A Tomb Called Iwo Jima Read online

  On July 13th, Ensign Kazuo Tsunoda and the some twenty Zero pilots, many of whom were raw replacements, were reorganized into the new 252nd Naval Air Group and sent back to Iwo Jima. Ensign Tsunoda was a seasoned mustang that had seen combat in China, Guadalcanal and Rabaul, and had served aboard the carrier Sōryū during the battle of Midway with fellow mustang and Zero ace pilot Kaname Harada. Tsunoda had also been a flight instructor, and had flown in the Marshall Islands campaign with ace Isamu Miyazaki in the 252nd Naval Air Group.

  Akikusa's False Start

  While Iwo Jima's aircraft were taking a pasting, back in Japan radiomen Akikusa and Kageyama were granted a three-day shore leave. Akikusa returned home to see his grandmother sitting on the veranda busy with her usual handiwork. She heard his footsteps and looked up, "Why are you back so soon? Oh no, did they kick you out?" He showed her his shore leave and she quickly ordered a neighborhood child to go out into the fields to share the news. Once inside the house, Akikusa learned that his younger brother had joined the Navy and was at a naval communication school. His younger sister Iku was still in Tientsin China, working as an army nurse.

  Soon, neighbors and friends gathered to pepper Akikusa with questions about the war, especially about Saipan, but he had no answers. He recalled, "I was just a lowly seaman who didn't know anything." He learned from them about the battles with the British at Imphal, Burma, and the fall of Tarawa. They told him that the US Navy was running amok in the southern seas, and that Saipan was in danger of falling to the enemy. The Japanese Government had control over the only radio broadcast company, known as NHK.[17] The magazines and newspapers claimed that hundreds of enemy airplanes had been shot down, and dozens of enemy warships were sent to the bottom of the ocean. Could it be true?

  If Akikusa's parents had misgivings about the war they were careful with whom they shared them. Akikusa said, "People back then had to be mindful of what they said in public. The Special Higher Police could pick you up for questioning at any time." The Special Higher Police, or Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu (Tokkō), was the civilian counterpart to the military's Kempeitai, and roughly equivalent to the F.B.I. in terms of combining both criminal investigation and counter-espionage functions. It has also been compared to the Nazi Gestapo. The Tokkō gathered information from a nationwide network of patriotic citizens who, as part of the Tonarigumi system (neighborhood watch), submitted reports and rumors of unpatriotic conversations or actions within their neighborhoods. Even in the tiny burg of Yabegawa, people knew to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.

  That night, Akikusa had a hard time getting to sleep. One of the neighbors' comments spun around in his head, "They never grant sailors ‘special shore leave' unless they are going into heavy combat." He tried to put it out of his mind as he slid under his mosquito netting and sprawled down on his soft futon bed. Ah, there was nothing like it. In the darkness, he realized how much he missed the sound of the frogs croaking in the rice fields.

  Akikusa's special shore leave passed all too quickly. On his way out of the village, walked across the Yabegawa bridge and came to a rice paddy. He paused to take it all in one more time. He glanced down at his feet and saw a tadpole swimming in the shallow water of the rice paddy and said to the little creature, "I am coming back home, no matter what. Even if I return looking like you with no arms or legs."

  When Akikusa returned to the barracks at the Mutsuai Communications Unit, he nodded a greeting to Kageyama who said, "They're throwing us a farewell party tonight. We are to report to Yokosuka Communications Unit tomorrow for transfer to a unit called Nanpō Kantai Shirei-bu (Southern Area Fleet Headquarters)."

  That evening, June 18th, the petty officers gathered for a send-off complete with handshakes, speeches and words of advice. Akikusa produced a wooden box filled with his mother's homemade sweet bean manjū cakes. Akikusa handed a manjū cake to a warrant officer and jokingly begged to know where he and Kageyama were heading. The older man replied, "No one knows where the Southern Area Fleet Headquarters is located, or whether it's with a fleet or a land-based unit. It doesn't matter because you must do your duty and sacrifice yourself in the execution of that duty if need be." The man took a bite of the manjū cake and savored the nostalgic home-style flavor. He swallowed and said with a confident smile, "Don't worry, you've trained on the best equipment the Navy has to offer. If you ever have questions just contact us. We never forget our shipmates." And with that, he popped the rest of the manjū cake into his mouth and gave Akikusa a reassuring slap on the back.

