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Corporal Mitsuo Inada
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Everyone, goodbye.
I write hurriedly with little time. Please read this even
though you must put up with my very poor sentences and characters.
We want to stay in Chiran forever, but there is no choice
since it's an order from above. Please do not forget us even though we die. We
are going ahead of you to Yasukuni Shrine* in the flowering capital. There will
also be open places for you next to us. When you all die, you'll go to Yasukuni
Shrine, won't you? It will be nice. Even though we die wiping out the enemy
completely, we'll not die.
We'll never forget the pleasant time we had with you here in
Chiran.
Mitsuo Inada
_____________
* Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is the national Shinto memorial
for soldiers killed in battle.
In addition to the above note, the book features several
letters and some excerpts from Reiko's diary. For example, after a pilot
departed on a suicide mission and did not return, Tome frequently wrote a
letter to his parents to notify them of their son's death. The following short
letter is one example Tome wrote while crying (pp. 80-1):
To Hideo Kawai's real mother,
I am notifying you of Hideo's sortie. Please be glad since
it was at 8 a.m. on June 8. He dove into an enemy ship in high spirits, and
please be comforted since each evening he treated me like a mother, and I also
took care of him and called him my son just like my own child. I did this so he would
not feel any loneliness.
Hideo asked me to write and tell you if he died. I wish you
well. Do not forget June 8.
Tome Torihama
After Tome returned from the base after seeing off Hideo on
his flight, she realized that there was no letter paper due to severe
shortages of basic items near the end of the war. She decided to rip out a used
page from the accounting book for Tomiya Restaurant, and she used that old page
for the above letter.
In the postwar section of the book, Reiko tells how
frightened she and her older sister were when they heard American troops would
arrive in Chiran in December 1945. Although Tome experienced culture shock when
she first observed the customs of the American soldiers, she soon realized that
the soldiers were also young men far from their loved ones just like the
kamikaze pilots who departed from Chiran just a few months earlier. The
Americans soon started to show her photos of family and to call her
"Mama" because of her kind treatment even though they understood
almost nothing of each other's language.
Tome even became like a mother to one of the most rowdy
American soldiers. Reiko tells the story of this unruly young man (pp. 194-5, 201-2):
The interpreter warned Tome that there was a wild man named
Haskin among the American soldiers and that she should be careful since he was
especially dangerous. Haskin shot off his pistol outside, even in the backyard
of Tomiya Restaurant. Tome and her two daughters thought he was a scary man.
Even Haskin, the most ill-mannered of the bunch, quickly
became attached to Tome. In the beginning she tried to teach him various things
about Japanese life through gestures and Japanese in order to, if possible, not
present to the town such a rough man. First it was ikebana (flower
arrangement). One day Reiko was surprised when she returned home from school.
Tome had Haskin sitting in front of the tokonoma (alcove) and was
teaching him how to arrange flowers. She was saying: hold the scissors like
this; cut them so; stick in the pin holders this way; yes, try it; oh, yes;
isn't that good?; cut the branches like this; etc. Against all expectations,
the uncivilized Haskin showed interest and with gentle hands tried to follow
what Tome was saying. When he did not cut them well, he would click his tongue
and say "goddam" and other coarse words. However, when he did well
and Tome praised him, he was happy just like a child.
The next thing Tome tried to show him was Japanese cooking.
She took Haskin to the kitchen of Tomiya Restaurant, and she began instructing
him starting with how to use the kitchen knives. She explained with the following
words: you cut the greens with this knife; yes, do it that way; slice, slice,
slice; understand?; so, please try it; etc. Unexpectedly, Haskin also showed
interest in this. Standing next to Tome, he began to use the chopping board
while imitating her movements. Before long he became good at it, and he helped
prepare food beside her. Of course she could not use him for delicate
operations requiring high-level skills such a peeling skins off of carrots or
potatoes. However, he could slice scallions and cut daikon (large white
radishes) and carrots into round slices and cubes. When he finished, he used to
ask whether there was anything else he could do to help.
Sweeping the garden with a bamboo broom soon became Haskin's
task. That "rough" man really used the bamboo broom with skill, and
it warmed our hearts when we saw him raking dried leaves from the undergrowth.
Haskin before long stopped firing his pistol, and Tome
became his mother.
One chapter gives several postwar stories to show how Tome
Torihama helped out many people in addition to the kamikaze pilots and the
occupying American soldiers. In her later years, she often said, "It's my
nature that I must help when I see a person having a hard time." For
example (pp. 210-1), a young woman found out she was pregnant with the baby of
an American soldier who had already been transferred from Chiran. After her
baby boy was born, she went to work at Tomiya Restaurant and lived in Tome's
home, and her son lived as part of the family until after high school. In
another example (pp. 212-4), a man about 30 years old stole a cherished leather
handbag that Tome's oldest daughter, Miako, had just received as a wedding present.
When the police apprehended the thief, Tome went to the police station and
learned about his history. He had turned to stealing because he could not find
a job and needed something to eat. Despite the initial objections of Miako and
Reiko, Tome took the man in to live at their home and gave him work at Tomiya
Restaurant. After being there for some time, he obtained a position as a
crewmember on an oceangoing ship, found a wonderful woman, and started to live
happily.
The touching stories in this book provide unique insights
into the real character and personality of several kamikaze pilots. Tome and
her two daughters experienced immense grief as the young pilots they knew like
family members departed one after another on suicide attacks. Every reader of
this book will
be greatly inspired by the kindness and love shown by Tome Torihama.
Notes
1. For example, the following book contains a
collection of newspaper articles based on Tome Torihama's stories of kamikaze
pilots. The Asahi Shimbun originally published these articles in a series
from
September to December 1988.
Asahi Shimbun Seibu Honsha. 1990. Sora no kanata ni
(To distant skies). Fukuoka: Ashishobo.
This book contains numerous photos of kamikaze pilots, Tome Torihama,
and Chiran. The book's stories about individual kamikaze pilots are quite short,
less than two pages each, so the much longer stories in Hotaru Kaeru (The
Firefly Returns) provide many more details.
2. The restaurant's name of "Satsuma Ogojo" evokes
images of Kagoshima Prefecture, the location of Reiko's hometown of Chiran.
"Satsuma" is the name of the old province located in the western half
of Kagoshima from which came many famous samurai. "Ogojo" is the term
used in Kagoshima for a beautiful young unmarried woman, although today's use of
the term can extend to older women who may be married.
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