Chiran inochi no monogatari: "Tokkō no haha" to yobareta Torihama Tome no
shōgai (Chiran life story: Life of Tome Torihama, called "tokkō
mother")
by Akihisa Torihama
Kizuna Shuppansha, 2015, 234 pages
Tome Torihama became like a mother to many Army tokkō (special attack)
pilots [1] before they took off on their suicide
missions to crash into American ships around Okinawa between March and June
1945. She ran Tomiya Restaurant where many pilots from Chiran Army Air Base went
to eat and drink. Several books have been published about Tome Torihama's life
including Hana no toki
wa kanashimi no toki: Chiran tokkō obasan Torihama Tome monogatari (Flower season, a sad season:
Story of Tome Torihama, aunt of Chiran's kamikaze pilots) (1992) by Masako
Aihoshi, Hotaru kaeru
(The firefly returns) (2001) by Tome's daughter Reiko Akabane and Hiroshi
Ishii, and
Naze wakamonotachi wa egao de
tobitatte itta no ka (Why did the young men take off with smiling
faces?) (2014) by Hatsuyo Torihama, wife of Tome's grandson. Akihisa
Torihama, another grandson of Tome and son of Tome's daughter Miako, adds to
this collection of biographies with one entitled Chiran inochi no monogatari:
"Tokkō no haha" to yobareta Torihama Tome no shōgai (Chiran life story: Life
of Tome Torihama, called "tokkō mother"). He covers much of the same
basic history and many of the same stories about tokkō pilots as the
other books, but he adds personal details based on his close relationship with
his grandmother while growing up. He serves as director of Chiran's
Hotaru Museum, located in the
restored building of Tomiya Restaurant, which has exhibits that tell the stories of some of the
tokkō pilots who Tome knew.
In conversations with Akihisa, Tome Torihama maintained that the tokkō
pilots did not want to die. Instead, they wanted to protect their families and
loved ones and were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to accomplish
this. Tome loved the pilots to such an extent that she even sold off some
household goods in order to buy food and drink to provide them when they visited
her restaurant. She wrote letters to parents of pilots who took off from Chiran
Air Base toward Okinawa and never returned, and the book contains extensive
quotes from two of these. After the war's end, she became like a mother also for
American soldiers stationed in Chiran. The Introduction by Shigehisa Nagamatsu,
representative director of Hotaru Museum, mentions that Tome is called "Japan's
Mother Teresa" for all of her kind deeds.
Akihisa Torihama describes Tome's life as "turbulent." Born in the small
fishing village of Bōnotsu (now part of Minamisatsuma City) in Kagoshima
Prefecture, Tome struggled in her early life to make a livelihood as she served
as a housemaid for three years starting at age 15 while living in the house of
the police chief of Kagoshima City. Afterward she worked in Kaseda City (now
also part of Minamisatsuma City) at an inn, where she met Yoshitoshi [2],
who would soon become her husband despite opposition from his parents in
Shibushi City due to her background. They decided to move to the small town of
Chiran, and Yoshitoshi commuted by train each day to Kaseda City where he worked
at the bus company. The couple had two daughters, Miako and Reiko. At the age of
27 in 1929, Tome opened a restaurant in Chiran called Tomiya. According to
Akihisa Torihama, Tome did not like her name so she often used the name of Tomi
or Tomiko in writing, and she included the name of Tomi in her restaurant's
name.
The book's eight chapters roughly follow Tome's life chronologically after an
initial chapter that introduces Tome and stories of three tokkō pilots:
Saburō Miyagawa who promised to return as a firefly (hotaru in Japanese),
Korean Fumihiro Mitsuyama who sang the Korean song Arirang in Tomiya Restaurant
during the evening before his final mission, and Hajime Fujii whose wife had
committed suicide several months before he took off from Chiran. The book's
contents can be divided into three types of material, which total about the same
number of pages but are mixed throughout the book: (1) Tome Torihama's
biography, (2) stories related to tokkō pilots who took off from Chiran
Air Base, and (3) Akihisa Torihama's personal stories and interactions with his
grandmother. There are 37 historical photographs, both of Tome throughout her
life and pilots who Tome met.
Tome's daughters
Miako (left) and Reiko (right)
Akihisa Torihama writes that he heard when he was growing up directly from
his grandmother Tome many times the stories about various tokkō pilots
she met. There are a few places in the book where he seems to be speculating
about how Tome may have felt or what may have happened when he does not have
direct knowledge of the details. He provides a personal perspective in his
stories about Tome that others outside the family cannot, especially in her
later years until her death in 1992 at age 89.
Tome Torihama in front of Chiran's
Kannon (Buddhist goddess of mercy) Temple when first built
Notes
1. The Japanese Army's tokkō pilots are
often called kamikaze pilots by English speakers. However, the Kamikaze Special
Attack Corps included only Navy, not Army, airmen.
2. Hatsuyo Torihama, in her book
Naze wakamonotachi wa egao de
tobitatte itta no ka (Why did the young men take off with smiling
faces?) (2014), gives the pronunciation of Tome Torihama's husband as
Yoshikiyo. It is uncertain whether the pronunciation of his name is Yoshitoshi
or Yoshikiyo.
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