Last Letter of Ensign Akira Satō to His Wife
On November 20, 1944, Ensign Akira Satō died
in a special (suicide) attack at the age of
26 when submarine I-47 launched his kaiten manned torpedo at Ulithi Atoll. On
November 8, 1944, submarine I-47 made a sortie from Ōtsushima Kaiten Base in Yamaguchi
Prefecture with four kaiten pilots who were members of the Kaiten
Special Attack Corps Kikusui Unit. He was from Yamagata Prefecture, attended Kyūshū
Imperial University, and
was a member of the 3rd Class of the Navy Branch Reserve Students (Heika Yobi
Gakusei). He received a
promotion to Lieutenant after his death by special attack.
Satō wrote the following final letter to his wife:
Dear Marie,
I have been prepared for some time. The day has come for my honorable
departure of the longed-for "If I go away to the sea" [1].
It is natural for a Japanese man to stand carrying on his shoulders
the Empire's fate. This compels my conscious feeling that "I also am a Japanese man," and I am very glad.
It was a short time, but you dearly cared for me. You were for me the
best wife in Japan. Wherever I may be, I will protect you. Please live
properly and cheerfully on the appropriate path.
Please raise our children also in a dignified manner. There is no need
that you make them so-called distinguished, and there is no need that they
be wealthy persons. Bring them up to be men who will sacrifice themselves
without notice by others as they take responsibility for the fate of Japan. I also will die
nobly.
Please take sufficient care of yourself. As I think of an image of
splendid Japan, please live properly and cheerfully.
On the occasion when I go to battle in the Greater East Asia War
Akira
Letter translated by Bill Gordon
August 2018
The letter comes from Yasukuni Jinja (1995, 101-2). The biographical information in the first paragraph comes from
Yasukuni Jinja (1995, 101) and Mediasion (2006,
43-4, 79).
Note
1. "Umi Yukuba" (If I go away to the sea) was a
patriotic song popular in World War II. It was originally a poem in the Manyōshū,
the oldest surviving anthology of Japanese poetry compiled in the last half of
the 8th century.
Sources Cited
The Mediasion Co. 2006. Ningen gyorai kaiten (Kaiten
human torpedo). Hiroshima: The Mediasion Co.
Yasukuni Jinja, ed. 1995. Eirei
no koto no ha (1) (Words of the spirits of war heroes, Volume 1).
Tōkyō: Yasukuni Jinja Shamusho.
|
