|
|
Ningen no Tsubasa (Wings of a Man)
Director: Akihisa Okamoto
Cast: Toshihide Tonesaku as Shinichi Ishimaru
Mayumi Yamaguchi as Keiko Sakurai
Kazuyoshi Sakai as Koichi Honda
Committee to Make Wings of a Man, 1995, 135 min., Video
Shinichi Ishimaru, ace pitcher for the Nagoya Team in
Japan's professional baseball league from 1941 to 1943, died as a kamikaze
pilot at the age of 22 in May 1945. This film covers Shinichi's life from 1940
as a high school student in Saga Prefecture. Although the movie contains some
scenes of military training and barracks life, most scenes portray civilian
life in mainland Japan during the war. The filming in black-and-white and the
insertion of film clips of actual events such as the Tokyo bombing give the
movie an atmosphere of realism. The movie Wings of a Man depicts
Shinichi Ishimaru as a hero with ideal character and many accomplishments who
gave his life to defend his country.
This movie is based on the 1994 book, Lost Spring -
Pitcher Shinichi Ishimaru, Vanished in Kamikaze Attack (Kieta Haru - Tokkou
ni Chitta Toushu Ishimaru Shinichi), by Hidehiko Ushijima. Although this
independent film was never released commercially, it was shown throughout Japan
several hundred times. Japan's Ministry of Education, National Congress of
Parents & Teachers, Japan Film Society, and other groups recommended the
film. A wide variety of organizations, many in Shinichi's home prefecture of
Saga, provided financial support for the production and distribution of the
film. Wings of a Man is a movie "commemorating the 50th year of the
end of the Pacific War and the realization of true peace and prosperity."
|
|
|
Ishimaru (left) and Honda (right)
|
|
|
|
As a pitching star both in high school at Saga City and as a
professional at Nagoya City, Shinichi demonstrates great intensity and integrity.
In the spring of 1941 he leaves Saga City to join the Nagoya professional
baseball team, now known as the Chunichi Dragons. He plays infield the first
year, but he yearns for the day when he can pitch. In the spring of 1942, he
gets his chance and pitches a shutout against the opposing team. During the
game the Nagoya catcher moves his glove to make the umpire think that a ball is
a strike, and Shinichi scolds him, "Hold your glove still after a catch. A
ball is a ball. I hate cheating." On October 12, 1943, he pitches a
no-hit, no-run game, and he finishes the season with a 1.15 ERA and a record of
20 wins and 12 losses. While playing with the Nagoya Team, he studies at the
university in the evening, primarily because of the draft exemption for university
students. However, this exemption ends in late 1943, and he enters the Navy.
On February 1, 1944, Shinichi becomes a student pilot. He
later moves to several air bases for intensive flight training, and during this
time he meets Koichi Honda, who played college baseball before entering the
Navy. They develop a close friendship because of their mutual love for
baseball. Shinichi pursues his flight training with the same intensity as
baseball, and he gets promoted to Ensign in December 1944. Both men join the
kamikaze corps in February 1945 when encouraged by officers of their air
brigade. During kamikaze training, Shinichi visits the office of the Nagoya
Team, and they give him a new baseball that he can keep with him to the end.
|
|
|
|
|
|
From Pitcher to Soldier
Shinichi Ishimaru
|
|
|
Shinichi's relationship with Keiko Sakurai provides many
touching and humorous moments in the film. When Keiko moves to Saga City from
Tokyo, they quickly develop an unspoken affection for each other, but Shinichi
as a shy high school boy can say only a few words to her. Although Keiko sees
off Shinichi at the train station when he leaves Saga City in the spring of
1941 to go play baseball for the Nagoya Team, they do not correspond and do not
see each other again until the first half of 1944. Keiko had returned to Tokyo
with her family, and she finds out that Shinichi is at a nearby air base after
writing to his mother to find out where he was stationed. When she goes to
visit him at the air base, they renew their relationship. She gives him some ohagi
(rice cakes) and shows him the scrapbook she made of newspaper articles about
him, and he gives her a broach that she promises to never take off. After the
bombing of Tokyo on March 10, 1945, he visits her home where they decide to get married.
