Kaiten shōsetsu nidai - Kaiten tokubetsu kōgekitai no haha: Oshige-san
monogatari and Shūsen zenjitsu no kūbaku: Hikari
kaiten kichi monogatari (Two kaiten stories - Mother of kaiten special
attack corps: Story of Oshige and Air attack on day before end of war: Story of
Hikari kaiten base)
by Tenzan Ariake
Privately published, 2010, 251 pages
This privately-published book contains two stories about kaiten
weapons, which were manned torpedoes launched from submarines that carried out
special (suicide) attacks from November 20, 1944, until the end of the Pacific
War in August 1945. The first story covers the life of Asako Kurashige,
nicknamed Oshige, who worked at a high-class inn named Matsumasa Ryokan where
many kaiten pilots visited for group meals such as for farewell parties.
The second story is a fictional tragedy about Ryōsuke, a
kaiten pilot who trained at Hikari Kaiten Base, and Yasuko, a high school
girl in the women's volunteer corps at Hikari who was Ryōsuke's
fiancée.
The story about Oshige effectively integrates the history
of Japan's kaiten operations with her personal life when she met many
kaiten pilots from Ōtsushima Kaiten Base who
visited Matsumasa Ryokan in Tokuyama City (now Shūnan City) for their
farewell parties. She began work there in 1926 at the age of 20. She married
Isamu Ōtaki, a naval paymaster, in 1929. However, he developed tuberculosis in
1935, so Oshige had to quit her job at Matsumasa Ryokan when she moved to his
hometown so that he could recover from his illness, but he passed away two years
later. In 1940, Oshige returned to her job at Matsumasa Ryokan.
In late October 1944, kaiten pilots of the Kaiten Special Attack
Corps Kikusui Unit, the first kaiten unit, and officers from Ōtsushima
Kaiten Base came to Matsumasa Ryokan for a farewell party. At the time, Oshige
did not know what the men were referring to when they mentioned kaiten,
and she thought that it was some unit of the Navy's submarine force. She did not
find out for sure the purpose of kaiten operations until she read a
newspaper article about the Kaiten Corps in March 1945. Other kaiten
units such as the Kongō Unit and Tatara Unit also held
farewell parties at Matsumasa Ryokan before their planned sorties from Ōtsushima Kaiten Base. The young men developed a close relationship with Oshige,
and many addressed her as "Mother" as a term of endearment.
The best parts of Kaiten tokubetsu kōgekitai no haha (Mother of
kaiten special attack corps) are conversations between Oshige and individual
kaiten pilots. For example, Minoru Mori and Makoto Saegusa [1],
two 18-year-old pilots in the Kongō Unit, asked if they could
each have a white scarf. She at first did not know what to do since she did not
have such scarves available, but without their knowing she made these quickly by
cutting out the white part of her bridal outfit and stitching together the
scarves that they wanted. Kaiten pilot Tomio Kobayashi expressed his
deep appreciation to Oshige in a last letter that included the following
words, "I sincerely appreciate your kindness beyond that of even an affectionate
mother that you showed to me for a long time. It is regrettable that I cannot make any recompense to you, but please
forgive me." As Oshige interacted with the kaiten pilots, she often
could not stop her tears as she knew that the young men were going on missions
of death.
The last three chapters of Oshige's story cover the postwar period. She made
her first visit to former Ōtsushima Kaiten Base soon after
the war's end, and there was a promise by the men there to meet together on November 8,
1955, ten years from the date of the sortie from Ōtsushima
of the Kikusui Unit. After the war she visited with bereaved family members of
kaiten pilots who had died. She also strongly supported the erection of
the Ōtsushima Kaiten Monument
and Kaiten Memorial Museum on
Ōtsushima to remember kaiten pilots who died in the war.
The book's second story, Shūsen zenjitsu no kūbaku (Air attack on day
before end of war) is based on an actual historical event. On August 14, 1945,
157 American B-29 bombers made an air attack on the Navy arsenal at Hikari Town
in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which was also the site of a kaiten base from
where several submarines carrying kaiten weapons made sorties in 1945.
The air attack killed 738 workers at the Hikari Arsenal including 133 students
who had been working there.
Although in the second story Tenzan integrates historical background about the kaiten base
and the Hikari Arsenal in much the same way as the first story about Oshige, the
main story line of the relationship between Ryōsuke and
Yasuko seems somewhat artificially constructed. Ryōsuke
and Yasuko, along with their families, agree to marriage more than a year before
Yasuko will graduate from high school in March 1945. They have no conflicts
between them. Ryōsuke has almost no communication with
Yasuko after he enters the Navy, but this seems to have little effect on their
loving relationship. Ryōsuke and Yasuko sleep together
for the first time when he returns for a home visit before his kaiten
mission, and Yasuko becomes pregnant. The only real tension in this fictional
story is whether or not Ryōsuke or Yasuko or both will
die before the war's end. It turns out that Ryōsuke
survives the submarine captain's order to launch his kaiten weapon when
its propellers do not start up, but he loses his life when the submarine that
carried him gets
attacked and sunk by an American destroyer near Bungo Channel while returning to
Hikari Kaiten Base. Yasuko loses her life in the bombing of Hikari Arsenal on
the day before the war's end.
Note
1. These two kaiten pilots left behind last
letters to their families:
Last Letter of Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Minoru Mori to His Older Brother
and Last Letter of Flight Petty
Officer 2nd Class Makoto Saegusa to His Parents.
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