  The appearance of beer made the farewell party come alive as military gunka songs erupted amid the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter. After several hours, the party ended with the somber funeral procession-like rendition of Umi Yukaba. The song was a way to wind down any party and remind the men of their destiny to "die as a rotting corpse either in a field, or floating on the waves." The tipsy radiomen stumbled back to their barracks, slung their hammocks and rolled into their racks.

  It's said that, "Morning comes silently on little cat feet." Perhaps, but not so for a pair of hung-over teenagers. Reveille brought an unfamiliar stomachache for Akikusa. The pair of friends went about their morning routine and then reported to the parade deck. Following the unemotional prattle of an officer's well-worn farewell speech, over 100 radiomen formed parallel lines and waved their caps in the traditional bōfure salute to Kageyama and Akikusa as they walked out the front gate. The duo turned back, came to attention, and saluted their comrades who responded with a roaring chorus of banzai cheers. The pair headed to the train station to catch the local to Yokosuka Naval Base.

  When Akikusa and Kageyama presented their written orders at Yokosuka, they were met with, "Wait here." The duty officer returned with four younger sailors and said, "The six of you will report to Kanoya Kōkūtai." He pointed to Akikusa, "You are in charge of this six-man dispatch unit. There are others at Kanoya waiting for you, so hurry." It would be a long journey to the southern tip of Japan, and Akikusa felt better knowing he was not alone.

  Akikusa and Kageyama opted for window seats on the right side of the train so they could catch views of Mt. Fuji. The trains didn't run all night, so the men made their overnight stop in Kōbe. They hefted their sea bags for the ten-minute walk to the grave of Masashige Kusunoki (1294-1336), located inside Minatogawa Jinja Shrine. They entered the main gate, and headed to the right to pay their respects at Kusunoki's grave. Kusunoki was a 14th-century samurai who gained fame for his support of the Emperor Go-Daigo during a one-sided, losing battle at Minatogawa River in 1336. This battle gave birth to his phrase, "But that I had seven lives to give to the Emperor."[18] The Japanese military used the Kusunoki family crest of a mum floating on water, called Kikusui, as a symbol of devotion and self-sacrifice. The Navy adopted Minatogawa Jinja as their patron shrine.

  Later the next day, Akikusa was awakened from his catnap by the train conductor's nasally announcement, "End of the line, Kanoya Station, end of the line."31 The men exited the station and boarded a bus for Kanoya Navy Air Base. When they reported for duty they were told that they had missed their assigned transport flight to the southern combat zone. There were more men needing transport than there were available planes, so the six men would have to wait. Hurry up and wait. The radiomen slung their sea bags over their shoulders and moved to a transitional barracks to cool their heels.

  The next morning, the entire base was called to formation for a send-off for ten Zero fighter pilots heading south to the front lines. "The pilots looked heroic and splendid in their flight gear," said Akikusa. A twinge of jealousy struck him as he noted the aviators were his age. The base commander climbed a short set of wooden steps to a podium to address the pilots. The aircraft ground crews cranked up the engines, which banged and coughed to life. Exhaust fumes spilled across the field. The officer's voice was sharp and loud so he didn't need a microphone to be heard over the radial engines. He bellowed o
ut inspirational words in military fashion, and ended with, "It is your duty to protect our nation even with your lives." The pilots saluted and double-timed it to their waiting aircraft that seemed to be purring in the morning sun. Akikusa felt a chill of pride run down his spine as the Zeros took off and circled the airfield. The shiny new aircraft came in low over the hangars to a sea of waving caps.

  Akikusa noted that the general atmosphere at Kanoya wasn't as strict as Yokosuka, and there were no beatings. The group of radiomen waited for several more days with no word on their transport plane. They were issued day-passes, which they used to visit the shops in town to spend their money on sweets and snacks. "I won't need money where I'm going," they would announce to the shop girls with an air of bravado. With no transport aircraft either coming or going, the radiomen eventually received instructions, "You will leave for Yokosuka and await further orders."

  What? That's stupid. We just came from there, thought Akikusa. The following morning on the bus back to the train station, Kageyama suggested, "Let's sit on the seaward side of the train on the way north to get a different view." As the train chugged north through various cites and towns, groups of passengers got on and off, bringing with them muted conversations of the war. Akikusa overheard that American B-29 bombers had raided northern Kyūshū. The Kanoya Navy Base commander's grave words to the Zero pilots became crystal clear, "It is your duty to protect our nation with your lives."