However, soon after Shinichi returns to base, Keiko's home is bombed and she
dies in flames holding Shinichi's photo.
On April 26, 1945, Shinichi's unit leaves an air base near
Tokyo to proceed to Kanoya Air Base in southern Japan to wait for orders to
make a kamikaze attack against American ships near Okinawa. During the two
weeks before the order comes, the men help out local farmers in the fields and
wade together in a nearby stream. The attack is scheduled for the morning of
May 11, so the night before they write last letters to their families. Early in
the morning of May 11, Shinichi and his friend Honda go outside the barracks to
play catch with the new ball given by the Nagoya Team. Honda challenges
Shinichi to throw ten strikes, which he does in ten pitches as the men gather
around them. When Shinichi gets in his plane to depart, he wraps the baseball
in his hachimaki (headband) and throws it out to the people gathered to
cheer their departure. The hachimaki has the following message written
on it, "My life is over at 22. Nothing but loyalty and filial piety."
As Shinichi's plane flies toward Okinawa, an American fighter shoots it down.
|
|
The film does not focus on details of Japan's kamikaze
operations, but it accurately portrays several aspects of the kamikaze
corps. For example, pilots in the Navy
and Army generally were subjected to intense pressure from officers and peers
to "volunteer" to join the kamikaze corps. An officer of Shinichi's
naval air brigade gives a speech saying that joining the kamikaze corps is
voluntary, but later in the barracks Shinichi's squad leader pressures his
squad members to join. "If even one of you refuses, it will bring disgrace
on us all. You were told it's voluntary, but I expect you all to sign up."
The movie also portrays how many kamikaze corps members had to wait several
days and weeks without knowing when they would be called for their final
flight. Shinichi's division moved to an air base in southern Japan to make
kamikaze attacks on American ships around Okinawa, but his division had to wait
two weeks before making the attacks because of rain and because search planes
could not locate the ships. The movie shows all nine planes in Shinichi's
division being destroyed by American planes before they catch sight of any
American ships. Although Japan's kamikaze attacks on American ships around
Okinawa caused great damage, the superior American fighter planes shot down
many Japanese planes before they reached their intended targets.
The characters in the film have different views toward death
in battle. After the fire bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, Keiko's father does
not think Japan can win the war and that it will end soon, so he tells Shinichi
to not hurry to death. Shinichi's mother and Keiko want him to treasure his
life and not die. Shinichi's older brother, also in the military, suggests to
him that he not become a pilot since most of them end up dying. In contrast to
these views, Shinichi faces death with a calm, quiet resolve, which seems to be
the attitude of others in the kamikaze corps. He does not dwell on the thought
of death, even though death faces him each day as he waits to sortie on his
final flight. Before each of his final three pitches, he yells out short
expressions of his anguish. "Who took baseball from me?" "Give
Keiko back!" "My last pitch. This is my life!"
The two central characters, Shinichi and Keiko, each seem to
possess an ideal personality with no faults. Indeed, except for a few obviously
malevolent military officers, every character in this film seems to have a
charming personality. Although this clear depiction of good and evil may give
children and adults role models to follow, the movie's romantic portrayal of
Shinichi and his wife, family, and friends may not allow insight to
difficulties faced by some kamikaze pilots and their families.
Before Shinichi's departure from Kanoya Air Base, the nine
pilots in his unit line up for a last drink in the name of the Emperor. The
unit leader concludes a speech with the words, "You're already living
gods. You're free from all desires." These are the same words Vice Admiral
Ohnishi spoke when the first kamikaze unit was formed in the Philippines in
October 1944. As the others drink, Shinichi dashes his cup to the ground,
probably thinking of the loss of Keiko and baseball. Although this could never
have happened in the Japanese military without some type of punishment,
Shinichi's action shows he retained his intensity and integrity to the end.
|
|
|
