|
|
|
|
Two men talking about Atsuo Matsunaga are his cousin
Toshihiro Nishi (right) and older brother Jōji Matsunaga (left) (June
2015, Beppu area of Ei-chō, Minamikyūshū City)
|
|
|
Father's Enemies: Volunteered With Vow to Destroy (Chichi no kataki:
Uchichikai shigan)
Researched and written by Shūji Fukano and Fusako Kadota
Pages 196-198 of Tokkō kono chi yori: Kagoshima shutsugeki no kiroku
(Special attacks from this land: Record of Kagoshima sorties)
Minaminippon Shinbunsha, 2016
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Atsuo Matsunaga from Kagoshima Prefecture was
a member of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps 12th Air Flotilla Two-seat
Reconnaissance Seaplane Squadron that was formed from the Amakusa Naval Air
Group. In the middle of the night on June 21, 1945, he made a sortie from
Ibusuki Naval Air Base, which was close to his hometown in the Beppu area of Ei Village (now Ei-chō in Minamikyūshū City). Although he made a forced landing
at Koniya on the island of Amami Ōshima, he made another sortie from Koniya on
June 25, and he died in battle together with his fellow crewman Second
Lieutenant Noboru Tadokoro who served as observer. Matsunaga was 17 years old at
the time of his death.
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Matsunaga's cousin Toshihiro Nishi (81 years
old, resident of Kamibeppu area of Ei-chō in Minamikyūshū City) says, "I heard
that Atsuo volunteered for the Special Attack Corps to take revenge on behalf of
his father. During his last visit to his home, my father, who was the older
brother of Atsuo's mother, forbid him to do it, but his strong will to do so did
not change."
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Matsunaga's father Haruka left his wife and
his two sons in about 1930 and went to work at farms in the state of California
in the U.S. Nishi says, "The area around Ei was poor in those days, and there
were so many men who went to work in America that Ei's nickname was 'America
Village.' "
From the start of the war between Japan and the U.S. on December 8, 1941,
news from his father stopped. "I suppose that his father was punished. Our enemy
got even with his own hands." Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Matsunaga, who was
a student at Kawabe Junior High School under the prewar educational system, was
determined to join the Yokaren (Naval Preparatory Flight Training Program) to
become a Navy airman, and he passed the entrance examination.
Nishi heard stories from Matsunaga's classmates at Kawabe Junior High School
that he would watch the movements of Army aircraft that would take off from
Chiran Army Airbase and would tell them that he would learn how to pilot a
plane. "Once he set his mind on something, he had a unbending personality."
Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class Matsunaga took off from Ibusuki at about 4
p.m. on June 21, 1945 [1], and he flew over Ei with
the other plane in his two-aircraft formation. Nishi, who was a 5th-grade student at Aoto
Elementary School, says, "Atsuo waved his hand from his pilot seat, and my
father and I waved back." That was our eternal farewell to my cousin.
Soon after the war's end, Haruka returned to Ei and found out that his second
son had died in a special (suicide) attack. He had been held in a detention camp
for persons of Japanese descent in the state of California. Afterward, he had
two sons including Jōji (69 years old).
Jōji, who now lives in his parents' house in Ei, says, "I think that it was a
huge shock for my father, who lived a long time in America, when he found out
that my older brother died when he dove into an American ship in order to take revenge on
my father's enemies. For that reason, he hardly talked about it during his life."
Members of 12th Air Flotilla Two-seat Reconnaissance
Seaplane Squadron that was formed from the
Amakusa
Naval Air Group. Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class
Atsuo
Matsunaga is second from left on front row.
(provided by Jōji Matsunaga)
Note
1. This time of about 4 p.m. seems to be
contradictory to information in the first paragraph, which states that "in the
middle of the night on June 21, 1945, he made a sortie from Ibusuki Naval Air
Base." Osuo (2005, 240) indicates that aircraft in the 12th Air Flotilla
Two-seat Reconnaissance Seaplane Squadron took off from Ibusuki at 2330 on June
21, which is consistent with information in the first paragraph. It is
theoretically possible that Matsunaga's seaplane took off from Ibusuki in the
afternoon, returned to base, and then made a final sortie at 2330, but this
seems very unlikely due to the high risk of being shot down by
enemy aircraft during a daytime flight due to the slow speed of the seaplane.
Source
Osuo, Kazuhiko. 2005. Tokubetsu kōgekitai no kiroku (kaigun
hen) (Record of special attack corps (Navy)). Tōkyō: Kōjinsha.
Translated by Bill Gordon
August 2026
Related Web Pages
HOME >
Stories > Father's Enemies: Volunteered With Vow to
Destroy
|
|
