Ten megurishi ya: Oshige-san to kaiten tokubetsu kōgekitaiin (Turn heaven: Oshige and
kaiten special attack corps members)
by Ōtarō Tanigawa
Furusato Nihon Purojekuto (Homeland Japan Project), 2010, 64 pages
This manga book tells the story of Asako Kurashige, nicknamed
Oshige, who worked at an inn named Matsumasa Ryokan (located in Tokuyama City,
now called Shūnan City, in Yamaguchi Prefecture) where many kaiten pilots
and other kaiten base personnel from a nearby island visited for group meals
such as farewell parties. Kaiten weapons 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 narrator is a grandfather
named Masa who tells the history of kaiten weapons and the story of Oshige to his grandson
and granddaughter, who are probably in the upper grades of elementary school, as they
are fishing together off a pier at Ōtsushima, the island where there was a
secret Navy kaiten base during the war.
Masa explains to his grandchildren that he lived just in front
of Matsumasa Ryokan, so he often visited there as a child when he was about the
same age as his grandchildren. Since Tokuyama City had a large Navy fuel depot
during the Pacific War, Navy officers and men often frequented Matsumasa Ryokan.
Masa had great interest in these visitors to the inn since he had dreams of joining the
Navy when he grew up.
On September 7, 1944, Ōtsushima Kaiten Base Commander
Itakura and six men visit Matsumasa Ryokan for dinner, but they seem to
Oshige to be somewhat depressed. Itakura explains to her that two men were found dead
that morning in a training accident. Although he does not provide details to her
since the kaiten training is top secret, Lieutenant Hiroshi Kuroki, one of
the kaiten co-inventors, and another man died in a training accident when their
kaiten torpedo got stuck in the bottom of Tokuyama Bay after they launched
during
bad weather late in the day on September 6, 1944. One of the men at the dinner
at Matsumasa Ryokan is Lieutenant Junior Grade Sekio Nishina, who together with
Kuroki originated the idea for the kaiten weapon as a modification of the Navy's
successful Type 93 torpedo that was nicknamed the Long Lance. The story then flashes
back for several pages as Nishina remembers the struggles that he and Kuroki had
to develop the kaiten weapon and to convince the Navy command to deploy it as a
special (suicide) attack weapon. The idea was finally supported, and the kaiten
base at Ōtsushima opened at the beginning of September 1944.
At the dinner Nishina explains to the other men how Kuroki,
trapped on the sea floor with his oxygen running out, spent his final ten hours
of life by writing on the inside of the kaiten hull about the details of how
they got stuck, warnings about what to watch for on future kaiten runs, and
ideas for improvements in the weapon. Nishina admires Kuroki's heroic Japanese
spirit and pledges to give his life as a Kaiten Special Attack Corps member in
order to save the country. The other five men pledge the same, and the mood
lightens when Oshige comes to their room to offer them more saké
to drink.
When the curious young boy Masa enters the room, the men laugh and joke as he shows them how he is
learning how to use a bamboo spear in school. Masa tells the men that he will
follow after them and work hard to protect the country. As the evening
progresses, the men begin to call Oshige "Mother" since she treats
them so kindly and is about the same
age as their own mothers.
On November 7, 1944, 60 Navy men visit Matsumasa Ryokan for a
sukiyaki dinner with food provided by the Navy due to shortages at the time.
Not known by Oshige who served the dinner, 12 men including Sekio Nishina are
kaiten pilots of the Kikusui Unit who will make a sortie the following day from Ōtsushima
Kaiten Base. When they are leaving to return to base, Nishina sees Masa and
instructs him on leaving, "See that all is well afterward." Oshige realizes that
these are words that are spoken when someone will not return alive, but she did not find out
about what happened to these men until she read a newspaper article dated March
24, 1945, about the Kaiten Special Attack Corps, which until that date had been
a military secret. Both Oshige and Masa are heartbroken and shed many tears when
they read in the article that the men who had visited Matsumasa Ryokan had died
in kaiten attacks.
Masa's two grandchildren cry as he finishes telling his story
about Oshige and the kaiten pilots. Oshige, who passed away in 1985, often said
the following (p. 61): "I did not have my own children, but I was called Mother
by over 100 young men. They depended on me like their own mothers. Could there
be such a blessed person as me in this world? However, now the grave markers for
over 100 of these children have been erected in my heart. Am I a blessed person,
or am I the most unhappy woman in this world?"
Oshige serves dinner to kaiten pilots when
they visit Matsumasa Ryokan
for a farewell party
on November 7, 1944
The manga book has a separate sheet with color photographs and a map of kaiten-related sights on Ōtsushima such as the
Kaiten Memorial Museum and
the Kaiten Monument. More details about Oshige's life can be found at the web page
Two kaiten stories, which has a review
of Kaiten tokubetsu kōgekitai no haha: Oshige-san monogatari (Mother of
kaiten special attack corps: Story of Oshige).
The publisher, Furusato Nihon Purojekuto (Homeland Japan Project), is an
organization formed in 2002 to introduce Japan's heroes through manga. Both
paper and electronic manga stories have been published, including the following
two about Special Attack Corps members: Shinjuwan kyū gunshin irei hiwa
(Secret stories of memorial to nine war gods of Pearl Harbor) and Rikugun tokkōtai 1036 eirei to tomo ni (With 1,036 spirits of war dead in Army Special Attack
Corps). Other manga books published by
Furusato Nihon Purojekuto (Homeland Japan Project) include ones about Japanese
marathon runner Shizō Kanakuri (1891-1983), Saigō Takamori (1828-1877) who led
the Satsuma Rebellion against the Meiji government, and Kodama Gentarō (1852-1906) who
was instrumental in establishing a modern Imperial Japanese military.
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