  The radiomen made it back to Yokosuka where they were once again issued three-day shore leave passes. Akikusa found himself back home among his family. On that last evening of his second furlough, he sat cross-legged on the floor at the dinner table with his father and grandfather while his mother worked in the kitchen preparing her son's favorite dishes. His grandfather turned to him and said with a frown, "This is your second shore leave so they must be sending you someplace awful." Old people tend to speak their minds too freely, even in Japan. Akikusa hoped his mother hadn't heard the off-putting observation.

  After dinner, he went for a nostalgic twilight last-look at his small neighborhood. When he returned, he patted the family horse on the neck and felt comforted by the familiar musky odor. His grandmother stepped up to him with a solemn expression and said, "You have to come back alive because flowers don't grow in graveyards. Do you understand?"

  Akikusa nodded, "Don't worry Grandma, I promise."

  Corporal Abe Marries His Future Widow

  In April 1938, twenty-year-old Tadashi Abe was drafted into the Army's 78th Regiment's Anti-Aircraft unit. It was stationed in Korea, which since the turn of the century was a Japanese colony.[19] In 1940, Abe was injured in a training accident and treated at the army hospital in Seoul. There he met his future bride, a nurse named Teruko Kageyama. It was the quintessential ‘Florence Nightingale Syndrome.' The pair began a heated courtship that boiled into a marriage proposal.

  PFC Tadashi Abe's future bride, Teruko Kageyama, was born and raised in current day North Korea. Teruko Kageyama's father had served in the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japan War of 1905, and after his discharge decided to make his home on the Japanese-occupied peninsula working as a policeman. Teruko's father encouraged her to become a nurse due to the horrors he witnessed on the frontlines. As a result, Teruko went to nursing school at age sixteen, and then joined the International Red Cross. In April 1939, Teruko Kageyama was drafted and served in various army hospitals in Korea and China.

  PFC Tadashi Abe completed his tour of duty, and was discharged into the Army Reserves. He landed a steady job as an office manager at a transport company in Seoul. And like Teruko's father, he decided to make a life for himself on the Korean Peninsula. He married his nurse-bride Teruko Kageyama in Seoul, on April 1, 1941.

  Teruko's brother, Petty Officer 3/c Kiyoshi Kageyama, was a ship's engineer serving aboard the heavy cruiser Chōkai. In November 1941, PO 3/c Kageyama was transferred to the 4th Fleet's special transport Kinryū, an armed merchantman. Shortly after the Pearl Harbor raid, Teruko received word that her brother Kiyoshi was killed in the invasion of Wake Island on December 23rd. After the two unsuccessful landing attempts at Wake Atoll on December 8th and 11th, the Japanese Navy needed more troops to send ashore. PO3/c Kiyoshi Kageyama and many of his "non-essential" shipmates were deputized into the 2nd Maizuru Naval Landing Force. Although not formally trained or equipped as a Japanese Marine he went ashore and became one of several hundred Japanese sailors killed by the US Marine Defense Battalion.[20]

  In May 1942, Teruko bore her husband a daughter that they named Yoshiko. Things were going well for the young family until March 1944, when an ominous postcard arrived from the Army Reserve Center. Teruko was pregnant with their second daughter, Michiko, when Tadashi Abe was recalled to active duty. PFC Tadashi Abe was promoted to Corporal and assigned to First Lieutenant Shigeo Nishiyama's 1st Company, Independent 20th Mortar Battalion. Teruko said her worried goodbyes as her husband and the other soldiers embarked on a transport vessel at Pusan, Korea, on July 1, 1944.

  Corporal Tadashi Abe's unit later boarded a transport ship in Yokosuka as part of Escort Convoy No. 3710, which left Yokosuka on July 10, 1944.

