personally led group of planes against U.S. carrier task force and made
suicide attack on ship on October 15, 1944
- Vice
Admiral Matome Ugaki - commanded Naval Air Fleet in 1945 in attacks on enemy
ships around Okinawa, and personally led group of planes in final kamikaze
attack of war
The museum does not attempt to tell the overall history of
the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, and the descriptions of the leaders
indicate that the museum's purpose is not to critically evaluate their actions
but rather to honor them, as illustrated by the following description of Vice
Admiral Ōnishi:
As Commander in Chief, Naval Air Fleet, Admiral Ōnishi was
greatly loved and respected by his men of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps. He
desperately, but unsuccessfully, put forth his utmost effort in an attempt to
turn the tide of war. When he received the Imperial edict to terminate the war,
he left a farewell statement and fulfilled his responsibility to his men by
nobly committing harakiri (ritual suicide).
|
|
Shikishima Squadron of the First
Kamikaze Special Attack Corps
|
|
|
|
The museum does not try to cover the entire record of the
aerial special attack operations, since the exhibits make no reference to the over one
thousand Japanese Imperial Army pilots who died in suicide plane attacks. The
Imperial Japanese Navy and Army had separate traditions and often quarreled
with each other during the war, so it is not surprising that the Museum of
Naval History does not mention the Army's contributions to the special attack
operations.
The second room on the Special Attack Corps also has four
paintings of events related to the kamikaze operations. One picture depicts the
men of the Shikishima Squadron of the first Kamikaze Special Attack Corps in
October 1944 as they prepare to depart from the air base at Mabalacat in the
Philippines (see copy of painting at left). The painting shows the men as
they offer a ceremonial toast of water as a farewell. Yukio Seki, leader of
the first kamikaze unit, is shown with a cup in his hands, and Vice Admiral
Takijiro Ōnishi, who organized the first kamikaze unit, is in the middle of the
painting facing the five men of the Shikishima Unit.
The letters of Kamikaze Special Attack Corps members include a photo of each writer
and a small card with background information such as date of death and home
prefecture. The letters are displayed in cases arranged by order of home
prefecture beginning with Hokkaidō, the northernmost prefecture, and proceeding
south. Each of Japan's 47 prefectures has at least one last letter, and additional
writings are displayed in other parts of the room. Some photos show young men in formal naval uniforms, and others show
them with pilot's gear. One exhibit case contains the
thirteen volumes of the personal diary of Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki from the
beginning of World War II to the final day of the war, when he personally
led eleven Suisei dive bombers on the final sortie of the Kamikaze Special
Attack Corps.
The second room with letters by the Navy's Special Attack Corps members has
an information sign that describes the crucial role played by a civilian named
Ichirō Ōmi in the collection of the writings. One year after the Pacific War's
end, he at the age of 55 set out alone on a nationwide condolence tour to meet
with bereaved families of Navy Kamikaze Special Attack Corps members, and he
visited 1,900 homes and collected 1,800 last letters between August 1946 and
August 1951 during the Allied Occupation. These writings were turned over to the
Demobilization Board in the Ministry of Welfare, and later they were transferred
to the Museum of Naval History at Etajima. Ōmi died in January 1952, and no
records were left behind regarding the purpose for his collecting writings of
Kamikaze Corps members. In 2012, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)
investigated why so many letters of Kamikaze Corps aviators were being stored at
the Etajima Museum of Naval History, and the results were broadcast in a segment
titled "Why last letters were collected: Mysterious survey of bereaved families
of special attacks" [2]. Researchers for the
documentary found that Ōmi worked in the Second Demobilization Bureau created
for former Navy personnel, which provided him with family addresses for Kamikaze
Corps members and paid his travel expenses. It appears that the ostensible
purpose for Ōmi's visits with bereaved families was to carry out a survey of
their attitudes including collection of last writings, but the details remain a
mystery due to lack of written records. Ōmi had frequent contact with former
Navy Captain Rikihei Inoguchi, who had been Chief of Staff of the 1st Air Fleet,
which was the first unit to use organized aerial suicide attacks starting in
October 1944 in the Philippines. In 1951, Inoguchi coauthored Shinpū
tokubetsu kōgekitai (Shinpū special attack corps) and included seven men's
final writings that Ōmi had collected during his nationwide pilgrimage [3].
The free 90-minute guided tour of the campus of the former
Naval Academy includes a 30-minute visit to the museum. Etajima can be reached
by a short ride by ferry from Hiroshima or Kure, and then a visitor must go a
short distance by bus or walking to reach the Maritime Self-Defense Force site.
About 70,000 visitors annually take a tour, which requires a guide since
the location is an operating Self-Defense Force facility. The museum's exhibits
are in Japanese without English translations.
A guidebook with photos of the campus is available in
English, but it contains very little information about the exhibits on the
Navy's special attack forces. The museum has a limited number of written
explanations translated into English, and none of these give historical
background for the exhibits. The museum does not sell any books or other items
about its collections, and the small web site maintained by the Self-Defense
Force schools at Etajima does not have any details about its museum exhibits.
Date of most recent visit: September 11, 2019
Notes
1. The plaque erected by the Tokkōtai (Special
Attack Corps) Commemoration Peace Memorial Association in front of the Yūshūkan
Jinja in Tōkyō indicates that 1,082 men died in the Shin'yō Corps, but
the Etajima Museum of Naval History has no mention of the Shin'yō Corps that
carried out special attacks with motorboats loaded with explosives. Although the
placard at Etajima Museum of Naval History states that 28 pilots of midget
submarines died in battle, the Tokkōtai Commemoration Peace Memorial Association
plaque at Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan indicates that 436 men of the Special (Midget)
Submarine Force died in special attacks. See plaque at Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan
on following web page: Kamikaze Pilot Statue (Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan).
2. NHK 2012.
3. Inoguchi and Nakajima 1951, 317-29.
Sources Cited
Inoguchi, Rikihei, and Tadashi Nakajima. 1951. Shinpū
tokubetsu kōgekitai (Shinpū special attack corps). Tōkyō: Nihon Shuppan
Kyōdō,
NHK. 2012. "Naze isho wa atsumerareta ka ~Tokkō nazo no
izoku chōsa~" (Why last letters were collected: Mysterious survey of
bereaved families of special attacks). Broadcast August 28.
<http://www.nhk.or.jp/gendai/articles/3237/1.html> (February 16, 2019), link
no longer available.
|
