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Keiko Tsuta
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Amakusa Air Group Association: Connecting Former Air Group Members and
Bereaved Family Members (Tenkūkai: Moto taiin to izoku o tsunagu)
Researched and written by Shūji Fukano and Fusako Kadota
Pages 165-167 of Tokkō kono chi yori: Kagoshima shutsugeki no kiroku
(Special attacks from this land: Record of Kagoshima sorties)
Minaminippon Shinbunsha, 2016
It was 1972 when the Amakusa Air Group Association was formed as an exchange
organization for former members and bereaved family members of men who died in
battle or in the line of duty from Amakusa Naval Air Group, which was based
in Saitsu Village (now Amakusa City) in Kumamoto Prefecture during the last part of
the Pacific War.
Former Air Group member Takeshi Nakayama (89 years old, resident of Fuchū
City in Tōkyō Prefecture), who made an appeal for establishment of the
association and assumed the office tasks, took charge of the association's
operations. He did not stop with his war comrades' aim of deepening friendship
between former Air Group members, and he decided to emphasize also the provision
of information to bereaved family members. It was because he thought, "I wanted
to communicate as much information as possible concerning the men who died to
bereaved family members who had to continue to bear for many years the sadness
of losing a relative."
One way of doing this was the organization newsletter Amakusa Air Group.
While Nakamura operated an accounting office, he edited and published by himself
twenty newsletters from 1971, when there were preparatory steps to establish the
Amakusa Air Group Association, to 1997. The contents, which introduced a wide
variety of remembrances of former Air Group members and bereaved family members,
constitute a valuable record to know the true circumstances of this small air
group that had few references in war history.
Keiko Tsuta (78 years old, resident of Mihara City, Hiroshima Prefecture) is
the younger sister of
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Noboru Yamaguchi from Hiroshima Prefecture who
died when his plane dove into a reef off Okinawa's Iheya Island before dawn on
May 25, 1945, as a member of the 12th Air Flotilla Two-seat
Reconnaissance Seaplane Squadron that was formed from the Amakusa Naval Air
Group. Tsuta, eight years old at the time, was twelve years younger than her
brother and does not have any memories of him other than "his figure from behind
as he worked hard at his studies in his own room."
Furthermore, around the time that
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Yamaguchi died in a special (suicide) attack, her
father Toraichi died of illness and her mother died when the atomic bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima City. Tsuta avoided trouble since she was evacuated to
Kagoshima Prefecture, but she lost her entire family in a short time. She was
taken in by her uncle and aunt in Mihara City. "Until I listened to stories from
his war comrades, I assumed that my older brother had volunteered for a special
attack. When I heard the story that for the most part he was coerced, I was
surprised."
In July 1990, as a member from a group visiting Okinawan war sites from the
Amakusa Air Group Association, Tsuta went to the reef where her older brother
crashed.
She personally retrieved a piece of a Type 0 Observation Seaplane (Allied code
name of Pete). She says, "Finding this piece, a weight on my mind for many years
was lifted. I feel only appreciation to the Amakusa Air Group Association
and Mr. Nakayama for filling in gaps in memories of my older brother."
In the summer of 1997, Nakayama, who had formed a distinctive "war comrades
association," fell when he suffered a cerebral stroke soon after he returned from a
memorial service at Amakusa. Afterwards, he had a long period of rehabilitation.
There is a sight that Nakayama cannot forget. When
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Yamaguchi and others were sent off from Ibusuki
Naval Air Base for Amakusa Air Group's first battle, a middle-aged petty officer
who was paymaster, with tears flowing down, stared for a long time at the
departing planes.
"The petty officer probably had children about the same age as special attack
airmen. I think that in those days it may have been the habit for military men
to cry, but this personal feeling was unusual. War diminishes imaginative power
and sympathy toward other people."
Amakusa Air Group Association, which became a place
for information exchange between former members of
Amakusa Naval Air Group and bereaved family members
of men who died in battle, and Takeshi Nakayama
(photo above),
who edited the information
(June 2015, Fuchū City, Tōkyō Prefecture)
Translated by Bill Gordon
May 2025
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