  Out on his first war patrol, Lieutenant Commander Albert Becker took his submarine, USS Cobia (SS-245), north to the sea-lane between the Ogasawara Islands and the main island of Honshu. On the morning of July 13th, the USS Cobia stalked Corporal Abe's Escort Convoy No. 3710, and sank the transport Daiji Maru. She was packed to the gills with supplies: 960 tons of cement; 420 tons of coal; 200 tons of ammunition and supplies; plus troops from the 204th Naval Construction Unit, many of which were gunzoku civilians, and over half of whom would die.32

  One of the survivors of the sinking of Daiji Maru was twenty-six-year-old Corporal Shōichi Kawai, a radioman with the newly formed Independent Mixed 17th Infantry Regiment Communications Unit. Corporal Kawai was a reservist who had previously served a tour of duty with the 41st Infantry Regiment as a machine gunner before becoming a radioman.

  Kawai had seen plenty of action: Peking and Southern China; Indochina (Vietnam); then under General Tomoyuki Yamashita in Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur and Singapore; Panay and Mindanao in the Philippines. Corporal Kawai had fought against Chinese, British, Indian, French and American forces before being discharged in December 1942. Kawaii was a newly married man when he was recalled for duty on March 17, 1944, and sent to a radio refresher course. "Many of us radiomen had served together," he wrote. Their ages ranged from twenty-six to thirty-five-years-old, and all of them were married. After a few months of re-training, the group of fifty radiomen, commanded by First Lieutenant Kōtarō Inada, said goodbye to their wives and children and headed north from their home base in Hiroshima to Yokohama Harbor. They were equipped with four Model-94, Mark-3 field radio sets, which would be put to good use once they reached their final destination, which was rumored to be one of the Izu islands south of Tōkyō. The radiomen reached Yokohama and spent three days billeted in an elementary school waiting for supplies to be loaded aboard their transport ship Daiji Maru.

  While waiting for Daiji Maru to complete the loading process, Corporal Kawai saw tanks lined up at the wharf, "They were not the small tankettes that we used in China, but mostly the larger newer models," he wrote. He said that didn't know it at the time, but these belonged to LtCol Takeichi Nishi's 26th Tank Regiment.[21] Nishi's twenty-eight tanks were originally slated to join the defense of the Mariana Islands, but it was evident that the US Marines would reach Saipan first, so the tanks were to be transported to Iwo Jima on the deck of the transport Nisshu Maru.

  On the morning of the sinking, radioman Corporal Shōichi Kawai recalled hearing the mess call followed by a large explosion. The deck shuddered under the blare of a klaxon horn. Kawai followed instructions to remove his jika tabi rubber shoes, wrap-up leggings, leather belt with bayonet, musette bag, canteen, and trousers. He donned his life jacket as he had done during the drill, and t
hen hung his accouterments over his neck. "No one panicked as we waited for instructions," he wrote. He would leave his transport pack with hobnail boots and helmet behind. A voice came over the loudspeaker stating that the vessel had been struck amidships by a torpedo. Kawai heard a second explosion. The seasoned veterans waited for fifteen minutes for the order to abandon ship, all the while the ship slipped lower into the sea. The escort destroyer Hatsukaze raced about dropping depth charges that sent geysers of water high in to the air with a loud whapping sound.

  By now, all of the troops had crowded their way to the main deck making it difficult to even turn around.

  There was a huge hole in the side of the ship beneath where Kawaii was standing. "I was afraid that if I jumped into the water I would get sucked back into the ship and drown," wrote Kawai. Due to the mass of troops on deck he couldn't move away from the torpedo hole. Once the order was given, he had no choice but to go over the rail like a disciplined lemming. He grabbed onto something floating by, but soon became exhausted and let go of everything that was hanging around his neck except his canteen.

  Corporal Shōichi Kawai was fished out of the water at around 3:00 p.m., but 389 soldiers and sailors would not be so lucky. Corporal Kawai, Corporal Tadashi Abe (in a different ship), and the other nervous men of Escort Convoy 3710 arrived at Chichi Jima later that afternoon. Corporal Kawaii would remain on Chichi Jima for the time being.

  However, under cover of darkness, Corporal Tadashi Abe (20th Mortar Battalion) and PFC Mitsuru Higuchi (2nd Mortar Battalion) left for Iwo Jima in smaller ships, landing on July 14, 1944.33 Once on Iwo Jima, Abe and Higuchi came under the control of Colonel Chosaku Kaidō's Brigade Artillery Group. Corporal Abe was assigned to the Southern Defensive Zone, and PFC Higuchi was assigned to the Mount Suribachi Defensive Zone.